The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

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Juan G. C.
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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#31

Post by Juan G. C. » 17 Mar 2021, 17:56

According to United States Army in World War II.: Cross-channel attack (page 168), OVERLORD's postponement to after 1 June was agreed to by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on 31 January, not after the February war games.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#32

Post by History Learner » 17 Mar 2021, 21:57

Juan G. C. wrote:
13 Mar 2021, 13:21
I have recently found something very interesting in a biography of Manstein. When asked in the spring of 1944 what he would do in Italy "if he were in charge of this theatre, Manstein replied that he would bring back into Germany the bulk of the forces stationed on Italian soil, and this as quickly as possible so that the Americans and the English would not be able to catch them. He would then defend the Alpine crossings with only a few troops. As for the mobile units of Kesselring's army group, they could be reformed in Germany, then prepared for offensive action as strategic reserves" (Benoit Lemay, Erich von Manstein: Hitler's Master Strategist, p. 429).

What if the Germans had done just that, say, after the landings of Anzio? What would the consequences have been? On the one hand, probably It would have been easy to defend the Alps, much less forces would have been needed on the parte of the Germans, and they could have created strategic reserves. On the other hand, the Germans would have Lost all the industry and resources of Italy, which would have fallen on the hands of the Allies. The Allies could have put their Air bases much nearer to Germany, and It would have been much easier for them to land on the Balkans.

Also interesting is what consequences would that movement have had on Allied strategy, which by then was set on Overlord. Perhaps it could have leas to them reconsidering the strategy.
About when would this take place? IIRC in 1943 Rommel was vehemently in favor of abandoning everything South of the Po River Valley while Kesselring won the debate with his defend it all strategy, resulting in Rommel being reassigned.


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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#33

Post by daveshoup2MD » 18 Mar 2021, 04:03

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 17:05
daveshoup2MD wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 04:26
...
One option, of course, given the undeniable capabilities of the French in mountain warfare, would have been to use the French 1st Army against northwestern Italy, with an army-sized amphibious assault aimed at Genoa and and an overland operation using a beefed up Army Detachment of the Alps (perhaps with the US 10th and/or British 52nd mountain divisions under command) in the Maritime Alps; catch the Army Liguria between a rock and a hard place.
The only option for the French at this point was the liberation of France. They probably would have broken off and gone on their own had the other Allies not cooperated.
Agree, but I meant in the sense of a post Liberation operation, presumably in 1945, if the Allied timeframe for OVERLORD-NEPTUNE and ANVIL-DRAGOON had followed this 1943 "hold" decision in Italy.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#34

Post by daveshoup2MD » 18 Mar 2021, 04:05

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 17:06
These things are highly nuanced and the meanings easily distorted. Ive found when you lay out all the memos, meeting minutes, and related documents over the entire arc of planning everyones thinking gets murky and all their post war members look like one solid lie. I'm currently picking through Authur Bryants analysis of Brookes diaries and related wartime documents. All I can conclude at this point is Brooke regarded almost everyone else as a idiot at strategy & saw himself as frequently rescuing the Allied effort from disaster. That may have colored his interpretation.

A few notes on the NEPTUNE operation size. COSSACs 1943 plans worked with what was then available in the UK for amphibious shipping, and combat forces. That limited the assault to three Corp and beaches. Montgomerys January plan proposed four corps, all between Carentan & Caen. The amphib shipping from the MTO enabled that. February war-games confirmed concerns about the 1st Army pivoting north into the Cotientin and capturing Cherbourg in two weeks. The rivers nd marshlands north and west of Carentan made the maneuver difficult. This was resolved by delaying the entire operation a moth so additional landing craft from the US could support a fifth Corps/Beachhead north of Carentan on the Cotientin east coast. Eisenhower endorsed both of these expansions of the assault and follow up plans. Churchill thru all of this still lobbied for attention to the "marvelous" opportunities in the Mediterranean theatre. Brooke seems to have been caught between catering to his PMs desires and supporting the colossal crack doctrine Ike and Monty saw for Op OVERLORD.

