Process:1September 3, 943, Italian representatives and allied representatives secretly signed an armistice agreement.
1In the early morning of September 3rd, 943, Montgomery's 8th British Army crossed the narrow Messina Strait from Sicily, landed in the Italian Apennine Peninsula, and advanced rapidly to the south of Italy.
On September 8th, 1943, the BBC broadcast the official announcement of Italy's surrender.
10 in the early morning of September 9, 943, Clark's 5th Army of the United States (the 6th Army of the United States under the jurisdiction of Lucas and the 6th Army of Britain under Macquarie) landed in Salerno Bay. Italian leaders didn't expect the landing to come so soon. At first they denied the BBC, but later they admitted the fact. The vigilant Germans immediately disarmed 800,000 Italian troops and arrested a large number of Italian army officers. 1943, 10 September, occupied Rome, controlled Italy, and reached Naples in the south. The Italian king and bardo Leo fled to the allied occupied area at the southern end by submarine.
1September, 943 13, Hitler sent SS Lieutenant Colonel Selzer to command commandos to rescue Mussolini from the hotel at the top of the big Sasso Mountain by glider. Subsequently, with the support of Hitler, Mussolini set up a puppet government of "Italian society * * * and country" in northern Italy to confront the government of bardo Leo.
194310 June 13, Badoglio officially announced its withdrawal from the Axis alliance and declared war on Germany. At the same time, the governments of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union issued declarations one after another, recognizing Italy as a party fighting together.
Clark's American 5th Army landed in Salerno Bay, and met with fierce resistance from the Germans. Marshal Kesselring, commander-in-chief of the southern line of the German army, organized six of the eight divisions into the 10 army under the command of Fitinghoff. Fitinghoff resisted the allied forces in Salerno and tried to drive them into the sea.
On September 1943 and 12, the Germans launched a counterattack and rushed into the cracks between the 6th Army of the US Army and the British Army 10 Army that day. /kloc-in 0/3, the American army was expelled from Pessano in an attack on the left wing of the American army, which led to the great retreat of the American army. However, the Allies used the powerful naval and air forces to urgently send reinforcements to the Salerno bridgehead. By 16, the US 5th Army had 7 divisions and more than 200 tanks.
16 in the morning, the German offensive against the British 10 army was shattered under the attack of allied artillery, naval guns and tanks. Kesselring finally realized that it was only a pipe dream to drive the allies into the sea, so he decided to stop fighting that night and retreat to the north while fighting. And destroy bridges, roads, tunnels and railway facilities along the way to stop the allied forces from advancing. Clark marched on the west coast of Italy.
1 943101October1day, the 5th Army of the United States occupied Naples. On the same day, Montgomery's British Eighth Army occupied Foggia on the east coast. 101October14th, the U.S. Fifth Army captured Kapuya and joined forces with the British Eighth Army in the east, thus establishing a 120-mile-long solid front in southern Italy.
1October 5th, 1943, 165438+ Hitler ordered Marshal Rommel to inspect and reinforce the coastal fortifications of the Atlantic Barrier, and Rommel's Army Group B was dissolved, and the German troops stationed in Italy were combined into Army Group C, which had jurisdiction over Army Group 10 in Fitinghoff and Army Group/kloc-0 in Mackensen. Marshal Catherine is the commander in chief. In order to prevent the Allies from advancing further to the north, Kesselring set out from the west coast 80km south of Rome in the west, crossed the Apennines and reached the east coast, and established the "Gustav Line" across central Italy. The defense line is based on the Cassino Pass and built according to the natural hazards of the mountain peaks, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack. The American 5th Army and the British 8th Army launched several offensives, trying to break through the defense lines, but all failed. All winter, the allies were blocked by Gustav's line.
At the beginning of 1944, the 15 army group commanded by Alexander had 19 division, 4 brigades, 4,000 planes and more than 3,000 ships. In order to break the deadlock and speed up the campaign, Alexander decided to strengthen the frontal attack, and at the same time, landed in the southern Roman town of Anzio with some troops, breaking through the German defense line from behind. 1944 65438+1October 12, the 5th Army of the United States launched an attack in the casino area. Clark attracted most of the German 14 troops with the rushing out of the British 10 and the French, while the 2nd Army of the US Army advanced to Lilly Valley, trying to cross the Lapido River.
The Lapido River doesn't look very wide, but its depth is very fast. The main task is the 36th Infantry Division of the United States under the command of General Walker. Walker believes that the possibility of success in this operation is extremely small. He does not approve of crossing the river and can only carry out orders. The battle lasted for a day and a night, and as a result, the American army ended in a fiasco. Casualties of the 36th Infantry Division of the US Army 168 1.
1944 65438+1On October 22nd, the 6th Army of the United States under the command of General Lucas landed in anzio. At first, the landing operation went smoothly, and the US military quickly established a beachhead position. Lucas intends to push 25 miles inland, occupy the Alps and cut off the German supply lines and retreat. But Lucas is too cautious. After his unexpected victory, he didn't push forward. In the next nine days, Lucas focused on bringing more troops and supplies ashore.
