Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

PLANNINC FOR THE OFFENSIVE
Minister Churchill: a thrust from northeastern
Italy through Slovenia, toward
which Tito and his Yugoslav partisan
army were moving, and into the valley
of the mid-Danube, objective of the
southern wing of the Red Army. Later
in the month, after the Russians overran
Rumania, the military logic of
Churchill's arguments and Alexander's
eastward shift of the locale of his main
offensive would seem in British eyes
compelling. 15 To what degree, if any,
Churchill's views influenced, or indeed,
determined Alexander's decision to
change his original plans for the Gothic
Line offensive, can, at best, only be
inferred.
In any case, Leese's argument appealed
to Alexander, who readily accepted
it. 1 £; Yet \\' hen he first submitted
the new concept to the theater commander
for approval, General Wilson's
Joint Planning Staff, strongly influenced
by General Devers, was less than enthusiastic.
The stafe {(H' example, considered
the naval and amphibious operations
planned against the enemy's leh
t1ank too ambitious. Neither the contiguration
of the coast in the Ravenna
area nor the resources available would
permit significant operations along the
coast. Only two gunboats with 6-inch
guns could be made available to supplement
a small destroyer t()I'ce already in
l'Ehnnan, Grand Strategy, vo\. V, pp. 390-93.
I"Whether, as has been suggested, onlv because
of a tendencv to "see the other man's point of view"
seems difficult to determine, f(lI' Alexander himself
has written little about the decision other than to
note his own concern "at the prospect of extensive
operations in the mountains without mv best mountain
troops, the French." Yet he had knm,'n fill'
some time that these troops would not be available
f(ll' the Gothic Line offensive. See Douglas Orgill,
Tfu· Co/hir Lin/': Th/' Italian CamtJaign, Autumn, 1944
(New York: W.W, Norton & Co., 19(7), p, 32.
305
the Adriatic. Nevertheless, since most
operational requirements, including air
support, seemed well within the theater's
capabilities, Wilson approved the
plan in principle, and on 6 August
Alexander issued orders for preliminary
operations designed to set the
stage for the main offensive to be
mounted from the right flank instead
of the center. Yet right up to the eve of
the offensive many doubts as to the
plan's feasibility lingered on at Allied
headquarters, especially among the
American members of Wilson's Joint
Planning Staff 17
Preliminary Moves
On the Eighth Army fi'ont the most
important problem raised bv t he new
plan was how to continue operations in
such a way as to conceal the change
from the Germans. For this reason
General Leese directed General Anders,
the II Polish Corps commander, to
resume those operations northeast of
Ancona that had been interrupted on 4
August by a counterattack against the
Polish bridge head across the Misa
River. The Misa was the first of a series
of parallel rivers-the Cesano, the Metauro,
and the Foglia-which the
Eighth Army would have to cross in the
coastal corridor. Those rivers and the
military problems of crossing them had
been a bctor in Alexander's original
decision to attack in the mountains, and
changing the plan did nothing to make
the problems go away. 18
17SAC Despatch, Aug-Dec 44, pp. 5-6; Devers
Diary, vol. II; Alexander Dl's/Ja/rli, pp. 65-66;
Nicolson, All'x, pp. 263-64.
IHOperations of the British, Indian, and Dominion
Forces in Italy, Part Ill, Sec. F, The 2 Polish
Corps.