alexbanjo

Hello i am currently researching the topic on the invasion of italy, the topic itself is based on the idea that the americans and the british both saw that a communist takeover of europe could become possible. so they decided to open a second front in europe to satisfy stalin, but also to put a limit on the conquerable nations in europe, this tactic i believe protectected nations like austria and maybe even italy, now in support of this topic, i have found out both general montgomery and patton, both men distrusted communism, they were also the lead commanders of the invasion. well id like your opinion on the topic and maybe some useful sources i could use thank you.

Toltec

The first answer is no.

The US opposed the invasion of Italy, the British wanted it. US strategy was route one warfare, put everything in D Day and take the most direct route to Berlin. Britain wanted to open up 4-5 fronts, Italy, South of France, Libya, Balkans and stretch the German resources over the widest possible area. In the end a halfway house of the two happened, Libya, Italy, a huge D Day and small conflict with Vichy.

Later on however after the invasion was under way Churchill and many British and US generals wanted to do exactly what you say. Churchill wanted the army when it defeated Italy to turn east and fall on the German rear occupying the Balkans before the Red Army got there.

This had been explicitely banned in treaties signed by the Big Three. Churchill was happy to break the treaty but Roosavelt refused because Stalin had promised democracy for all the countries Russia liberated after the war. Roosavelt thought if he and Churchill broke the treaty over Italy, Stalin would break his agreement to give Eastern Europe democracy.

pikeshot1600

The US generals wanted nothing to do with the geographical restrictions of the Dolomite Alps and certainly nothing to do with the Balkans. I doubt the British generals did either, but the "soft underbelly" was a preoccupation of Churchill's.

I disagree that all this had much to do with agreements. The US preferred strategy all along had been to take the shortest route to the Continent - across the channel to France, and then drive the shortest distance into the German industrial heartland, denying Germany the ability to support the war.

The US had been luke warm to North Africa, but the enormous build up of troops and materiel for France was not accomplished until 1944, so Marshal and Eisenhower were in agreement that at least something could be done in the Med. It opened a second front in Europe diverting something like 50 or 60 German divisions that were neither in France nor Russia.

The logistics made sense as there were about 1,000,000 Allied troops in North Africa and, politically, Italy was ripe to knock out of the war.

Italy was a correct decision at the time, but once the US started to exert her superior position in the alliance, France replaced the "underbelly."

alexbanjo

thanks would you be able o give me any sources. more so on the ida of the buffer.

JohnnyH

But Roosevelt was almost bending over backwards to trust and please Stalin, refusing to believe that the dictator had any designs on a post-war West, and ignoring Churchill's constant warnings about him.

Churchill wanted to attack Hitler from the south, Italy (who withdrew nazis from the Soviet campaign to block the width of Italy at the Gustav line), the 'soft underbelly' which proved to be a 'tough old gut'.

Toltec

A lot is made of Roosavelt's soft line towards Stalin towards the end of the war. I've heard some people say it was his illness, other point out despite being distantly related he never really liked Churchill.

Anyway I wonder if he had died earlier would things have been any different under Truman?

pikeshot1600

The thought that FDR trusted Stalin has always amused me. He, and everyone else knew what was going to happen in the territory Russia controlled. The key to cooperation with the USSR was not to cause the Russians to think the Anglo Allies were going to interpose themselves between the Red Army and Russian vital interests (mainly the Balkans and Poland).

A drive into central Europe through the Dolomite passes (assuming it could have been undertaken logistically) would have given the Russians exactly that idea. Additionally, it was probable that the Allies would have been exposing their flank to the Russians as operations in the Balkans developed. Roosevelt and Marshal and Eisenhower were in agreement that the way to shorten the war was by assaulting France accross the Channel, and then directly into the Ruhr and the Rhineland.

1) Logistical support across the Channel was available directly and securely, at short distance from an industrialized base. In the Med, and Adriatic, very much more difficult - resources would have to be diluted; lines of comm much longer and much less infrastructure to support operations.

2) While strategic bombing (a new concept) had done damage to Germany, it was understood that the only way to shorten, and end, the war was to make it impossible for Germany to continue it - seizing the industrial areas that sustained German efforts. Those were in northwest Germany, not in the Alps or the Hungarian plain.

Roosevelt acted as a brake on Churchill, he understood that the US was then becoming the dominant partner, and that long term, US interests included either dismantling Germany or at least controlling her. Older British imperial interests, such as Russian advances in the Med and the security of Suez, were secondary concerns for FDR and the US.

Toltec

If Roosavelt knew what stalin intended and Roosavelt only had US interest at heart, he made a huge blunder then in his idea what US interest was. The creation of the Sov Bloc was hardly in the US's short, medium or long term interest.

pikeshot1600

There was not, and could not be, any control over that. The Red Army was in east Europe, 5,000,000 strong and with more in reserve. Our effort had to be where we could mount it, and we were fighting on both sides of the world.

Success is doing what you can do, not failing at what you cannot.

Toltec

It's still doubtful Stalin would have attacked the allies had the war ended with them holding more of Germany and some of the Balkans. The Soviets didn't attack the British Army when they beat them to Denmark. After Hiroshima it's doubtful Stalin would attack the even if he wanted to and Roosavelt knew Hiroshima was coming long in advance.