Ike remained attached to the ANVIL operation and kept staff officers busy through February trying to make it work somehow. Maybe Monty and Bertie Ramsay were still pondering Ikes desire to execute ANVIL in April. The 19th February date Brooke gives for this incident is close to the date of the decision to expand the Normandy assault to five corps. I don't have the dates for the war-games or decision at hand.
The above reads as a fair summary.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#35

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 18 Mar 2021, 07:39

daveshoup2MD wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 04:05

The above reads as a fair summary.
Im sure if we past all the bits we could find on this, together here we'd have a new book that would still not resolve the question clearly.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#36

Post by daveshoup2MD » 18 Mar 2021, 08:11

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 07:39
daveshoup2MD wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 04:05

The above reads as a fair summary.
Im sure if we past all the bits we could find on this, together here we'd have a new book that would still not resolve the question clearly.
Yeah, but there's the reality that given enough indicators, one can see the end result.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#37

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 18 Mar 2021, 18:07

Yep, end result is Ike stuck to making a maximum effort in Normandy, resisting the efforts of Churchill and others to divert substantial resources to other Fronts, or scale back the initial assault. Recall the last minute appeal to cancel the airborne operations?

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#38

Post by daveshoup2MD » 19 Mar 2021, 05:36

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
18 Mar 2021, 18:07
Yep, end result is Ike stuck to making a maximum effort in Normandy, resisting the efforts of Churchill and others to divert substantial resources to other Fronts, or scale back the initial assault. Recall the last minute appeal to cancel the airborne operations?
Yes. As much as the British high command are described as having the ghosts of the Somme looking over their shoulders, it's a fair point the Americans did as well - they just reacted in a different way, and put together a different strategy to deal with how to avoid a WWI-type of stalemate.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#39

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 19 Mar 2021, 09:48

Montgomery’s January plan already included an assault north of Carentan.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#40

Post by Mori » 19 Mar 2021, 17:24

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
16 Mar 2021, 18:15
Air support does not seem to have been a problem. By early january 1944 Corsica had slightly over 1000 French and US bombers, fighters, and a few ASW aircraft. P47 & P51 groups based in S Italy & Sicilly could also range the Riviera and Marseilles.
Is that so? I thought trying an Anvil landing west of where it took place wasn't possible because out of range of air support.

The idea of landing closer to Toulon/Marseilles was proposed by the French HQ at some point, and air cover was the reason AFHQ gave to reject it. Maybe that wasn't too sincere?

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#41

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 19 Mar 2021, 19:19

Carl Schwamberger wrote:
17 Mar 2021, 17:06
Montgomerys January plan proposed four corps, all between Carentan & Caen.
As briefly mentioned above, that is wrong.

Montgomery's plan, as laid out on 7 Jan 44 at a meeting of Army Commanders and their Chiefs of Staff at 21 Army Group HQ, included:
The extended area for the assault is now from VARREVILLE (East side of COTENTIN Peninsula) to CABOURG (West of R ORNE).

[...]

Commander First (U.S.) Army was instructed to come to the conference on Wednesday, 12 Jan, with his outline plan, taking the extended area into consideration.
Regards

Tom

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#42

Post by Aber » 19 Mar 2021, 22:32

daveshoup2MD wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 05:36
Yes. As much as the British high command are described as having the ghosts of the Somme looking over their shoulders
The ghosts of Passchendale had a bigger impact - the British were quicker to shut down unsuccessful attacks, rather than repeat them.
how to avoid a WWI-type of stalemate
The British experience also included the 100 days with combined infantry/armour attacks, flexible artillery and close air support; they had learnt that absolute stalemate could be avoided, but that they needed "bite and hold" tactics until the Germans ran out of reserves.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#43

Post by History Learner » 19 Mar 2021, 22:42

stg 44 wrote:
13 Mar 2021, 17:16
Well they'd have given the Allies air bases in Northern Italy and the ability to bomb into any part of Germany and the Balkans. Not sure that would have been a good trade off.
This is about the only negative I can see, reflecting on this more.

