Italy

the History Channel, original podcast. After their victory over Germany and North Africa, American generals want to attack the Third Reich directly through northern Europe. But Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the British believe an operation of that size and scope is premature. Failure would be catastrophic. Churchill proposes they attack Germany from the South. For what he considers the soft underbelly of Europe. Italy. This is World War II with Tom Hanks, Episode 11, Italy. In May 1943, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of the United States meet in Washington, DC for the Third Time since American entry into the war. Rarely in history have political leaders forged as personal abond, as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. Churchill still feels he's the senior partner. He can get what he wants out of Roosevelt. So after Tunis, after the big victory in North Africa, Churchill's argument is that there's one logical next step and that next step is Sicily. So campaigning in the Mediterranean will not only knock over one of the three big Axis powers, Mussolini's Italy. It will also open a back door to Hitler's Germany. And the American commanders are saying why? Let's just go straight for Berlin. What are we doing? Why are we dancing around the edges here with this Mediterranean nonsense? And they think that Franklin Roosevelt is being persuaded by Churchill's pretty words. There were charges, then, and since that Churchill wanted to go up through the bottom of Europe in order to preserve the British Empire. Britain was a Mediterranean power. The Americans suspected that this was all about defending British interests in Egypt, in the Suez Canal that controlled India and the Persian Gulf where British oil was. FDR is not interested in preserving the British Empire, but he understands there are sound strategic reasons to capture Sicily. One of Churchill's arguments was they had these commitments to take some pressure off the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin has been pushing for a second front. Churchill says you have all of these armies that are now freed up after the North African campaign is over. What are you going to do with them? They're right there. The truth is that the allies still don't have enough actual material to conduct a cross-channel invasion and land in France. Allied military leaders are already planning a cross-channel invasion, operation overlord, but it will not be ready for months. To relieve the military pressure on the Soviets and sustain the momentum established by the victory in North Africa, FDR agrees to attack Sicily. After Sicily, they will pull, let us say, the Allied A team out of the Mediterranean, the leadership team, most of the landing craft, most of the air power, deploy it to Great Britain to begin. Finally, preparations in earnest for an invasion of Western Europe. Changes like yes of course. I'm sure things will go really fast. We're back in time for a nice early D-Day in 1944. It goes like we're all dressed up, we're ready to go to the ball. Let's do Sicily. The invasion of Sicily is given the code name Operation Husky. At the time, Operation Husky is the biggest amphibious operation in history. The scale of shipping and manpower is unprecedented. They're going to put on sure 160,000 troops. Both are telling in German troops, oppose the Allied landings. But the Allies achieve surprise and quickly secure the beaches. You've got two Phil commanders on Sicily, Montgomery for the British. Montgomery is given the key role. Patton for the Americans. Patton's job is really as a shield. The British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery will advance North to Messina. While the American 7th Army under General George Patton guards his left plank. If you get to Messina, any troops that are on Sicily cannot cross back over into Italy proper. And now you've captured all the troops that are on Sicily and you own Sicily. And that's especially crucial for the German divisions, so that the Allies won't have to face them at some future point in some future battle. As in North Africa, British and American forces, are required to operate as one force. This is a really ambitious attempt to just bring two nations to it with two different traditions very, very close into harmony. As you might expect, there's teeth and trouble. Montgomery and the British senior commanders all had a similar attitude to the Americans, which is their green. They were disastrous and setbacks in North Africa. They're still learning their trade. We've been at this since 1940. Patton on the other hand, thinks Montgomery has no kind of understanding of what American servicemen can actually achieve. Both armies enter horrendous conditions. The mountain is terrain. The 100-plus degree heat. Thousands are filled by malaria. Sicily in the summertime is incredibly hot. It is disease-ridden. Fighting there is brutal for everyone. Ah! Facing stiff German resistance, Montgomery's army stalls. He's given