The Forgotten Front - The second year of the Italian Campaign

Il Fronte dimenticato - Il secondo anno della Campagna d’Italia

La caduta di Roma nelle mani degli Alleati anglo-americani il 4 giugno 1944 fu un evento di grande importanza strategica e simbolica. Oltre ad essere la Città Eterna, sede di papi ed imperatori, Roma era la prima capitale di un paese dell’Asse ad essere conquistata. Il significato non sfuggì al Generale Mark Clark, Comandante in Capo delle forze alleate che fece il suo trionfale ingresso nella città in testa alla V Armata statunitense, cogliendo la gloria di quel momento storico. Sarebbe durata poco perché neanche trentasei ore dopo, all’alba del 6 giugno, iniziò Operation Overlord, lo sbarco in Normandia. Il tanto agognato secondo fronte finalmente fu aperto. Questa operazione sarebbe stata talmente imponente e carica di significato da eclissare ogni altro operazione militare in Europa, catalizzando l’attenzione del mondo.

La grande controffensiva alleata che avrebbe alla fine piegato le forze del Reich era lì, in Normandia. Tranne che per gli Italiani, e per le forze alleate rimaste, l’Italia divenne il fronte dimenticato. Notizie della guerra in Italia furono relegate alle pagine interne dei giornali o scomparvero del tutto. Non interessava più l’Italia. Ai soldati alleati in Italia arrivavano lettere dai familiari felici di sapere che i loro cari erano salvi, lontani dal combattimento - come se fossero in vacanza!  Avviliti ed amareggiati, si battezzarono ironicamente i ‘D-Day Dodgers’ – coloro che si erano svincolati dalla partecipazione alla grande battaglia di Normandia.

Eppure, in Italia si continuava a combattere, ed a morire, per altri undici lunghi mesi.  Basta visitare i cimiteri di guerra di tutto il centro-nord dell’Italia, per rendersi conto del prezzo di questo secondo anno della Campagna d’Italia. Oltre alle migliaia di giovani soldati alleati da ogni dove, ed ai loro avversari, morirono ancora tanti civili e partigiani, spesso vittime di atroci rappresaglie. Se fino a Roma la Campagna d’Italia fu durissima - di cui fanno molto eco l’invasione della Sicilia, e gli sbarchi a Salerno ed Anzio, e soprattutto la spaventosa e interminabile battaglia di Cassino - l’anno successivo non fu di meno.

L’avanzamento degli alleati verso nord proseguì senza sosta, in Toscana e nelle Marche, per tutto l’estate e l’autunno del 1944, portando alla liberazione Livorno, Firenze, Arezzo, Ancona e Rimini. Arrivarono a ridosso della Linea Gotica, l’immensa barriera di difesa tedesca degli Apennini settentrionali. Già a settembre, gli Americani avevano superato due importanti passi degli Apennini, ma non riuscirono ad avanzare quegli ultimi chilometri che li separavano da Bologna e Imola. Quasi contemporaneamente, le forze britanniche oltrepassarono Rimini per essere subito frenate dalla fitta rete di canali della Romagna. L’inverno e la tenacia della difesa nemica avrebbero imposto un'altra sosta, prima dell’ultima gloriosa offensiva della primavera del 1945. Solo allora gli alleati, con la collaborazione dei partigiani, sarebbero riusciti a cacciare gli occupanti nazisti ed a liberare le grandi città del nord. A quest’ultimo sforzo alleato, si deve anche la salvezza di Trieste e di gran parte del Friuli Venezia-Giulia che rischiavano di essere assorbiti dal nascente stato jugoslavo.

Un bilancio non magro per un fronte secondario. 

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The Serchio River valley in northern Tuscany

Rome, the Eternal City, seat of Popes and Emperors, was the first Axis capital to fall into Allied hands. General Mark Clark and Fifth Army entered Rome on 4 June 1944, just 36 hours before the D-Day landings in Normandy and the opening of the long awaited second front. The significance and prestige of the moment was soon eclipsed by the greater event of the Allied invasion of occupied France. The world’s attention turned to Normandy, and Italy became the ‘forgotten front’. One can only imagine the chagrin of the soldiers who began receiving letters from home expressing relief and joy that they were ‘safe’ in Italy and not near the fighting! They styled themselves the D-Day Dodgers and made up a jaunty song about this ‘truancy’, but there was little to joke about.  The fighting continued relentlessly throughout the summer of 1944, in Tuscany and the Marche (with depleted forces because several divisions had been diverted to France).

