British General Harold Alexander, commander of the 15th Army Group and later all Allied armies in Italy, put forth his plan to do just that. Replacement troops and supplies would be scarce.īy the spring of 1944, it was time for an all-out, concerted effort to break the stalemate at Anzio, crack the Winter Line, and capture Rome, the Eternal City and the first Axis capital within the reach, if not yet the grasp, of Allied forces. The invasion of Normandy was coming, and once it occurred the Italian campaign would devolve into a sideshow-no less deadly than the fighting in Western Europe, but still a sideshow. And perhaps worst of all, time was running out for the Mediterranean Theater in terms of priorities. Two regiments of the 36th Infantry Division had been cut to pieces trying to cross the Rapido River. Elsewhere, repeated pounding at the Winter Line, a formidable series of German fortifications that, along with the Bernhard and Hitler Lines, were collectively known as the Gustav Line, had brought high casualties with no headway against the strong enemy positions at Cassino. The Allied VI Corps remained bottled up at the Anzio beachhead. German resistance to Allied operations had been brutal since the Salerno landings in the autumn of 1943, and by the following spring frustration had mounted upon frustration.
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