The Year of Returned Hope
Part 7: The Indirect Approach, May 25 – June 12, 1943
Strategy is the application of force, or the threat thereof, in service of policy—at least ideally. Strategy is a process, undertaken in a world of naught but ambiguity—in reality. Strategy is about the distribution of one’s armed forces to most effectively further one’s own political objectives, whether this be through threat, also known as maneuver, or through use, known sometimes as engagement. While some theorists, such as Clausewitz and the vast majority of other writers in the later 19th and early 20th century, largely discounted maneuver except inasmuch as it related to the engagement, writers such as Fuller and most especially Liddell Hart attempted to create a strategic counterculture that emphasized maneuver in excess at the cost of battle. Writing theory about a new, or neglected, phenomenon of war can be easy or the unscrupulous or over-enthusiastic: problems can be easily explained and otherwise wished away, particularly creating a counterculture. Problems, enemy action and friction generally are, as Clausewitz noted, the only factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. No emphasis on any one component of strategy can possibly account for real war.
And in Illyria, it was real war that was being waged, not war in theory. Problems cannot be wished away, casualties cannot be discounted and failure somewhere is inevitable, even if ultimately it is not necessarily. As Vercellino occupied Lamia, with just over four hundred and fifty Italian and nearly eleven hundred Soviet casualties, a crisis erupted on Bastico’s front. The Soviet armored division southwest of Belgrade had been rescued, but in the process an Italian formation had been trapped by the Soviets! In the end it was righted, but was nevertheless a close brush with local disaster. In the south, meanwhile, losses were beginning to mount in certain sectors of the front. The Soviets managed to hold up the Italians at Shkoder for a prolonged period of time, inflicting nearly twenty-one hundred casualties for losses of less than thirteen hundred. The Soviets were striving harder and harder to halt the Italian advance, and eventually they would have to be successful. The paradoxical logic of war demanded it; that eventually one activity would turn into its opposite: that attack would become defense, and vice versa. This logic was particularly cruel to Vercellino, whose attack, though beginning so promisingly, soon stalled despite other Soviet mistakes.
Vercellino’s revised attempt at encircling Soviet divisions in Greece on the 29th.
Eventually, Lamia fell to Soviet counterattacks, though unlike most defeats the Italians inflicted nearly two hundred more casualties than they themselves lost; in the end, though a total of about twenty-two hundred men had died. Pintor’s army, however, was pushing onward to the south to rescue Vercellino from his cage. A Soviet division was overrun on the path to Tirane and surrendered, and the way was clear for Gambara’s corps. Those four divisions sides-lipped past the Soviet front in southern Illyria, between it and the sea, and immediately implemented plans for a significant exploitation. Indeed, these plans, if they pan out, would result in the entrapment and eventual destruction of all remaining Soviet forces in Greece. Gambara’s corps was driving right for the Aegean Sea. Roatta’s corps simultaneously hit the Soviet front as hard as it could, largely to keep them occupied. He did not expect quick success, the foundation of this defense rested on two Soviet armored divisions.
Gambara’s rush to the Aegean Sea.
As Pintor’s army proceeded to outmaneuver the Soviets in southern Illyria and northern Greece, Bastico and Graziani were engaged in increasingly heavy fighting in the center and north of the front. Kraljevo, Senta, and Belgrade were all Italian victories. The former two resulted in twelve hundred aggregate Italian and nearly twenty-three hundred cumulative Soviet casualties. The third victory, at Belgrade, resulted not only in barely over six hundred and fifty Italian casualties and nearly fourteen hundred Soviet dead but also the encirclement of another Soviet infantry division. By the 3rd of June, both this infantry division and the re-trapped Soviet armored division were under attack. The infantry would be wiped out, though it seems like the armor was rescued at some later point, though this is disputed. In the event, there is no agreement on what actually happened to the armored division. Graziani’s army, meanwhile, was continuing its swing northward to support Bastico’s operations.
Graziani’s army swinging northward.
By June 12th, the roll of engagement carried on. Gostivar, Jagodina, Nadlac and Zajecar were all Italian victories aggregating sixteen hundred Italian and over thirty-three hundred Soviet casualties. In the south, unexpectedly quick success on Roatta’s part threw Soviet formations directly into the path of Gambara’s corps, resulting in operational improvisation. Caracciolo di Feroleto’s division was sent directly southeast to the Thessalian coastline to make a more shallow entrapment of Greece. At the same time, however, the rest of Gambara’s corps continued on its previous path, a move which Gambara hoped would catch the Soviet forces deeper in Greece and prevent them from escaping, as well as catching those already on the move northward. In the center, Graziani’s push northward continued with some success.
The overall situation on June 12.
Operationally, the Italians continued to be highly successful despite minor setbacks. During this period another two Soviet divisions, at least, were destroyed and the Regio Esercito was setting up to bag many more. But what Italian policy was being served at this stage? Defense of the homeland—certainly. Regaining the eastern empire—it is too early to tell. Engaging the Soviet army in battle and defeating it—yes, with much success in the short term, though in the longer term it was already clear that the Soviets were shoving more and more into the theater and that eventually the Italians would indeed be stopped. And it was exactly that point that was the most important of the operation now.