The main German defence lines north of Rome

The Allied soldiers had left behind the Gustav Line at Cassino, but there were several other defence lines north of Rome, including the formidable Gothic Line of the northern Apennines. 

The United States were more interested in the French theatre, while Britain, aware of the communist threat in the east, was anxious to secure Italy and the Balkans to the West. The spectre of a divided Europe and what would be known as the Cold War made victory in Italy even more urgent, not only to drive the Germans back over the Alps and liberate Italy, but to seal its eastern borders and contain communism.

Unfortunately for Italy and all those involved in the Campaign, the American strategy won the day and a new attack was launched on the south coast of France on 26 July 1944, diverting from the Italian front more vital resources in terms of air support, landing craft and troops. By this time the Allied war effort was stretched to its limits, with three fronts in Europe, as well as the war in the Pacific. While this new front undoubtedly drew off some of the pressure on the Allied troops engaged in the Battle of Normandy, it also reduced the pressure on the German defensive forces in Italy. It would take another winter, and almost a year to achieve German surrender in Italy. The cost would be thousands more lives on both sides, and a bitter civil war, which brought the Allies to the limits of endurance and the country to its knees.

After the fall of Florence on 4 August 1944, Allied strategy was to attempt a two-prong attack on the Gothic Line. While the medley of troops under British command were engaged in the push towards Rimini on the Adriatic coast, the Americans began the attack in the central Apennines. Fifth Army’s main effort was to be concentrated on the Giogo Pass (Route 503, at the time called Route 6528), while making a feint along the main road, the paved Route 65, towards the more heavily defended Futa Pass (which the German command continued to believe was the real objective).

The main American attack – preceded by heavy air attacks on the main railways and transport routes to Bologna - was launched on September 13 and initial progress was good. By 21 September, the Americans had broken through both the Giogo Pass (882 m), and the Futa Pass (903 m). In theory, two important roads towards Bologna were now open. But the enemy had only pulled back and would offer determined resistance - aided by the onset of winter - in those tantalizing few miles before Bologna.

The top of the Futa Pass (903 m) on the main road SS 65 between Florence and Bologna

In the next two months, sporadic fighting followed, with no great results. Although they eventually captured Castel del Rio, after the costly battle with Italian partisans to retain possession of Monte Battaglia in the last days of September 1944, 88^th Division could advance no further. Some 25 km of twisting mountain road still separated the Fifth Army from Imola, on Route 9.  The narrow gorge of the upper Santerno valley, with its rugged mountains and steep ravines on both sides, was an effective bottleneck which did not allow General Clark to send reinforcements.

Meanwhile, further to the east, the first obstacles that Eighth Army encountered were the ridges of Gemmano and Coriano. The German decision to defend these positions held up the Allied advance into the Romagna Plain for more than three weeks and ensured the loss of thousands of lives on both sides.  

The village of Gemmano today

One of the historical panels illustrating the tragedy

The battles at Gemmano and Coriano were among of the bitterest of the entire Italian campaign: it took the Eighth Army four attacks to clear the German positions and win the battle, which lasted more than ten days (from September 4 to September 15) and exacted a tremendous toll of blood. When the last obstacle, the Fortunato ridge, fell on 20 September, the way to Rimini was open. 

The old coastal road SS 16 towards Rimini

As elsewhere in Italy, the land favoured the defender and the weather began to deteriorate after the first week of September, so that the exhausted front-line troops of the Eighth Army soon found themselves in miserable conditions likened to those of the trenches of northern France in WWI, beleaguered by the elements, where road surfaces became a sea of mud.  It was the early onset of what was to be another grim winter, which would block the Allies for months, testing the endurance of both attackers and defenders. Much had been accomplished, but it would take six more months to wear down the enemy. Not until the last offensive in the spring of 1945 would the Allies, with the help of the Italian partisans, finally succeed in liberating Italy not only of the Nazi occupiers, but also of the Communists, saving Trieste and a good part of Friuli Venezia-Giulia from being absorbed into the nascent republic of Yugoslavia.

Allied  graves at Coriano Ridge War Cemetery