Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (24 page)

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operation. I had lunch with General Freyberg and his
officers yesterday. I told them a good many things they
had not heard, and would not hear in the ordinary
course. Freyberg sends his respects and good wishes,
and so do I.

We were to fly to General Leese’s battle headquarters of the Eighth Army, on the Adriatic side, on the afternoon of the 25th. Before starting I spent some hours with Alexander in his headquarters camp. While I was there General Devers and another high American general arrived unexpectedly. The much-disputed operation “Anvil,” now called “Dragoon,” was at present under General Patch, but Devers as Deputy to General Wilson had for many weeks been drawing units and key men ruthlessly from the Fifteenth Army Group, and particularly from the Fifth Army under Mark Clark. It was known that the troops of

“Dragoon” were likely to be raised to an Army Group Command, and that Devers would be designated as its chief. Naturally he sought to gather all the forces he could for the great enterprise to be entrusted to him, and to magnify it in every way. I saw very soon, although no serious topic was broached, that there was a coolness between him and Alexander. Gay, smiling, debonair, Alexander excused himself after the first few minutes, and left me in the mess tent with our two American visitors. As General Devers did not seem to have anything particular to say to me, and I did not wish to enter upon thorny ground, I also confined myself to civilities and generalities. I expected Alexander to return, but he did not, and after about twenty minutes Devers took his leave. There was of course no public business to be done. I wished him all good luck in his operation, and his courtesy call came to an end. I was conscious however of the tension between these high officers beneath an impeccable surface of politeness.

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Presently Alexander came to tell me that we should now drive to the airfield. We took off in his plane and flew northeastward for half an hour to Loreto, whence we drove to Leese’s camp behind Monte Maggiore. Here we had tents overlooking a magnificent panorama to the northward.

The Adriatic, though but twenty miles away, was hidden by the mass of Monte Maggiore. General Leese told us that the barrage to cover the advance of his troops would begin at midnight. We were well placed to watch the long line of distant gun-flashes. The rapid, ceaseless thudding of the cannonade reminded me of the First World War. Artillery was certainly being used on a great scale. After an hour of this I was glad to go to bed, for Alexander had planned an early start and a long day on the front. He had also promised to take me wherever I wanted to go.

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Before going to sleep I dictated the following message to Smuts, with whom my correspondence was continuous:
Prime Minister to

26 Aug. 44

Field-Marshal Smuts

A very considerable battle starts this morning and
afternoon, and will reach its full power tomorrow. Hence
my presence here for a couple of days. I must then
return to England, visit France, and thereafter go on to
Canada, for conferences starting about the middle of
September. I tried to see the South Africans yesterday,
but they were on the march.

So far “Anvil” has had the opposite effects for which
its designers intended it. First, it has attracted no troops
away from General Eisenhower at all. On the contrary,
two and a half to three divisions of German rearguard
troops will certainly reach the main battle-front before
the Allied landed troops. Secondly, a state of
stagnation has been enforced here by the breaking in
full career of these two great armies, the Fifth and the
Eighth, and by the milking out of the key personnel in
them. The consequence of this has been the
withdrawal from the Italian front of three German
divisions, including one very strong Panzer having an
active strength of 12,500. These have proceeded direct
to the Chalons area. Thus about five divisions have
been deployed against Eisenhower, which would not
have happened had we continued our advance here in
the direction of the Po and ultimately on the great city

[Vienna]. I still hope that we may achieve this. Even if
the war comes to an end suddenly I can see no reason
why our armour should not slip through and reach it, as
we can.

Alexander and I started together at about nine o’clock. His aide-de-camp and Tommy came in a second car. We were thus a conveniently small party. The advance had now been in progress for six hours, and was said to be making headway. But no definite impressions could yet be formed.

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We first climbed by motor up a high outstanding rock pinnacle, upon the top of which a church and village were perched. The inhabitants, men and women, came out to greet us from the, cellars in which they had been sheltering.

It was at once plain that the place had just been bombarded. Masonry and wreckage littered the single street. “When did this stop?” Alexander asked the small crowd who gathered round us, grinning rather wryly. “About a quarter of an hour ago,” they said. There was certainly a magnificent view from the ramparts of bygone centuries.

