WI: After Sicily, The Allies Invade Italy in the North?

What if, after Sicily, the Allies try to bypass the Apennines, force a German withdrawal or trap them in the lower Peninsula, and attempt to quickly consolidate Italy as an Allied government, by invading Italy north of the southern Apennines? Where exactly, would they land? Latium? Liguria? All these landing spots seem to have potential chokepoints that could be held by the Germans? Would a northern landing have fulfilled the three objectives outlined? If not, would a northern landing have actually left the Allies worse off? If it did work, why didn't they do it IOTL?
 
Air cover

Salerno was at the edge of effective land-based air cover, and the Luftwaffe was still a threat.
 

Cook

Banned
Rommel and then Kesselring’s greatest fear was an invasion in the Gulf of Genoa or the wider Ligurian Sea. Corsica would need to have been occupied by the allies prior to any such invasion in order to provide air bases within range of northern Italy all the way to the Alps. Ironically Corsica was undefended between July 1943, when the Italians capitulated, and September 1943, when the first German troops arrived to garrison the island; if the allies had moved swiftly following the Italian collapse, they could have occupied both Sardinia and Corsica without having to fire a shot, and from there would have been able to interdict German forces throughout the Italian peninsula.
 
I don't get it. Once Italy publicly capitulated to the Allies on Sept. 8, 1943, the Germans voluntarily left Sardinia and were forced out of Corsica within a month by Free French troops and Italian former occupiers now cooperating with the Allies.
 

ben0628

Banned
It would have made more sense to go to skip Italy all together and just go from Sicily to Sardinia/Corsica to Southern France.
 
No, such an operation would have diverted resources from the buildup for D-Day. The logistics for a huge invasion of southern France were impossible in 1943, although a modest invasion did place on Aug. 15, 1944 after the success of the Normandy invasion. The invasion succeeded because the Germans were on the retreat in the north of France and could not provide many troops to stop Operation Dragoon.

Why move a huge armada to the Mediterranean with inadequate air cover, when you can just go across the channel with massive air cover, and then shuttle supplies and more troops from Britain on a continuous basis rather than take them down the Atlantic Coast through Gibraltar and up the Mediterranean. This would make no sense.
 
No, such an operation would have diverted resources from the buildup for D-Day. The logistics for a huge invasion of southern France were impossible in 1943, although a modest invasion did place on Aug. 15, 1944 after the success of the Normandy invasion. The invasion succeeded because the Germans were on the retreat in the north of France and could not provide many troops to stop Operation Dragoon.

Why move a huge armada to the Mediterranean with inadequate air cover, when you can just go across the channel with massive air cover, and then shuttle supplies and more troops from Britain on a continuous basis rather than take them down the Atlantic Coast through Gibraltar and up the Mediterranean. This would make no sense.
By that logic, we would have stopped at the Strait of Messina. Why go into Italy half-assed (and you seem to be conceding that the OTL Allies did not choose the best course of action), when one can secure it as an allied nation, trap Kesselring, and liberate part of France, to boot.
 
By that logic, we would have stopped at the Strait of Messina. Why go into Italy half-assed (and you seem to be conceding that the OTL Allies did not choose the best course of action), when one can secure it as an allied nation, trap Kesselring, and liberate part of France, to boot.

Because an invasion of the continent anywhere is a bet the Allies cannot afford to lose.

The key considerations for the Allied planners were:
Air cover - the Allies need air superiority otherwise they will lose ships (and all the men and equipment on them)
Build-up speed - the key date is not the landing itself, but the next 2 weeks as the Germans can build up their forces by rail faster than the Allies can land them by sea, especially if they have not captured an intact port.

Salerno had the advantages of land based air cover from Sicily, and a very long supply route for the Germans down the length of Italy which could be interdicted by bombing.

Northern Italy did not have those advantages and so would be a very large risk. In addition the US had only 9 divisions in the MTO with 3 of those scheduled to return to the UK for Normandy, so the Allies had a limit on what they could commit to Italy.
 
The Allied build up for invading France was only beginning. There were nowhere near enough troops or logistics to do it over the channel, much less by way of the Med. Also, Nazi air power had not yet been degraded. The Italy sideshow had the virtue of pulling enough Nazi troops into Italy, and keep them there, to make D-Day easier.
 
Last edited:
The Allied build up for invading France was only beginning. There were nowhere near enough troops or logistics to do it over the channel, much less by way of the Med. Also, Nazi air power had not yet been degraded. The Italy sideshow had the virtue of pulling enough Nazi troops into Italy, and keep them there, to make D-Day easier.

I see three fundamental objections there. Can you present numbers and sources to support any of them? That includes trained units in the US, UK, and Middle East as of August 1943.

A. Troops and logistics."

B. "Nazi air power had not been degraded,"

C. "Pulling enough nazi troops into Italy and keep them there, to make D-Day easier."
 
It would have made more sense to go to skip Italy all together and just go from Sicily to Sardinia/Corsica to Southern France.

Indeed. During August & September Sardinia was defended by two understrength & under equipped German divisions. The two italian corps defending the islands were indifferently trained, had a mix of second and third hand equipment, and had collapsing morale. The airfields on the islands lacked ground crew, fuel in storage, parts depots & many antiaircraft guns. So 'surging' a large number of German aircraft to defend the islands is problematic. Unlike Sicily or Salerno it is less practical for the German bombers to make low level approaches to the landing site over land to evade Allied long range radar warning. At the end of the campaign the strategic threat to Occupied Europe is greater from Sardinia/Corsica than from Naples/Bari.

Keep in mind the German defense of southern Italy was not a given. Hitler & co were all set to abandon everything south of the Pisa-Rimmi line in September 1943. Kesselring was the proponent of a extended holding action south of Rome. He was reluctantly given permission to try & a commitment to a long term defense central Italy was not made until November 1943. Had there been a earlier capture of Sardinia/Corsica it is a lot more likely Kesslerings proposal would be rejected in favor of a strategic withdrawal to Northern Italy.
 
Last edited:
Top