I hope he does it was Britain’s revenge for Singapore and restored their reputation giving the Japanese a major defeat he should also cover the British Pacific fleet who helped bombard the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa
That would be fantastic, it's known as the forgotten army. My great grand father was a Chindit in the King's Liverpool Regiment, sadly many of the details of his time there arent recorded.
first you're saying like "i thought it was in hoi4 but i guess it isn't" so change it to "i thought xxxx was the national focus in hoi4" second FUCKING SAME LMAO
It's also worth noting that the British "Italy First" strategy was a repeat of the Peninsula War against Napoleon. Given the British naval strength but army weakness, it always made sense to fight the Continental Power when they were as over extended as possible. While the US Army had a overoptimistic eagerness to confront the Germans directly in France, the US Navy very wisely opted to start their war of attrition with Japan in the Solomon Islands, the place where Japan was at the greatest logistical disadvantage.
King and Marshall pretty much decided to let King deal with the Pacific, and Marshall deal with the Atlantic. It kept them from stepping on each other's toes. And there was MacArthur, a pain in the ass for both. He kind of did his own thing, marginalized down to New Guinea and the Philippines.
The problem being it was a shitty plan that has been shown to be flat out wrong. The Invasion of Italy and Sicily were massive boondoggles on the same level as Gallipoli in WWI and must be ranked at the same level of catastrophic failure when considering Churchill military record. Post-war analysis has rather conclusively shown that if you never make plans to invade Siciliy and Italy and instead retain all that shipping and those troops for a cross-channel operation that there is no real reason you can't launch an invasion of France in summer of 1943 that's only marginally smaller then D-day in 1944. The thing is that if you hit France in 1943 you're hitting a FAR weaker and less prepared German army, who furthermore has not yet fielded some of the newer weapons that would prove problems in 1944 like massive numbers of panzerfausts and mass produced Panthers. Before it's even mentioned there also isn't really any advantage in terms of expereicne with going for Italy first as the troops sent there were pretty much bogged down and basically none of them ended up being used in France anyway. Given those factors it seems unlikely the battle in France goes any WORSE which means that you've likely accelerated the entire timeline of the western front by a full year. This massive commit to fairly open battle also likely means that the allies encounter new German equipment in a more piecemeal manner so for instance the Panther doesn't just come as a shock that's barely even known about in mid 1944, but is seen in increasing numbers with time to deploy countermeasures through the back end of 1943. Likely resulting in any even STRONGER allied Army in 1944. It's hard to see how this DOESN'T end the war months earlier at least. The British paranoia about cross channel invasion (up and including a quite possible literal sabotage of the Dieppe operation to hold up as an example of why it had to be delayed endlessly) and there raging egotism regarding pushing through their shitty Mediterranean strategy, chiefly driven by it's biggest backer Churchill has to be regarded as easily the worst grand scale decision of Western Allies in the entire war. It delayed an effective invasion in the west by a full year (and significantly weakened it when it did happen) while contributing virtually nothing to actually ending the war as it fed hundreds of thousands of men into a pointless meat-grinder on the peninsula. Even with the German army in full blown implosion in both East and West the forces in Italy BARELY even got out of the country by the time the war ended.
Securing southern Italy and Sicily was absolutely necessary to safeguard Allied shipping through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal from Axis air attacks, to shorten the route for vital resources like petroleum for the buildup to D-Day.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 stfu weeb it was obviously the easiest target.... the Italian army was pathetic so landing in Italy made sense. Plus. we had a obligation to help and defend Malta, my grandmothers husband was from gozo, trust me the maltease love Britain ...
It was discovered that the italian populist government was not in fact euro skeptic but just discussing WW2 strategies during the elections of 2018. "Italy first not Germany first" was a quite misunderstood statement.
USA & UK: "Ok, Germany first!" *US attacks the Japanese on Guadalcanal *US attacks the Japanese on Solomon Islands *US attacks the Japanese on Gilbert Islands *US attacks the Japanese on Admiralty Islands *US attacks the Japanese on New Guinea *US attacks the Vichy French in Morocco *US attacks the Italians in Tunisia * US attacks the Italians on Sicily * US attacks the Italians in Salerno *US attacks the Japanese on Marshall Islands USSR: "WTF?"
Yes, the US troop great in PNG losing all land gained by the Australians on the Kokoda trail back IJA. 😂 stop being such a dick head and stop believing Hollywood. It was a combined effort not just the US.
The Italian Campaign is so often overlooked by the more "grandiose" moments - but I think it was actually very important to the Allies' goals in Europe.
Fuzzy Dunlop Maybe. However it was more about the relationship between UK and US. The US wanted Italy so It could put bases both naval and military. Meaning they would then have a presence in the Mediterranean under the pretense of guarding against communism but in reality it could then threaten British and french navies which made use of the Med. So in a post war world they could get as much as they wanted out of those 2 countries like the end of there empires.
6:58 It is interesting to see Germans refer to the Western Allied forces as "angelsächsischen" (Anglo-Saxons). I have seen Russian WW2 propaganda films that show Stalin calling them "Anglosaksy" (Англосаксы).
In the east it's common to call them that because of smilar laws systems evolved from "common law" different from eastern coutries. And close language and culture.
Back then most western allied forces your average German would see would have some Anglo heritage, or were non-anglo Europeans who were anglicized such as Americans.
I don't think Hitler's reasoning for holding on in Tunisia made sense. After Torch he committed a far greater amount of men and material to a place that he hadn't before which he couldn't hope to supply. In the end that destroyed much of the remaining German air transport fleet and got more than a hundred thousand troops cut off and captured. A lot of loss for a few months more of squeezing Allied transport ships.
The Allies gained valuable amphibious experience in Torch and Husky. If the Allies had chosen to invade France in 1943 without that experience, things could have taken a turn for the worse.
@@MrShaneVicious Almost. The bombing campaign was marginal at best. It was Stalin who was wearing down the Germans. See Stalingrad, Citadel, Begration, etc.
Normandy shouldn't have happened the hole reason Italy wasn't winnable was time and numbers . U could throw the Normandy forces in Italy instead no beach slaughter fest but Eisenhower's dick got hard and he decided to use brute force like a caveman
He did but you have to remeber the terrain was nearly perfect for defence. Look at a topographic map of southern and middle Italy. You could not ask for better natural obstacles
Plus he didn't experience as much interference from Hitler as the other front Commanders, who were hampered by those dumbass "hold to the last man" orders.
Naming France as a "resistance", although it had no major operations up until august 1944, and not naming Yugoslav resistance, the only one against which Axis launched not one but SEVEN counteroffensives.
@@EdinProfa Your right my Slavic friend. Even 1944 Italy had stronger resistance than France. What I would like is a list of things that IIIrd Reich stole in occupied Europe. All civilian cars, 175.000 church bells etc. Those partisans weren't fighting for fun. They had a huge list of reasons.
I would love to see information on Students paratroopers. How their losses in Crete convinced Hitler the paratroopers was no longer useful. But the Americans were so impressed they wanted some of their own. Quite a different attitude.
Often happens in a totalitarian regime, if you create a infamous regiment by giving them the best equipment, training and choice of recruits and make them out to be national heroes then you become afraid to risk losing them in combat for fear of public embarrassment so you send in the less well trained and less well equipped troops instead as they are more expendable. Similar happened in the USSR after World War 2, the bulk of the messy high casualty jobs were given to the second tier units rather than the first tier units.
@@watcherzero5256 but Students paratroopers were not held back. After Sicily they were sent to the Russian front. It's just that they were not used as they were trained again.
The general Student was sent to the Eastern Front, his paratroopers in the first Parchute Corp were made a 30,000 strong reserve army eventually seeing service in the battle of the Rhine. The 2nd Parachute Corp was an entirely new division raised for the Eastern front from the remains of Division Meindl with little to no actual parachute training being given. Other elements of the Fallschirm-Jäger saw combat in Normandy. Then in 1944/45 they started reforming survivors of other infantry units into new Paratroop divisions with the training division becoming the 7th and seeing battle in Normandy in 44, and the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 20th and 21st not being completely reformed and not seeing combat (with the exception of the 9th which saw action in the Battle of Berlin)
Given the bloody nature of the landings in Sicily, at Anzio and especially the gruesome slaughter of Tarawa in November 1943, a cross-channel invasion in 1942 or 1943 seems practically destined to be a catastrophe.
Yes Dieppe was a small experiment to see if taking a port could be done and the answer was no, so they developed the mulberry harbours and invaded beaches instead. On a larger scale dry runs for larger invasions were done like in Sicily and Okinawa as well as the US requiring experience so given the easy and non vital Morrocco.
so D day happened because of husky. and midway was won because of coral sea. This taught me an important lesson in military theory. *When you need to understand the a battle, always look at the previous battle.* and a new look at the saying: *every general fought the last war*
Midway was won because of many reasons. It happened because of many reasons. Indeed, the Doolittle Raid had more to do with Midway happening than Coral Sea.
@@Raptor747 The raid had more to do with the sense of urgency that determined the timing of the attack on Midway. Coral Sea played a major role in setting up the victory at Midway. Yes, the Americans traded a full sized carrier for a smaller one in the battle, but it also kept two other Japanese carriers from the battle because they had to replace a large portion of their aircraft and pilots. Of course, being able to read Japan's communications certainly didn't hurt either.
Winston said ("The Second World War"): Trying to bring Turkey to war against the Reich was also important for the British. Great topic Bernhard! Greetings from Hamburg
Turkey was played on the card of joining the UN afterwards if and only then turkey joins the war. Turkey bought alll the time she could and finally declared war on germany. A day before war in europe ended thus no turkish soldier fought the war.
I guess the inexperienced US military and the limited capacity of amphibious assaults would be the main factors for me advising against a strong frontal assault on the west front directly. The Normandy landings in 1944 nearly ended in failure, and without the experience from earlier naval landings and earlier combat experience for US troops it would have been hard for the allies to resist the full force of the German army. The US military were still noobs in 1944 despite the fighting in north Africa, Italy and the pacific should have teached them to be better prepared. The British knew better and used all kinds of special purpose vehicles during D-Day, but the Americans rejected any use of the many special variants of Churchill tanks and the sherman crab for mineclearing - and suffered from high losses as a consequence, while the British landings went smoothly.