The whole front of the Eighth Army offensive was visible.

But apart from the smoke puffs of shells bursting seven or eight thousand yards away in a scattered fashion there was nothing to see. Presently Alexander said that we had better not stay any longer, as the enemy would naturally be firing at observation posts like this and might begin again. So we motored two or three miles to the westward, and had a picnic lunch on the broad slope of a hillside, which gave almost as good a view as the peak and was not likely to attract attention.

News was now received that our troops had pushed on a mile or two beyond the river Metauro. Here Hasdrubal’s defeat had sealed the fate of Carthage, so I suggested that we should go across too. We got into our cars accordingly, and in half an hour were across the river, where the road ran into undulating groves of olives, brightly patched with sunshine. Having got an officer guide from one of the battalions engaged, we pushed on through these glades till the sounds of rifle and machine-gun fire showed we were getting near to the front line. Presently warning hands brought us to a standstill. It appeared there was a minefield, and it was only safe to go where other vehicles had already gone without mishap. Alexander and his aide-de-camp now went off to reconnoitre towards a grey stone building which

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our troops were holding, which was said to give a good close-up view. It was evident to me that only very loose fighting was in progress. In a few minutes the aide-de-camp came back and brought me to his chief, who had found a very good place in the stone building, which was in fact an old château overlooking a rather sharp declivity. Here one certainly could see all that was possible. The Germans were firing with rifles and machine-guns from thick scrub on the farther side of the valley, about five hundred yards away. Our front line was beneath us. The firing was desultory and intermittent. But this was the nearest I got to the enemy and the time I heard most bullets in the Second World War. After about half an hour we went back to our motor-cars and made our way to the river, keeping very carefully to our own wheel tracks or those of other vehicles.

At the river we met the supporting columns of infantry, marching up to lend weight to our thin skirmish line, and by five o’clock we were home again at General Leese’s headquarters, where the news from the whole of the Army front was marked punctually on the maps. On the whole the Eighth Army had advanced since daybreak about seven thousand yards on a ten- or twelve-mile front, and the losses had not been at all heavy. This was an encouraging beginning.

The next morning plenty of work arrived, both by telegram and pouch. It appeared that General Eisenhower was worried by the approach of the German divisions I had mentioned to Smuts as having been withdrawn from Italy. I was glad that our offensive, prepared under depressing conditions, had begun. I drafted a telegram to the President explaining the position as I had learned it from the generals on the spot and from my own knowledge. I wished to Triumph and Tragedy

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convey in an uncontroversial form our sense of frustration, and at the same time to indicate my hopes and ideas for the future. If only I could revive the President’s interest in this sphere we might still keep alive our design of an ultimate advance to Vienna.

Prime Minister to

28 Aug. 44

President Roosevelt

General Alexander received a telegram from S.H.A.

E.F. asking for efforts to be made to prevent the
withdrawal of more [German] divisions from the Italian
front. This of course was the consequence of the great
weakening of our armies in Italy, and has taken place
entirely since the attack on the Riviera. In all, four
divisions have left, including a very strong Panzer en
route for Châlons. However, in spite of the weakening
process Alexander began about three weeks ago to
plan with Clark to turn or pierce the Apennines. For this
purpose the British XIIIth Corps of four divisions has
been placed under General Clark’s orders, and we
have been able to supply him with the necessary
artillery, of which his army had been deprived. This
army of eight divisions — four American and four British

— is now grouped around Florence on a northerly axis.

2. By skinning the whole front and holding long
stretches with nothing but anti-aircraft gunners
converted to a kind of artillery-infantry and supported by
a few armoured brigades, Alexander has also been
able to concentrate ten British or British-controlled
divisions representative of the whole British Empire on
the Adriatic flank. The leading elements of these
attacked before midnight on the 25th, and a general
barrage opened and an advance began at dawn on the
26th. An advance of about nine miles was made over a
large area, but the main position, the Gothic Line, has
still to be encountered. I had the good fortune to go
forward with this advance, and was consequently able
to form a much clearer impression of the modern
battlefield than is possible from the kinds of pinnacles
and perches to which I have hitherto been confined.

Triumph and Tragedy