The Gothic Line Battlefield in the High Apennines
By the end of August 1944, not only the German High Command but the enemy rank and file knew that the war could not be won. Month after month of unremitting defeat, with the strongest positions torn from their grasp, the stoutest counter-attacks flung back, with stop-gap successes fewer and fewer, brought home to the Nazi cannon-fodder the certainty that they were battling in a lost cause. The system of keeping reliable troops in battle until exhausted, in order that substantial reserves might be available in lay-back positions, was a passable short-term but bad long-term policy, and when the adversaries drew up for a decisive battle on the slopes of the Apennines, the morale of the opposing forces boded ill for the defenders. Each day the wireless brought exhilarating news to the men of the United Nations from the Western European, Russian, Burmese and Southern Pacific fronts, and correspondingly depressing tidings to the enemy. The Allied Commanders, unlike the Wehrmacht leaders, had nursed their formations, interspersing operational tours with rest and training periods. They had been chary of expending lives to-day when bombs and shells might save them to-morrow. As a result the men of the British Commonwealth closed up on the Gothic Line in no mood of desperation, but rather with exuberant confidence in their ability to put paid to any foes who might be persuaded to stand and fight it out.
From time to time this narrative has recorded the surrender or desertion of Germans who crossed the lines to escape punishment or because of dislike for their commanders, or simply in order to save their skins. These incidents were typical of the war weariness and lack of offensive spirit which now characterized many enemy formations. A hard core of disciplined and even fanatical soldiery remained in the Wehrmacht, but around this residium an ever increasing number of Germans were softening up. Nor was this deterioration restricted to the raggle-taggle, the slovenly weaklings found in every army, who are the first to break. Disillusion had permeated even among the officer cadres, and particularly among the junior officers who bore the stresses of battle. Many diaries and letters, as well as the evidence of recently liberated Italians, revealed the same hectic pursuit of pleasure and the same sardonic attitude towards superiors which characterized British subalterns after the bloodbath of the Third Battle of Ypres in the Great War. In Florence and other occupied cities, life was very gay. German officers attended parties night after night, to return home in the small hours and to sleep until noon. (Before General Heidrich, last noticed
at Cassino, shifted from his villa at Reggello, he gave a monster party. The time of assembly had been faithfully reported to the Desert Air Force, whose bombers arrived at the reception hour to give house and grounds a thorough pasting.)
Indeed, the picture of the German occupation in Central Italy was quite un-Prussian, and nowhere more so than in the case of the 278th Berlin-Brandenburg Infantry Division, now entrusted with the unenviable task of holding up the Indians. Its commander, Major-General Harry Hoppe, who in person resembled the caricature of Colonel Blimp, was an eccentric and irascible man. He welcomed a new draft peculiarly. “You have come here to die,” he said, “and to be quick about it.” But he eased the rigours of training with instructions that “three times in each week, men will rest for one and a half hours after lunch”. His men sang ironically, “Do you know the Hoppe step – one pace forward, then two back?” He fostered morale by broadcasting clichés: “They Shall Not Pass” and “Better Death than Captivity”. (When the Poles crashed through his front at Ancona, one thousand of his men disagreed with him).
The Italian partisan movement had begun to contribute to the deterioration of German morale. The Forces of Italian Liberation no longer marched to battle as before Orsogna, with bands playing and flags flying. Better armed, better organized, and with the best imaginable terrain in which to operate, they were a constant drain and a danger to enemy detachments in the high mountains and sparsely settled areas. (General Hoppe was obliged to describe Easter, 1944, as a “sombre festival”, for on Good Friday partisans blew up a considerable number of his young men at a cinema performance). Death lurked for unwary Germans in the shadow of the woods, in dark alleys, on lonely roads. An even more serious aspect of the Italian revolt emerged during the construction of the Gothic Line. These fortifications had been planned at the time of the Allied invasion of Italy. Until the breakthrough at Cassino the work had proceeded slowly and spasmodically. Thereafter the Todt organization hurriedly conscripted many thousands of Italians and rushed the defences to completion. The German press gangs netted many partisans who supplemented the natural lethargy of forced labour with clever and effective sabotage. A poor quality of cement was supplied from Italian mills. Emplacements were built with blind traverses; pill-boxes unaccountably did not command all approaches. When battle was joined on the Gothic Line many of the gaps in the defences and “soft spots” exploited by Eighth Army owed their origin to bold and dangerous intervention by the patriot forces.