The Americans were overconfident in themselves and not so realistic. They rejected the Hobart Funnies because they thought that airpower would be able to cancel out any problem. But at Omaha it didn't. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong at that beach. The bombers all missed their targets. The ships with rocket artillery also all missed their targets so the rockets fell into the water instead of hitting the German defences on the beaches, and the smoke the rockets created prevented the Americans from seeing the German defences. So the Americans had a rough day at Omaha beach. And once the beach had at Normandy had been secured, then the Americans tried a breakout. The Americans thought that once the tanks was ashore then the advance would be easy. But things turned out to be harder for the Americans than expected - it turned out to be more difficult to do tank warfare in Normandy than in the open training grounds in Louisiana. The Terrain at Normandy was filled with ditches, narrow roads with stone walls on the sides, and hedgerows (the infamous bocage) everyware. The ideal terrain for ambushes and defence, and the American attacks were driven into a halt. Since it proved to be a difficult task to get through the thin but excellent German defensive line and things wasn't so easy as in American theory. The British troops also got stuck in their breakout operation, but they faced more German divisions than the Americans and the brits were short in manpower as many British divisions were sitting in Italy. And the Normandy landings seemed to end up in a disaster for the allies after being stuck on the beach for 2 months without being able to make a breakout. According the plan should they have conquered a harbour and being able to send in supplies to their 1.5 million men strong army on the beach. But without a harbour it would be impossible to supply such a large force in the long run, and enormous amounts of allied troops would be stuck in a little prison of northern France and not being able to be used elseware. Had the allies not been able to push through the German defences before the end of that year, then the Germans might have won their greatest military victory ever. And the Brits and Americans started to blame each other for the failure. But then Hitler decided to save the allies from defeat. He took his small number of troops and ordered them to do the same mistake as the allies - attack with tanks in the Normandy terrain totally unsuitable for armour and the losses were of course high. And unlike the allies did the Germans not have any reserves so once the operation was canceled (the Avranche offensive) after its failure, then the German army around Normandy had been weakened and the allies could now punch through the German defences and finally do their breakout. And the German defences were completly rolled up and the allies won one of their biggest strategic victories as the westfront collapsed. So I think it is fair to say that the Americans were overconfident in themselves. And they were inexperienced and not very realistic in their goals. Their lessons from the fighting in Sicily were perhaps too much in recent memory for the Americans to being able to absorb the knowledge. For a long time did I think that the war was basicly over for the Germans by 1944 and that the superiority in numbers was so total that there was no way the Germans could win on the western front - The Luftwaffe had only 2 planes to take on ten thousand allied. But now I think that I was wrong earlier. I see atleast 3 possibilities how the Germans could have won. * During D-day did the Germans act logical and reasonable like any of us would. They heard that the situation at Omaha beach was reasonably under control and that the much more acute danger were in the other landing zones so they therefore rushed their reinforcements to those places instead of sending them to Omaha. But history could have ended very differently if the Germans had done the complete opposite and reinforced Omaha instead and pushed back and destroyed the allied landing there. And once that had been done, then the Germans could free up troops to fight back the allied landings on the other beaches and place after place roll back the allied offensive back into the sea. And D-day would have ended in an allied disaster. * A second possibility is of course that the Germans would never have launched its Avranche offensive and that the allies would have been stuck in a siege at the Normandy beachhead and that the entire allied operation would end up in a disaster for that reason instead. * And a third possibility would have been if the Germans somehow have gotten into clarity about the situation. Even after 2 months of fighting in Normandy was the Germans unwilling to send more than half of their troops to the Normandy area because they still believed that the Normandy landing was not the real landing but only a distraction for the "real" allied landing which would take place somewhere else. And the Germans expected that this real landing would probably happen near Pas de Calais, so they concentrated the bulk of their forces there. Later on would they become a little more hesitant in their earlier beliefs so they reluctantly sent away some of their divisions to support the German defence at Normandy. But during the entire battle did the Germans choose to keep their 15th army in Pas de Calais instead of helping the 17th army fight the allied invasion at Normandie. Had the Germans concentrated their forces elseware then the defensive line would have been able to hold the allies back. And the allied troops in Normandie would have been starved from supplies.
*"American forces never stalled out. The British forces were an Auxiliary who had the easier job"* When we talk about the breakout from Normandy this was not the case. 8 infantry and 6 panzer divisions were blocking the British/Canadian advance. While 9 infantry divisions and 2 panzer divisions were blocking the American advance. *"British forces also failed to capture Antwerp or the Netherlands despite being up against wimps while the Americans faced off against the advanced German forces on the main line."* Pattons 3rd army was stalled for weeks (between august and november) in the fighting around the town Metz. The Americans outnumbered the defenders - which consisted of the shittiest low quality troops in the German army which were totally unsuitable for any other duty than being a garrison of the 70 year old fortress near the town. Volksgrenadier-Division 462 was garbage but it could nevertheless keep the Americans back for weeks. And the Americans once again believed that air power could compensate for anything - including the lack of heavy artillery, engineers and trained infantry. The Americans was superior in both quantatity and quality, but the American 3rd army still needed weeks before it could crush a dozen German junk divisions. So I very much doubt that the Americans would have been able to get a foothold in Europe in 1942 or 1943. And even in 1944 was the Americans dangerously close to failing with the D-day landings. So the idea of making a landing on the western front (France-Belgium-Netherlands-Germany-Denmark) early in the war was a bit overly ambitious in my opinion.
The British fought against some of the best units of the German army. The SS divisions Leibstandarte, Das reich, Hohenstaufen, Frundsberg and Hitlerjugend are all usally considered the best troops of the German military, if not even the best troops in the entire war. And the reason was that the Germans shared the British (Montgomery's) view of the importance of the Caen area. If the British had won there then the entire German front would have imploded. So it was important to secure this area for the Germans. It was much was at stake. Had the British made a big mistake in this area then an oppurtunity would have opened itself up for the German to counter-attack which would have made the allied position to implode. And while I am not a fan of teenage solidiers I would however point of that this was much the norm. The American troops in Normandy were also mostly teenage boys. And so was the American troops in Vietnam. So I really don't see your point about Hitlerjugend as a formation as inferior to any other. Nazi-Germany was a country which wanted men in their late teens and early twenties to fight the war. While ironically the old SA men who supported Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had - to their own dissapointment - become too old for service in the frontline units. So men above 30 were usally used for service at the home front in FLAK units or guarding POWs. Strange priorities perhaps, but this was how countries usally prioritized. Personally I think it is immoral to let 16 year old Germans die uboats and 16 year old Americans go to Vietnam... and I would rather see men in their late 20s and early 30s do majority of the fighting in the frontline. I do however not know any such war when this has been the norm, but I happily get enlightened if there are any wars when this has not been the case.
Yawn. 1st SS fought against the British during operation Goodwood (which focused on taking Caen - an objective of D-Day), and the German tank ace Michael Wittmann also reached the peak of his career when he fighting against the British at Normandy a week after the landing.
Germans to Italians in 1940: You want to go in Safari in the desert ? Have fun, but don't count on us. Germans to Italians in 1943: It's strategic, we cannot afford to lose Tunisia ...
I'll be honest that from just reading the title and thumbnail, I thought that Italy actually had plans to form its own faction of the Novus Imerium Romanum, not team up with Germany and directly fight/contest the British by itself.
I like all the logistical discussion. It’s generally profoundly important for all fighting, especially for total war. It’s also interesting that you mention the reasons for the German emphasis on quick victory. The Japanese had similar motivation, although their fast war focus was much more naval. The US Marine Corps had a real emphasis on tactical speed and aggressiveness. I suspect it was because until the island was secured, there was a big fleet exposed to air attack. You can see the contrast most clearly on Saipan, where the Army and Marines were supposed to advance side by side. Of course, like the British and Canadian divisions you mention, there were several US Army elite divisions that were capable of aggressive action. When not restricted by logistics. It’s very easy for an aggressive force to outrun its logistics.
It's important to realize how strategically critical to the British Empire the Suez Canal, and therefore North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East were. If one looks at a map centered on Cairo, and notes the British, Italian and Vichy French (of questionable neutrality, the French tipping both ways from time to time) holdings, it looks like a game of Go. Leaving out Saudi and Iraqi oil for the moment, it becomes obvious that Britain needed to establish dominance in the Med to insure communications with the rest of the Empire.
@@benwilson6145 Good question. While oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia before WW2, its exploitation was not developed until after the war. There was, however, oil in Iran.
Operation Brimstone was programed in the beach (Fontanamare) near my city (Iglesias), the coastline is full of blockhouses, little bunkers, and anti-tanks concrete blocks
Churchill, according to my reading, that US troops needed some experience before tackling the invasion of France. Accordingly he convinced Roosevelt to invade North Africa first. The invasion of Italy seems pretty logical after that, to force Italy out of the war, and tie down German troops in Italy.
The allies were simply not ready to carry out a successful invasion of France in 1943. Many critical elements that made a successful Operation Overlord were not in place. Most importantly, the Luftwaffe was still a potent force in that theatre at the time.
In chess to go for the king, first you must deal with the pawns... Italy however was lesser than a pawn, at least pawns are useful and don't change sides...
SicilianScoundrel the heck you're talking about? they changed sides twice, they were part of the central powers prior to ww1, but change side as an excuse to get territories from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then they change side after being humiliated time and againg by british forces, then italian politicians blamed Mussolini, making him an scapegoat, execute him, do not even tell the army about, army was side by side german forces, then italian army gets massacred without a chance to deffend themselves.
@@charlieperaltaf In ww1 Italy had only signed a defensive pact with germany and austria. Also remember thst at the time italy was an arch-nemesis to austria because of the wars of indipendence. Being that it was austria who declared war on serbia and not the opposite, itsly had no obligation to join (also because austria didn't want to give any material support to the italian economy during the upposed wartime). In ww2 things are different. The kingdom is pretty much divided between mussolini and the king, with the king and the high military staff being closer to the allies, also because of the experiance of ww1. When the americans landed in the south, the king and the high military staff fled from rome and arrested mussolini. After mussolini escaped from prison he formed a fascist italian state in the north, fighting up until the 5th of may 1945. So it depends on who you think was the legitimate leader of Italy. If you legitimize the king then "Italy" changed sides (i put italy i brackets because a very small amount of italians fought on the allied side), if you legitimize mussolini then there was a betrayal from the king, but no side-changing.
Canadian troops were heavily drawn from rural communities where hunting large and small game started at a very young age and the terrain for hunting was anything but casual.
@@Sir_Godz I've known a few British WW2 veterans and they all said the Canadians were eager to fight the Germans or each other if there were no Germans but unlike our lads who used their fists they never saw a Canadian without a bar stool or something in his hands to hit you with :/
Defeating 70,000 with 500,000 in Sicily in five weeks was excellent. 1. Amphibious assault needed. 2. Sicily terrain easily defended. 3. Germans on defensive, where you get a multiple factor of effectiveness. 4. Germans -- veterans, Allies - still learning. So, 5 weeks, pretty good, IMO.
An Italian friend of mine who was a 17 year old back then told me that he and a German officer held back an allied detachement for four 4 days in Jbel Bougornine here in the Mountains in northern Tunisia with just a Mortar and a heavy machine gun.
Matteo Orlandi And so they took Italian vehicles and then left the Italians to die after the battle was finished. To be honest, I don’t think this guy is able to release anything unbiased towards the Italians. He just keeps trashing and bashing you for no reason even in cases where it’s not true.
