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After their victory over
Germany in North Africa,

American generals want
to attack the Third Reich

directly through
Northern Europe,

but Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

and the British
believe an operation

of that size
and scope is premature.

Failure would be catastrophic.

Churchill proposes they
attack Germany from the south,

for what he considers the soft
underbelly of Europe,

Italy.

All wars change the world,

but none of them
changed the world

like the Second World War did.

Japan's on the march,
Germany's on the march.

No one can imagine the nightmare

they're about to unleash.

The most destructive
war in human history.

Suddenly the world
is turned upside down

and all hell is let loose.

The West is stunned by
the speed of the advance.

You get the Allies
led by the big three,

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin,

Men who were dealing with
immensely complicated questions.

It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

The Allies have
to come together,

not just militarily,
but industrial scale.

It's a global perspective.

They have to fight
in every climate,

from the Arctic to the
jungles of the Pacific,

to the deserts of Africa,
and the depths of the ocean.

But there was no
certainty of victory.

It was going to be a
horrific bloodbath.

We see humans at
their absolute worst,

how they treat
other human beings,

and we see them at
their absolute best,

willing to give their lives
that others might live.

World War II was a struggle

in which there could be one
victor and one vanquished.

In May, 1943,

the prime minister
of Great Britain

and the president of the United
States meet in Washington DC

for the third time since
American entry into the war.

Rarely in history
have political leaders

forged as personal a bond

as Winston Churchill
and Franklin Roosevelt.

Churchill still feels
he's the senior partner.

He can get what he
wants out of Roosevelt.

So after Tunis, after
the big victory in North Africa,

Churchill's argument is that
there's one logical next step,

and that next step is Sicily.

So campaigning in
the Mediterranean

will not only knock over one
of the three big Axis powers,

Mussolini's Italy,

it will also open a back
door to Hitler's Germany.

And the American
commanders are saying, "Why?

Let's just go
straight for Berlin.

What are we doing?

Why are we dancing
around the edges here

with this Mediterranean
nonsense?"

And they think that
Franklin Roosevelt

is being persuaded by
Churchill's pretty words.

There were charges
then and since

that Churchill wanted to go up
through the bottom of Europe

in order to preserve
the British Empire.

Britain was a
Mediterranean power.

The Americans suspected
that this was all about

defending British interests
in Egypt, in the Suez Canal

that controlled India
and the Persian Gulf

where British oil was.

FDR's
not interested

in preserving the
British Empire,

but he understands there
are sound, strategic reasons

to capture Sicily.

One of Churchill's
arguments was,

they had these commitments

to take some pressure
off the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin has been
pushing for a second front.

Churchill says, "You
have all of these armies

that are now freed up

after the North African
campaign is over.

What are you gonna do with them?

They're right there."

The truth is that the
Allies

still don't have
enough actual material

to conduct a cross-channel
invasion and land in France.

Allied military leaders

are already planning a
cross-channel invasion,

Operation Overlord,

but it will not be
ready for months.

To relieve the military
pressure on the Soviets,

and sustain the
momentum established

by the victory in North Africa,

FDR agrees to attack Sicily.

After Sicily, they
will pull, let us say,

the Allied A-team out
of the Mediterranean,

the leadership team, most
of the landing craft,

most of the air power,
deploy it to Great Britain

to begin, finally,
preparations in earnest

for an invasion
of Western Europe.

Churchill's like,
"Yes, of course,

I'm sure things
will go really fast.

We'll be back in time for a
nice early D-Day in 1944."

He goes, "Look,
we're all dressed up,

we're ready to go to the ball.

Let's do Sicily."

The invasion of
Sicily is given the code name

Operation Husky.

At the time,
Operation Husky

is the biggest amphibious
operation in history.

The scale of shipping and
manpower is unprecedented.

They're gonna put
onshore, 160,000 troops.

Both Italian and
German troops

oppose the Allied landings.

But the Allies achieve surprise,

and quickly secure the beaches.

You've got two field
commanders on Sicily,

Montgomery for the British.