access to the road Patton's army has already taken. Patton goes ballistic. To his credit, Patton doesn't just sit there seething. He comes up with a plan. What Patton sees is a drive north up to Palermo would put a feather in his cap. The Americans overrun the western half of Sicily before the Germans and Italians know what is happening. Patton captures the Sicilian capital of Palermo less than two weeks after the initial landings. This is the signal moment for the US Army so far in World War II. Patton's forces are greeted in the streets of Palermo by Sicilians who were never 100% unbored with fascism anyway. And they're going to greet the arriving American army as liberators. Yet again, Adolf Hitler must suggest for Italian military weakness. His major ally on the European continent, Benito Mussolini, seems unable even to defend his own home territory. Benito Mussolini and his Italian fascist movement had set the stage for Adolf Hitler. And the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Mussolini is the inventor of fascism, is the embodiment of the virility of the fascist men. In the early phases of this relationship, Hitler himself looks up at Mussolini and he aspires to do what Mussolini has been able to achieve in Italy. Hitler consciously copied Mussolini's grab for power. The symbolism. The political tactics. The violence. But Mussolini no longer commands an iron grip on his nation like Hitler does. Mussolini's war has brought Italy nothing but misery. The Italian people wanted very little part of this war at the beginning. They want no part of it now. Things cannot go on like this. Hitler's getting situation reports of what's going on in Sicily, basically saying the Italians aren't fighting. He makes the decision to go to Italy to put some spine into Mussolini. He is shocked by the sight of Mussolini, who's really a broken man after the defeat in North Africa. There isn't much fight left in him and Hitler is horrified by what he's seeing. Hitler harrangs Mussolini for hours about his failures. His failure to instill a war like spirit into the armed forces. His failure to make true fascists of the Italian people. His failure to prosecute the war was sufficient vigor. And Mussolini has no choice but to sit there and take it. As Hitler and Mussolini meet, the Allies begin a bombing campaign on Rome. The news comes as a shock to Mussolini and he tries to convey to Hitler the gravity of the situation. Hitler continues as if nothing had happened. The bombing of Rome adds fuel to this already simmering fire of questioning and doubt about Mussolini's leadership. The bombing of Rome is a shock to the Italians. The battles have been fought elsewhere, but now the price of Mussolini's war hits home. There's grumbling in the streets. Mussolini thinks he has the fascist brand counsel in his pocket. He thinks he has the top leadership in the military in his pocket. He thinks he has the king in his pocket. Victor Emmanuel III has been the king of Italy since 1900s and he is the one that handed the government over to Mussolini in 1990s. On July 25th, the day after the fascist council passes a vote of no confidence for Mussolini, the king summons him to his palace. And he's told not to wear his uniform, there should have been an indication to him that trouble was affluent. His wife, in fact, advises him not to go. Mussolini tells her, "No problem, I've got this." But the king has Mussolini arrested. He's rushed away in the back of an ambulance to hide him from public view. "I've been feeling it. Who am I?" Potential is majesty the Emperor King has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. His 21 year fascist reign is over. The fall of Mussolini leads to a very confusing situation. The new head of state is the marshal of the Italian army, Pietro Badolio. He actually makes an announcement that the war goes on. We remain Germany's loyal ally. After Mussolini is deposed, FDR addresses the nation. "My fellow Americans, our terms to Italy are still the same. Unconditional surrender." Publicly, Badolio states repeatedly that the war effort is going on alongside the Germans, and privately, he's actually starting to make arrangements for the Italians to get out of the war. Madolio signals that Italy might be open to and armistice. He sends one of his generals to secretly negotiate directly with the Allies. "Badolio might wish to surrender, but he needs to have someone at his back. He knows that there will be retribution from the angriest man in Europe at the time, and that will be out of Hitler." Insistently, Pan's army leaves Ploemot to get to Messina while the British are advancing from the south. Meanwhile, the Germans are taking advantage of the delay in getting to Messina to begin getting off the island. It's effectively the German-done curve, because pretty much everyone who could walk and was able-bodied got off, and not only that, they got off with all their equipment. The entire purpose of the Allied operational plan was to trap the Germans unscissfully, and they