Thus neither the Gothic Line nor the men who manned it lived up to the traditions of German military genius – a fortunate circumstance for the United Nations, since few stronger natural positions exist than
the wall of mountains which stands sentinel above the valley of the Po and the plains of northern Italy: From the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic is one hundred and thirty miles; for more than a hundred of these miles the barrier of the High Apennines is unbroken. The Gothic Line followed the southern slopes of the transverse range from the Carrara massif on the west coast, over the Alpe Apuane, along the broken crests of Tuscany until beyond Florence, where the cross range fuses into the great central spine of the Kingdom. Thereafter the fortifications marched along the basic mountain core into the massive promontory of peaks and ridges which abutted to within a few miles of the Adriatic Coast. The eastern bulwarks of the defence system were anchored into the easy beaches to the south of Rimini.
Both Eighth and Fifth Armies were briefed for the assault upon this great mountain barrier. The main drive on Fifth Army’s front was directly across the grain of the ground into the north-east, on the shortest route to the Emilian plain. But concurrently the right hand corps of this Army would attack almost due east from Florence, in a diverging drive feeling across the highest mountains of all towards the eastern Po crossings. Eighth Army would concentrate in great strength on a narrow front on the Adriatic foreshore, for advance along the eastern foothills of the Apennines. This thrust would bear into the north-west, and if successful would converge on the axis of advance of the right-hand corps of Fifth Army in the Forli-Faenza area. In grand dimension therefore the Allied attack would be a straight left plus a left hook, with a ponderous right swing reaching for the left hook’s mark.
Eighth Army’s responsibilities extended over a front of forty miles, but the lie of the ground restricted the fighting area to approximately one-third of that distance. On the Adriatic Coast Second Polish Corps held the line. Ten miles inland First Canadian Corps took over. Beyond the Canadians, Fifth British Corps was arrayed, with First British Armoured Division, Fourth, Forty-Sixth, and Fifty-Sixth British Infantry Divisions, and Fourth Indian Division on the western flank of Eighth Army. On the left of the Indians a wide gap extended over the watershed of the Apennines as far as the Tiber Valley. A composite force of 27th Lancers, 12th Lancers and the Household Cavalry Regiment patrolled this hole in the line. At the Tiber Thirteenth British Corps, the right-hand corps of Fifth Army, took over.
All Indian Divisions were destined to fight in the new battle. As “D” Day drew near, Fourth Indian Division moved up from Lake Trasimeno., Tenth Indian Division, under Tenth British Corps, waited for the call among the mountains between the Arno and the Tiber. Eighth Indian Division, having cleared Florence, had moved eastwards to join Thirteenth Corps in the left hook across the Apennines. In addition, a new Indian formation was closing up for
the fray. It had been found necessary to alter Western Desert establishment and the proportional strength of men and machines in armoured divisions. In Italy fewer tanks and more infantry were needed. Thirty-first Indian Armoured Division, which had long rusticated in Paiforce and Middle East, had yielded up 43rd Indian Infantry Brigade to serve as lorried troops. (Although so described they saw little enough of their lorries in the campaign to come.) Under Brigadier A. R. Barker, O.B.E., M.C., 2/6th, 2/8th and 2/10th Gurkha Rifles landed at Taranto at the beginning of August, and staged forward to join First British Armoured Division. With them came their gunners, 23rd Field Regiment. Throughout its Italian service this brigade remained an independent unit, destined to serve many masters.
The narrative must now revert to the records of individual Indian formations.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage