Was Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery really the master of war he’s portrayed as? Was Churchill’s favourite general, Sir Harold Alexander, too vague to be an effective senior leader? And just how efficient was Albert Kesselring? In the first of this two-part blog series, Co-Author Andrew Sangster casts a surprising new light on the legendary leaders who spearheaded the Italian campaign…
About twelve years ago, the Italian historian Pier Paolo Battistelli and I met through email because we were both working on the same subject, namely the life of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Pier Paolo and I have never met, have never spoken to each other, but have remained in daily touch through email, seeking information from one another, offering opinions, and checking work together. We have become close friends and shall meet for the first time in Rome this March. This is not the first book we have co-authored, and this one about Italy in WWII arose because of our mutual interest in modern Italian history.
‘Smiling Albert’ & the English Commanders
Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-2629 via Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Because of our work on Kesselring, we came to understand him as a master of defence, albeit a war criminal. We noticed that even his Allied opponents spoke well of him, often addressing him as ‘Smiling Albert’ or in code as ‘The Emperor’, even though some of their failures could be blamed on his brilliance at defence. This led to this current work. Pier Paolo brought his expertise to bear on the flawed strategies of the Allies compared to the defence organised by Kesselring.
Kesselring understood Italy’s terrain and weather better than the Allied planners, a country easier to defend than attack, and he developed plans for the swift transfer of his troops to areas of conflict.
His opponents on the Allied side, whilst still admired today, had their flaws. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, the British war hero, bullied the Americans while invading Sicily with his immense ego and strongly expressed opinions, causing a high degree of Anglophobia. On the mainland of Italy, he came under criticism for his slow progress up the eastern side of Italy to relieve the near-failed landing at Salerno. Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander was a thorough English gentleman, but he was noted for his apparent inability to control his subordinates, and he was often slow in reaching a decision or being directional with his orders.
America’s Greatest Heroes?
In Sicily, American General George S. Patton became infamous for slapping his own soldiers, who were patients in a military hospital, and he tried to ignore two of his men massacring Italian POWs. The root cause of their behaviour, these soldiers claimed, was Patton’s overly robust instructions to kill everyone. Another U.S. General Mark W. Clark was inexperienced in the field of combat and nearly abandoned the Salerno landings, having refused naval gunfire in the initial stages in the belief the opposition would be caught by surprise and not want to fight.
National Archives and Records Administration, 196610 via Wikimedia Commons /
He later disobeyed Alexander’s orders by occupying Rome, when he should have moved to block and encircled a German army moving north from the Gustav line and Monte Cassino, the latter battle also being a military disaster for the Allies and their reputation. Clark had been responsible for the Anzio landings, which stayed on the beachhead too long, leading to Churchill’s famous statement of the beached whale. Clark had been responsible for the Anzio landings, which stayed on the beachhead too long, leading to Churchill’s famous statement of the beached whale. By this stage, Clark and Patton were extremely Anglophobic, which was not helped by Montgomery and the aloof Alexander.
Understanding What Happened
The Americans had never been enthusiastic about landing in Italy, preferring to cross the English Channel and head straight to Berlin. As Field Marshal Alan Brooke pointed out, they would have been too early and unprepared to be successful, a truth later recognised by General Omar Bradley. Roosevelt had acknowledged that his troops had to ‘be blooded’ and gain experience. After the fall of Rome, the war moved north, involving bitter partisan warfare, where massacres and reprisals muddied Kesselring’s reputation. His postwar death sentence was commuted for reasons of the developing Cold War, but he had the full support of the gentleman Lord Alexander, his old opponent.
The ups and downs of the war in Italy (1943-45) made the research interesting, at times horrifying. The role of the commanders was a prominent feature of this exploration, not out of a desire for debunking them but in an attempt to understand what happened.
This conflict underlined Churchill’s statement that fighting with Allies is difficult but impossible without them.
❓ What do you think about the leadership of the Italian campaign: effective or defective?
Want to learn more? Keep an eye out for Co-Author Pier Paolo Battistelli’s follow-up blog about the Italian campaign’s equally flawed strategy or commit to the full history with Sangster’s and Battistelli’s new book: Flawed Commanders and Strategy in the Battles for Italy, 1943–45.
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