@@jangelnar5624 i Just Hope than One day he Will cover my people history like he covers everyone else. Sure, it's a bit strange that he's not interested at all in such as an important Battle and that various times he avoided to talk about the fact that germans were allways -using the words of an italian soldier- "the only ones to claim the merit of the victoryes, but when a Battle was Lost they allways blamed the Italians, the romenians, the hungarians but never, never themself". And there are proof of this on TH-cam, everyone can see the videos.
Matteo Orlandi Exactly, I completely agree. I was just having a conversation with a guy under the “Czechoslovak 1938 what if” video and we agreed on the same thing. Only that time it was not the Italians but the Czechoslovaks. I remember that I was furious when he uploaded the “Italian forces and industry in early world war 2”... it was full of biased shit.
@@jangelnar5624 From where you got a different information ?. Sorry to bother, but i read your comment and i was interested, because its hard to find more stuff about Italy. (But if i type Wermacht a ton of scrap appears full of popular culture instead of historical stuff) If you have any source of video or books i would be very interested in seeing them.
red36825924 You’re completely right. Finding sources on Italian forces in ww2 tends to be quite tough, especially since I don’t, unlike you I presume, speak Italian. There’s a variety of sources I get information from, mostly from the internet. Out of those forum.axishistory.com is probably the most helpful one, altough lots can be found even on mainstream sites like Wikipedia, when it comes to well known battles like Bir el Gubi or the Raid on Alexandria. As for literature, some books I’d recommend are different titles from Osprey publishing or maybe Mussolinis Afrika Korps by Rex Trye. In my country there’s a popular magazine focused on war in general and certain issues focused solely on world war 2 called “Válka” (meaning war in Czech), where I got about a half of my knowledge regarding the Italian army from. Surely there’s a similar publication in Italy as well. If I remember any different sources, I’ll get back to you. Hopefully, you’ll find some of the provided info helpful! Best of luck!
Wołoszański wrote that the focus was not as much Italy but the control of the Mediterranian Sea. Churchill viewed the area as the backbone of the Empire the shortest route to India. The quote from Fennell you gave is factual, and I do not dispute it, however, it is not all there was to it.
This was a great summary of the start of the Italian campaign and why. Have you done something on why the Russians never considered the African and Italian campaigns to be a second front?
Another small point here too: we are looking at all of this with the benefit of hindsight. Many people, not just Churchill and the British thought (hoped?) that Italy would be a walkover and a viable third front against Germany. To an extent it was - the German 10th Army was moved in after Salerno. While not a gigantic force, this large formation of multiple corps - including motorized forces, tanks and aircraft, would have been killing Soviets had Italy been spared.
I'm very jealous, Mason. My parents went to Cassino two years ago and told me how impressive it was (i'm in Glasgow, Scotland). Cassino and Gallipoli are the two battlefields i hope to visit some day. All the best chum 😉
Italy First was the predictable result after Winston Churchill announced the strategy of attacking continental Europe through the "soft underbelly of Europe".
You mention 'Italy First', lack of combat experience and lack of manpower - these all would have been exasperated by the Australian decision to withdraw veteran Australian forces to defend New Guinea from the Japanese. Churchill and Curtin apparently had endless arguments over control of Australian troops and where they should be deployed - Churchill thinking Suez or the India-Burma theatre more important than the defence of Australia.
And not just in 1942 - the MacArthur-Curtin alliance was one of the few examples of Allied countries putting their national interests ahead of beating Germany and Japan. Australia could easily have committed three divisions to the Med in 1943 - we can six if we shoot Douglas MacArthur and go on the defensive in the SW Pacific and commit the then-uncommitted shipping and troops.
Germany: Atlantic wall. Hvnt ended training yet for the D-DAY. Italy: worse army Worse comand, Already have a foothold in tunesia, its closer from Tunis to Palermo and they had a superiority on the sea and and sky. That's also why :3
Yes, but the Atlantic Wall wasn't anywhere near as strong as it would later become at that point. It wasn't until Rommel took over command of those defenses that they became the nightmare that they were. When Rommel first arrived there, he was horrified at how pathetic those defenses were.
@@stanklepoot I know that they have dismantled the westwall to reinforce the Atlantic wall. Also, they thougth that the Lansing will be in Cale not in the normandy so IT wasnt that well reinforced.
Was maneuver warfare available to Montgomery in Sicily?? Didn't terrain restrict his options?? Montgomery was a jerk, not as good as his reputation, but I don't want him to be unjustly criticized.
I kind of wonder to what extent the British advocating for invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy was intended as an indirect way of showing the American leaders how unprepared the Allies were for an amphibious invasion against Germany at that time. In hindsight, it's clear that D-Day probably could not have succeeded without the experience the Allies gained in Italy (against comparatively softer opposition), but I wonder how clear that would have been to British leaders beforehand. I can picture some British military leaders telling each other something along the lines of "These bloody Yanks have no clue how difficult an invasion against Germany will be, but they're sure they've got it sorted and we're not going to convince them otherwise. So, let's push to just go after Italy this year; it's a useful target, and maybe a real amphibious operation will open their eyes to the obstacles and get us all on the same page before we end up repeating Dieppe on a larger scale."
The British have always preferred going in by the back door rather than the direct approach because of only having a small army. Spain in the napoleonic war, Turkey in WWI, Italy in WWII. Concentrating on naval, and layer air, forces, reduces what is available for the army. Also the allies were quite unprepared for a landing in North West France in 1943. No landing craft, gliders or any of the other paraphernalia that made Normandy a success in 44.
I have to defend the British here. The Sherman tank was not a good breakthrough exploitation tank and Italy was not a good place to use their superior mobility. Therefore a tight, high-firepower, shallow exploitation strategy made sense.
For the D-Day landings, the Allies already had more Divisions than they could support ashore for a considerable amount of time. While the Germans could have used every division they could get - some very goods amongst the 27 Divisions fighting in Italy. Probably not have changed the outcome, but would have made it a great deal harder.
If Hitler had wanted the Mediterranean as much as he had wanted Russia he could have had it. If he had knocked out Malta and the Suez he could have secured Italy and North Africa, and probably prolonged the war for quite some time if not indefinitely through access to Middle Eastern oil fields and by denying those same oil fields to the British. Particularly in the case of Malta which launched raids that destroyed 75% of the supplies destined for Rommel. - info from "Power at Sea" by Lisle A. Rose.
So he’d have to invade Egypt. Just like Napoleon, and we know how that turned out for him. The British kinda were just recycling the same tactic they used against Napoleon, except in Italy instead of Spain.
Think you have totally missed several very important point. Stalin. He was was told that an invasion into Western Europe in 1943 would me an end to Lend Lease and supplies from Britain. He did not want that and agreed to a delay of a year if Lend Lease continued.
I can not remember who said it but there was an arguement that whithout operation torch Normandy would have been a charlie foxtrot given the lack of logistical organization.
Marshall probably figured that the US Congress could never be convinced to strongly support the USSR. So opening southern support routes to it caused nearly as many problems as it solved. The Mediterranean represents also a huge number of vulnerable landing areas, so if the Allies fully control it, there is really no peace or rest for elite fast responding units. The UK knew how dependent both sides were on elite units. It's also clearly true that without combat experience an operation like DDay had no chance. The more critical easterly beaches (Sword, Juno) closest to the railhead just nine miles south were still on DDay taken by harder British and Canadian forces. Who were ready to hold it against an SS Panzer counterattack. One thankfully precluded by a ruthless assassination raid against the HQ which held up the response for three weeks until the bulk of US forces got over the beachhead. Omaha was tough but the fresher US troops had time to take it because elites were at Sword and Juno and would be the first hit in a counterattack.
Of the twenty US divisions that participated in the Normandy Campaign, only four (the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions, the 2nd Armored Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division) had previously seen any action in the war. The remaining sixteen, including four federalized National Guard divisions, had not fired a shot in anger. Neither of the Ranger battalions had been in combat before D-Day. The US Army gained institutional experience in 1943, but very few officers were actually "bloodied" before the invasion. Most of the fighting in France was done by fresh units. (Fresh units with obsolescent tanks. From a narrow tank vs tank perspective, a cross-channel attack in 1943 would have been much better for the Sherman’s reputation. By the summer of 1944, half of the German tanks in Normandy were Panthers...That wasn't ideal.)
first off, nice video on the Rifle Squad. Yeah, I know that most of the divisions haven't seen any action before, yet for me it is rather obvious that Eisenhower refers to "institutional experience" and "everything else", e.g., logistics or stuff like "tactical loading". I stretch in my videos about the Wehrmacht that they learned a lot from just the Anschluss (1938) were no shot was fired and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. North Africa and Italy in that regard provided FAR more experience etc. since this was actual combat against an experienced enemy. Additionally, they also had to learn a lot in inter-coalition warfare etc. So, technically you are correct, yet it borders on nitpicking, especially Eisenhower operated on a very-high level.
An effusive "thanks!" You know you were my inspiration. I saw your German Squad Tactics video and waited [im]patiently for a companion piece. While I waited I thought about what I'd want to see in a potential US version. I ended up thinking about it so much that at a certain point I figured, "why not just make the damned video myself." It ended up ballooning into three overlong videos, but its ultimately your fault I'm here. And I assure you my intention was not to nitpick your video specifically; though I may be a picker of nits in general, I'd like to think I'm not a complete garbage person. I hoped only to share an "interesting" point with curious passersby, rather than quibble with quality content (or have an argument with the ghost of Eisenhower).
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Well, to quote Churchill from immediatly after he left the war council discussing why to take out Italy first: "Remove spaghetti!"
Winston Churchill always considered Italy as the soft underbelly of the pact of steel, on top of that the royal navy, arguably the greatest navy in the world at that point, would've been so much more affective against Italy than it would against germany
IMO, the "Italy First" approach was necessary, due to the inexperience of the American military, AND the need to develop cooperating procedures between UK & USA military. Now, the generalship in Italy, after Sicily, seemed rather poor. But, this was probably also a benefit, by enabling the identifying capabilities of the officers. Would D-Day have been as successful if led by Gen. Mark Clark, Gen John Lucas, and Gen Harold Alexander?? Italy was necessary for D-Day's success, IMO.
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After Sicily? What about on Sicily? Patton ignoring direct orders and killing GIs during his moronic 'race to Palermo' just because he wouldn't let the British who he hated so much, get there first.
It is still a Germany first strategic approach. Going into Italy was more of a theater tactical decision. In the same way if allied forces invaded France first, you could make the same argument that it was actually a “France First” approach rather than a Germany first approach.
David Reynolds reaches a distinctly different conclusion in, "Churchill Soft Underbelly" th-cam.com/video/NK0FNnTX6cI/w-d-xo.html Reynolds finds that Churchill, after defending the British Isles, was always focused on maintaining the British Empire. Remember that even while British and Commonwealth forces were battling in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, the U.K. still found enough resources to conquer all the French mandates up to the border of Iran. In other words, although invading Greece and the Balkans might have been a diversion plan to Gen. Marshall, that's where Churchill would have gone after knocking Italy out of the war. As it was, Britian successfully kept Soviet troops out of Greece, which Winston must have considered a quiet triumph.
