The Italian CampaignMarch 1943-April 1945

Background• Tehran Conference: FDR, Churchill, and Stalin

create war plans – FDR wants to go for France, Churchill convinces him

to go for Italy first– USSR plans to sweep in from the East (Wermacht is

strongest there)• Operation Torch commences to open up the

Mediterranean• Success leaves Italy sticking out like a sore

thumb• Ike goes to plan for D-Day, Monty and Patton

take over

George Patton• One of the greatest and most

controversial generals in US history– Slapping in hospital incident– Racist

• Had fought in WWI, now commanded army up one side of Italy while Monty took the other

• Two-time Olympian• Loved by him men• Nicknamed “blood and guts”• Won a series of tight victories

up the Italian coast

When we land against the enemy, don't forget to hit him and hit him hard. When we meet the enemy we will kill him. We will show him no mercy. He has killed thousands of your comrades and he must die. If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and when you get within two hundred yards of him he wishes to surrender—oh no! That bastard will die! You will kill him. Stick him between the third and fourth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick him. Stick him in the liver. We will get the name of killers and killers are immortal. When word reaches him that he is being faced by a killer battalion he will fight less. We must build up that name as killers.

– George S. Patton

Fight• Using N. Africa as a staging ground, jump over

to Sicily• Take over Sicily enter secret negotiations

with Italian Resistance to end war• Run up the Italian coast over a series of “lines”• Nazis convince Germany to send in

reinforcements just before Rome• Nazis battle to a stalemate; pull out because

of N. France• Fight up the rest of Italy taking it over in

Spring of 1945

Downfall of Mussolini• First arrested by generals after fall of Sicily• Told to leave by king and government– Run to Hitler

• Hitler puts him back in power• Hides when Patton starts closing in• Arrested by Communist party on orders to

bring him to Patton• Commies shoot him instead 4/28/1945• Hang his body upside down (from either

Cathedral or Esso station, depending on source) and Italians throw tomatoes at him

Aftermath• Italy falls only days before Nazi Germany• Immediately comes to side of Allies• Treated quite well after the war—admonished

and then allowed to take care of the fascists internally

• Founding member of UN, NATO• Mussolini family still lives today and Alessandra

Mussolini leads party which was part of Berlusconi's coalition government in the mid to late 2000s

• Patton is put in charge of DP camps but dies in a roadside accident in December of 1945