Looking at Army Group C's OOB in April/May of 1944, Armeegruppe von Zangen (LXXV Army Corps, Corps Witthöft, and Corps Kübler) could be left to guard the Alp passes as well as the Ljubljana Gap effectively. Given the terrain, logistics and the quality of the German forces, it would be impossible for the Anglo-Americans to breakthrough them; if there is any concern, Korpsgruppe Hauck could be detached from the 10th Army. Honestly though, given the need to extend their logistics across half of Italy, I doubt the Allies would even be in a position to launch an offensive until the the Spring/Summer of 1945. So, this frees up the German Army Group Reserve, 14th Army (I Parachute Corps and LXXVI Panzer Corps), and 10th Army (XIV Panzer Corps and LI Mountain Corps, if Korpsgruppe Hauck isn't detached, that too).

So, what does this all mean?

First, from the Allied perspective, they are going to need to garrison Italy heavily both because of all the ex-Fascists running around (Especially any RSI partisans) but also just in case the Germans emerge from the Alps into the Po Valley again at the first opportunity. Likewise, the severe shipping constraints means there isn't any real way to use them in OVERLORD or in ANVIL; once those operations are completed, they could shift forces through the French Alps but that will not be of much help given the severe logistical issues that crippled Allied Armies in the Fall of 1944. Southern French ports, for example, were already strained supporting the FFI, 6th U.S. Army Group and 3rd U.S. Army Group; adding more would not help matters. How about operations in the Balkans? In theory possible, but really bad in a political sense:
The problems with this strategy, according to the jssc, were both military and political. Eastern Mediterranean operations would require previously committed U.S. naval support, Turkish belligerency the jssc rated an overall liability rather than an asset, and offensives at the end of long and tenuous supply lines in an area so mountainous and remote from the center of German power as to be indecisive and invite stalemate or defeat. Moreover, such operations were based on the assumption that indirect campaigns in the Mediterranean against Germany’s satellites, combined with blockade, bombing, and guerrilla operations, could force a German collapse. Dubious under the best of circumstances, this assumption ignored the fact that an approach relegating to the Soviet Union the brutal task of fighting the bulk of the Wehrmacht while London reaped political benefits in the eastern Mediterranean and Balkans, an area of historic Anglo-Russian rivalry, might so arouse Russia’s anger and suspicion as to make it ‘‘more susceptible’’ to German peace feelers— especially ones which would grant Moscow its centuries old desire to control the Dardanelles.

The resulting separate peace would leave Germany undefeated and dominant in Central and Western Europe and would make Allied victory impossible.31 Even if such an appalling scenario did not develop, a Mediterranean strategy would involve the use of American forces to achieve British political ends. More threatening than the nationalistic insult involved in this perceived repetition of the attempted World War I manipulation of U.S. forces, Britain’s approach would negatively affect America’s military position and national policies in the Far East and, with them, Washington’s ability to pursue a Europe-first strategy in the future. The essential problem was that the time-consuming and indecisive Mediterranean approach would delay vital operations against Japan and, in the process, wreak havoc with America’s military position, its interests in the Far East, and public support for a global war effort. Even before Casablanca the jssc had concluded in this regard that the ‘‘basic difference’’ between U.S. and British strategy was not over the appropriate follow-up to torch, as London had claimed, but over the ‘‘relation of the war in the Pacific to the war as a whole.’’ 32
From Mark Stoler's Allies and Adversaries, Page 110-112.

