Downfall of Italy: 1944-1945 (2/2) | Animated History

With winter rapidly closing in, the Allies had little time to prepare for their assaults on Kesselring's masterpiece. An innovator in both military tactics and apparently chess, the gambit we've named after the German General includes distracting your opponent and quickly switching out all of your pawns for castles. On the 1st of December, the first probing attacks began in the West, made against a large bulge in the German defenses known as the Bernhardt Line. Conditions were terrible, with freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall making for an agonizing trek for the soldiers as they struggled their way through hostile terrain. After several weeks of intermittent engagements, the Allies were only able to wrestle a number of small villages away from enemy control. In the end, it was the Germans who decided to withdraw, falling back to the more tenable Gustav Line in early January of 1944. While the 5th Army was busy dying in the snow, the 8th Army also found well, dying in the snow. The 8th had attacked the Gustav Line on the 4th of December and made significant headway, but then the Germans made a strategic withdrawal through a deep gully, which funneled the Commonwealth forces into a carefully prepared killing ground. Any unit entering the gully was brutally mauled and Allied progress was completely stalled until German forces withdrew to a new position on the 20th. The next set of battles for the Gustav Line took place at towns of Ortona and Orsonia. The former proved an absolute nightmare for the Canadian units assigned to capture it, as they were forced to engage in some of the bloodiest street fighting on the Western Front. The German parachute battalion defending the town had dug in deep, and had to be fought from building to building in a protracted struggle that resulted in roughly 4,500 casualties altogether, decimating both the 1st Canadian Division as well as the civilian population. Orsonia, meanwhile, resisted every attack, holding out until a massive blizzard struck the Adriatic coastline and forced the British to halt their offensive. But even this could not end the bloodshed for long, and on January 14th, the two Allied armies launched yet another series of attacks on the line, starting the notorious battle for Monte Cassino. Before we enter the fray, let's take a moment to thank our sponsor for this video, Squarespace. Squarespace provides you with all the resources you need to start an online business or community hub, or help coordinate the liberation of mainland Europe. Squarespace has many features, including a comprehensive set of developer tools that give you total control over your new domain. Various essentials are also included, such as podcast support, integrated analytics, and media sharing buttons, all of which let you tailor your content to the expectations of your audience. Go to squarespace.com to start a free trial today, and once you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash armchairhistorian for 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain. The first assault was conducted by the British, and resulted in little more than three days of pointless slaughter. Two more attacks failed due to either terrain or a lack of armored support, and a fourth ended with minor gains that were promptly abandoned due to the lack of supplies. After these repeated failures, the Allies authorized Operation Avenger, which fixated on the Monte Cassino Abbey as the linchpin of German defenses in the area. On February 15th, a huge bomber raid reduced the abbey to a smoldering pile of rubble. Unfortunately, the raid was badly coordinated, and was not followed up by a ground assault, so in the end, little was accomplished. While this was ongoing, the Allies had also conducted a naval landing near the city of Anzio to outflank the Gustav Line. But after landing relatively unopposed, General John P. Lucas made the inexplicable decision to dig in and fortify his position rather than push inland. Kesselring promptly wheeled his reserves about and smashed into the beachhead, beginning a long battle of attrition that would last until May. Meanwhile, the third battle for Cassino began on March 15th, with a creeping barrage that disordered the German line. But this ray of hope was quickly snuffed out by heavy rains, giving the Germans time to prepare. However, by now it was clear that the Axis was losing the battle of attrition, and the final breakthrough came on May 11th, when both the Eighth and Fifth Armies attacked at once, aided by the French Expeditionary Corps and even some Polish forces. This last tremendous push finally fractured the Gustav Line, which held for nearly six months. But although the main line of Axis defenses had been breached, there was still much to be done, and the push north continued. A breakout was also staged at Anzio with the help of an artillery bombardment and close air