Montgomery is given the key
role, Patton for the Americans.

Patton's job is
really as a shield.

The
British Eighth Army,

under general
Bernard Montgomery,

will advance north to Messina,

while the American Seventh Army,

under General George Patton,
guards his left flank.

If you get to
Messina, any troops that are

on Sicily cannot cross back over
it into Italy proper.

And now you've captured all
the troops that are on Sicily

and you own Sicily.

And that's especially
crucial

for the German
divisions,

so that the Allies
won't have to face them

at some future point
in some future battle.

As in North Africa,
British and American forces

are required to
operate as one force.

This is a really
ambitious attempt

to just bring two nations
with two different traditions

very, very close into harmony.

And as you might expect,
there's teething trouble.

Montgomery and the
British senior commanders

all had a similar
attitude to the Americans,

which is, they're green.

There were disasters and
setbacks in North Africa,

they're still
learning their trade.

We've been at this since 1940.

Patton, on the other
hand, thinks Montgomery

has no kind of understanding

of what American servicemen
can actually achieve.

Both armies
endure horrendous conditions.

The mountainous terrain,

the 100-plus degree heat,
thousands are felled by malaria.

Sicily in the
summertime is incredibly hot,

it is disease ridden.

Fighting there is
brutal for everyone.

Fire!

Facing
stiff German resistance,

Montgomery's army stalls.

He's given access to the road

Patton's army has already taken.

Patton goes
ballistic.

To his credit, Patton doesn't
just sit there seething.

He comes up with a plan.

What Patton sees
is, a drive north up to Palermo

would put a feather in his cap.

The Americans overrun
the western half of Sicily

before the Germans and Italians
know what is happening.

Patton captures
the Sicilian capital of Palermo

less than two weeks after
the initial landings.

This is the signal
moment for the US army

so far in World War II.

Patton's forces are greeted
in the streets of Palermo

by Sicilians who were never a
hundred percent on board

with fascism anyway,

and they're gonna greet
the arriving American army

as liberators.

Yet again,
Adolf Hitler must adjust

for Italian military weakness.

His major ally on
the European continent,

Benito Mussolini, seems unable

even to defend his
own home territory.

Benito Mussolini

and his Italian fascist movement

had set the stage
for Adolf Hitler

and the rise of the
Nazi party in Germany.

Mussolini is the
inventor of fascism,

is the embodiment of the
virility of the fascist man.

In the early phases
of this relationship,

Hitler himself looks up at
Mussolini, and he aspires to do

what Mussolini has been
able to achieve in Italy.

Hitler
consciously copied

Mussolini's grab for power.

Duce! Duce! Duce!

The symbolism.

Sieg heil.

The
political tactics,

the violence.

But Mussolini no longer commands
an iron grip on his nation

like Hitler does.

Mussolini's war has
brought Italy

nothing but
misery.

The Italian people
wanted very little part

of this war at the beginning,
they want no part of it now.

Things cannot go on like this.

Hitler's getting
situation reports

of what's going on in Sicily,

basically saying the
Italians aren't fighting.

He makes the decision
to go to Italy

to put some spine
into Mussolini.

He is shocked by the
sight of Mussolini,

who's really a broken man after
the defeat in North Africa.

There isn't much
fight left in him,

and Hitler is horrified
by what he's seeing.

Hitler harangues
Mussolini

for hours about his
failures.

His failure to instill
a war-like spirit

into the armed forces,

his failure to make true
fascists of the Italian people,

his failure to prosecute the
war with sufficient vigor,

and Mussolini has no choice
but to sit there and take it.

As Hitler
and Mussolini meet,

the Allies begin a
bombing campaign on Rome.

The news comes as
a shock to Mussolini,

and he tries to convey to Hitler

the gravity of the situation.

Hitler continues as if
nothing had happened.

The bombing of Rome
adds fuel

to this already simmering fire

of questioning and doubt
about Mussolini's leadership.

The bombing of
Rome is a shock to the Italians.

