Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

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the undertaking has served its purpose.
That was the case in Italy.
Unrealistic Strategies
Against this somber background and
in spite of General Marshall's pronouncement,
the Allied command in
Italy, in a mood reminiscent of that of
army commanders on the western front
during World War I, prepared in mid­
October to have one more try at capturing
Ravenna and Bologna. General
Alexander's plan called for the Fifth
Army, after debouching from the
mountains, to join with the Eighth
Army in encircling and destroying the
elusive Tenth Army. The hope was utterly
fi:>rlorn. Neither south of Rome,
during the pursuit to the Arno, nor
following the breakthrough of the
Gothic Line had the t\",O Allied armies
succeeded in so disorganizing the enemy
as to cut off and destroy any
significant portion of the German
armed forces. In mid-October, f()llowing
several weeks of minor advances
won at the expense of numerous casualties
and at the end of ever-lengthening
supply lines, that possibility seemed
even less likely than before.
By that time not only Allied but also
C..erman strategy in northern Italy had
come to assume an air of unreality.
Instead of \vithdrawing to the line of
the Alps, a superb natural defensive
barrier from which the Austro-German
armies had kept the Allies at bay
through much of World War I, the
German high command continued to
employ in defense of northern Italy
many units whose presence on other
fronts, while not sufficient in themselves
to turn the tide of battle, could at least
CASSINO TO THE ALPS
have won for the Germans needed tnne
to extricate their armies. Hitler's determination
to keep alive Mussolini's
shadow republic and to maintain a grip
on the admittedly large agricultural and
industrial potential of the Po Valley
seems to have been among the reasons
for Kesselring's back-to-the-waU defense
in the Apennines and along the swollen
rivers of the Romagna Plain. As with
the Allies, there was also possibly the
additional factor, as already noted, that
campaigns often tend to develop their
own partisans; the German armed
forces too had their Mediterranean taction.
Falling back on what surely seemed
to the Allied commanders an interminable
series of defensive positions, Kesselring's
strategic and tactical problems
presented him with fewer difficulties
than those of his Allied counterparts.
But he had other problems, among
them the unexpected loss of one of his
army commanders. In mid-Ocotober
General Lemelsen, his Fourteenth Army
commander, became ill and was evacuated
to a hospital. To take command of
the Fourteenth Army until his recovery,
Kesselring selected the XIV Panzer Corps
commander, General von Senger und
Etterlin. 28
Taking stock of the situation, Senger
compared the situation on the Bologna
sector to a thick doth incessantly jabbed
by a spear. For a time the cloth's
elasticity would prevent the spear from
breaking through, but eventually the
doth would give way.29
To prevent the fabric of the Bologna
sector from being pierced, von Senger
28AOK 14, fa KTB Ani. 5, 14 Oct 44. AOK 14,
Doc. 65922/2.
29Senger, Neither Hope nor Fear, p. 276.