Like a seductive siren, the lure of the Liri Valley was more than Allied planners could ignore. Through this long, flat plain, flanked by towering peaks, stretched Highway 6, the main north-south road to Rome. The Germans, who could also read maps, had fortified nearly every key point in the valley and were ready to make the Allies pay in blood for every inch–should they be so foolish as to try running the gantlet.

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Clark needed to quickly and successfully stage a major offensive operation through some of Italy’s most challenging terrain and against entrenched German forces in order for his troops even to be in a position to assist the amphibious force far behind enemy lines. And victories in Italy in 1943 had been anything but quick.

In October the British and Americans had made a successful, but costly, crossing of the Volturno River in front of the Barbara Line. The Germans put up token resistance as they carefully withdrew from the Barbara to better positions in the Bernhardt and Gustav lines. The British reached the Garigliano on November 2, but bad weather and German determination stopped the advance.

In November and December 1943, as the Brits had battled their way across the Sangro and Moro rivers to the north, the U.S. Fifth Army ran into formidable German forces dug in along the Bernhardt Line. A month of hard fighting resulted in the Allies’ edging closer to the Liri Valley, but it cost the lives of many fine soldiers.

Plans for an amphibious landing behind enemy lines had been in the works for weeks, and shortly before he departed for England, Eisenhower had directed Alexander to carry out those plans. The Alban Hills–the remnants of a long-dead volcano and the last natural barrier south of Rome–lay just 15 miles from Anzio. Highways 6 and 7 straddled the hills and led to Rome’s southern outskirts. Given the good beaches and flat terrain around Anzio, Alexander’s staff saw no reason why the Allies should not be able to quickly capture Rome.

Allied planners saw the Anzio operation as offering two chances to end the Gustav Line stalemate: if Generalfeldmarschall Albrecht Kesselring, commander of Army Group C, pulled troops out of the Gustav Line to deal with the threat to his rear, then the Allied forces facing the line would be more easily able to break through and roll the German forces up the peninsula. Should the Germans fail to use Gustav Line units to counter the Anzio move, then the Anzio forces likely would be able to break out of the beachhead, capture Rome, and cut off a German retreat to the north.

Of course, this latter scenario presupposed that the Wehrmacht was stretched to the limit in Italy and on other fronts and that no more manpower was available. At the very least, the planners felt, the Anzio operation would tie up a large enemy force in Italy–where it could not assist Hitler’s other beleaguered armies on the crumbling Eastern Front or the beaches of Normandy when the invasion of France finally began.

Alexander envisioned the Allies hitting the beach with a small, mobile force, overcoming the German defenses, which were believed to be less than formidable, and then driving on and securing the Alban Hills. This force would link up with the main force advancing from the south, and all would then head for Rome. But less optimistic staff members saw an advance on Rome as presenting a slender salient that could easily be destroyed.

The immediate problem was finding enough ships to make, supply and reinforce the landing. The Allies in Italy were under pressure to release as many ships and landing craft as possible in preparation for a twin amphibious assault on France–Operation Overlord in the north and Operation Anvil (later named Dragoon) in the south.

Besides the shortage of shipping, a few other practical considerations began to weigh upon Allied optimism. For one, if the main Allied force was to get bogged down on the Gustav Line, it would not be close enough to help support the Anzio landings. Secondly, should the Allies suffer heavy losses on the Bernhardt and Gustav lines, they might be too depleted and exhausted to be of any value, even if they made it to the Alban Hills.

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