WORLD WAR II-THE LIABILITY OF HAVING ITALY AS AN ALLY.

 

After the Stalingrad victory the Russian army became aggressive and drove out the German army from a swathe of Soviet territory.

Before this in 1942 itself the allied forces dealt a minor blow to the Axis powers in North Africa. In 1941 under the leadership of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the majority allied areas in North Africa have been captured by the Axis powers. From 1941 to 1943 the Axis powers fought the allied forces led by Britain back and forth Rommel’s tactics are superb. The British defeated his forces and pushed them back. Rommel made a counter attack  in such a way that the allied forces not only lost the area they gained from the Axis powers but also lost some more territory of theirs as well. Rommel wanted the entire North Africa.

In the 1^st battle of El Alamein was fought between the Axis powers led by Rommel and the British and Commonwealth forces led by General Claude Auchinleck in July 1942. The allied forces managed to stop the advance of Rommel’s forces when they were dangerously close to Alexandria just 100 Km away. This is a moral victory for the allied forces. At that time even stopping Hitler looked impossible let alone defeat the German forces.

The 2^nd battle of El Alamein was fought between 23^rd October 1942 to November 11^th 1942. The allied forces were now led by General Montgomery as Claude Auchinleck was sacked. This time the allied powers changed their game plan. They felt defeating Hitler’s troops on a single front was impossible and adopted the the double front tactics of Hitler himself. In this battle the American forces from the west and the British forces from the east simultaneously attacked Rommel’s troops. Rommel had to divide his troops into two which weakened both of them and the allied plan became a grand success. Finally Rommel’s forces got defeated and the entire North Africa came back into allied hands. That was the first defeat for Hitler and thereafter it was one defeat after another for him. Next blow was the Stalingrad campaign described earlier.

The Russians then held a meeting with the British and the Americans. They said, we are doing all the fighting with Hitler and you are proceeding in a relaxed manner. This would not do. You open a 2^nd front on Hitler and fight his forces. Britain then wanted to conquer France first from the South and attack Hitler. But the Americans had a different view. If a direct fight is had with Hitler they felt the allies would have to take high losses in both men and material, so they opted for a surreptitious attack on Hitler. We shall send our forces through the sea from Northern France un announced they said. But Churchill is an obstinate character did not budge from his stand, so America finally agreed to his plan.

The allies had a low opinion of Mussolini and the considered him to be a buffoon who is only good at giving speeches. He is no good at war, but his comfort is Hitler is there to back him. So it is better to take this weak link first. On 3^rd July 1943, the allied powers then made a sudden attack on Sicily named Operation Husky and rained bombs on Rome at the same time. Sicily had many migrant Americans and on top of that many Italians were not interested to join the 2^nd World War. The anti feeling on Mussolini went on increasing each day in the army as well as the people.

The Italian forces instead of fighting the allies like the Germans simply ran away in great haste. So the allies could easily occupy Sicily. Since Mussolini lost peoples support his opponents in the Fascist party rebelled and kicked him out of the Fascist council. The Italian forces were not good at fighting and they hastily surrendered to the allies along with the Fascist council.

Hitler is very intelligent and knew that this is going to happen. He sent German forces to take possession of Italy under Operation Axis. With that entire Italy came into German hands. But the morale of the allied forces was lifted by a spate of allied victories over Hitler. But when they tried to land in Italy the monsoon had set in it became very difficult to land the tanks and other equipment as well as proceed. The USA now said; see we already told you that we should attack through Northern France to which Churchill was forced to agree.

Filed Marshal Rommel was a highly decorated officer in the 1^st World War and he wrote a book on military tactics known as ‘Infantry Attacks”. Rommel led Hitler’s armies in Africa and was highly successful before he was finally defeated. He was a clean general and did not employ slaughter as other German generals did. He finally commanded the German forces against the allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. He was later implicated in a plot to kill Hitler. Hitler did not want to do anything to him in public looking to his status as a national war hero. So Rommel was offered a death by suicide with a promise that his reputation would not be tarnished and his family looked after. He committed suicide by taking a cyanide pill.