In September 1943, the Western Allies—the US, Britain, and Canada—invaded fascist Italy, which was allied with Nazi Germany by longtime dictator Benito Mussolini. Although the Allies had made secret plans that would lead to the bloodless surrender of the weakest Axis power, the Germans caught wind of the plot. The Nazis rescued deposed dictator Mussolini, who had been removed from power in July by the king of Italy and returned him to power. They also captured and held most of Italy, forcing the Allies into a long and brutal military campaign. As the Americans, British, and Canadians ground north up the Italian peninsula toward Rome, the capital, could the city be taken without being destroyed?
Setting the Stage: Fascist Italy
In the 1920s, fascist politician Benito Mussolini quickly consolidated power in Italy after becoming prime minister in October 1922. The World War I veteran, former journalist, and one-time socialist created a new political movement focused on nationalism and militarism. By 1925, he had become Il Duce, or supreme leader, of the southern European country. Mussolini’s swift rise to totalitarian rule became a blueprint for the fledgling Nazi Party in Germany to the north. When the Great Depression erupted in the early 1930s, most foreign powers ignored the descent of Italy and Germany into dictatorial control—they had their own crises to worry about!
In October 1935, Italy took advantage of the economic quagmire to invade the African nation of Ethiopia and extend Italian North Africa. A year later, Germany and Italy became allied by the “Rome-Berlin Axis,” which would assume Japan in 1940. These three aggressor states, all of whom left the League of Nations, created the Axis Powers of World War II. After sparking World War II in Europe by invading neutral Poland on September 1, 1939, Germany got Italy on board near the end of its conquest of France in 1940. On June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on France and Britain, officially joining Germany in its war. Mussolini allegedly hoped to rebuild a “Roman Empire” by controlling the land surrounding the Mediterranean.
Setting the Stage: The “Weak Underbelly of the Axis”
Unfortunately for Italy, joining World War II was not a path to easy conquest. It soon faced military reversals in North Africa against the British and in Greece, where skilled resistance surprised the Italians. Germany was forced to intervene and assist, scoring victories but humiliating Mussolini. Italy participated in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, but it also fared poorly after the Soviet Red Army was able to mount organized resistance, beginning in December. By late 1942, the Italians were being steadily defeated in both North Africa and on the Eastern Front.
Facing the bulk of the German war machine on the Eastern Front, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin demanded that the Western Allies open a second front to reduce the pressure. Although the US did invade Vichy French North Africa in November 1942 with Operation Torch, beginning the North African Campaign, the Soviets wanted an Allied landing in Nazi-occupied Europe itself. By May 1943, the Western Allies had defeated the last Axis forces in North Africa. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted the next target to be Italy, which he dubbed the “weak underbelly of the Axis.”
July 1943: Invasion of Sicily
To acquire a solid staging point for an invasion of mainland Europe, Allied planners looked at the large Italian island of Sicily. Coming just a month after the final defeat of Axis troops in Africa, the Western Allies landed in Sicily on June 10, 1943 in Operation Husky. Now that Italian territory itself was under attack, how strong would resistance be? It was one thing to fight Italians far from home in colonial territory, but Sicily was a province of the fascist state itself. Caught by surprise, the Germans could do little to assist, and Sicily was quickly taken.
The loss of Sicily quickly led to the removal of Benito Mussolini as de facto ruler of Italy by the nation’s king, Victor Emmanuel III. On July 25, Il Duce was stripped of his political power and arrested, being held in secret to avoid rescue by sympathetic fascists or the Germans. The replacement government, although claiming to be resolute allies of Nazi Germany, began communicating with the Allied Powers to negotiate an armistice. However, German suspicions were aroused, and the Nazis began planning as well.
September 1943: Invasion of Italy
On September 3, about six weeks after Mussolini was removed from power, the Allies first landed on the “toe” of the Italian peninsula. Five days later, on September 8, 1943, Victor Emmanuel III announced an armistice with the Allies, removing Italy as an Axis Power. Unfortunately for the king, the Nazis had been preparing for such an event. Operation Achse saw Germany capture most of Italy and disarm much of the Italian military, preventing the Allies from getting much benefit from the Armistice of Cassibile.
On September 9, the king and prime minister Pietro Badoglio fled Rome to avoid the oncoming Germans. Two days later, German forces under field marshal Albert Kesselring seized the capital city. The next day, German commandos led by Otto Skorzeny rescued imprisoned dictator Mussolini from a hotel in the Italian Alps. After meeting with Adolf Hitler, Mussolini was returned to power in Italy. The nation was split in two, with Mussolini in charge of the German-controlled Italian Social Republic (ISI) and the king-led official state of Italy backed by the Allied Powers.
The Italian Campaign
The success of Operation Achse allowed the Germans to put defensive lines throughout Italy to slow the Allied advance. On October 1, 1943, Naples became the first major city in Western Europe to be freed from Axis control. However, mountainous territory in Italy favored the German defenders, and progress was slow. The Gustav Line, created using natural defenses like mountains and the Sangro River, was not breached until early December. Winter weather also bogged down Allied offensives, ending 1943 with a stalemate in Italy.
