Second Battle of the Alps
Second Battle of the Alps | |||||||||
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Part of the Western Front of World War II | |||||||||
Stuart tank preserved as memorial to the Battle of Authion | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
![]() Italian resistance | |||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Strength | |||||||||
40,000 men[2] |
4 divisions (2 Italian, 2 German)[3] | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
2,287 casualties: 393 killed 1,730 wounded 164 missing or captured[2] |
1,453 casualties: 800 killed or wounded 653 captured[4] |
The Second Battle of the Alps (French: deuxième bataille des Alpes; Italian: seconda battaglia delle Alpi) was a military campaign fought between combined German and Italian Social Republic forces, and the re-established French Republic led by Charles de Gaulle and other Allied forces.[4]
Background
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/De_Gaulle-OWI.jpg/170px-De_Gaulle-OWI.jpg)
Since 1943, French general Charles de Gaulle, head of the
During 1945 de Gaulle was able to send soldiers and partisans to help the Italian resistance near the city of Aosta, and could have occupied a territory of 20km from the Franco-Italian border if necessary. The general used this excuse to gather a large number of soldiers near the front, ready to conquer as much Italian land as possible from the Aosta Valley to Liguria. French spies were sent to spread French propaganda to gain the population's support during the invasion, but the majority of Italian citizens did not want to join France. French soldiers retreated in the summer of 1945, except from the villages of Tende and Brigue, which were later annexed with the peace treaty (1947). A significant part of the population left the two villages to avoid having to become French citizens.[6][7][8][need quotation to verify]
Order of battle
French forces
Between November 1944 and March 1945 France set up the Détachement d'Armées des Alpes (Army Detachment of the Alps) under General Paul-André Doyen, an officer of the
In the Northern part of the theatre the main French unit was the
Further south in the
The French troops on the alpine front were subordinate to General Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group though in practice they received their instructions from the French Army headquarters and thus from de Gaulle himself. At first they were assigned the strictly defensive mission of defending the 6th Army Group's supply lines. However, Devers later authorized an attack in order to support the Allied offensive in Italy, with the French being allowed to advance up to 20 km inside Italian territory.[4]
German and Italian forces
The defense of the Franco-Italian border was entrusted to LXXV Army Corps, under General der Gebirgstruppe Hans Schlemmer of General Rodolfo Graziani's Army Group Liguria,with all Axis forces in the area coming under its purview.[11][12]
The German forces belonged to the 34th Infantry Division and to the 5th Gebirgsjäger Division.[4] The Gebirgsjäger were an elite troop recruited among the mountainous regions of Tyrol and Bavaria. Their division included a unit of expert mountaineers, the Lehrbattalion Mittenwald. The 34th Division, led by General Theo-Helmut Lieb, was an experienced unit that had fought for 3 years on the Eastern Front.[9]
Axis defenses relied heavily on French fortifications, both from the 19th century Séré de Rivières system and from the Alpine Line of Maginot forts, as well as on the Italian Alpine Wall. In 1943 a detailed inspection had convinced the Germans to halt the dismantlement of the French forts by Organisation Todt, in order to use them against a possible Allied offensive from Italy. In the summer of 1944, with the imminence of a landing in southern France plans were drawn for holding the front in that direction with a force of two German divisions, though an offensive through the Alps was judged unlikely.[13]
The Italian forces were mainly formed by two divisions, the
Italian partisans
The partisan brigades were mainly formed by the Alpini too, and had planned the defence on the mountains and the conquest of the last Aostan cities still controlled by the fascist Italian Folgore regiment, the Decima Flottiglia MAS and some German units.
The major part of the partisan forces was however sent to prevent the Germans retreating to Germany from causing massacres and violence against the civilians.