The battles have been
fought elsewhere,

but now the price of
Mussolini's war hits home.

There's grumbling
in the streets.

Mussolini thinks
he has the fascist

brand counsel in his pocket,

he thinks he has the
top leadership

in the military in his pocket,

he thinks he has the
King in his pocket.

Victor Emmanuel III
has been

the King of Italy since
1900,

and he's the one that
handed the government

over to Mussolini in 1922.

On July 25th, the
day after the fascist council

passes a vote of no
confidence for Mussolini,

the King summons
him to his palace.

And he's told not
to wear his uniform.

This should have been
an indication to him

that trouble was afoot,

and his wife, in fact,
advises him not to go.

Mussolini tells her, "No
problem, I've got this."

But the King
has Mussolini arrested.

He's rushed away in the
back of an ambulance

to hide him from public view.

His 21-year fascist
reign is over.

The fall of Mussolini

leads to a very confusing
situation.

The new head of state is the
marshal of the Italian army,

Pietro Badoglio.

He actually makes
an announcement

that the war goes on,

"We remain Germany's
loyal ally."

After
Mussolini is deposed,

FDR addresses the nation.

My fellow Americans,

our terms to Italy
are still the same,

unconditional surrender.

Publicly, Badoglio
states repeatedly

that the war effort is going
on alongside the Germans.

Privately, he is actually
starting to make arrangements

for the Italians to
get out of the war.

Badoglio signals
that Italy might be open

to an armistice.

He sends one of his generals

to secretly negotiate
directly with the Allies.

Badoglio might
wish to surrender,

but he needs to have
someone at his back.

He knows that there
will be retribution

from the angriest man
in Europe at the time,

and that will be Adolf Hitler.

In Sicily, Patton's
army leaves Palermo

to get to Messina,

while the British are
advancing from the south.

Meanwhile, the Germans
are taking advantage

of the delay in
getting to Messina

to begin getting off the island.

It's effectively
the German Dunkirk,

because pretty much
everyone who could walk

and was able-bodied, got off,

and not only that, they got
off with all their equipment.

The entire purpose of
the Allied operational plan

was to trap the Germans
on Sicily, and they fail.

Still, things in
Sicily

go pretty much as
Churchill would've wished.

Not only do Allied
troops successfully

drive Axis forces
outta of Sicily,

and it also proves
to be the death nail

of Mussolini's fascist regime.

With
the potential deal

for an Italian
surrender in the works,

FDR and Churchill
meet in Quebec.

And it's at this point

that Churchill is able
to say to Roosevelt,

"Look, the Italians are
pulling out of the war.

We have an opportunity
bloodlessly take

the Italian peninsula.

You know, what's not to like
in this operation?"

Churchill says, "The
Italians are begging us

to come and help liberate
them and switch sides.

We could be in Rome in
a couple of weeks here.

If we land in Italy,
it'll be a cakewalk.

We can't do Sicily
and then go home."

FDR agrees,

but only with assurance
that Operation Overlord

will remain the Allies'
highest priority.

The difficult trade off
in the Italian campaign

is that the key resources,

the landing craft
and the best troops,

are gonna go back to the
UK to prepare for D-Day.

Supreme Allied
Commander Dwight Eisenhower

now picks one of America's
youngest generals

to lead the Italian invasion,

Mark Clark, commander
of the US Fifth Army.

Clark has a flare
for showmanship.

Because once you pin on a star,

you're also becoming a little
bit of a politician as well.

Mark Clark has an
immense amount of talent,

but he also has a
corresponding ego.

He travels with a press corps.

He will only let them take
pictures of his favorite side,

which I think is his left side,

based on all the
pictures we see of him.

The Allied
strategy in Italy

calls for two large forces.

The first will land
in and Calabria,

and the second will land a
few days later at Salerno.

The two forces will then link,
and push north towards Rome.

At Calabria,
Montgomery's Eighth Army

lands almost uncontested

Badoglio was supposed
to take to the airwaves

on the evening of September 8th

and announce the
Italian surrender,

and this is crucial to the plan,

because it will tell the
hundreds of thousands

of Italian troops how in
beach defense positions

not to fire at the
Allies as they land.

At
his headquarters,

Eisenhower waits by his radio.

The Salerno landings
are just hours away.

6:30 comes, no
Badoglio.

Seven o'clock, no Badoglio.

The entire plan hinges
on a well announced,

orderly Italian surrender.

Eisenhower
decides to force the issue

by going on the radio himself.

The Italian government

has surrendered its armed
forces unconditionally.

All Italians who now
act to help eject

the German aggressor
from Italian soil

will have the assistance

and the support of
the United Nations.

Hitler
anticipates the announcement

of the armistice.

From the moment
Mussolini falls,

Hitler's convinced that
Badoglio's government

is going to withdraw
from the war.

For weeks,

Hitler has been moving
German troops into Italy.

He orders Operation Axis.

The Germans have an
operation

they've been
preparing,

which is that, if the
Italians do the dirty on us,

we're gonna disarm them

and we're gonna take over
the security of all of Italy.

Italy will
become an occupied nation.

Operation Axis is the
disarmament of the Italian army

and the occupation of
the entire Italian Boot

by German forces.

It occurs with
lightning rapidity.

The Italian army is
on its back foot.

They aren't so sure about
who they should be firing at,

if anyone.

Local Italian
resistance movements

form and fight the Germans.

Nazi retaliation is fierce.

The Italians were
being executed by the Germans

after they switched sides.

There were a lot of
terrible things going on,

villages wiped out.

When the
Allied invasion force

lands at Salerno,

they believe they'll be
welcomed by Italian troops.

Underlying this
operational plan is intelligence

that the German army
may evacuate Italy,

that it has no desire
to defend Italy.

If all goes well, the
Allies should be up to Rome

with almost no
casualties at all.

So what they're gonna
do is they're gonna land

without any pre-bombardment,

and they're gonna hope
for tactical surprise.

The Allies are
expecting to meet

happy Italian
faces,

perhaps handshakes, taking
over Italian positions

now that Italy had surrendered,

and instead, what the troops
at Salerno experienced

was a wall of German fire.

The whole of the beach

is being saturated with
shellfire.

It's an absolute inferno.

It was a grim experience for
those first few crucial days

in which they're trying
to defend the beachhead.

And it's the fighting at Salerno

that really convinces Hitler

to make them fight for
every inch of Italy.

Hitler moves
more forces to defend Italy.

He also discovers that Mussolini

is being held at a hotel
in the Apennine Mountains,

and decides to take action.

Hitler just can't
quit Mussolini, apparently.

He orders a commando
raid onto the Gran Sasso

to rescue Benito Mussolini.

That force lands,

overcomes Mussolini's guards.

Mussolini
is flown back to Germany.

Hitler thinks that
Mussolini

would give legitimacy to the
German occupation of Italy.

For the rest of the
war, Mussolini will be ruling

a kind of puppet regime
in northern Italy.

But he's a shadow of the figure

who used to strut across the
world stage in the 1930s.

The situation has
changed drastically

since Mussolini was the top
dog and Hitler the imitator,

to now, Mussolini
as Hitler's lap dog.

After a massive
air and naval assault,

Clark's Fifth Army breaks out
of Salerno and moves inland.

A modern mechanized
army is going to experience

great difficulty
in driving north,

because the Germans recognized,

the terrain's gonna do
half the work for us.

Mountain ranges,
ravines, and fast flowing rivers

made Italy a sort
of natural fortress.

What the Germans
do effectively

is scorched earth policy.

They rip up the railway tracks,

they flood the river valleys.

They make it almost impossible
to move through this terrain

unless you've taken
the high ground.

It was very clear very quickly
that they were gonna struggle

to fight their way up
the Italian peninsula.

General Mark Clark relabeled

Churchill's description of
Italy as the soft underbelly

as the tough old gut.

It is said
that all roads lead to Rome,

but in the fall of 1943,

for the Allies,
there was only one,

Highway 6.