How about the Germans? From Lost in the Mud: The (Nearly) Forgotten Collapse of the German Army in the Western Ukraine, March and April 1944 by Gregory Liedtke, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies:
The need to reassign resources in the wake of the second stage of the Dnieper-Carpathian Operation also proved deleterious to the Germans’ prospects of successfully defending France. The withdrawal of two panzer and one infantry divisions, one heavy tank battalion, and two assault gun brigades meant that OB West (High Command of the German Army in the West, or Oberbefehlshaber West) was deprived of a total of 363 tanks, assault guns, and self-propelled anti-tank guns on 6 June 1944.72 Although the II. SS-Panzerkorps with the 9. SS-Panzer and 10. SS-Panzer Divisions were ordered back to France on 12 June, Allied air interdiction and damage to the French railway net delayed their arrival at the invasion front until 29 June. While their commitment at this point ended the British Operation Epsom (26–30 June), it also meant that German hopes for launching a concerted effort to wipe out the British portion of the Allied bridgehead were stillborn; henceforth these two divisions were fully preoccupied with simply trying to contain the Allied lodgement.73 One can only speculate as to the possible consequences had the II. SS-Panzerkorps already been stationed in France on 6 June. However, with its two divisions possessing most of their required number of motor vehicles and hence a high degree of mobility, and since all the other fully operational panzer divisions in France were committed almost immediately, it seems likely that the II. SS-Panzerkorps would also have been employed against the Allied landings at a very early stage. While the early deployment of an additional two panzer divisions with 245 tanks and assault guns may not have sufficed to wipe out any of the Allied beachheads, it would nonetheless have represented a major reinforcement.74 At the very least, the German containment of the landings would have congealed far sooner, and, in turn, German defense lines would have become even more formidable. Although the eventual outcome of the campaign would probably have remained the same, for the Allies, breeching these defences would have entailed significantly higher costs of time and blood. With the British and Canadian armies already experiencing dire shortages of trained infantry replacements during the campaign, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill worried that fighting in Normandy was degenerating into positional warfare reminiscent of the Great War, the situation for the Allies could have been far worse.75
The Germans can also use this reserve effectively in the East:
Under the actual circumstances faced by Heeresgruppe Mitte, even the speedy arrival of the strategic reserve may not have prevented disaster, but it may at least have reduced its scale and subsequent impact. A rapid forward deployment could have permitted the Germans to establish blocking positions further east than was in fact the case, resulting in the interception and wearing-down of the leading Soviet tank units at an earlier stage of the battle. In turn, this would have increased the likelihood of rescuing the large numbers of German troops that had been trapped within a series of isolated, wandering pockets. In this regard it is worth noting that small elements of the 12. Panzer Division alone, which began to arrive on 27 June, did in fact manage to rescue 15,000–20,000 men of the 9. Armee who had been surrounded in the area around the city of Bobruisk.79​

Any lessening in the scale of the German defeat during Operation Bagration would also have produced a corresponding reduction in the urgency to shift resources from other sections of the Ostfront, leaving them stronger and far more capable of dealing with the Soviet attacks staged in their sectors. Although these would probably still have resulted in Soviet victories, Germany’s short-lived strategic reserve had the potential to keep these defeats from becoming outright catastrophes. By most accounts, the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive already involved very heavy fighting during which the Soviets lost 289,296 men (representing 29 percent of their original force) and 1,269 tanks; had it retained a few of the formations it was forced to relinquish, Heeresgruppe Nordukraine would have posed an even greater challenge to the Red Army and may even have been strong enough to rescue its five divisions trapped around the city of Brody.80 Similarly, during the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive, the six panzer divisions given up by Heeresgruppe Südukraine would probably have been able to contain, and at the very least slow, the Soviet advance, thereby preventing the encirclement and annihilation of 18 German divisions. Without the destruction of over 50 of the 150 German divisions deployed on the Eastern Front in June 1944 during a series of pocket battles that summer, the westward advance of the Red Army would likely have taken far longer and cost far more lives than it did.​
So the formation and transfer eastwards of the reserve allows the Germans to avoid the destruction of roughly half (24 of the 50) divisions they lost IOTL, as well as anchor their Southern line along the Carpathians in the heavily fortified FNB line, while continuing Romanian oil shipments. I'm making the assumption that, without the destruction of 6th Army and the failure of Normandy, the Romanian coup can be avoided or pre-empted at the least. Perhaps equally important is that there is now more than enough additional formations to achieve a riposte similar to what Manstein did at Third Kharkov in front of Warsaw:

