Could the Italian campaign have succeeded alone?

Thande

Thande

Donor
In your opinions, could the Italian campaign of WW2, in itself, have succeeded in penetrating into Germany, or was it always destined to be an expensive sideshow only good for tying up Axis troops? Was it inevitable that the Axis forces would have held strongpoints and difficult terrain?
 

EmptyOne

Thande said:
In your opinions, could the Italian campaign of WW2, in itself, have succeeded in penetrating into Germany, or was it always destined to be an expensive sideshow only good for tying up Axis troops? Was it inevitable that the Axis forces would have held strongpoints and difficult terrain?
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The reality is that both the Italian and French campaigns were both 'expensive sideshow only good for tying up Axis troops', compared what the Russians did.

That said, yes. Between linking up with Tito's partisans, coast-hopping into southern France and using Italy to base bombers it would have been possible, though very expensive, to drive into Germany proper. The Alps are a defenders dream. I would not be suprised to see an increased use of Airborne and Spec Ops to take and hold key passes.
 

Mike Stearns

I agree. I think it would have been possible, but cosidering that the Allied advance had only JUST reached the Italian Alps when the war ended. Invading German soley by way of Italy could have been done, but it would have significantly lengthened the war.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Italian terrain is very mountainous. Good for defense. Northern France is pretty flat and better suited for a quick advance. (I once saw a nazi propaganda poster that claimed that a snail could've gone farther than the Allies during the time they needed to go from South Italy to Rome.)
 

Dave Howery

I've read several times that the Italian campaign could have gone better if the Allies had taken Corsica and some of the other islands in the area... the possible range of operations for the Allies would have been a lot wider, and the Axis would have been forced to spread out a lot more to counter it. As it was, the Allies were rather limited in where they could go, and the Germans guessed perfectly right that they'd be going to Anzio. Thus, the allies sort of forced themselves to hammer their way up the penninsula...
 

M79

Sure, mark a line south of Rome that lets a satellite state exist at Naples with the Foggia airfields intact and counter with:

1) An invasion at Durres or Split. Link with Tito and begin operations against Hungary, Romania, and occupied Greece. Then move into Austria, sever the German routes into Italy, and trap a massive salient at once

2) An invasion in southwestern France, this time with the intent of cutting out Italian industry by taking Milan, Turin, and Genoa with the road to Venice and Bologna open. Use the same roads into Austria and the Germans are forced to take the defensive

3) Stall the Germans there and invade northern Italy with a larger force from France or Austria in the closing days of the war, forcing large amounts of German infantry to sit on their duffs and keep the Americans from overruning the whole peninsula
 

cra0422

I actually read that if the Allies had landed at Civitaveccia instead of Anzio they could have been within Rome within 3 days or less. They didn't because the landing area would have been outside of Allied air cover and Eisenhower never wanted to land anywhere without air cover.

As to the whole campaign itself, the Allies needed to follow up their momentum from North Africa and they were still more than a year away from landing in Normandy. They did take out the weakest of the Axis partners, but Germany then invaded and turned the entire peninsula into a series of defensive fortifications. Italy was described as being the only theater in WWII that resembled the Western Front in WWI.
 

Calgacus

The allies had chances to take Italy much faster. Once the slog begins, the war would eventually be won, but by the Soviets. Prepare for an entirely Soviet Germany and central Europe.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Max Sinister said:
Italian terrain is very mountainous. Good for defense. Northern France is pretty flat and better suited for a quick advance. (I once saw a nazi propaganda poster that claimed that a snail could've gone farther than the Allies during the time they needed to go from South Italy to Rome.)
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That's one of the more famous Nazi propaganda posters to us, as it's one of the few commonly-distributed ones that was in English (and was reproduced in Spike Milligan's well known war diaries).
 

nunya

The Italian peninsula campaign was pretty useless,looked at from hindsight.It probably would have been a better idea to push through the Balkans from Greece,and maybe launch a surprise attack against Hamburg by Denmark,that wouldnt go to far but It wouldnt cost much and it would create a lot of problems for Nazi Germany.
 

DaleCoz

The long slog

I think that a lot depends on how things ended up in the immediate aftermath of the Italian surrender. If the Allies were able to grab more of Italy in the initial chaos, rather than fighting their way up from the southern tip, then yeah, the Italian campaign might have been the way to go, though the Alps would be a problem. The key was ability to move fast and willingness to take chances during those first few days as the Italians tried to change sides.

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Check out Dale Cozort's Alternate History Newsletters - nine years of Alternate History idea, scenarios, and fiction.
 

arctic warrior

nunya said:
and maybe launch a surprise attack against Hamburg by Denmark,that wouldnt go to far but It wouldnt cost much and it would create a lot of problems for Nazi Germany.
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Eh - how achieve surprise? Denmark was occupied by Germany and our west coast is still littered with concrete fortifications... So one thing to get ashore in Jutland and then the Germans just plug the hole of the Jutland peninsula somewhere in Sleswig... No surprise attack...
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
If Rommel had remained in overall charge of Italian operations, rather than Kesselring, then I think the Allies WOULD have had a very good chance of succeeding - not because Rommel isn't a good battlefield commander, but as Libya and Tunis proved, and as Kesselring well knew, he was too inclined to consider the END of a campaign and to retreat straight away to his fall-back position. If Rommel had got his way, the German defence line would have been in the NORTH, so the expensive and long slog up the peninsular would have been avoided.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Redbeard

Banned
Alexander in late WWII wanted to do a major push from Italy through Austria, but wasn't supported. Alanbrooke considered it too difficult (and he didn't respect Alexander very much, considered him stupid!) and anyway the Americans wouldn't be likely to support anything giving a British general the coup de grace. But had it succeeded it obviously would have provided the allies with a chance to go for the heart of the axis and even be in advance of the Soviets.

The terrain between Italy and Austria isn't entirely mountainious, and has provided many historic battlefields. I wouldn't exclude a success, but I'm in doubt if the chance of success is 5, 50 or 75%.

The OTL Italian campaign was the only realistic option to the allies in 1943 and thus provided an option to engage a part of the German Wehrmacht. They certainly had hoped for a quicker advance, not at least by flank landings, but the allied doctrine simply wasn't opportunistic enough. It was discussed if the troops engaged in Italy should be deployed elsewhere, but not at least Alanbrooke pointed out that disengaging the units would only mean many months of units moving and not engaging the enemy. So most units were left in Italy and newly raised units were appointed and trained for Overlord etc.

Churchill constantly fantasised about intervening on the Balkans, but by 1943 I doubt the allies had the numbers, logistics or training to engage the Germans on such a wide front as on the Balkans (or France). Landing on the Balkans in 1944 instead of France would only have brought the allies further away from the German heartland and seriously risk meeting the Soviet flank while the Reds advance on Paris.

In that context I think the Italian campaign was best possible utilisation of allied resources. I do wonder however, if the Italians in 1943, would have been able to throw the Germans out - something like what the Finns did in 1944. If the allies had been at the Alps in late 1943 the Germans indeed would have been in a even more difficult situation.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
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