As Allied forces are
lured deeper and deeper

by moving north up Highway 6,

the German strategy
very quickly becomes,

we're going to set up a
series of defensive lines,

and you come to us, and
we will then maul you.

It looked a lot like
World War I defenses look.

There are mines, and
mortars, and machine guns.

On the high ground, you
have artillery observers,

who could have a full view
of the advance of the Allies,

and they would call artillery
to fire on the advances.

The frustration grows with the
costliness of this advance,

the slowness of this
advance up the Boot.

There's some
historical wisdom here,

and it traces back to the
great Napoleon who once said,

"Italy is a boot,
and like all boots,

has to be entered from the top,"

where there's a
nice broad plain,

plenty of room to maneuver.

To fight up from
the toe of Italy

after coming from Sicily...

Look at the terrain of Italy.

Big mountain range all
down the center spine.

This is the big
problem in Italy.

Who would wanna put an
army into that area,

especially if it's raining?

It rains every day.

And General Clark once said,

"Anyone who ever talks
about sunny Italy

should be here in October,"

which is when the
Allies were there.

Gains are measured not in
miles, but often in yards.

The Italian campaign soon turns
into a slog for the Allies.

And it's sapping
their energy.

They're wet, they're
cold, they're tired.

All of that is draining
morale, as well as manpower.

One of the things
that they resort to

is using mules to
carry supplies forward,

'cause at least mules can get
through that kind of terrain

in those kind of conditions.

I think it's fair to
say, when the war began,

in the war department
in Washington,

no one was thinking of mules.

It was arguably the
most horrendous fighting

that the Western Allies
had to experience

in the whole of the
European theater.

There's no question that
some of the Americans

who've given the go ahead
for the Italian campaign

are now having second thoughts.

Churchill and the
British commanders

promised the Americans
that, basically,

Italy would fall
relatively quickly.

Churchill argues
again and again

that it would be
folly not to continue

once one has set out on
the Italian campaign,

arguing they must
capitalize on their gains.

What do you do,
evacuate Italy?

No, you fight the
enemy in front of you.

Before you know it, you're
embroiled in a massive, costly,

brutal war in Italy.

Highway 6
snakes into the Liri Valley

on its way up the
Italian peninsula.

Overlooking the valley is
a 1,700-foot rocky peak

called Monte Cassino.

Perched on top is a sixth
century Benedictine abbey.

Monte Cassino is
the strong point

of the German's
defensive formation,

the Gustav Line.

It must have seemed to
the Allies,

as they gazed up
there,

that this is a kind of
perfect defensive position

for the Germans to use.

From the commanding
heights of this terrain,

the Germans can rain down

accurate and effective
artillery fire at all times.

There is no way
to get to Rome

without in some way
dealing with Monte Cassino.

The Allies hope
to get to Rome by Christmas,

but it's here in the
shadow of Monte Cassino

that the advance stalls.

In November, Allied
leaders gather in Tehran.

FDR is meeting Stalin
for the first time.

And the first thing
that happens

is Roosevelt and
Stalin

seem insistent on building
their own relationship,

sometimes freezing
Churchill out,

and he takes this
really badly.

He has to cede center
stage with Roosevelt to Stalin.

And Churchill is in an
interesting kind of

no man's land.

There's this old line

that Stalin didn't know much
English, but he knew two words,

second front,

because he said it over
and over and over again.

And when Stalin
says second front,

he doesn't mean Sicily
or even mainland Italy,

he means France.

Churchill says, "I was
the little British donkey

sitting between the
great American eagle

and the Soviet bear,

and I was the only one
who knew the way home."

Churchill is still
sticking

with his Mediterranean
plan.

But he knows that,
coming out of Tehran,

it's really important
to be able to go back

and win this victory.

Winston Churchill,
the master of

out-of-the box
thinking,

has an idea for a left hook,

an amphibious landing on
the western shore of Italy

behind the Gustav Line.

Troops
will land at Anzio,

50 miles behind the
German forces,

then drive inland,

drawing German defenders
away from Monte Cassino.