Image

From GERMANY AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR, Volume VIII: The Eastern Front 1943–1944 by Karl-Heinz Frieser, pg 569 onward:
What now followed was a complete surprise. As if from nowhere, four German armoured divisions launched a sudden concentric attack on the area to the east of Warsaw, and the Soviet armoured units which had thrust forward in a preliminary attack were caught in the trap. The situation of Army Group Centre in July 1944 was similar to that of Army Group South on the Donets in February 1943, when the southern wing of the eastern front was threatened with encirclement and a ‘super-Stalingrad’. On that occasion Manstein had gained an armoured army as a mobile reserve by shortening the front, and had deployed it in a counter-blow after a wide-ranging castling movement.174 Exactly the same situation repeated itself in the summer of 1944 before Warsaw, although this time everything went much faster. Model had no time left to argue with Hitler for operational freedom of action. He simply took it for granted. In the given crisis, he had no alternative but to scrap Hitler’s rigid principle of linear defence and, like Manstein, pursue free combat in the rear. Model too took remarkably bold risks, withdrawing three armoured divisions from his army group’s shaky front for a counter-attack, which could only be done by yielding territory. In addition, Armoured Paratroop Division ‘Hermann Göring’ had just arrived in Warsaw. Together, these four armoured divisions possessed 223 tanks, plus 54 assault guns and tank destroyers. Those figures are purely theoretical, however, since the divisions in question did not arrive all at the same time but one after the other, and sometimes had to be withdrawn again at the height of the battle in order to ‘put a fire out’ at other places on the front. On the other side, 2nd Armoured Army had around 800 tanks and assault guns, although an unknown number had been lost in the meantime. The initial armoured strength of the Germans divisions on 2 August was as follows:175​

• 19th Armoured Division: 26 Panzer IVs, 26 Panzer Vs, 18 light tank destroyers;​
• Armoured Paratroop Division ‘Hermann Göring’: 35 Panzer IVs, 5 Panzer Vs, 23 Panzerjäger IVs;​
• SS Armoured Division ‘Viking’: 8 Panzer IVs, 45 Panzer Vs, 13 assault guns;​
• 4th Armoured Division: 40 Panzer IVs, 38 Panzer Vs.​

According to Model’s operational plan, the first phase was to be a pincer attack on Okuniew to cut off the rear of the Soviet III Armoured Corps, which had advanced far to the north. The second phase was to be a concentrated attack by the four armoured divisions to destroy the units of the encircled Soviet corps. After that, the plan was to attack VIII Guards Armoured Corps, and finally XVI Armoured Corps. The assembly phase was the most complicated, however, since the four armoured divisions were located in completely different front sectors, from which they had to be withdrawn. Once that was done, they were to be shifted in a castling manoeuvre to the area east of Warsaw, and then to attack simultaneously from the four points of the compass. Given the far greater strength of the enemy, the right troops had to be concentrated in the right place at exactly the right time. The encirclement manoeuvre was extremely difficult to coordinate at operational level. Owing to the rapid course of events, tactical implementation could be carried out successfully only by officers trained in mission-type command. Knowing how much depended on the success of the operation, Field Marshal Model led the attack himself, leading his troops from the front.​

At first only Armoured Paratroop Division ‘Hermann Göring’ was available, having just arrived in Warsaw from Italy. Although the bulk of the division was temporarily classified as ‘inoperational’, 176 on 28 and 29 July its few already available tanks were able, together with 73rd Infantry Division, to prevent the Warsaw suburb of Praga from being taken in short order by the advance troops of the Soviet 2nd Armoured Army. In the meantime, 19th Armoured Division had been withdrawn from its sector of the front at Białystok. Its first units arrived on 29 July, just in time to stop the Soviet tanks a little way short of the important Narew bridge at Zegzre. In a combined pincer attack, SS Armoured Division ‘Viking’ and 4th Armoured Division had just stopped the enemy forces which had broken through at Kleszczele. Now they too were hastily withdrawn from the front and reached the new deployment zone on 31 July and 2 August respectively.​