Well this is what I read on on Wikipedia concerning that, to quote "As Brittany and Cotentin are peninsulas, it would have been possible for the Germans to cut off the Allied advance at a relatively narrow isthmus, so these sites were rejected."
Italy declared war and tried to invade Egypt taking the Suez canal. That was the most important thing for Britain. A landing in France before1944 was impossible. In 1942/3 Italy was the only way to get allied troops onto the European continent.
You seem to state that Maneuver Warfare leads to higher casualties than artillery/direct assault warfare. HUH??? I think it is the opposite. Sherman's maneuvering allowed approach all the way to Atlanta without battles or losses. The maneuvering assault in the Manstein Plan in the Battle of France saw low German casualties.
Marshall underestimated the usefulness of the Mediterranean AND the difficulty of an amphibious landing AND the need to supply the USSR from the South. Hitler knew the Southern Front in the USSR was the only one that mattered. The oil was around Rostov. That was what he needed to keep going, period, and once past Stalingrad there is open terrain with huge advantages for an air/armor force. For similar reasons Hitler needed Tunisia and Malta to have any chance of interfering with British supply. Look at a map it's clear that Sicily - Malta - Tunisia can make it a risk to get from Gibraltar to Suez. A few torpedo interceptors and the Empire can't help Britain.
Read Rick Atkinson’s book - “Army at Dawn” documenting the United States’ North Africa campaign. The landings in Algeria were a complete fiasco and only succeeded because of relatively light resistance from poorly motivated Vichy French troops. If the US army had tried that in Normandy against better resistance - it would have been a disaster. The landings in Algeria, Sicily, and Salerno taught the Allies how to pull off amphibious invasions. In hindsight, it was better that the US was able to test itself in North Africa - though US generals were opposed to mucking around I. What they thought was a sideshow.
It was actually just strategy - the Allies thought that Italy was the weakest point in Fortress Europe, so they attacked there. Of course, it turned out that Italy was one of the strongest due to terrain, geography, etc. The Allies went in, and got stung to their surprise. It happens in war.
For the Brits it was Italy first because they are a sea power and they know Tunisia and Italy are the lock of the Mediterranean like Suez and Gibraltar.
Do keep in mind anglo sources like to downplay italian action in the war"little to no help from the italians" at the battle of gela alone the Italians were only stopped from pushing the American force into the sea by short range naval gun fire.
Italy 1st likely because resources in place not requiring loosening grip on Mediterranean and idling army's holding the area. Also consider the only option Germany would consider after losing Europe and Italian forces attacked would be holding out in Alps which would cost more in troops loses fighting there. They ran to Europe to help instead.
what the hell was with Britain not having manpower? their population was on par with german but they never had any significant losses. Is it bc everyone was policing the empire?
What does victory mean? Total world domination? USA and Britain under German rule? Or "just" a German controlled Europe that includes all of western Russia? Plus an Italian Roman empire around the mediterranean, and Japan controlling China + South-East Asia? If those dreams would come true, then I think Germany should have needed some better friends than Italy and Japan because they could simply not compare with USSR, UK AND USA in economic and military strenght and size of populations and size of the territory and the resources within that landmass. The only strong power in the axis bloc was Germany, and it was not strong enough to win against 3 big allied powers on its own.
Capturing the Mediterranean was for British interests, Churchill had it in for Stalin and intentionally wanted to delay a second front. Stalin apparently begged for a second front from 1942 onwards until 2 years later with the D Day invasions however the victory in Stalingrad had already put the Germans on the defensive. The Russians took most of the Germans best punches despite nearly breaking several times with roughly 8/10 Germans killed by a Russian bullet. Roosevelt recognised this.
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Conveniently ignoring how Stalin made a peace treaty with Japan and backstabbed his Chinese allies because for him, conquering and occupying as much of Europe as he could steal, was more important than the allied war effort. So yeah, after being backstabbed twice by Russia twice (molotov-von ribbentrop pact and the east-asian betrayal), the British were in no great hurry to sacrifice tens of thousands of British lives to further the goal of agressive Russian conquest....
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Conveniently ignoring how Stalin made a peace treaty with Japan and backstabbed his Chinese allies because for him, conquering and occupying as much of Europe as he could steal, was more important than the allied war effort. So yeah, after being backstabbed twice by Russia twice (molotov-von ribbentrop pact and the east-asian betrayal), the British were in no great hurry to sacrifice tens of thousands of British lives to further the goal of agressive Russian conquest....
No, it wasnt that. Churchill agreed with the British generals that the American army wasnt ready to fight the Germans in 1942, or in 1943. And he was right.
Logistically, an invasion of France in 1842/1943 was a nightmare.It took time to build up strong enough forces to ensure a reasonable prospect of success. A failed landing wouldn't have helped Stalin at all. Control of the air was essential, so the invasion was shelved until this had been achieved.
So,if the British needed to be compromised with over an invasion of Sicily, what was their plan after the Axis defeat in North Africa have been? An invasion of southern France? Either way, what about "Churchill and his soft underbelly" strategy? I mean to say,it sounds like the British didn't want or plan to invade Sicily.
I'll let the man himself talk. "THE PRIME MINISTER did not agree that Sardinia could be an acceptable alternative. Operations in the general direction of the Balkans opened up very wide prospects, whereas the capture of Sardinia would merely place in our possession a desirable island." p302-3 Trident Conference minutes cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/3693
You just have to play HOI as Britain to realize Italy has to be your first target because it contests the African theater and Mediterranean seas. Going toe to toe against Germany in a land war, without the French, is suicide, you just don't have the manpower. See! Video games are educational
It would've been interesting if the Allies has chosen to retake Greece instead or Albania, in an attempt to eventually link up with Soviet forces in Romania and Hungary. As we know, once the Allies reached Northern Italy, they got bogged down and it's a good thing the Americans planned a second invasion in France. Without it, who knows how long it would've taken them to reach Germany
You must also think about supply lines and possibility of enemy Resistance. Let's put this simple: Most of the supplies for both US and UK came from US. This meant that they had to cross the ocean. Invasion of North Africa was made especially to secure a supply point in North Africa. Now, assume they would have had to supply forces in Greece. The supplies would have had to reach North Africa, then bypass Italy and then head to Greek ports. And Greece is as mountainous( perhaps even more) compared to Italy, so getting bogged down was still a possibility if not certainty. Furthermore, there is also the invasion itself. The Allies first invaded Sicilly and then Continental Italy. Sicilly is closer to North Africa and is just a throw of the stick away from Mainland Italy than any Greek land, and by that I mean Crete. And from Crete to Greece it's still a long way to go. So, the invasion force would have to spend a longer time at sea. Now, why the length of supply line is important? Well, answer should be obvious, but for the sake of it: supply chain is not a conveyor belt or something like that. It takes vehicles to transport things. In this case ships. And there is not an infinite ammount of ships. So the longer a ship has to travel to deliever a single cargo, the less efficient it is.
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized thanks for the reply. Would you comprise with me on a colonial forces video that includes Canadian troops? It's a good podcast, I watched it but the views is part of my issue because I'd like it to be more well known.
![[Barbarossa] The Major Errors and Blunders - Or why Barbarossa Failed](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A_3R-Rkn_98/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Barbarossa] The Major Errors and Blunders - Or why Barbarossa Failed](/img/tr.png)
Would you ever consider covering the Burma campaign? Seems kinda unknown to a lot of people.
I hope he does it was Britain’s revenge for Singapore and restored their reputation giving the Japanese a major defeat he should also cover the British Pacific fleet who helped bombard the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa
Or the impact of the Burma Road
Damo2690 I think the effectiveness of the Chindits and Merrills marauders could also be interesting
@@commando4481 I'd be very interested if he covered the Fall of Singapore and Malaya as that is a fascinating campaign in and of itself.
That would be fantastic, it's known as the forgotten army. My great grand father was a Chindit in the King's Liverpool Regiment, sadly many of the details of his time there arent recorded.
I thought "Italy First" was a national focus in hoi4.
first you're saying like "i thought it was in hoi4 but i guess it isn't" so change it to "i thought xxxx was the national focus in hoi4"
second FUCKING SAME LMAO
@@TactfulWaggle Speak English.
@@ThomasStephenForster what i mean is, change the "a national" to "the national"
Ur telling me correct my grammar when u can't even type?
@@ThomasStephenForster i can type i typed everything correctly and exactly how its supposed to be typed what do you mean?
It's also worth noting that the British "Italy First" strategy was a repeat of the Peninsula War against Napoleon. Given the British naval strength but army weakness, it always made sense to fight the Continental Power when they were as over extended as possible.
While the US Army had a overoptimistic eagerness to confront the Germans directly in France, the US Navy very wisely opted to start their war of attrition with Japan in the Solomon Islands, the place where Japan was at the greatest logistical disadvantage.
King and Marshall pretty much decided to let King deal with the Pacific, and Marshall deal with the Atlantic. It kept them from stepping on each other's toes. And there was MacArthur, a pain in the ass for both. He kind of did his own thing, marginalized down to New Guinea and the Philippines.
The problem being it was a shitty plan that has been shown to be flat out wrong. The Invasion of Italy and Sicily were massive boondoggles on the same level as Gallipoli in WWI and must be ranked at the same level of catastrophic failure when considering Churchill military record. Post-war analysis has rather conclusively shown that if you never make plans to invade Siciliy and Italy and instead retain all that shipping and those troops for a cross-channel operation that there is no real reason you can't launch an invasion of France in summer of 1943 that's only marginally smaller then D-day in 1944.
The thing is that if you hit France in 1943 you're hitting a FAR weaker and less prepared German army, who furthermore has not yet fielded some of the newer weapons that would prove problems in 1944 like massive numbers of panzerfausts and mass produced Panthers. Before it's even mentioned there also isn't really any advantage in terms of expereicne with going for Italy first as the troops sent there were pretty much bogged down and basically none of them ended up being used in France anyway. Given those factors it seems unlikely the battle in France goes any WORSE which means that you've likely accelerated the entire timeline of the western front by a full year.
This massive commit to fairly open battle also likely means that the allies encounter new German equipment in a more piecemeal manner so for instance the Panther doesn't just come as a shock that's barely even known about in mid 1944, but is seen in increasing numbers with time to deploy countermeasures through the back end of 1943. Likely resulting in any even STRONGER allied Army in 1944. It's hard to see how this DOESN'T end the war months earlier at least.
The British paranoia about cross channel invasion (up and including a quite possible literal sabotage of the Dieppe operation to hold up as an example of why it had to be delayed endlessly) and there raging egotism regarding pushing through their shitty Mediterranean strategy, chiefly driven by it's biggest backer Churchill has to be regarded as easily the worst grand scale decision of Western Allies in the entire war. It delayed an effective invasion in the west by a full year (and significantly weakened it when it did happen) while contributing virtually nothing to actually ending the war as it fed hundreds of thousands of men into a pointless meat-grinder on the peninsula. Even with the German army in full blown implosion in both East and West the forces in Italy BARELY even got out of the country by the time the war ended.