Kesselring immediately dispatched troops from France, Germany and Yugoslavia after learning that the allied forces had landed in anzio. By the 28th, four divisions were facing the 6th Army of the United States, ready to fight back.
1944 65438+1On October 30th, Lucas attacked the Alps. After three days of fighting and 5500 casualties, Lucas was forced to stop the attack. He ordered the 6th Army to dig trenches for self-defense and lay barbed wire and mines around the beachhead position.
The sudden landing of the allied forces in Anzio diverted the attention of the Germans. Clark ordered the 2nd Army of the United States and the New Zealand Division to attack Casino three times, but all failed. Although allied planes bombed the famous mountaintop building Cassino Monastery into rubble, it still didn't help. The Germans dug trenches along the mountain at the top of the mountain, and even used the ruins of the monastery as a cover to resist stubbornly, so that the allies could not break through the German defense. Therefore, the attack on Casino was called Clark's "darkest moment". Anzio beach has been in trouble at this time, not only unable to move forward, but also more and more Germans ahead.
By February 6th, 16, 10 German divisions had surrounded five allied divisions in Ancio.
1On February 28th, 944, the Germans launched a large-scale counterattack, trying to drive the allied forces into the sea in one fell swoop. However, they were attacked by the allied air force on a large scale and lost more than 30 tanks that day. Kesselring had to stop its counter-offensive on March 4th 1944 and maintain its encirclement of five American divisions.
Until mid-May, anzio became a trap for American troops. In more than four months, he was compressed in the beachhead position, with more and more casualties and nothing to do. A reporter described the situation of the US military at that time: "The US military lived here like primitive people. In that case, waving sticks may be more decent than using machine guns. "
After trying to bypass the German defense failed, the allies in the valley and the seaside were in trouble, and the Allied High Command had no choice but to storm.
On May 1944+0 1 Day and night, under the coordinated bombing of allied air forces, the allies launched an all-round attack on Gustav's defense line. In the French army, a brave Moroccan indigenous cavalry unit grew up in the deep mountains, climbed mountains and mountains, rushed to the peak at an altitude of 4850 feet, and launched an attack behind the German army.
1May, 94414th, after fierce and cruel fighting, the second detachment of Polish army finally broke into the ruins of Cassino monastery. The German Gustav line was breached in many places, and Kesselring was forced to order the German troops to retreat to the Kaiser line from the Tiber estuary to the east coast of pescara.
On May 22nd, 1944, the 6th Army of the United States, which was trapped in the beachhead of anzio, also launched an attack, and joined forces with the frontal attack troops on May 25th. The Germans continued to retreat northward, to the Gothic line from San Marino to carrara. 1On June 4th, 944, Rome was declared as undefended city.
At 9 o'clock that night, the American Fifth Army first entered Rome. After the occupation of Rome, the allied forces continued to advance northward, attacking the Gothic defense line on August 25th 1944, and completely breaking through the defense line on September 28th 1944. After breaking through the Gothic line, due to the need of landing in Western Europe, the Allies transferred seven elite divisions from the Italian battlefield, which made the Italian battlefield once in a state of silence.
At first, the hope that the Allies intended to break through the Gustav line from behind by landing operations was dashed, so Clark dismissed Lucas, commander of the sixth army of the United States, and appointed General Truscott as commander of the sixth army of the United States. Kesselring, commander-in-chief of the German army in Italy, thinks that the real mistake of anzio Auden's land war is not Lucas, but "the landing force is not strong and lacks the cooperation of mechanized troops. This is an inadequate attack. " After the failure of the attempt to bypass the German defense line, the allies in the valley and the seaside were in trouble, and the allied high command had no choice but to storm.
Results:1In April, 945, the Western Allied Forces and the Soviet Red Army launched a powerful offensive against Germany at the same time, and the German army faced the crisis of total collapse, and the Italian battlefield became active again. On April 9th, the 8th British Army under the command of McCreary and the 5th American Army under the command of Truscott attacked from the east and west wings. The Germans were demoralized, unable to resist and losing ground.
On April 2 1 day, the Eighth Army of the British Army and the Fifth Army of the US Army joined forces successfully. On April 23, the allied forces reached the Po River and captured 30,000 Germans. Then, the Allies crossed the Po natural barrier, conquered mantua and Verona on 26th, and occupied Genoa on 27th. At this time, a guerrilla uprising broke out in northern Italy and many cities were liberated. On the 28th, the Allies blocked the Alps pass where the Germans tried to escape.
On the same day, guerrillas caught Mussolini and his mistress trying to escape to Germany in Lake Como and shot them before the Americans arrived. The next day, their bodies were transported to Milan, hung upside down in the downtown square and displayed in a medieval way. On April 29th, the 5th Army of the United States was stationed in Milan, and the 8th Army of Britain was stationed in Padua. On the same day, the representative of Fitinghoff, commander of German C Army Group, signed an unconditional surrender in Casetta, which took effect on May 2. At this point, the Italian campaign is all over.