The tank battle before Warsaw began on 1 August with a pincer attack on Okuniew. The spearheads of a combat group of 19th Armoured Division attacking from the west, and SS Armoured Division ‘Viking’ from the east, met to the north of Okuniew at 19.15, thereby cutting off the Soviet III Armoured Corps, which had advanced as far north as Radzymin. The attack by 4th Armoured Division, which had just arrived in the area, and by parts of 19th Armoured Division, was led by Field Marshal Model in person. The tank battle reached its climax on 3 August, when the Soviet III Armoured Corps was tightly concentrated in the area of Wołomin. The four German armoured divisions attacked concentrically from four directions: 4th Armoured Division from the north-east, SS Armoured Division ‘Viking’ from the south-east, Armoured Paratroop Division ‘Hermann Göring’ from the south-west, and 19th Armoured Division from the north-west. That day most of the Soviet units in the Wołomin area were destroyed, and the noise of the battle could be heard as far away as the centre of Warsaw. The next day, 4 August, the remaining sections of the Soviet 2nd Armoured Army were attacked, together with 47th Army, which had rushed to its assistance. The fighting was concentrated on Okuniew, where the Soviet VIII Guards Armoured Corps had taken up position. The plan had been to enclose and destroy that major formation too, but more bad news had since arrived from other sectors of the front. That same day 19th Armoured Division had to be withdrawn, and the following day it was the turn of Armoured Paratroop Division ‘Hermann Göring’. One after the other, the two divisions set off round the contested city of Warsaw towards Magnuszew to attack the Soviet bridgehead west of the Vistula, where 8th Guards Army, supported by 1st Polish Army and strong armoured forces, was trying to enlarge the bridgehead. In the evening of 4 August the German units at Okuniew went back on the defensive. The purpose of the operation—to prevent the enemy from advancing into the area east of Warsaw by means of ‘offensive defence’—had been achieved.177​
With the additional firepower, Model should be able to encircle and destroy several formations of 1st Belorussian Front. In effect, you've replayed Early 1943 (~25 Divisions destroyed, Soviets regain territory but then the Germans revive and deliver a punch to the face) in Mid 1944.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#44

Post by daveshoup2MD » 20 Mar 2021, 05:46

Aber wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 22:32
daveshoup2MD wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 05:36
Yes. As much as the British high command are described as having the ghosts of the Somme looking over their shoulders
The ghosts of Passchendale had a bigger impact - the British were quicker to shut down unsuccessful attacks, rather than repeat them.
how to avoid a WWI-type of stalemate
The British experience also included the 100 days with combined infantry/armour attacks, flexible artillery and close air support; they had learnt that absolute stalemate could be avoided, but that they needed "bite and hold" tactics until the Germans ran out of reserves.
"Ghosts of the Somme" was a metaphor, and not mine; I think Churchill, or someone close to him, used it?

My point is, the senior US decisionmakers in 1940-45 had seen how long it took for the Allies to come up with a solution to the strength of the defense in an era of automatic weapons and truly effective field artillery, even if horse-drawn, in 1914-17; they went into the second conflict determined to avoid that by using mechanized (small "m") power in all things, including the shortest route possible into the center of the enemy's most strategic points...

And, of course, given it took all of 11 months to get from Normandy to VE Day in Germany, it worked.

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Re: The Germans withdraw from Italy in early 1944

#45

Post by Juan G. C. » 20 Mar 2021, 12:58

History Learner wrote:
19 Mar 2021, 22:42
stg 44 wrote:
13 Mar 2021, 17:16
Well they'd have given the Allies air bases in Northern Italy and the ability to bomb into any part of Germany and the Balkans. Not sure that would have been a good trade off.
This is about the only negative I can see, reflecting on this more.
What about the loss of the resources and industry of Northern and Central Italy?

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