@@Tk3997 That's certainly what the US Army thought, but I think the effort spent in the Med was well worth it.
@@Tk3997 The Italian and Sicilian invasion in ww2 was in no way as bad as Gallipoli.Sicili was conquered.As was Italy.
@@Tk3997 As to invading France in 1943 there were way to few transports to do that.
from a practical standpoint securing the Mediterranean was much more in line with actual British military capabilities.
You mean colonial profits.
Securing southern Italy and Sicily was absolutely necessary to safeguard Allied shipping through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal from Axis air attacks, to shorten the route for vital resources like petroleum for the buildup to D-Day.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 stfu weeb it was obviously the easiest target.... the Italian army was pathetic so landing in Italy made sense.
Plus. we had a obligation to help and defend Malta, my grandmothers husband was from gozo, trust me the maltease love Britain ...
@@vasili1207 relax
i think so, england pick same size enemy to fight on.. german way to much population, industries capabilities, and superior tactics..
It was discovered that the italian populist government was not in fact euro skeptic but just discussing WW2 strategies during the elections of 2018. "Italy first not Germany first" was a quite misunderstood statement.
@Kamil S I really don't think so
USA & UK: "Ok, Germany first!"
*US attacks the Japanese on Guadalcanal
*US attacks the Japanese on Solomon Islands
*US attacks the Japanese on Gilbert Islands
*US attacks the Japanese on Admiralty Islands
*US attacks the Japanese on New Guinea
*US attacks the Vichy French in Morocco
*US attacks the Italians in Tunisia
* US attacks the Italians on Sicily
* US attacks the Italians in Salerno
*US attacks the Japanese on Marshall Islands
USSR: "WTF?"
Marines and majority of the Navy ships weren't needed in Europe.
Yes, the US troop great in PNG losing all land gained by the Australians on the Kokoda trail back IJA. 😂 stop being such a dick head and stop believing Hollywood. It was a combined effort not just the US.
@@smonyboy The U.S Army was fighting in the Pacific too. There was actually more of them in that theatre than U.S Marines.
seem normal to me since USA and UK during ww2 are the most top 3 major naval , and USA UK gang up vs italy naval alone
USSR was fighting a one front war. We were not! We were all over the world and the logistics were huge and we still did it!
The Italian Campaign is so often overlooked by the more "grandiose" moments - but I think it was actually very important to the Allies' goals in Europe.
Fuzzy Dunlop
Maybe. However it was more about the relationship between UK and US. The US wanted Italy so It could put bases both naval and military. Meaning they would then have a presence in the Mediterranean under the pretense of guarding against communism but in reality it could then threaten British and french navies which made use of the Med. So in a post war world they could get as much as they wanted out of those 2 countries like the end of there empires.
The defeat of Italy is like when you play with your friend too hard and accidentally send him to the clinic
Another racist.
@@zampieritto lol?!
The cheeky Fallout reference was well placed my man, keep up the good work
6:58 It is interesting to see Germans refer to the Western Allied forces as "angelsächsischen" (Anglo-Saxons). I have seen Russian WW2 propaganda films that show Stalin calling them "Anglosaksy" (Англосаксы).
Calling British and Americans "Anglosaksy" is common today in Russia, I have no idea why.
In the east it's common to call them that because of smilar laws systems evolved from "common law" different from eastern coutries. And close language and culture.
technically it's not an incorrect term
Well many other countries would refer to the anglosphere as anglo-saxon, might just sound strange to anglophones.
Back then most western allied forces your average German would see would have some Anglo heritage, or were non-anglo Europeans who were anglicized such as Americans.
I don't think Hitler's reasoning for holding on in Tunisia made sense. After Torch he committed a far greater amount of men and material to a place that he hadn't before which he couldn't hope to supply. In the end that destroyed much of the remaining German air transport fleet and got more than a hundred thousand troops cut off and captured. A lot of loss for a few months more of squeezing Allied transport ships.
Rommel thought the same thing (from his biography, Knight's Cross). He wanted to withdraw from Africa, but hold on in Italy.
The Allies gained valuable amphibious experience in Torch and Husky. If the Allies had chosen to invade France in 1943 without that experience, things could have taken a turn for the worse.
Plus they needed time for the USAAF and RAF to wear the Germans down.
@@MrShaneVicious Almost. The bombing campaign was marginal at best. It was Stalin who was wearing down the Germans. See Stalingrad, Citadel, Begration, etc.
Actually they already tried to land in France in 1942. At Dieppe precisily. It didn't ended very well for them...
Normandy shouldn't have happened the hole reason Italy wasn't winnable was time and numbers . U could throw the Normandy forces in Italy instead no beach slaughter fest but Eisenhower's dick got hard and he decided to use brute force like a caveman
Gallipoli 2: Electric Boogaloo, No D-Day for You
Really hoping they'll update the Italian focus tree next. Italy First is my favourite thing to do.
Torch was the right call. The allies were simply not prepared to do Europe yet at that time.
"Smiling Al" Kesselring seems to have done an admirable job in Italy, considering the forces available and those arrayed against them.
He did but you have to remeber the terrain was nearly perfect for defence. Look at a topographic map of southern and middle Italy. You could not ask for better natural obstacles
Plus he didn't experience as much interference from Hitler as the other front Commanders, who were hampered by those dumbass "hold to the last man" orders.
@@MrShaneVicious Correct. He reported to Italy, not Germany. Well OK, he really reported to Germany, but he had that buffer.
@@lovablesnowman Which became even more of a hindrance to the Allied advance with the aide of the weather.
Please do the battle of Bir-El-Gobi
Thanks for the video lad it is always a pleasure to learn more from your videos
yes pls
and operation daffodil
@Max Schneider italy first there are already tens or videos about the afrika korps
ACCB 1998 Both of his channels can’t release anything positive about the Italians, so don’t get your hopes up...
Video suggestion: Resistance in Continental Europe (Denmark, Norway, France, Poland etc.)
He could even do a minute by minute rundown on Danish resistance to the initial invasion (3 hours) :D
Naming France as a "resistance", although it had no major operations up until august 1944, and not naming Yugoslav resistance, the only one against which Axis launched not one but SEVEN counteroffensives.
@@EdinProfa Your right my Slavic friend. Even 1944 Italy had stronger resistance than France.
What I would like is a list of things that IIIrd Reich stole in occupied Europe. All civilian cars, 175.000 church bells etc. Those partisans weren't fighting for fun. They had a huge list of reasons.
you mean the terrorists
I would love to see information on Students paratroopers. How their losses in Crete convinced Hitler the paratroopers was no longer useful. But the Americans were so impressed they wanted some of their own. Quite a different attitude.
Japan, Italy, Russia, Britain, pretty much everyone had paratroops.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 Free Poland too.
Often happens in a totalitarian regime, if you create a infamous regiment by giving them the best equipment, training and choice of recruits and make them out to be national heroes then you become afraid to risk losing them in combat for fear of public embarrassment so you send in the less well trained and less well equipped troops instead as they are more expendable. Similar happened in the USSR after World War 2, the bulk of the messy high casualty jobs were given to the second tier units rather than the first tier units.
@@watcherzero5256 but Students paratroopers were not held back. After Sicily they were sent to the Russian front. It's just that they were not used as they were trained again.
The general Student was sent to the Eastern Front, his paratroopers in the first Parchute Corp were made a 30,000 strong reserve army eventually seeing service in the battle of the Rhine. The 2nd Parachute Corp was an entirely new division raised for the Eastern front from the remains of Division Meindl with little to no actual parachute training being given. Other elements of the Fallschirm-Jäger saw combat in Normandy. Then in 1944/45 they started reforming survivors of other infantry units into new Paratroop divisions with the training division becoming the 7th and seeing battle in Normandy in 44, and the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 20th and 21st not being completely reformed and not seeing combat (with the exception of the 9th which saw action in the Battle of Berlin)
Given the bloody nature of the landings in Sicily, at Anzio and especially the gruesome slaughter of Tarawa in November 1943, a cross-channel invasion in 1942 or 1943 seems practically destined to be a catastrophe.
The raid on Dieppe and how "well" it went, only strengthens your point.
All six of the boys in my grandmother's high school graduating class of 1940 in small-town Canada were killed at Dieppe.
Yes Dieppe was a small experiment to see if taking a port could be done and the answer was no, so they developed the mulberry harbours and invaded beaches instead. On a larger scale dry runs for larger invasions were done like in Sicily and Okinawa as well as the US requiring experience so given the easy and non vital Morrocco.
so D day happened because of husky.
and midway was won because of coral sea.
This taught me an important lesson in military theory.
*When you need to understand the a battle, always look at the previous battle.*
and a new look at the saying:
*every general fought the last war*
Midway was won because of many reasons. It happened because of many reasons. Indeed, the Doolittle Raid had more to do with Midway happening than Coral Sea.
@@Raptor747 The raid had more to do with the sense of urgency that determined the timing of the attack on Midway. Coral Sea played a major role in setting up the victory at Midway. Yes, the Americans traded a full sized carrier for a smaller one in the battle, but it also kept two other Japanese carriers from the battle because they had to replace a large portion of their aircraft and pilots. Of course, being able to read Japan's communications certainly didn't hurt either.
@frosty pablo calm down edge lord
Winston said ("The Second World War"): Trying to bring Turkey to war against the Reich was also important for the British.
Great topic Bernhard! Greetings from Hamburg
Turkey was played on the card of joining the UN afterwards if and only then turkey joins the war.
Turkey bought alll the time she could and finally declared war on germany. A day before war in europe ended thus no turkish soldier fought the war.
I guess the inexperienced US military and the limited capacity of amphibious assaults would be the main factors for me advising against a strong frontal assault on the west front directly. The Normandy landings in 1944 nearly ended in failure, and without the experience from earlier naval landings and earlier combat experience for US troops it would have been hard for the allies to resist the full force of the German army.
The US military were still noobs in 1944 despite the fighting in north Africa, Italy and the pacific should have teached them to be better prepared. The British knew better and used all kinds of special purpose vehicles during D-Day, but the Americans rejected any use of the many special variants of Churchill tanks and the sherman crab for mineclearing - and suffered from high losses as a consequence, while the British landings went smoothly.
The Americans were overconfident in themselves and not so realistic. They rejected the Hobart Funnies because they thought that airpower would be able to cancel out any problem. But at Omaha it didn't. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong at that beach. The bombers all missed their targets. The ships with rocket artillery also all missed their targets so the rockets fell into the water instead of hitting the German defences on the beaches, and the smoke the rockets created prevented the Americans from seeing the German defences. So the Americans had a rough day at Omaha beach.
And once the beach had at Normandy had been secured, then the Americans tried a breakout. The Americans thought that once the tanks was ashore then the advance would be easy. But things turned out to be harder for the Americans than expected - it turned out to be more difficult to do tank warfare in Normandy than in the open training grounds in Louisiana. The Terrain at Normandy was filled with ditches, narrow roads with stone walls on the sides, and hedgerows (the infamous bocage) everyware.
