As the Allies advance from Southern France and reached the Italian and German borders. They’ve reached the Franco-Italian border as well. Here, French-American forces fought in the Alps against Italian and German units. If you could go over the Second Battle of the Alps? What occur there? Major actions? Why didn’t the Allies pursue any objectives in that area? Hope to hear from y’all. Y’all are the best. Godspeed.
2 Likes
I haven’t read anything specifically about that, but my initial guess is that there were no strategic reasons to push through the Franco-Italian frontier and plenty of tactical reasons not to: fighting in mountains is slow, costly, and has a huge advantage for the defender.
4 Likes
All the answers flow from why didn’t the allies pursue objectives in the Alpin region. In mid September the armies that had landed in Southern France were moved from the Mediterranean theatre command to SHAEF under Eisenhower. I doubt if Eisenhower saw any rational to divert resources to a campaign in the Alps. The area was allocated to the French army and most of their best units were involved in the fighting North of Switzerland. South of Switzerland many of the units were recently converted from FFI units and still training up to professional levels.
Add to that the terrain and the decision to treat it as a static front becomes inevitable. Equally the Germans were pressed on the Italian front and were not interested in another drain on their resources, so they were also content with a static front.
2 Likes