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In Casablanca, Morocco, in January 1943, Allied leaders decided to use their massive military resources in the Mediterranean to launch an invasion of Italy, which British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) called the “soft underbelly of Europe.” The objectives were to remove Italy from World War II,
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On July 10, 1943, Operation Husky, the code name for the invasion of Sicily, began with airborne and amphibious landings on the island’s southern shores. Jarred by the Allied invasion, the Italian fascist regime fell rapidly into disrepute, as the Allies had hoped
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On July 24, 1943, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was deposed and arrested. A new provisional government was set up under Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871-1956), who had opposed Italy’s alliance with Nazi Germany and who immediately began secret discussions with the Allies about an armistice.
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On August 17, 1943, Allied forces marched on the major port city of Messina, expecting to fight one final battle; instead, they discovered some 100,000 German and Italian troops had managed to escape to the Italian mainland. The battle for Sicily was complete, but German losses had not been severe, and the Allies’ failure to capture the fleeing Axis armies undermined their victory
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On September 9, 1943, when American troops landed on the Italian coast at Salerno, the German army, which was rapidly taking over the defense of Italy, nearly drove them back into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Germans entrenched in the high Apennine Mountains at Cassino brought the mobile Allied army to a grinding halt for four months.
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Allies land just south of Rome at Anzio on January 22, 1944. Instead of advancing across the German lines of communication, Allies are pinned into a small beachhead
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Between February and March 23rd, the Allies launch 3 unsuccessful attacks against Monte Cassino until May 11th when they finally broke through between Cassino and the sea after one week of fighting.
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On May 23rd, Allied forces at Anzio break out from the beachhead and instead of cutting off the Germans retreat, they head for Rome by June when the Germans were in full retreat
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After some initial success, an attach on Bologna is defeated in October just as well as the German counter attack that winter which was near the Gothic Line.
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The front is then static until April 9th 1945 when British forces attack in the east and continue five days later attacking the west and by
April 25th, Verona is captured and the Germans surrender April 29th.