The ideal terrain for ambushes and defence, and the American attacks were driven into a halt. Since it proved to be a difficult task to get through the thin but excellent German defensive line and things wasn't so easy as in American theory. The British troops also got stuck in their breakout operation, but they faced more German divisions than the Americans and the brits were short in manpower as many British divisions were sitting in Italy.
And the Normandy landings seemed to end up in a disaster for the allies after being stuck on the beach for 2 months without being able to make a breakout. According the plan should they have conquered a harbour and being able to send in supplies to their 1.5 million men strong army on the beach. But without a harbour it would be impossible to supply such a large force in the long run, and enormous amounts of allied troops would be stuck in a little prison of northern France and not being able to be used elseware.
Had the allies not been able to push through the German defences before the end of that year, then the Germans might have won their greatest military victory ever. And the Brits and Americans started to blame each other for the failure.
But then Hitler decided to save the allies from defeat. He took his small number of troops and ordered them to do the same mistake as the allies - attack with tanks in the Normandy terrain totally unsuitable for armour and the losses were of course high. And unlike the allies did the Germans not have any reserves so once the operation was canceled (the Avranche offensive) after its failure, then the German army around Normandy had been weakened and the allies could now punch through the German defences and finally do their breakout.
And the German defences were completly rolled up and the allies won one of their biggest strategic victories as the westfront collapsed.
So I think it is fair to say that the Americans were overconfident in themselves. And they were inexperienced and not very realistic in their goals. Their lessons from the fighting in Sicily were perhaps too much in recent memory for the Americans to being able to absorb the knowledge.
For a long time did I think that the war was basicly over for the Germans by 1944 and that the superiority in numbers was so total that there was no way the Germans could win on the western front - The Luftwaffe had only 2 planes to take on ten thousand allied.
But now I think that I was wrong earlier. I see atleast 3 possibilities how the Germans could have won.
* During D-day did the Germans act logical and reasonable like any of us would. They heard that the situation at Omaha beach was reasonably under control and that the much more acute danger were in the other landing zones so they therefore rushed their reinforcements to those places instead of sending them to Omaha.
But history could have ended very differently if the Germans had done the complete opposite and reinforced Omaha instead and pushed back and destroyed the allied landing there. And once that had been done, then the Germans could free up troops to fight back the allied landings on the other beaches and place after place roll back the allied offensive back into the sea.
And D-day would have ended in an allied disaster.
* A second possibility is of course that the Germans would never have launched its Avranche offensive and that the allies would have been stuck in a siege at the Normandy beachhead and that the entire allied operation would end up in a disaster for that reason instead.
* And a third possibility would have been if the Germans somehow have gotten into clarity about the situation. Even after 2 months of fighting in Normandy was the Germans unwilling to send more than half of their troops to the Normandy area because they still believed that the Normandy landing was not the real landing but only a distraction for the "real" allied landing which would take place somewhere else. And the Germans expected that this real landing would probably happen near Pas de Calais, so they concentrated the bulk of their forces there. Later on would they become a little more hesitant in their earlier beliefs so they reluctantly sent away some of their divisions to support the German defence at Normandy.
But during the entire battle did the Germans choose to keep their 15th army in Pas de Calais instead of helping the 17th army fight the allied invasion at Normandie.
Had the Germans concentrated their forces elseware then the defensive line would have been able to hold the allies back. And the allied troops in Normandie would have been starved from supplies.
*"American forces never stalled out. The British forces were an Auxiliary who had the easier job"*
When we talk about the breakout from Normandy this was not the case. 8 infantry and 6 panzer divisions were blocking the British/Canadian advance. While 9 infantry divisions and 2 panzer divisions were blocking the American advance.
*"British forces also failed to capture Antwerp or the Netherlands despite being up against wimps while the Americans faced off against the advanced German forces on the main line."*
Pattons 3rd army was stalled for weeks (between august and november) in the fighting around the town Metz. The Americans outnumbered the defenders - which consisted of the shittiest low quality troops in the German army which were totally unsuitable for any other duty than being a garrison of the 70 year old fortress near the town. Volksgrenadier-Division 462 was garbage but it could nevertheless keep the Americans back for weeks.
And the Americans once again believed that air power could compensate for anything - including the lack of heavy artillery, engineers and trained infantry. The Americans was superior in both quantatity and quality, but the American 3rd army still needed weeks before it could crush a dozen German junk divisions.
So I very much doubt that the Americans would have been able to get a foothold in Europe in 1942 or 1943. And even in 1944 was the Americans dangerously close to failing with the D-day landings.
So the idea of making a landing on the western front (France-Belgium-Netherlands-Germany-Denmark) early in the war was a bit overly ambitious in my opinion.
The British fought against some of the best units of the German army. The SS divisions Leibstandarte, Das reich, Hohenstaufen, Frundsberg and Hitlerjugend are all usally considered the best troops of the German military, if not even the best troops in the entire war.
And the reason was that the Germans shared the British (Montgomery's) view of the importance of the Caen area. If the British had won there then the entire German front would have imploded. So it was important to secure this area for the Germans. It was much was at stake. Had the British made a big mistake in this area then an oppurtunity would have opened itself up for the German to counter-attack which would have made the allied position to implode.
And while I am not a fan of teenage solidiers I would however point of that this was much the norm. The American troops in Normandy were also mostly teenage boys. And so was the American troops in Vietnam. So I really don't see your point about Hitlerjugend as a formation as inferior to any other.
Nazi-Germany was a country which wanted men in their late teens and early twenties to fight the war. While ironically the old SA men who supported Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had - to their own dissapointment - become too old for service in the frontline units. So men above 30 were usally used for service at the home front in FLAK units or guarding POWs.
Strange priorities perhaps, but this was how countries usally prioritized. Personally I think it is immoral to let 16 year old Germans die uboats and 16 year old Americans go to Vietnam... and I would rather see men in their late 20s and early 30s do majority of the fighting in the frontline. I do however not know any such war when this has been the norm, but I happily get enlightened if there are any wars when this has not been the case.
Yawn.
1st SS fought against the British during operation Goodwood (which focused on taking Caen - an objective of D-Day), and the German tank ace Michael Wittmann also reached the peak of his career when he fighting against the British at Normandy a week after the landing.
The British were supposed to grab Caen. The US were supposed to grab a major port. They had different first day/week tasks. They both failed.
Germans to Italians in 1940: You want to go in Safari in the desert ? Have fun, but don't count on us.
Germans to Italians in 1943: It's strategic, we cannot afford to lose Tunisia ...
I'll be honest that from just reading the title and thumbnail, I thought that Italy actually had plans to form its own faction of the Novus Imerium Romanum, not team up with Germany and directly fight/contest the British by itself.
It's odd how Hearts of Iron is so more much fun because of this guy, no?
It is odd that Eisenhower would speak in such a way about his officers, since as I understand it, he himself was not a combat veteran.
he was right though. experience typically is better than book learning
Auto titles are awesome....
"... In the second Volvo fault..."
Good for a chuckle
I like all the logistical discussion. It’s generally profoundly important for all fighting, especially for total war. It’s also interesting that you mention the reasons for the German emphasis on quick victory. The Japanese had similar motivation, although their fast war focus was much more naval. The US Marine Corps had a real emphasis on tactical speed and aggressiveness. I suspect it was because until the island was secured, there was a big fleet exposed to air attack. You can see the contrast most clearly on Saipan, where the Army and Marines were supposed to advance side by side.
Of course, like the British and Canadian divisions you mention, there were several US Army elite divisions that were capable of aggressive action. When not restricted by logistics. It’s very easy for an aggressive force to outrun its logistics.
US had little combat experience in 1942 so it was important to do landings on easier beaches before hitting France.
It's important to realize how strategically critical to the British Empire the Suez Canal, and therefore North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East were. If one looks at a map centered on Cairo, and notes the British, Italian and Vichy French (of questionable neutrality, the French tipping both ways from time to time) holdings, it looks like a game of Go. Leaving out Saudi and Iraqi oil for the moment, it becomes obvious that Britain needed to establish dominance in the Med to insure communications with the rest of the Empire.
What Saudi Oil?
@@benwilson6145 Good question. While oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia before WW2, its exploitation was not developed until after the war. There was, however, oil in Iran.
Operation Brimstone was programed in the beach (Fontanamare) near my city (Iglesias), the coastline is full of blockhouses, little bunkers, and anti-tanks concrete blocks
Churchill, according to my reading, that US troops needed some experience before tackling the invasion of France. Accordingly he convinced Roosevelt to invade North Africa first. The invasion of Italy seems pretty logical after that, to force Italy out of the war, and tie down German troops in Italy.
So important the learning of officers @ West Point !!
The allies were simply not ready to carry out a successful invasion of France in 1943. Many critical elements that made a successful Operation Overlord were not in place. Most importantly, the Luftwaffe was still a potent force in that theatre at the time.
In chess to go for the king, first you must deal with the pawns... Italy however was lesser than a pawn, at least pawns are useful and don't change sides...
Unless you're playing Shogi
They didn't change sides.
After the escape of the italian king, a civil war ensued.
Before talking, get informed.
SicilianScoundrel the heck you're talking about? they changed sides twice, they were part of the central powers prior to ww1, but change side as an excuse to get territories from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then they change side after being humiliated time and againg by british forces, then italian politicians blamed Mussolini, making him an scapegoat, execute him, do not even tell the army about, army was side by side german forces, then italian army gets massacred without a chance to deffend themselves.
@@thecrazydestructoniz Before talking, get informed.
@@charlieperaltaf In ww1 Italy had only signed a defensive pact with germany and austria. Also remember thst at the time italy was an arch-nemesis to austria because of the wars of indipendence. Being that it was austria who declared war on serbia and not the opposite, itsly had no obligation to join (also because austria didn't want to give any material support to the italian economy during the upposed wartime).
In ww2 things are different. The kingdom is pretty much divided between mussolini and the king, with the king and the high military staff being closer to the allies, also because of the experiance of ww1.
When the americans landed in the south, the king and the high military staff fled from rome and arrested mussolini. After mussolini escaped from prison he formed a fascist italian state in the north, fighting up until the 5th of may 1945.
So it depends on who you think was the legitimate leader of Italy.
If you legitimize the king then "Italy" changed sides (i put italy i brackets because a very small amount of italians fought on the allied side), if you legitimize mussolini then there was a betrayal from the king, but no side-changing.
Canadian troops were heavily drawn from rural communities where hunting large and small game started at a very young age and the terrain for hunting was anything but casual.
They had something to prove also. That they were just as good as the Brits.
@@baysword better *cough cough
@@Sir_Godz I've known a few British WW2 veterans and they all said the Canadians were eager to fight the Germans or each other if there were no Germans but unlike our lads who used their fists they never saw a Canadian without a bar stool or something in his hands to hit you with :/
@@terryturner4116 did you also know candadians had the highest incidence of STDs in the war?
@@Sir_Godz that's not something I'd ever be interested to know...
