The Year of Returned Hope
Part 2: The Indirect Approach I, January 1 – March 29, 1943
Liddell Hart would probably have been proud of Mussolini’s new strategic combination. It was obvious that Italy could not defeat the Soviet Union through simple and direct application of either manpower or firepower, though war cannot be waged without recourse to either of those. To any discerning observer, contemporary or later, the basic outlines of Mussolini’s new plan could not have been anything other than obvious. The Soviet Union had conquered a long and vulnerable coastline, and Italy was acting as a maritime power. The details, however, were shady to everyone save Mussolini and his generals.
The first detail that must be noted is that of forces. Specifically, what forces did Italy actually have available for a strategic combination emphasizing indirectness? In actuality, Italy actually had significant forces available, should it need to tap them. Half of Grossi’s army in Hispania, some three or four divisions, were essentially reserves in case of revolts in the province, a problem that had come up in the past previously, and in case of a serious Allied offensive into the area. In case of necessity these could be shipped to Italy. Italy’s forces in Central and East Africa constituted another six divisions, including three elite marine divisions, should push come to shove and Mussolini force to choose between European and African operations. Finally, there was Vercellino’s 7a Armata in Egypt and Palestine. This army comprised three infantry divisions, three cavalry divisions and Bergonzoli’s mobile division. With Italy’s Middle Eastern neighbors neutral and hoping that the dangerous social conditions of Palestine remain unfermented, Mussolini chose this force as that which would prosecute an indirect offensive.
Vercellino’s army deploying to Alexandria.
Before turning to other preparations for the new operation, it would be helpful to take a look at the line Italy had drawn across Illyria. On its northern side sat four Italian armies, on its southern side the myriad of Soviet formations, including numerous armored divisions. It was obvious that the Soviets were too strong to dislodge; they outnumbered the Italians by a significant factor, particularly once the fact that their divisions were larger than most Italian formations is accounted for. A direct approach would likely result in an offensive reminiscent of nothing so much as the Allied offensives of the First World War, with attackers suffering heavily. In this case though, such suffering could only end with Soviet reserves or other tactically uninvolved units breaking through the weakened Italian line and thus threatening Italy herself, as well as the soft underbelly of the German Reich and in all probability the end of the Axis. The indirect approach, even if only with seven divisions, was the only way to have any sort of positive strategic effect.
The line across Illyria.
To return to the preparations for this indirect approach, Mussolini ordered his carrier fleets into action. Campioni’s fleet was sent to hover off the coast of Albania, from where its carrier air groups would hammer the Soviet division garrisoning the Albanian port of Tirane. Da Zara’s fleet, meanwhile, was sent on a similar mission in the eastern Mediterranean. His aviators would strike at the Soviet garrison of Athens. The aim for both admirals was to damage the Soviet garrisons as much as possible while trying to leave the ports undamaged. In the best case, they would all be necessary to supply a rampant offensive. If worst came to worse, the ports needed to be in good shape to make a hurried withdrawal as easy as possible.
Preparations for invasion in the shape of aerial bombardment.
As it occurred, the naval-aerial bombardment of ports went on for weeks and indeed months. Begun in late January, they went straight up until late March. The Soviets, while at first possibly alarmed by the new Italian effort, soon grew accustomed to this Italian exercise of air power and thought nothing more of it. Thus came the point that Mussolini had not been waiting for, but which pleasantly surprised him: the garrison of Athens shattered. He had been hoping merely to weaken it, but the aerial assault had gone on for so long and at such tempo—for, as readers will remember, Da Zara’s fleet fielded four fleet carriers—that the division simply broke. Athens was not just ready for assault, but completely and utterly undefended. Vercellino’s army had been waiting in transports for a week prior to this point for the moment when it would be sent ashore. This was its hour. Italy was returning to the offensive.
The invasion of Europe! Not that Italy had actually ever left…
Mussolini had decided to eschew a frontal assault on Soviet positions in favor of an indirect approach designed with multiple objectives in mind. On the one hand, it was obviously an offensive meant to throw the Soviet armies into confusion. Confusion is inherently exploitable by those who are not confused, or those who are but are also confident and daring. In such terms, Athens was a strange place to land. It was the port furthest from what would inevitably be the Italian goal, if this goal was cast in terms of encircling the Soviet armies in Illyria: the Hungarian border. And yet, Vercellino’s army comprised only seven divisions and the Soviet response was bound to be overwhelming, as the experiences of the previous year had indicated. This indirect approach was entirely offensive in operational terms, but it was ultimately defensive in both strategic and tactical terms. Strategically, Mussolini was trying to avert what would probably otherwise be inevitable defeat and disaster not just for Italy but Europe. Tactically, Greece was a funnel with Athens at its narrowest point. Smaller numbers could hold off, if not indefinitely, then for long enough to allow for a rescue plan to be thrown together and implemented. A grander-scale Thermopylae, perhaps, save without the self-sacrificial element. Mussolini could not afford to sacrifice any part of his armed forces at such a critical junction.
