Gothic Line - Background

Background

After the nearly concurrent breakthroughs at Cassino and Anzio in spring 1944, the 11 nations representing the Allies in Italy finally had a chance to trap the Germans in a pincer movement and to realize some of Winston Churchill's strategic goals for the long, costly campaign against the Axis "underbelly". This would have required U.S 5th Army under Lieutenant General Mark Clark to commit most of his Anzio forces to the drive east from Cisterna, and to execute the envelopment envisioned in the original planning for the Anzio landing (i.e., flank the German 10th Army, and sever its northbound line of retreat from Cassino). Instead, fearing that the 8th Army might beat him to Rome, Clark diverted a large part of his Anzio force in that direction in an attempt to ensure that he and the 5th Army would have the honour of liberating the Eternal City.

As a result, most of Kesselring's forces slipped the noose and fell back north fighting delaying actions, notably in late June on the Trasimene Line (running from just south of Ancona on the east coast, past the southern shores of Lake Trasimeno near Perugia and on to the west coast south of Grosseto) and in July on the Arno Line (running from the west coast along the line of the Arno River and into the Apennine Mountains north of Arezzo). This gave time to consolidate the Gothic Line, a 10 mi (16 km) deep belt of fortifications extending from south of La Spezia (on the west coast) to the Foglia Valley, through the natural defensive wall of the Apennines (which ran unbroken nearly from coast to coast, 50 mi (80 km) deep and with high crests and peaks rising to 7,000 ft (2,100 m)), to the Adriatic Sea between Pesaro and Ravenna, on the east coast. The emplacements included numerous concrete-reinforced gun pits and trenches, and 2,376 machine-gun nests with interlocking fire, 479 anti-tank, mortar and assault gun positions, 120,000 m (130,000 yd) of barbed wire and many miles of anti-tank ditches. This last redoubt proved the Germans' determination to continue fighting.

Nevertheless, it was fortunate for the Allies that at this later stage of the war the Italian partisan forces had become highly effective in disrupting the German preparations in the high mountains. By September 1944, German generals were no longer able to move freely in the area behind their main lines because of partisan activity. Major General (Generalleutnant) Frido von Senger und Etterlin—commanding German XIV Panzer Corps (XIV Panzerkorps)—later wrote that he had taken to travelling in a little Volkswagen "(displaying) no general's insignia of rank — no peaked cap, no gold or red flags...". One of his colleagues who ignored this caution—Brigadier Wilhelm Crisolli (commanding the 20th Luftwaffe Field Division)—was caught and killed by partisans as he returned from a conference at corps headquarters.

Construction of the defenses was also hampered by the deliberately poor quality concrete provided by local Italian mills whilst captured partisans forced into the construction gangs supplemented the natural lethargy of forced labor with clever sabotage. Nevertheless, prior to the Allies' attack, Kesselring had declared himself satisfied with the work done, especially on the Adriatic side where he "...contemplated an assault on the left wing....with a certain confidence".