failed. Still, things in Sissleygoat pretty much as Churchill would have wished, not only do Allied troops successfully drive Axis forces out of Sissley, and it also proves to be the death knell of Mussolini's fascist regime. The potential deal for an Italian surrender in the works, FDR and Churchill meet in Quebec. And it's at this point that Churchill is able to say to Roosevelt, "Look, the Italians are pulling out of the war. We have an opportunity to bloodlessly take the Italian peninsula, you know, what's not to like in this operation." Churchill says, "The Italians are begging us to come and help liberate them and switch sides. We could be in Rome in a couple of weeks here. If we land in Italy, it'll be a cakewalk. We can't do Sissleygoat and go home." FDR agrees, but only with assurance that Operation Overlord will remain the Allies' highest priority. The difficult trade off in the Italian campaign is that the key resources that landing craft and the best troops are going to go back to the UK to prepare for D-Day. Supreme Allied commander Dwight Eisenhower now picks one of America's youngest generals to lead the Italian invasion. Mark Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army. Clark has a flair for showmanship because once you pit on a star, you're also becoming a little bit of a politician as well. Mark Clark has immense amount of talent, but he also has a corresponding ego. He travels with a press corps. He will only let them take pictures of his favorite side, which I think is his left side based on all the pictures we see of him. The Allied strategy in Italy calls for two large forces. The first will land in and around Calabria, and the second will land a few days later at Salano. The two forces will then link and push north towards Rome. At Calabria, Montgomery's eighth Army lands almost uncontested. Bidolio is supposed to take to the airwaves on the evening of September 8th and announce the Italian surrender, and this is crucial to the plan because it will tell the hundreds of thousands of Italian troops are in beach defense positions not to fire at the Allies as they land. That is headquarters Eisenhower waits by his radio. The Salano landings are just hours away. Six thirty comes, no Bidolio. Seven o'clock, no Bidolio, the entire plan hinges on a well-announced, orderly Italian surrender. Eisenhower decides to force the issue by going on the radio himself. The Italian government has surrendered its armed forces unconditionally. All Italian, who now act to help eject the German aggressor from Italian soil, will have the assistance and the support of the United Nations. Hitler anticipates the announcement of the honestess. From the moment Mussolini falls, Hitler's convinced that Bidolio's government is going to withdraw from the war. For weeks, Hitler has been moving German troops into Italy. He orders Operation Access. The Germans of an operation they've been preparing, which is that if the Italians do the dirty on us, we're going to disarm them and we're going to take over the security of all of Italy. Italy will become an occupied nation. The Germans of an operation, the United Nations, will have the assistance and the support of the United Nations. The test in the "Wasen Street" for the author is a top-breeding example. Now the main visit is at the Alpeilően. The "Wasen Street" for the "Gothius Catavacatoruaca". The "Wasen Street" that doesn't suck is a legit, hard-hitting American history podcast told through entertaining stories, as we approach America's 250th anniversary. Now might be the time to go back and learn how we got here. With more than 200 episodes, you can bend your way decade by decade, defining event to defining event from the founding into the 20th century. Join me, Professor Greg Jackson, for "History That Doesn't Suck" and "Autacy Podcasts", available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. [Music] Operation Axis is the disarmament of the Italian Army and the occupation of the entire Italian boot by German forces. It occurs with lightning rapidity. The Italian Army is on its back foot. They aren't so sure about who they should be firing at if anyone. Local Italian resistance movements form and fight the Germans. Nazi retaliation is fierce. The Italians were being executed by the Germans after they switched sideburn, a lot of terrible things going on. Villages wiped out. When the Allied invasion forced lands at Solernow, they believe they'll be welcomed by Italian troops. Underlying the operational plan is intelligence that the German Army may evacuate Italy, that it has no desire to defend Italy. If all goes well, the Allies should be up to Rome with almost no casualties at all. So what they're going to do is they're going to land without any pre-Bombardman and they're going to hope for tactical surprise. The Allies are expecting to meet happy Italian faces, perhaps handshakes, taking over Italian positions now that Italy had surrendered. And instead, what the troops at Solernow experience was a wall up German fire. The