Was the Italian campaign a strategic mistake?

The landings were too far south, and the terrain was a challenge, fully exploited by a well organized enemy, who had gained experience, on the Eastern front. Industry was almost entirely concentrated in the north of Italy, in the Po valley, landing too far south was effectively pointless. In the early 70s when Alfa Romeo Milano created their Alfasud factory they removed Milano from the badge. I will be interested to find the arguments raised in the Monte Cassino: Nine Months In Hell | PBS America show - the preview is on youtube. The time wasted at Monte Cassino, effectively made the Italian campaign a sideshow, as the Red Army and the D-day offensive, decided the outcome of the war. Churchill had learnt nothing from the First World War and the ANZAC landings in similar terrain in Gallipoli, (even though he was involved in the naval part of the campaign). The Australian army, as events turned out were fortunately, not participants at Monte Cassino.

The Italian campaign, while it diverted German troops from the Russian front, also diverted landing craft, troops and other resources from the Allied buildup to invade France, delaying that event into 1944. As an earlier post noted, when the Allies did invade France from the south, they inflicted substantial casualties on the Germans at a far lower cost than did the battle of Monte Cassino--which was not the pivotal battle in the campaign. And, the Sixth Army group--the one that invaded southern France--was at the Rhine before the units that invaded Normandy were. The group was stopped from invading Germany by Eisenhower.

The Germans used the excellent defensive terrain of Italy to slow down the Allies at great cost in men and materiel and still occupied the northern, industrial heart of Italy when Allen Dulles succeeded in getting them to capitulate. See his book, "The Secret Surrender". The Allies never displaced the Germans from the north by force of arms. As Hannibal proved centuries earlier, the way to conquer Italy is from the alps, not from the south.

Sorry to drag up this post from 2014 but I am looking to reinvigorate it based on a Research Paper that I am in the middle of writing. I have no desire to theorise on what could have happened but rather on understanding whether the Strategic Mistake question could be looked at from two different levels - Strategic with respect to the War and Grand Strategic with respect to pre and post-War.

To recap Olivier's view I do agree that the Historical significance of the campaign are important. The ability for both the French and the Poles to demonstrate a victory against their invaders would have been a great confidence builder for the troops. Conversely, I do wonder about the damage to morale of Coalition troops caused by the conduct of the campaign. It is worth noting that Post Traumatic Stress, Desertions and AWOL rates were far higher in Italy than they were in Western Europe (Prof Terry Copp). It should also be noted the UK troops in Italy were called D-Day dodgers.

Looking at the Strategic Significance, the psychological success to the Allies of a victory against an Axis power is important. Without an Italian campaign there would likely have been no troops in contact with German troops for a period of 6 months following victory in North Africa. Gen Jackson uses divisional comparisons - the Germans committed more divisions to Italy than the Allies did but, as put forward by Gen Nicholson (CAN) Could there not be an argument however that the ability of up to 600,000 German troops to hold back in excess of 1.5-2 Million Allied Troops was a pyschological bonus to Germany. The Economic benefit of Italy to Germany is clear from the industry in the North and the Agricultural plains particularly as she lost ground in the East.

However one line I am particularly keen to push forward on is the Grans Strategic differences between the approach of Great Britain and of the United States and why there was such a difference. General Marshal was very cynical of the British Approach to defeating Germany - nibbling at and constraining the edges to restrict the German ability to wage war thus causing an implosion and revolution within Central Europe. This British approach though was borne out of years of British Experience dealing with large powers in Europe dating all the way back to the establishment of the Empire. It is also I believe due to the lack of desire to lose troops on the scale of the 1WW. The key question for me is whether Churchill and other key British Strategists were really concerned about the threat from the Soviet Union in 1942-43. Roosevelt certainly recognised the threat later in the War but by then Italy was still painfully slow, Operation ANVIL (DRAGOON) was making good progress but with less resources.

Anyhow - this my direction of travel. Any thoughts that anyone has had in the 2 years since this last was discussed would be welcome. I will look to add empirical data and references as I go on. Cheers

Italy was (and is) an industrial and financial powerhouse - Mussolini was an ineffective wartime leader, but the resources his nation lent Hitler were essential to continuing the war. Removing Italy from the Axis sphere of influence was high on the list of Allied strategic goals - remember, the Allies' game plan was to deny Germany the means to make war in support of aggressive offense and counter-offense.

More, by defending Italy, the Germans had to keep a major investment of men and materiel in the peninsula, which it could not bring to bear against the Soviets, or redeploy to defend against an invasion of France. This made long-term strategic sense, even if they were stalemated or out-fought during portions of the campaign.

It was a compromise between Roosevelt and Churchill made at the Casablanca Conference - the tried-and-true British strategy was to contain Continental threats with overwhelming Naval power, and weaken them with constant peripheral campaigns. The British were very keen to remove the Axis from the Mediterranean, particularly Sicily, as they could then dominate shipping from the Middle East and Subcontinent without German or Italian interference. American generals wanted to use their massive land-based strength to tackle the Germans head-on with an invasion of France.

Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on Italy, to meet British strategic goals, to prepare the way for D-Day to meet American strategic goals and to help clear a path for the Russians in the East. In return for playing things their way, the British would step up their efforts to bolster American allies in the Pacific.