Explorations in Strategy - Italy at War

RolandRahn: I didn't get around to seeing the war rooms unfortunately, even though I walked past them daily when working at RUSI.

Lord Solar: That would be worth seeing at some point, probably.

BlitzMartinDK: Indeed not!

Maj. von Mauser: It looked fairly well preserved to me, though I didn't go on board but only walked past it.

Lord Solar: That's one way of putting it.

Sorry for the slight disappearance but since coming back to the States I've been busy enjoying the nice weather and generally relaxing. And I got bitten by the Minecraft bug. I'm starting to slowly do work again (mostly at the urging of my dissertation supervisor for various reasons not related to deadlines, which I have already met ) so I'll try to get back into updating mode this week at some point. We'll see. In other news, I have a second publication now! You won't actually be able to read it unless you have a subscription to RUSI Newsbrief, but you can at least see my name again! Here.

Rensslaer: Fortunately I've got two languages besides English. And yeah, strategic studies FTW.

kossmikman: Too true!

BlitzMartinDK: Desperate, eh?

shepherd352: Oh god a minecraft AAR. The horror! It would go on forever! Besides, taking screenshots is a pain.

Lord Romanus II: Yeah, I've noticed. Been playing on the Paradox mp server the past couple days.

Zanziabar: Yeah, you can just see Il Duce at his desk furiously mining when he could and should be dealing with important matters of state.

BlitzMartinDK: Aww, now now, it's not so bad.

timkoningskelp: Yeah I know, but life and games get in the way.

GrenadierSchube: Good to hear.

Sorry for the long delay, guys. But ehh...what's this I see upcoming?

The Year of Ruin
Part 6: The Culminating Point of Victory, March 2 – March 13, 1945

The culminating point of victory is a universal factor in war, particularly so long as one wages a sequential strategy. It is a natural aspect of the basic logic that underpins any sequential strategy. By taking one step after another forward into hostile, perhaps even unknown, territory, one’s strength is diluted by the attrition of combat and friction, by the need to guard an ever expanding unfriendly rear and, depending upon the exigencies of geostrategy, even an expanding frontline. The enemy, meanwhile, finds his strength becoming more and more concentrated as he falls back upon his centers of gravity. There are only two ways to avoid the culminating point of victory: to have such overwhelming strength that its constant dilution becomes insignificant, or two break the enemy’s will before one’s own strength is diluted. Italy can never rely upon the first option and so must strive to achieve the second instead; indeed the vast majority of nations and states fall into this situation. Yet Italy was in a worse situation than many. It had limited manpower and an ever expanding front.

The key sector of front had, of course, become the Moscow front. While Pintor and Guzzoni slogged away in western and northwestern Ukraine, Graziani and Vercellino struggled forward in northern Ukraine and central European Russia, and Baistrocchi and Amadeo Duca degli Abruzzi advanced against negligible resistance in the Kazan and Caucasus, Bastico was driving on Moscow. Individual Soviet formations might be crushed on other fronts, but these losses paled in significance compared to the legions yet in arms. Those legions were moving toward Moscow, to cap Bastico’s advance, and to flow down the other side southward toward the Kazan and the Caucasus and to halt all Italian inroads into the Soviet Union. Bastico was fielding just a single corps on the path directly toward Moscow. He was aiming to strike it from the south and the east. With one corps returning from its fighting in the south, where it cleared the threat to southern Ukraine, Bastico had only one more corps to act as a flank guard. Even with Vercellino helping, it looked like a losing battle. The Soviets were pouring forth in superior strength.


Bastico’s army on the approaches to Moscow.

By the 11th of March, while the Italians were making some progress overall, particularly in the Kazan and Caucasus, Bastico had reached the Moscow suburbs from the south. His divisions were beginning to crumble; two had lost all semblance of offensive organization and had taken up to twenty percent casualties each. There was a massive back between his flank guard corps and the vanguard corps, which was effectively occupying a salient. This salient was being blunted by the Soviets in the north, and under assault by them in the west. Bastico’s third corps was approaching the area at long last, but there was some skepticism as to whether four divisions would be able to restore momentum to Bastico’s drive. The Soviets were slowly gaining the upper hand, at the beating heart of their empire. The Soviet Union was close to death, but it remained to be seen whether the dagger could be pushed in far enough to deal mortal damage.


Bastico’s army, threatening Moscow and being menaced in turn.

Soon after, Pintor’s army was halted. The struggle forward had simply become too grueling, too bloody and too slow. The lives of veterans of Abyssinia, of Spain, of the various Balkan and Anatolian campaigns and the recurrent campaigns against the massive Soviet armies were being ground away. Pintor had to preserve his army, the mighty 7th, among Italy’s smallest, but also amongst its most elite. Soviet resistance to his advance had become too strong, their formations too dense. Entire provinces had turned into massive crossfire zones, whose crossing was done with blood and carnage. Pintor had loathed making this decision, but in the end it was the only one he could make and Mussolini agreed with him, authorizing his halt. The German frontline was only a province’s space away, but that space had been turned into a veritable fortress as the Soviets were pouring formations through at the pace of half a dozen a day or so. The Italians had come so near to closing western Ukraine as an enormous pocket, but in the end it proved beyond the resources of Pintor’s eight divisions. The Italians had to think to the future, and the future required the services of veterans such as Pintor’s. They could not be thrown away mindlessly for any mission, especially given the probability that Soviet pressure would merely break open another path.


The Soviet escape path from western Ukraine, very densely travelled.

One corps was not enough to take Moscow. The Italians simply had to face this unalterable fact. The Soviets had rushed too many formations to defend Moscow, even if this service was done en route to more sparsely defended fronts. Bastico’s vanguard corps was in a bind. One division was in full retreat from battle, another was withdrawing of its own accord; one was guarding the destination of these two formations, and the other two were split apart from the northern three by Soviet inroads into their salient. Soviet divisions had crested the Italian bulge and were beginning to pour southward down the eastern side. It had become a very dangerous situation. There was little choice in what to do, what could be done.



The past eleven days had taken a toll on the Regio Esercito. In the latter half of February, the Italians had lost not even thirteen thousand men. In the former half of March, the Italians had suffered an astonishing increase in casualties: nineteen thousand nine hundred. This was not an attrition rate that could be sustained. Entire divisions would find themselves skeletons if it were to continue, Soviet resistance had become so great. Soviet casualties remained high, and indeed higher, of course. Yet as compared to the latter half of February, they were actually lower at nearly twenty-seven thousand eight hundred. The scales were clearly shifting, and they were favoring the Soviets. The culminating point of victory had been reached. Moscow lay just out of grasp. The offensive was over. The time that had come was that of salvaging the situation, to prevent further loss and to withdraw.