January 1944 saw new Allied attacks on the Gustav Line but without success. Under pressure to break the stalemate, the Allies tried a new strategy: another amphibious landing behind the Gustav Line. While the Germans enjoyed the difficult terrain inside Italy, the Allies could take advantage of the nation’s vast coastlines. It was impossible for the Germans to defend the entire coast of Italy, especially given the tremendous need for manpower on the Eastern Front. Such an invasion would also be excellent practice for the planned invasion of France, for which both the Allies and the Germans were preparing.
Early 1944: The Battle of Anzio
On January 22, 1944, the Allies struck at Anzio with Operation Shingle. The landing site was eighty miles behind the German lines and less than forty miles from Rome. Fortunately, the landing site was unanticipated by the Germans, and thousands of US soldiers made it onshore against no meaningful opposition. Within days, however, the Germans quickly surrounded the beachhead and made it clear that they would fight to defend Rome. On January 30, the Allies launched the first offensives to break out beyond the beachhead.
For the next few months, the two sides launched offensives and counter-offensives. Meanwhile, aided by airfields in captured territory in North Africa, Sicily, and southern Italy, the Allies launched bombing raids on the Italian Social Republic. Under the rigors of war, the Germans reduced bread rations in Rome to very low levels, sparking riots on April 1, 1944. Unrest raged for a week, with the Germans harshly punishing innocent civilians. Hoping to take Rome before the city faced significant destruction, the Allies redoubled their assaults in early May.
May 1944: Breakthrough of Allies in Italy
On May 11, 1944, a new spring offensive began with Allied artillery bombardments across Italy against German lines. By May 18, boosted by reinforcements, the Allies were again achieving breakthrough victories in Italy, with German forces slowly retreating to the north from the Gustav Line. On May 23, the Allies successfully broke out from the beachhead at Anzio, opening the “Road to Rome” after three days of heavy combat.
For about a week, the Germans fought fiercely to shore up their lines. Unfortunately for them, Allied units had discovered gaps in the German lines and filled them, using their new positions to rain down artillery fire on convenient targets. On June 2, unable to stop the Allies, German field marshal Albert Kesselring ordered a general retreat to the north, including forces in Rome. That same day, Pope Pius XII, from Vatican City within Rome, made a radio address that any violence committed against the city of Rome would be done before the “eternal judgment of God.”
June 4, 1944: Allies Enter Rome
Without any reprisals against the city or the arriving Allies, the retreating Germans declared Rome an open city on June 3, 1944. Unlike the earlier retreat from Naples, the Germans did not attempt to demolish historic structures or vandalize property. As a result, the arrival of Allied forces on June 4, 1944 was peaceful and not marred by a humanitarian crisis. Specifically, the city was liberated by the United States Fifth Army, which controversially kept other Allied units out of the city.
On June 5, US forces entered the central city to a celebration of over 100,000 civilians. Rome was the first capital city of an Axis Power to be captured, and the event made global headlines. Pope Pius XII thanked both the Allies and the Germans for not damaging the city. Historically, the liberation of Rome is not well-remembered due to an even larger event occurring the very next day: the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion, also known as the Invasion of Normandy. At that moment, the Italian Campaign became a secondary concern for the Western Allies.
Post-Rome: Italian Campaign Continues
Despite Rome being captured and the Allies landing in Normandy, the Italian Campaign continued with vigor. Most of the US troops who first entered Rome on June 4 simply passed through the city and continued to engage the Germans. For about a hundred miles north of Rome, the relatively flat terrain benefited the Allies. Despite making good progress, the Allies effectively halted in late July to rest and refit, giving the Germans time to establish new defensive lines. Far to the north, the Gothic Line would become the next formidable defensive feature.
In August 1944, some US forces in western Italy were transferred to southern France to assist with that theater. Fighting continued throughout the autumn, with departing US troops replaced by new Allied forces, such as those from Brazil and South Africa. As the end of 1944 approached, the Germans and Mussolini’s ISI forces increasingly failed to hold the front. Thanks to defense-friendly terrain, however, the Axis Powers continued to hold territory in northern Italy until the very end of the war in the spring of 1945. Mussolini himself was captured by anti-fascist Italian partisans and summarily executed on April 28, 1945.
Aftermath: Precedent Set for Paris
The peaceful capture of Rome by the Allies set a precedent for the Germans to declare open cities when retreating. This was unlike the situation on the Eastern Front, where major cities, especially Stalingrad, were subject to sieges and urban warfare. It is possible that the brutality of urban warfare on the Eastern Front in 1942 and 1943 convinced the Germans to avoid it later on the Western Front in 1944. Urban warfare caused untold horrors to the civilian population and resulted in high casualties for military personnel.
In July 1944, Allied troops in Europe steadily progressed toward Paris. Unlike Rome, German dictator Adolf Hitler demanded the destruction of Paris. The Allies knew this and did not aggressively attempt to liberate the capital city early. When the Allies did approach the city in August, General Dietrich von Choltitz chose not to execute Hitler’s orders to burn Paris. Limited to only 20,000 soldiers, von Choltitz surrendered the city on August 25, 1944 without making a concerted effort to defend it. Allied troops entered Paris the next day, invited by Free French leader Charles de Gaulle.