Defeating 70,000 with 500,000 in Sicily in five weeks was excellent.
1. Amphibious assault needed.
2. Sicily terrain easily defended.
3. Germans on defensive, where you get a multiple factor of effectiveness.
4. Germans -- veterans, Allies - still learning.
So, 5 weeks, pretty good, IMO.
Indeed, you need at least a week for the buildup of forces landing troops and supplies before invasion force reachs effective fighting strength.
An Italian friend of mine who was a 17 year old back then told me that he and a German officer held back an allied detachement for four 4 days in Jbel Bougornine here in the Mountains in northern Tunisia with just a Mortar and a heavy machine gun.
i didnt know germany had an X on their flag during the 1940s
And by 1945 they started waving a French flag
what about the second battle of el alamein? the italian side, i mean. italians fought well in that battle, even if germans took all the merits.
Matteo Orlandi And so they took Italian vehicles and then left the Italians to die after the battle was finished.
To be honest, I don’t think this guy is able to release anything unbiased towards the Italians. He just keeps trashing and bashing you for no reason even in cases where it’s not true.
@@jangelnar5624 i Just Hope than One day he Will cover my people history like he covers everyone else. Sure, it's a bit strange that he's not interested at all in such as an important Battle and that various times he avoided to talk about the fact that germans were allways -using the words of an italian soldier- "the only ones to claim the merit of the victoryes, but when a Battle was Lost they allways blamed the Italians, the romenians, the hungarians but never, never themself". And there are proof of this on TH-cam, everyone can see the videos.
Matteo Orlandi Exactly, I completely agree. I was just having a conversation with a guy under the “Czechoslovak 1938 what if” video and we agreed on the same thing. Only that time it was not the Italians but the Czechoslovaks.
I remember that I was furious when he uploaded the “Italian forces and industry in early world war 2”... it was full of biased shit.
@@jangelnar5624 From where you got a different information ?.
Sorry to bother, but i read your comment and i was interested, because its hard to find more stuff about Italy. (But if i type Wermacht a ton of scrap appears full of popular culture instead of historical stuff)
If you have any source of video or books i would be very interested in seeing them.
red36825924 You’re completely right. Finding sources on Italian forces in ww2 tends to be quite tough, especially since I don’t, unlike you I presume, speak Italian.
There’s a variety of sources I get information from, mostly from the internet. Out of those forum.axishistory.com is probably the most helpful one, altough lots can be found even on mainstream sites like Wikipedia, when it comes to well known battles like Bir el Gubi or the Raid on Alexandria.
As for literature, some books I’d recommend are different titles from Osprey publishing or maybe Mussolinis Afrika Korps by Rex Trye.
In my country there’s a popular magazine focused on war in general and certain issues focused solely on world war 2 called “Válka” (meaning war in Czech), where I got about a half of my knowledge regarding the Italian army from. Surely there’s a similar publication in Italy as well.
If I remember any different sources, I’ll get back to you. Hopefully, you’ll find some of the provided info helpful! Best of luck!
Pressure from the Soviets to open up another front before the Allies were ready to hit France.
just found your page. loving all the videos!
Wołoszański wrote that the focus was not as much Italy but the control of the Mediterranian Sea. Churchill viewed the area as the backbone of the Empire the shortest route to India.
The quote from Fennell you gave is factual, and I do not dispute it, however, it is not all there was to it.
This was a great summary of the start of the Italian campaign and why. Have you done something on why the Russians never considered the African and Italian campaigns to be a second front?
Another small point here too: we are looking at all of this with the benefit of hindsight. Many people, not just Churchill and the British thought (hoped?) that Italy would be a walkover and a viable third front against Germany. To an extent it was - the German 10th Army was moved in after Salerno. While not a gigantic force, this large formation of multiple corps - including motorized forces, tanks and aircraft, would have been killing Soviets had Italy been spared.
I've always thought the Cassino battle was the most interesting of the war. Attack up a mountain in winter? Sure! What could go wrong? 😒
I'm very jealous, Mason. My parents went to Cassino two years ago and told me how impressive it was (i'm in Glasgow, Scotland). Cassino and Gallipoli are the two battlefields i hope to visit some day. All the best chum 😉
Italy First was the predictable result after Winston Churchill announced the strategy of attacking continental Europe through the "soft underbelly of Europe".
Yeah, but Churchill doesn't determine Allied strategy.
You mention 'Italy First', lack of combat experience and lack of manpower - these all would have been exasperated by the Australian decision to withdraw veteran Australian forces to defend New Guinea from the Japanese. Churchill and Curtin apparently had endless arguments over control of Australian troops and where they should be deployed - Churchill thinking Suez or the India-Burma theatre more important than the defence of Australia.
And not just in 1942 - the MacArthur-Curtin alliance was one of the few examples of Allied countries putting their national interests ahead of beating Germany and Japan. Australia could easily have committed three divisions to the Med in 1943 - we can six if we shoot Douglas MacArthur and go on the defensive in the SW Pacific and commit the then-uncommitted shipping and troops.
Germany: Atlantic wall.
Hvnt ended training yet for the D-DAY.
Italy: worse army
Worse comand,
Already have a foothold in tunesia, its closer from Tunis to Palermo and they had a superiority on the sea and and sky.
That's also why :3
Yes, but the Atlantic Wall wasn't anywhere near as strong as it would later become at that point. It wasn't until Rommel took over command of those defenses that they became the nightmare that they were. When Rommel first arrived there, he was horrified at how pathetic those defenses were.
@@stanklepoot I know that they have dismantled the westwall to reinforce the Atlantic wall.
Also, they thougth that the Lansing will be in Cale not in the normandy so IT wasnt that well reinforced.
Was maneuver warfare available to Montgomery in Sicily?? Didn't terrain restrict his options??
Montgomery was a jerk, not as good as his reputation, but I don't want him to be unjustly criticized.
I kind of wonder to what extent the British advocating for invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy was intended as an indirect way of showing the American leaders how unprepared the Allies were for an amphibious invasion against Germany at that time. In hindsight, it's clear that D-Day probably could not have succeeded without the experience the Allies gained in Italy (against comparatively softer opposition), but I wonder how clear that would have been to British leaders beforehand. I can picture some British military leaders telling each other something along the lines of "These bloody Yanks have no clue how difficult an invasion against Germany will be, but they're sure they've got it sorted and we're not going to convince them otherwise. So, let's push to just go after Italy this year; it's a useful target, and maybe a real amphibious operation will open their eyes to the obstacles and get us all on the same page before we end up repeating Dieppe on a larger scale."
BR: Italy first
US: Japan first
Result: Germany first
Compromise - situation in which both sides are unhappy
The British have always preferred going in by the back door rather than the direct approach because of only having a small army. Spain in the napoleonic war, Turkey in WWI, Italy in WWII. Concentrating on naval, and layer air, forces, reduces what is available for the army.
Also the allies were quite unprepared for a landing in North West France in 1943. No landing craft, gliders or any of the other paraphernalia that made Normandy a success in 44.
When the British kid singles out the mamma mia pizzerias.
I have to defend the British here. The Sherman tank was not a good breakthrough exploitation tank and Italy was not a good place to use their superior mobility. Therefore a tight, high-firepower, shallow exploitation strategy made sense.
For the D-Day landings, the Allies already had more Divisions than they could support ashore for a considerable amount of time. While the Germans could have used every division they could get - some very goods amongst the 27 Divisions fighting in Italy. Probably not have changed the outcome, but would have made it a great deal harder.
I suggest you include More images of maps and graphics to illustrate your information.
I wonder how much this strategy was influenced by B.H. Liddell Hart's "indirect approach"
If Hitler had wanted the Mediterranean as much as he had wanted Russia he could have had it. If he had knocked out Malta and the Suez he could have secured Italy and North Africa, and probably prolonged the war for quite some time if not indefinitely through access to Middle Eastern oil fields and by denying those same oil fields to the British. Particularly in the case of Malta which launched raids that destroyed 75% of the supplies destined for Rommel. - info from "Power at Sea" by Lisle A. Rose.
So he’d have to invade Egypt. Just like Napoleon, and we know how that turned out for him. The British kinda were just recycling the same tactic they used against Napoleon, except in Italy instead of Spain.
Think you have totally missed several very important point. Stalin. He was was told that an invasion into Western Europe in 1943 would me an end to Lend Lease and supplies from Britain. He did not want that and agreed to a delay of a year if Lend Lease continued.
I can not remember who said it but there was an arguement that whithout operation torch Normandy would have been a charlie foxtrot given the lack of logistical organization.
Have you made video about Crete & why Germans did not fully utilize this strategic location for their N. Africa campaign?
Marshall probably figured that the US Congress could never be convinced to strongly support the USSR. So opening southern support routes to it caused nearly as many problems as it solved.
The Mediterranean represents also a huge number of vulnerable landing areas, so if the Allies fully control it, there is really no peace or rest for elite fast responding units. The UK knew how dependent both sides were on elite units.
It's also clearly true that without combat experience an operation like DDay had no chance. The more critical easterly beaches (Sword, Juno) closest to the railhead just nine miles south were still on DDay taken by harder British and Canadian forces. Who were ready to hold it against an SS Panzer counterattack. One thankfully precluded by a ruthless assassination raid against the HQ which held up the response for three weeks until the bulk of US forces got over the beachhead.
Omaha was tough but the fresher US troops had time to take it because elites were at Sword and Juno and would be the first hit in a counterattack.
Of the twenty US divisions that participated in the Normandy Campaign, only four (the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions, the 2nd Armored Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division) had previously seen any action in the war. The remaining sixteen, including four federalized National Guard divisions, had not fired a shot in anger. Neither of the Ranger battalions had been in combat before D-Day. The US Army gained institutional experience in 1943, but very few officers were actually "bloodied" before the invasion. Most of the fighting in France was done by fresh units.
(Fresh units with obsolescent tanks. From a narrow tank vs tank perspective, a cross-channel attack in 1943 would have been much better for the Sherman’s reputation. By the summer of 1944, half of the German tanks in Normandy were Panthers...That wasn't ideal.)
first off, nice video on the Rifle Squad.
Yeah, I know that most of the divisions haven't seen any action before, yet for me it is rather obvious that Eisenhower refers to "institutional experience" and "everything else", e.g., logistics or stuff like "tactical loading". I stretch in my videos about the Wehrmacht that they learned a lot from just the Anschluss (1938) were no shot was fired and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. North Africa and Italy in that regard provided FAR more experience etc. since this was actual combat against an experienced enemy. Additionally, they also had to learn a lot in inter-coalition warfare etc.
So, technically you are correct, yet it borders on nitpicking, especially Eisenhower operated on a very-high level.
An effusive "thanks!" You know you were my inspiration. I saw your German Squad Tactics video and waited [im]patiently for a companion piece. While I waited I thought about what I'd want to see in a potential US version. I ended up thinking about it so much that at a certain point I figured, "why not just make the damned video myself." It ended up ballooning into three overlong videos, but its ultimately your fault I'm here.