whole of the beach has been saturated with shell fire. It's an absolute inferno. It was a grim experience for those first few crucial days in which they're trying to defend the beachhead. And it's the fighting at Solernow that really convinces Hitler to make them fight for every inch of Italy. Hitler moves more forces to defend Italy. He also discovers that Mussolini is being held at a hotel in the Appanine Mountains and decides to take action. Hitler just can't quit Mussolini, apparently. He orders a commando raid onto the Grand Saisel to rescue Benito Mussolini. That force lands, overcomes Mussolini's guards. Mussolini is flown back to Germany. Hitler thinks that Mussolini would give legitimacy to the German occupation of Italy. For the rest of the war, Mussolini will be ruling a kind of puppet regime in northern Italy. But he's a shadow of the figure who used to strut across the world stage in the nineteen years. The situation has changed drastically since Mussolini was the top dog and Hitler the imitator to now Mussolini as Hitler's lapdog. After a massive air and naval assault, Clark's fifth army breaks out of Solano and moves inland. A modern mechanized army is going to experience great difficulty in driving north because the Germans recognize the terrain is going to do half the work for us. Luntan ranges, ravines and fast-flowing rivers made Italy a sort of natural fortress. What the Germans do effectively is scorched Earth policy. They rip up the railway tracks, they flood the river valleys, they make it almost impossible to move through this terrain unless you've taken the high ground. It was very clear, very quickly that they were going to struggle to fight their way out the Italian peninsula. General Mark Clark, "Relabel Churchill's description of Italy is the soft underbelly as the tough old gun." It is said that all roads lead to wrong, but in the fall of 1943 for the Allies there was only one. Highway 6. As Allied forces are lured deeper and deeper by moving north up Highway 6, the German strategy very quickly becomes we're going to set up a series of defensive lines and you come to us and we will then mall you. It looked a lot like World War I defenses look. There are mines and mortars and machine guns. On the high ground you have artillery observers who could have a full view of the advance of the Allies and they would call artillery to fire on the advances. The frustration grows with the costliness of this advantage, the slowness of this advance up the boot. There's some historical wisdom here and it traces back to the great Napoleon who once said Italy is a boot and like all boots has to be entered from the top where there's a nice broad plane plenty of room to maneuver. To fight up from the toe of Italy after coming from Sicily, look at the terrain of Italy. Big mountain range all down the center spine. This is the big problem in Italy. Who would want to put an army into that area especially if it's raining? It rains every day and General Clark once said anyone who ever talks about sunny Italy should be here in October which is when the Allies were there. Gains are measured not in miles but often in yards. The Italian campaign soon turns into a slog for the Allies. And it's sapping their energy, their wet, their cold, their tired, all of that is draining morale as well as manpower. One of the things that they resort to is using mules to carry supplies forward because at least mules can get through that kind of terrain in those kind of conditions. I think it's fair to say when the war began in the war department in Washington no one was thinking of mules. It was arguably the most horrendous fighting that the Western Allies had to experience in the whole of the European theatre. There's no question that some of the Americans who've given the go had for the Italian campaign are now having second thoughts. Churchill and the British commanders promised the Americans that basically Italy would fall relatively quickly. Churchill argues again and again that it would be folly not to continue once one has set out on the Italian campaign arguing they must capitalize on their gains. What do you do? Evacuate Italy no! You fight the enemy in front of you. Before you know it you're embrolled in a massive costly brutal war in Italy. Highway 6 snakes into the Liri Valley on its way up the Italian peninsula. Overlooking the valley is a 1700 foot rocky peak called Monte Casino. The most polished on top is a 6th century Benedictine Abbey. Monte Casino is the strong point of the Germans defensive formation, the Gustaf Line. It must have seemed to the Allies as they gazed up there that this is a kind of perfect defensive position for the Germans to use. From the commanding heights of this terrain the Germans can rain down accurate and effective artillery fire at all times. There is no way to get to Rome without in some way dealing with Monte Casino. The Allies hope to get to Rome by Christmas but it's here in the shadow of Monte Casino that the advance stalls. In November Allied leaders gather in Tyran. FDR is meeting Stalin for the first time. And the first thing that happens is Roosevelt and Stalin seem insistent on building their own relationship. Sometimes freezing Churchill out and he takes this really badly. He has to seed center stage with Roosevelt to Stalin. And Churchill is in an interesting kind of nomads land. There's this whole line that Stalin didn't know much English but he knew two words. Second front because he said it over and over and over again. And when Stalin says second front he doesn't mean Sicily or even mainland Italy. He means France. Churchill says, "I was the little British donkey sitting between the great American eagle and the Soviet bear and I was the only one who knew the way home." Churchill is still sticking with his Mediterranean plan. But he knows that coming out of Tyran it's really important to be able to go back and win this victory. Winston Churchill, the master of out-of-the-box thinking, has an idea for a left hook and amphibious landing on the western shore of Italy behind the Gustav Line. Troops will land at Anzio, 50 miles behind the German forces, then drive inland, drawing German defenders away from Monte Casino. Winston Churchill thinks that this could break the whole thing free. This is the wildcat we need to shatter this stalemate. The Allies agree to do it mainly because Churchill has convinced it can work. But because so many men and landing craft have been shipped back to Britain to prepare for D-Day, the Anzio landing winds up being two divisions only. A drop in the bucket. The Allied force in Anzio lands on an empty beach. There are almost no Germans in front of it. Surprise has been achieved. Speed is of the essence. As soon as you land, you must get off the beach head as quickly as possible. Strike in land. One Jeep Patrol actually gets as far as the outskirts of Rome. So clearly there is a route of advance open. The commander of the invasion is General John Lucas. Instead of driving boldly into the interior and seizing the high ground over the Anzio beach head, General Lucas stays put. His thought is I need to secure this port because that is how we'll be reinforced and so he sits. As he sits, the German commander, Castell Ring will basically pull all the cooks, bakers and candlestick makers from around Rome and build them up to pen in the Anzio landing. The Germans have the high ground again and are able to control the situation by subjecting the Allied forces to Constantinople. Leading the way in the German bombardments were two enormous railroad guns known colloquially to the Allies as Anzio Annie and the Anzio Express. These fire a 500 pound shell 30 miles. It would have sounded like a freight train. You could hear it kind of whistling in and then boom! The Allies at Anzio are sitting in a marsh. They have no cover around them are mountains and German artillery and the artillery never stops firing. There was nowhere on the beach how you could go to and get respite from enemy fire. And so what you basically got to do is burrow down into the ground and hold tight. It was just this horrendous grind of being under fire for 24 hours a day. This is as miserable a position as any force in World War II found themselves. Anzio is Churchill's plan and he said famously after the event I thought we landed a wildcat on the shore what we got was a beach whale. The Luftwaffe Strafe's Allied troops on the beach head included in the effort to help Lucas's forces off the beach is the 99th Fathersquadron, part of what will become known as the Tuskegee Airmen. During that era of segregation, most African-Americans serve in rear-ashelon units. Tuskegee Airmen are frontline fighting units and they're changing everyone's minds. On one of their missions, 16 of them fly over Anzio and what they find is the German aircraft working over the landing craft. They shoot down 10 of those German aircraft. To the south, multiple attacks on the Monte Casino Abbey fail. The allies debate whether to bomb the mounted top Abbey from the air. The Benedictine Abbey that sits on Monte Casino is a cultural relic. The law of armed conflict would say we don't touch those. Of course, this is one of the most important libraries of Christian thoughts for millennia and many civilians had taken refuge there. But the assumption was that the Germans were inside the Abbey and using it as the perfect field artillery observers position. We cannot allow the enemy to continue to harass us with artillery fire, so the Abbey's got to go. Allied forces distributed pamphlets, warning that there would be a bombardment and the residents they thought they're not actually going to do it. Allied bombers flatten the shrine of Christianity. The bombing actually resulted in the killing of hundreds of civilians who had taken refuge there. Allied intelligence was wrong. The German observation posts had not been inside the monastery walls. The Germans who weren't occupying the Abbey have now decided to occupy the rubble which is incredibly effective for defensive