support. In danger of becoming encircled, Kesselring received orders to fall back. But right at the pivotal moment, General Mark Clark decided to ignore orders to pursue the German army and instead drove towards Rome. Unable to believe his luck, a delighted Kesselring quickly pulled back to yet another set of defensive works, codenamed the Gothic Line. After so much blood had been shed, the actual capture of Rome was something of an anticlimax. With German attention turning towards the inevitable invasion of France, the city had all but been abandoned. After a few brief skirmishes, Rome was liberated on June 4th, just two days prior to the landings in Normandy. Getting there had required 600,000 Allied troops, over 100,000 of which had become casualties since the day they first landed in Italy. But despite their grievous losses, there was little time to rest and recuperate. Kesselring had proven a genius at defensive warfare, and leaving him to his own devices would undoubtedly prove disastrous. Thus, British and American armies raced up the coast, only to be checked yet again at the improvised Trasimene Line, encountered on June 20th. Stalled for another week, the Germans had ample time to move the bulk of its army to the Abenine Mountains. Infuriated but impotent, the Allies could do nothing but resign themselves to yet another long, grinding siege. On August 25th, the Allies launched Operation Olive, aimed at breaching the Gothic Line and finally ending the seemingly eternal battle for Italy. The Eighth Army was to attack German positions along the Adriatic coast, and when Kesselring had committed his reserves to that area, Mark Clark's Fifth Army would strike at the weakened center, breaking through to Bologna. Initial progress was good, but Kesselring continued to pull his old tricks and refused to be lured into fighting on unequal terms. By the end of September, the Allies had clambered their way over the peaks of the Abenine Mountains, having suffered 14,000 casualties. Then, autumn rains stalled further attacks, grounding air support and turning vital supply routes into impassable quagmires. At this point, the remainder of 1944 would be spent in a deadlock, with a single Axis counterattack in December managing to briefly reoccupy a section of the Gothic Line. Although Kesselring had done a spectacular job in Italy, his position was about to change drastically. He was severely injured in a car crash in October, and upon his recovery, found himself replacing Field Marshal Gerdt von Rundstedt as commander of the entire Western Front on March 10th. Even he could do nothing but watch the final collapse of the Third Reich, as Allied troops were already pouring into Germany itself. In spring of 1945, the Allies launched their final offensive in Italy, Operation Grapeshot. During the months-long stalemate, the 5th and 8th Armies had been reinforced by a diverse collection of units from various nations, including several thousand British-trained Italian volunteers and even a division from the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. The attack began on April 6th with a long artillery bombardment, then attacks all along the line by Commonwealth troops. Without any reserves left, the Germans could no longer do anything but desperately try to hold the line. However, the situation was hopeless. By the 20th of April, the two Allied armies had broken into the Po Valley, and only five days later, Mussolini was dragged out of hiding by Italian partisans and summarily executed. With no reason left to fight, Kesselring's replacement opened up negotiations with the Allies and signed a surrender order on May 2nd, just a few days before the official end of the war in Europe. After so many gambits and clever plays, the chessboard of Italy had been cleared. The final handshake between players would occur at last, a year and a half after the start of their unexpected rematch. In many ways, the Italian campaign showcased both the best and worst moments from the Second World War. The idea to divert forces from the Eastern Front was sound, but internal division quickly turned the campaign into an unfocused mess. Supplies were diverted to other operations, and arguments among Allied generals led to missed opportunities and long delays. Kesselring also demonstrated exactly how deadly the Wehrmacht could be on the defense, holding out for over a year against a much greater force, which by that point possessed total air superiority. But the battles in Italy kept hundreds of thousands of German soldiers occupied at a time when manpower was critically low, and the experience gained from the amphibious landings at Salerno proved invaluable to the planners of D-Day. Still, historians remain divided on the campaign, with many arguing that it was an outright strategic failure. But others see it as part of a bigger picture, a necessary, even vital component to the fall of the Axis powers and the liberation of Europe.