And I assure you my intention was not to nitpick your video specifically; though I may be a picker of nits in general, I'd like to think I'm not a complete garbage person. I hoped only to share an "interesting" point with curious passersby, rather than quibble with quality content (or have an argument with the ghost of Eisenhower).
Well, to quote Churchill from immediatly after he left the war council discussing why to take out Italy first: "Remove spaghetti!"
Winston Churchill always considered Italy as the soft underbelly of the pact of steel, on top of that the royal navy, arguably the greatest navy in the world at that point, would've been so much more affective against Italy than it would against germany
IMO, the "Italy First" approach was necessary, due to the inexperience of the American military, AND the need to develop cooperating procedures between UK & USA military.
Now, the generalship in Italy, after Sicily, seemed rather poor. But, this was probably also a benefit, by enabling the identifying capabilities of the officers. Would D-Day have been as successful if led by Gen. Mark Clark, Gen John Lucas, and Gen Harold Alexander??
Italy was necessary for D-Day's success, IMO.
After Sicily? What about on Sicily? Patton ignoring direct orders and killing GIs during his moronic 'race to Palermo' just because he wouldn't let the British who he hated so much, get there first.
It is still a Germany first strategic approach. Going into Italy was more of a theater tactical decision. In the same way if allied forces invaded France first, you could make the same argument that it was actually a “France First” approach rather than a Germany first approach.
Curious what the training differences were with 1st Canadian and 5th British infantries?
David Reynolds reaches a distinctly different conclusion in, "Churchill Soft Underbelly"
th-cam.com/video/NK0FNnTX6cI/w-d-xo.html
Reynolds finds that Churchill, after defending the British Isles, was always focused on maintaining the British Empire. Remember that even while British and Commonwealth forces were battling in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, the U.K. still found enough resources to conquer all the French mandates up to the border of Iran. In other words, although invading Greece and the Balkans might have been a diversion plan to Gen. Marshall, that's where Churchill would have gone after knocking Italy out of the war. As it was, Britian successfully kept Soviet troops out of Greece, which Winston must have considered a quiet triumph.
Normandy vs Calais is always talked about.
Why was Brittany not considered?? Location? Poor beaches? other factors??
Well this is what I read on on Wikipedia concerning that, to quote "As Brittany and Cotentin are peninsulas, it would have been possible for the Germans to cut off the Allied advance at a relatively narrow isthmus, so these sites were rejected."
@@Xenin7 Thanks. Good to know.
Italy declared war and tried to invade Egypt taking the Suez canal. That was the most important thing for Britain. A landing in France before1944 was impossible. In 1942/3 Italy was the only way to get allied troops onto the European continent.
Italy was among the victors at the treaty of Versailles. How did Italy end up as an ally of Germany? What changed the public opinion in Italy?
ww1 mutilated victory, search it on google
You seem to state that Maneuver Warfare leads to higher casualties than artillery/direct assault warfare. HUH??? I think it is the opposite. Sherman's maneuvering allowed approach all the way to Atlanta without battles or losses. The maneuvering assault in the Manstein Plan in the Battle of France saw low German casualties.
Marshall underestimated the usefulness of the Mediterranean AND the difficulty of an amphibious landing AND the need to supply the USSR from the South.
Hitler knew the Southern Front in the USSR was the only one that mattered. The oil was around Rostov. That was what he needed to keep going, period, and once past Stalingrad there is open terrain with huge advantages for an air/armor force.
For similar reasons Hitler needed Tunisia and Malta to have any chance of interfering with British supply. Look at a map it's clear that Sicily - Malta - Tunisia can make it a risk to get from Gibraltar to Suez. A few torpedo interceptors and the Empire can't help Britain.
Where did the German Divisions come from?
Read Rick Atkinson’s book - “Army at Dawn” documenting the United States’ North Africa campaign. The landings in Algeria were a complete fiasco and only succeeded because of relatively light resistance from poorly motivated Vichy French troops.
If the US army had tried that in Normandy against better resistance - it would have been a disaster. The landings in Algeria, Sicily, and Salerno taught the Allies how to pull off amphibious invasions. In hindsight, it was better that the US was able to test itself in North Africa - though US generals were opposed to mucking around I. What they thought was a sideshow.
I think there is something weird with your microphone, especially in the last 2 minutes of the video.
It was actually just strategy - the Allies thought that Italy was the weakest point in Fortress Europe, so they attacked there. Of course, it turned out that Italy was one of the strongest due to terrain, geography, etc. The Allies went in, and got stung to their surprise. It happens in war.
For the Brits it was Italy first because they are a sea power and they know Tunisia and Italy are the lock of the Mediterranean like Suez and Gibraltar.
I'd be as uneasy taking part in an operation called mincemeat as taking part in one called cannon fodder or operation expendable
Operation Mincement didn't require troops.
Im disapointed where are The Swiz in your Thumbnail
How would WW2 been affected if the Axis powers had coordinated closely and effectively with each other? Could the Axis powers have won?
I thought everyone knew you had to take the feet out from under your enemy.
Do keep in mind anglo sources like to downplay italian action in the war"little to no help from the italians" at the battle of gela alone the Italians were only stopped from pushing the American force into the sea by short range naval gun fire.
And most of the Italians were reserves, with old ww1 rifles
To be fair, thats why you bring the naval support. And Gela wasn't that close.
Italy 1st likely because resources in place not requiring loosening grip on Mediterranean and idling army's holding the area. Also consider the only option Germany would consider after losing Europe and Italian forces attacked would be holding out in Alps which would cost more in troops loses fighting there. They ran to Europe to help instead.
Thought it was a scary version of the biographics guy
what the hell was with Britain not having manpower? their population was on par with german but they never had any significant losses. Is it bc everyone was policing the empire?
It would be neat to hear what you think would have helped the axis win the war.
What does victory mean? Total world domination? USA and Britain under German rule?
Or "just" a German controlled Europe that includes all of western Russia? Plus an Italian Roman empire around the mediterranean, and Japan controlling China + South-East Asia?
If those dreams would come true, then I think Germany should have needed some better friends than Italy and Japan because they could simply not compare with USSR, UK AND USA in economic and military strenght and size of populations and size of the territory and the resources within that landmass.
The only strong power in the axis bloc was Germany, and it was not strong enough to win against 3 big allied powers on its own.
@@nattygsbord i guess what was Germany's idea of victory.
Germans in WW2 referred to English/British people as Anglo-Saxons? Is this still a thing?
Not really
Capturing the Mediterranean was for British interests, Churchill had it in for Stalin and intentionally wanted to delay a second front.
Stalin apparently begged for a second front from 1942 onwards until 2 years later with the D Day invasions however the victory in Stalingrad had already put the Germans on the defensive.
The Russians took most of the Germans best punches despite nearly breaking several times with roughly 8/10 Germans killed by a Russian bullet. Roosevelt recognised this.
Conveniently ignoring how Stalin made a peace treaty with Japan and backstabbed his Chinese allies because for him, conquering and occupying as much of Europe as he could steal, was more important than the allied war effort.
So yeah, after being backstabbed twice by Russia twice (molotov-von ribbentrop pact and the east-asian betrayal), the British were in no great hurry to sacrifice tens of thousands of British lives to further the goal of agressive Russian conquest....
Conveniently ignoring how Stalin made a peace treaty with Japan and backstabbed his Chinese allies because for him, conquering and occupying as much of Europe as he could steal, was more important than the allied war effort.
So yeah, after being backstabbed twice by Russia twice (molotov-von ribbentrop pact and the east-asian betrayal), the British were in no great hurry to sacrifice tens of thousands of British lives to further the goal of agressive Russian conquest....
No, it wasnt that. Churchill agreed with the British generals that the American army wasnt ready to fight the Germans in 1942, or in 1943. And he was right.
Logistically, an invasion of France in 1842/1943 was a nightmare.It took time to build up strong enough forces to ensure a reasonable prospect of success. A failed landing wouldn't have helped Stalin at all. Control of the air was essential, so the invasion was shelved until this had been achieved.
Can you make a video about the Rhodesian conttibution in WW2 and the African Campaign?
So,if the British needed to be compromised with over an invasion of Sicily, what was their plan after the Axis defeat in North Africa have been? An invasion of southern France? Either way, what about "Churchill and his soft underbelly" strategy? I mean to say,it sounds like the British didn't want or plan to invade Sicily.
I'll let the man himself talk. "THE PRIME MINISTER did not agree that Sardinia could be an acceptable alternative. Operations in the general direction of the Balkans opened up very wide prospects, whereas the capture of Sardinia would merely place in our possession a desirable island." p302-3 Trident Conference minutes cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/3693
You just have to play HOI as Britain to realize Italy has to be your first target because it contests the African theater and Mediterranean seas. Going toe to toe against Germany in a land war, without the French, is suicide, you just don't have the manpower. See! Video games are educational
Why?
The food is better.
Did Turkey ever allow aid into the Black Sea though?
It would've been interesting if the Allies has chosen to retake Greece instead or Albania, in an attempt to eventually link up with Soviet forces in Romania and Hungary. As we know, once the Allies reached Northern Italy, they got bogged down and it's a good thing the Americans planned a second invasion in France. Without it, who knows how long it would've taken them to reach Germany
You must also think about supply lines and possibility of enemy Resistance. Let's put this simple:
Most of the supplies for both US and UK came from US. This meant that they had to cross the ocean. Invasion of North Africa was made especially to secure a supply point in North Africa. Now, assume they would have had to supply forces in Greece. The supplies would have had to reach North Africa, then bypass Italy and then head to Greek ports. And Greece is as mountainous( perhaps even more) compared to Italy, so getting bogged down was still a possibility if not certainty.
Furthermore, there is also the invasion itself. The Allies first invaded Sicilly and then Continental Italy. Sicilly is closer to North Africa and is just a throw of the stick away from Mainland Italy than any Greek land, and by that I mean Crete. And from Crete to Greece it's still a long way to go. So, the invasion force would have to spend a longer time at sea.
Now, why the length of supply line is important? Well, answer should be obvious, but for the sake of it: supply chain is not a conveyor belt or something like that. It takes vehicles to transport things. In this case ships. And there is not an infinite ammount of ships. So the longer a ship has to travel to deliever a single cargo, the less efficient it is.
Can you please cover Canadian troops in ww2 like you mentioned in this video?
He already did one.
@@creatoruser736 only a podcast, I'd love to see a formal video on it.
"If I had Canadian soldiers, American technology and British officers I would rule the world"
"only a podcast"... it got very limited views, so the answer is very unlikely there is a follow-up.
@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized thanks for the reply. Would you comprise with me on a colonial forces video that includes Canadian troops?
It's a good podcast, I watched it but the views is part of my issue because I'd like it to be more well known.
Wasn't that arrow pointing at Corsica?
What fought the british on the Americans/Japanese.
Are you asking what we thought about them or who our enemy was?
Sí
Perhaps 'Mediterranean First' should be the term.