purposes, so the allies got the exact opposite of what they hoped to achieve. Barming the monastery gets the allies no closer to their goal. At some point, infantry is going to have to ascend a mountain under enemy fire. What do we do with this? The allies have bombed the market casino Abbey, but the Germans still hold the summit. When the weather improves in May, the allies make yet another assault. They take nearly their entire force in Italy and cram it into the narrow western half of the peninsula, using overwhelming strength now. Tanks, aircraft, ceaseless waves of artillery bombardment. You've got this extraordinary United Nations of troops, I mean people from all over the world here at Casino. We got the British, we got the Americans, we got New Zealand, Mauriz, we got Canadians, we got Indians, we got French Moroccans, Gumiets, they are wonderful mountain fighters. It is one of the places where Japanese Americans fight. Who gets a sign Monte casino, the Poles. World War II began in Europe when Germany invaded Poland. As much as anyone, the Polish people have suffered from the brutal rule of the Nazis. The idea that Poles would never miss an opportunity to take it back out on the Germans for what they did to them should be lost on no one. At Monte casino, the Poles are that final wave of fighters and they, with incredible bravery and toughness, go up this huge incline. As you advance up the hill, you have to show yourself, you're going to be picked off, you're a sitting dog. We're talking almost 4,000 casualties for the Polish units attacking against Monte casino. The Poles finally overrun their ruins of the Ape. The Polish flag is unveiled on the top of the monastery. When they play this very famous bugle call, Hajnie Marijacki, which translates to St Mary's trumpet call, it's a symbol of resilience, of national identity, of hope for the future and of the fight for Poland, for every single Polish person. And it sounds out over the monastery once the fighting has died down. The Gustaf Line is broken. The Americans are finally able to break out of the Anzial Beach Head. There is a plan to encircle and destroy the Germans. The plan is for Mark Clarke to angle his troops to the northeast and cut off Highway 6 at Valmontoni. Those were the orders he was given. Clarke decides to make a swift left turn that is north towards Rome. Rome is an irresistible target. Nothing screams we are making progress than to have captured Rome and Mark Clarke fundamentally thinks that the Fifth Army who has slogged their way up the Italian peninsula and him in particular should get credit for this. The conquest of Rome is to take out one of the great Axis capitals in the war. What you are doing is pointing out to the rest of the world and we are on the march, it's happening and you know, next stop Berlin. The first of the Axis capitals is now in our hands. One up and two to go. However, the liberation of Rome is going to be entirely overshadowed because the next day is going to be the launch of D-Day and Roosevelt can't say anything about it. After ten months, the Allies have reached the Italian capital. But General Clarke's decision to take Rome allows the Germans to escape once again. Ever since he's had to answer questions about those orders, was this ego simply too large to pass up Rome? Ultimately, the liberation of Rome has more symbolic than strategic value. The Allies would continue to fight the Germans in Italy for almost another year. I think Churchill went to his grave thinking there was an opportunity there that was missed. Churchill always believed that had been a good idea, but it had been undone by a bit of foot dragging and some bad luck. The Italian campaign is the moment at which Churchill overreaches himself. He had assisted on this vast continental campaign that had led to nothing but misery. Because of difficult terrain, military miscalculation, and determined resistance from a skillful enemy, the Allied effort in Italy gained little and cost much. The Italian campaign is the last time the British will have a predominant presence in the Allied forces. America has been building airplanes and tanks and creating soldiers. As the American strength rises, Winston Churchill's influence wanes. The battle for Italy, which will go on until the end of the war, was fought with determination and bravery. This kind of camaraderie is found in all theaters and on all battlefields. War tests the best of us and nowhere would men be tested more than in the skies over Germany. World War II with Tom Hanks is produced by A&E Factual Studios, Nautopia Limited, Play Tone Productions, and Backpocket Studios in association with Motion Entertainment for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks and mixed by John Lloyd, additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan. From the History Channel, our Executive Producers are Eli Lara and Liv Fiddler. For Play Tone, Executive Producers are Tom Hanks and Gary Getsman. For Backpocket Studios, our Executive Producer is Ben Dixteen.