Winston Churchill
thinks

that this could break
the whole thing free.

This is the wildcat we need
to shatter this stalemate.

The Allies
agree to do it,

mainly because Churchill
is convinced it can work.

But because so many
men and landing craft

have been shipped back to
Britain to prepare for D-Day,

the an Anzio landing winds
up being two divisions only,

a drop in the bucket.

The Allied force at
Anzio lands on an empty beach.

There are almost no
Germans in front of it.

Surprise has been achieved.

Speed is
of the essence.

As soon as you land, you
must get off the beachhead

as quickly as possible,
strike inland.

One jeep patrol
actually gets as far

as the outskirts of Rome.

So clearly, there is a
route of advance open.

The
commander of the invasion

is General John Lucas.

Instead of driving
boldly into the interior

and seizing the high ground
over the Anzio beachhead,

General Lucas stays put.

His thought is, "I
need to secure this port,

'cause that is how we
will be reinforced",

and so he sits.

As he sits, the German
commander Kesselring

will basically pull
all the cooks, bakers,

and candlestick
makers from round Rome

and build them up to pen
in the Anzio landing.

The Germans have
the high ground again,

and are able to
control the situation

by subjecting the Allied
forces to constant shelling.

Leading the way in
the German bombardments

were two enormous railroad guns,

known colloquially to the Allies

as Anzio Annie and
the Anzio Express.

These fire a 500-pound
shell 30 miles.

It would've sounded
like a freight train.

You could hear it kinda
whistling in, and then boom.

The Allies at Anzio
are sitting in a marsh.

They have no cover.

Around them are mountains
and German artillery,

and the artillery
never stops firing.

There was nowhere on
the beachhead you could go to

and get respite
from enemy fire.

And so, what you
basically gotta do

is burrow down into the
ground and hold tight.

It was just this
horrendous grind

of being under fire
for 24 hours a day.

This is as
miserable a position

as any force in World War II
found themselves.

Anzio is
Churchill's plan.

And he said, famously,
after the event,

"I thought we landed a
wildcat on the shore.

What we got was a beach whale."

The
Luftwaffe strafes

Allied troops on the beachhead.

Included in the effort to help
Lucas's forces off the beach

is the 99th Fighter Squadron,

part of what will become
known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

During that era
of segregation,

most African Americans
serve in rear echelon units.

Tuskegee airmen are
frontline fighting units,

and they're changing
everyone's minds.

On one of their mission,
16 of them fly over Anzio,

and then what they find
is the German aircraft

working over the landing craft.

They shoot down 10 of
those German aircraft.

To the south,

multiple attacks on the
Monte Cassino abbey fail.

The Allies debate
whether to bomb

the mountaintop
Abbey from the air.

The Benedictine
abbey that sits on Monte Cassino

is a cultural relic.

The law of armed conflict would
say, we don't touch those.

Of course, this is one
of the most important libraries

of Christian thought
for millennia,

and many civilians had
taken refuge there.

But the assumption
was that the Germans

were inside the
abbey and using it

as the perfect field
artillery observer's position.

We cannot allow the enemy

to continue to harass
us with artillery fire.

So, the abbey's gotta go.

Allied forces
distributed pamphlets

warning that there
would be a bombardment,

and the residents, they thought,

they're not actually
going to do it.

Allied bombers flatten
this shrine of Christianity.

The bombing actually
resulted in the killing

of hundreds of civilians who
were taking refuge there.

Allied
intelligence was wrong.

The German observation posts

had not been inside
the monastery walls.

The Germans who weren't
occupying the abbey

have now decided to
occupy the rubble,

which is incredibly effective
for defensive purposes.

So the Allies got
the exact opposite

of what they hoped to achieve.

Bombing the monastery
gets the Allies

no closer to their goal.

At some point, infantry
is going to have to

ascend a mountain
under enemy fire.

The Allies have
bombed the Monte Cassino abbey,

but the Germans still
hold the summit.

