Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

The Italian campaign of 1943-44 was to most fair observers a giant waste of men and munitions. It could be offered as a case study of how not to run grand strategy in a major war. Essentially the West invaded North Africa in late 1942 because they needed to do something against Hitler but could find nothing else to do. A French invasion in 1942 failed of shipping losses [King and FDR botched the opening phases of the Battle of the Atlantic with a giant helping hand from Churchill and Bomber Command – Roundup may not have been possible anyway but these decisions made it so]. The same shipping problems made direct American reinforcement of Egypt impossible. That left North Africa. It did not directly face the Nazis but it was a blow at a Nazi minor ally [Vichy]. It was the first step in opening the Mediteranean which would help the shipping shortage [the perpetual shortages of shipping and amphibious craft would drive much of Western strategy throughout the war].

The French garrison in North Africa proved less willing to defect than the plan projected [yet another version of rosy scenario]. This was magnified by both Ike’s operational conservatism and the political firestorm over the deal with Darlan. To make matters still worse Monty made his usual botch of the pursuit of Rommel and Hitler refused to follow the script. Instead of evacuating North Africa, Hitler poured more men into Tunisia than he sent to relieve Stalingrad. He lost the 6^th Army but tied down the Anglo Saxons for far longer than they had allowed for.

Tunisia does not fall until early May of 1943. This leaves the West with few options. It is too late to redeploy in time to invade France so the alternatives are do something in the Mediteranean or do nothing for the balance of the year. Shipping and British pressure dictate the next two moves. Sicily is taken in July and August. Again Ike is too conservative in his planning [a division landed into the Italian toe would have forced the evacuation of Sicily instead of slugging up the mountainous interior]. The landings at Salerno south of Naples in September are a complete disaster. Mark Clark almost gets himself driven into the sea by an inferior German force racing against time before Monty can crawl into the Axis rear from Tarento and Brindusi. However, a bit of luck [a Camorra [underworld] led rising] secures the port of Naples largely intact. By mid October the twin goals of Naples and the airfields at Foggia are in Western hands. However, German resistance is stiffening and the weather is rapidly turning bad.

It is here we will have our point of departure from real history. The major POD is that Patton’s staff does a better job of handling their highly competent but emotionally unstable general so that the ‘slapping incidents’ do not happen. So Patton is left in command of 7^th Army in Sicily instead of being relieved. The minor POD’s flow from this. Ike was ultraconservative on the ratio of support to combat formations. In OTL he broke up one US and four Free French divisions over this winter for manpower for rear area units. My ATL will presume that Patton prevents this from happening. There were obvious other things that could have been done, especially in the use of Italian manpower as service and support units to keep Americans and French in combat service.

The general belief is that the slapping incidents kept Patton from Bradley’s job. This is certainly possible. However, I will argue here that this is far from certain. Ike was quite conservative in his generalship. Bradley was the safe choice. Patton has a far better field commander. However he was a prima donna and a lose cannon. Ike already had one of those in Monty. Presume that he opted for the safe choice and brings Bradley back with him to the UK for US 1^st Army which will lead to 12^th Army Group.

Mark Clark would still have been given Salerno. Ike had two US Army headquarters in the theater. Patton’s did Sicily while Clark planned Salerno. So Clark at Salerno and beyond leaves Patton free to plan something. In fact there was no real plan after taking Naples and Foggia. It was all opportunism.

So we will let George dream grandly, as George tended to do. We will let him involve himself with the mostly French parallel campaign to liberate Sardinia and Corsica. He accomplishes nothing more than the Free French did in OTL, but the flamboyant Patton brings major publicity to these operations which in OTL were all but ignored by the press.

In OTL we essentially attacked north from the Vulterno to Cassino out of inertia. No one would make the decision to go on the defensive for the winter despite poor terrain and worse weather. Churchill wanted Mediteranean offensives. Clark wanted promotion possibilities. From this came three butcher’s battles at Cassino.

Instead George comes up with an alternative – land in southern France. There was still enough shipping and amphibious craft in the Mediteranean for a major landing [January 1944 at Anzio in OTL}. The Overlord plan was for a simultaneous landing in southern France. So George could argue that he was advancing the plan rather than haring off into someplace secondary. Under Marshall’s strategy France was much more important than Italy. So why push for Rome when you could have Marseilles [one of the great ports of Europe and a logistic necessity to make Ike’s campaign work]?

So presume that in December of 1943 Patton lands with 6 divisions along the actual OTL 1944 southern French invasion beaches. Presume that with a Patton commanding they do not get pocketed the way Lucas did at Anzio [better exploitation, many fewer German reserves]. Presume that Marseilles is taken intact [in OTL it was in the summer of 1944 when the Germans were far better prepared]. The Allies go onto the defensive in Italy. Patton gets all the Free French forces, the Polish Mountain Corps, the British First Airborne Division, the three US divisions used in Anzio in OTL, the US 1^st Armored Division, the US 2^nd Cavalry Division [this is the one Ike disbanded in Tunisia in OTL] and the five US divisions that in OTL were pulled back from the Mediteranean for Overlord [replace with five divisions from the US – they were more divisions in the US by this time than there were places to put them]. So he builds up to twenty divisions over the winter, getting the Sixth Army Group which in OTL went to Devers. What happens?

First Normandy gets much easier. The major part of the German mobile reserves in the West are drained off to oppose Patton. It also drains off Rommel personally. In OTL Rommel spent the winter converting the Atlantic Wall from a couple of fortified ports into a real obstacle. Without Rommel and with a major front draining resources this simply doesn’t happen. Rommel will contain Patton. There is only one real line of advance, the Rhone Valley. Rommel can block that while slowly giving ground in the mountains of the Massif Central and Alps. Hypothetically make the point where the advance ends at Avingon. Plus or minus 30 klicks of there is as good a guess as any but it doesn’t matter. A real bridgehead bleeds the Germans in France for half a year.

There will be severe limits on how many divisions the Germans can be pulled from Italy. Even with the West clearly in winter quarters, the Germans will have to guard Rome and both coasts. Throughout the war the Germans always overestimated Western amphibious capacity. The flip side of Kesselring’s decision to defend Italy south of Rome is that it tied up an extra ten German divisions. Anzio ran into those divisions. Patton wouldn’t.

Second, with Marseilles in Western hands DeGaulle would get a capital on French soil half a year early. DeG was a handful. However Patton was always better with the French than Ike. [Ike was better with the British]. A Free French administration created at a more sedate pace over this time scale would make far better use of metropolitan French manpower. Also more French will choose sides earlier. In OTL most French sat on the fence until just before Normandy. In this ATL occupying France becomes much more difficult months sooner, making the Normandy landings still easier.

Third, the major air battle of the period will now be over France, especially southern France instead of over central Germany. The German Air Force will be attrited worse and faster than in OTL. We will have air bases putting fighters and medium bombers over central and eastern France by January of 1944 instead of October of that year. This again makes Normandy easier.

Fourth, this easier Normandy will have an easier time exploiting as there will be air and logistics bases already in the Rhone Valley plus a simultaneous breakout offensive similar to Diadem in OTL. Essentially the advance reaches the Rhine along its full length in September – October of 1944 with even fewer German escaping the Allied sweep. We still may not take Berlin but that will be political choice.

Of course the flip side of this is that Trieste and parts of northeast Italy are annexed by Italy at war’s end or there is an immediate crisis between Tito / Stalin and the West.

A Winter of Less Discontent