When the weather
improves in May,

the Allies make yet
another assault.

They take nearly
their entire force in Italy

and cram it into the narrow
western half of the peninsula,

using overwhelming strength now,

tanks, aircraft, ceaseless
waves of artillery bombardment.

You've got this extraordinary
United Nations of troops.

I mean, people from all
over the world are Cassino.

We got the
British, we got the Americans,

we got New Zealand Maoris, we
got Canadians, we got Indians,

we got French
Moroccans, Goumiers,

that are wonderful
mountain fighters.

It is one of the places where
Japanese Americans fight.

Who gets assigned Monte
Cassino? The Pols.

World War II
began in Europe

when Germany invaded Poland.

As much as anyone,
the Polish people

have suffered from the
brutal rule of the Nazis.

The idea that
Pols

would never miss an
opportunity

to take it back
out on the Germans

for what they did to them
should be lost on no one.

At Monte Cassino,

the Pols are that
final wave of fighters,

and they, with incredible
bravery and toughness,

go up this
huge inclines.

As you advance up the
hill, you have to show yourself.

You're gonna be picked
off, you're a sitting duck.

We're talking
almost 4,000 casualties

for the Polish units attacking
against Monte Cassino.

The Pols

finally overrun the
ruins of the abbey.

The Polish flag is
unveiled

on the top of the
monastery.

And they play this very,
very famous bugle call,

HejnaB Mariacki,

which translates to St.
Mary's trumpet call.

It's a symbol of resilience,
of national identity,

of hope for the future,
and of the fight for Poland

for every single Polish person.

And it sounds out
over the monastery

once the fighting has died down.

The
Gustav Line is broken.

The Americans are finally able

to break out of the
Anzio beachhead.

There's a plan to
encircle

and destroy the
Germans.

The plan is for Mark
Clark

to angle his troops
to the northeast

and cut off Highway
6 at Valmontone.

Those were the
orders he was given.

But Clark decides to
make a swift left turn,

that is north, towards Rome.

Rome is an
irresistible target.

Nothing screams we
are making progress

than to have captured Rome.

And Mark Clark fundamentally
thinks that the Fifth Army,

who has slogged their way
up the Italian peninsula,

and him in particular,
should get credit for this.

The conquest of
Rome is to take out

one of the great
Axis capitals

in the war.

And what you're doing

is pointing out to
the rest of the world

that we're on the
march, it's happening,

and next stop, Berlin.

The first of the Axis
capitals is now in our hands.

One up

and two
to go.

However, the
liberation of Rome

is gonna be entirely
overshadowed

because the next day is going
to be the launch of D-Day,

and Roosevelt can't
say anything about it.

After 10 months,

the Allies have reached
the Italian capital.

But General Clark's
decision to take Rome

allows the Germans
to escape once again.

Ever since, he's had
to answer questions

about those orders.

Was his ego simply too
large to pass up Rome?

Ultimately,
the liberation of Rome

has more symbolic
than strategic value.

The Allies would continue to
fight the Germans in Italy

for almost another year.

I think Churchill
went to his grave thinking

there was an opportunity
there that was missed.

Churchill always believed
that it had been a good idea,

but it had been undone
by a bit of foot dragging

and some bad luck.

The Italian
campaign is the moment

at which Churchill
overreaches himself.

He had insisted on this
vast continental campaign

that had led to
nothing but misery.

Because
of difficult terrain,

military miscalculation,

and determined resistance
from a skillful enemy,

the Allied effort in Italy
gained little and cost much.

The Italian campaign
is the last time

the British will have
a predominant presence

in the Allied forces.

America has been building
airplanes and tanks,

and creating soldiers.

As the American strength rises,

Winston Churchill's
influence wanes.

The battle for Italy,

which will go on until
the end of the war,

was fought with
determination and bravery.

Ordinary soldiers
fought for their nation,

but also for each other.

This kind of comradery is found

in all theaters and
on all battlefields.

War tests the best of us.

And nowhere would
men be tested more

than in the skies over Germany.