Campaign
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Little Saint Bernard
The French first attacked the
In early April 1945 the 4th Alpini Regiment of the Littorio Division and the Germans of the 100th ''Gebirgsjäger'' Regiment held a front running from Rhêmes to La Forclaz. On the 10 April, the French began a series of attacks in the direction of the Little Saint Bernard.[17] Between 23 and 25 April, the Italians and Germans abandoned their positions on the Aosta front.[18] By the 25 April the French were preparing to cross into Italian territory.[19]
With serious fighting around the Fort de la Redoute Ruinée, on the morning of the 29 April, the Alpini commander, Lt-Col Armando De Felice, ordered all his positions on French soil abandoned.[19] That day the French occupied the fort. It was, along with the Roc de Belleface, also occupied that day, the last pieces of French soil under Italian occupation.[4]
Mont Cenis
Codenamed Operation Izard, the attack on the Mont Cenis pass began on the 5 April. It was carried out by the 3,000 men of the 7th Half-brigade of Chasseurs Alpins belonging to the 27th Alpine Division, led by Colonel Alain Le Ray, reinforced by two batteries of heavy artillery from the 1st Free French Division. The position was defended by a battalion of the 5th Gebirgsjäger Division and another battalion from the Paratroop Regiment Folgore supported by German artillery, in all some 1,500 men.[20]
The operation opened with an attack on the German observation post at the Pointe de Bellecombe (2750m), which was reached after a 600m night climb in difficult weather. The post was destroyed, but a counter-attack forced the Chasseurs off the feature later the same day. The main objective for the French was the old fort at
The failure of Operation Izard had severe consequences for Doyen's force as it persuaded the Americans to withhold further supplies for the offensive. The Mont-Cenis pass was captured only on the 27 April after Axis forces had retreated from the area.[4][22]
Battle of Authion
Between the 10 and the 12 April 1945, French forces took control of the Authion massif. The massif was defended by several forts held by German forces of the 34th Division under General Lieb and Italians of the Littorio Division under General Agosti. The fighting resulted in over 200 French and over 100 Germans dead.[10]
Col de Larche
The Col de Larche, linking the Ubaye valley via a tributary, the Ubayette, to the Valle Stura di Demonte, was defended by several Maginot forts, the Ouvrage Roche-la-Croix, Ouvrage Saint Ours Haut and Ouvrage Saint Ours Bas held by German and Italian troops.
An assault was launched on the 22 April by French forces including elements of the 159th, 99th and 141st Alpine infantry regiments, and the 5th Dragoon Regiment which was the reconnaissance unit of the 27th Alpine Division. They were supported by aviation and an artillery unit detached from the 1st Free French Division. After a violent artillery preparation French forces captured the village of Larche, cutting off the forts from their rear and in the evening Roche la Croix fell after a brief fight. On the 23 April, Saint-Ours Haut was found to have been abandoned and was captured without a fight, but Saint-Ours Bas had to be taken by storm. The French employed the next day in obtaining the surrender of isolated pockets of resistance but their artillery unit had to be withdrawn which led to some reorganisation. On the 26 April the offensive was due to be renewed against the col itself but this was found to have been abandoned by the Axis forces. Fighting in the area cost the French 15 killed and 38 injured while the Axis lost 34 killed and 150 captured.[4][23]
Aosta Valley Crisis
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Harold_Alexander_E010750678-v8.jpg/220px-Harold_Alexander_E010750678-v8.jpg)
British Field Marshal
In messages between the
This was the final act of the
Aftermath
De Gaulle had been checked by the British and Americans and would have little input in the subsequent reconstruction of Italy, in addition the Italian democratic parties became disillusioned by de Gaulle and accused him of trying to assert potential French leadership in subsequent Franco-Italian relations.[29] The plans of de Gaulle to annex territories of the Aosta Valley, Piedmont and Liguria could therefore be classed as a failure.
After the Treaties of Paris between the new governments of both France and Italy some adjustments were made on the Franco-Italian border, considered as a punishment for Italy joining the Axis in 1940. The border with France was only slightly modified in favour of France, mostly in uninhabited Alpine areas (except for the Tende valley and La Brigue) thus remaining largely the same as in 1860.[30]
L'ultima battaglia delle Alpi or La dernière bataille des Alpes (The Last Battle of the Alps) is a 2010 Franco-Italian documentary about the attempted annexation of the Italian territories by the French. It contains interviews with French and Italian veterans that fought in the Alps during 1945.[31]
References
- ^ Direct Democracy (12 October 1947). "Tenda und Briga (Tende et la Brigue, Frankreich), 12. Oktober 1947 : Anschluss an Frankreich" (in German).
- ^ a b Klingbeil 2005, p. 383.
- ^ Klingbeil 2005, p. 380.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Riccioli 1996.
- ^ (in Italian) Gino Nebiolo, « Soldati e spie»
- ^ Saletta, Roberto (September 4, 2017). "L'annessione alla Francia di Briga e Tenda nel 1947".
- ^ "Cessione di Briga e Tenda alla Francia: Ecco cosa è davvero successo". 14 May 2017.
- ^ a b Lipgens p. 212
- ^ a b c "70e anniversaire de la libération des Alpes-Maritimes". Alpes-Maritimes Department. Retrieved 2018-11-08.
- ^ a b Les combats de l'authion, Musée de la Resistance azuréenne, archived from the original on 11 May 2021, retrieved 17 November 2015
- ^ Klingbeil 2005, p. 133.
- Army Group Liguriawas under the administrative control of General Graziani.
- ^ Klingbeil 2005, p. 17.
- ^ Klingbeil 2005, p. 132-136.
- ^ Romain Rainero and Antonello Biagini (eds.), L'Italia in guerra: il 5o anno, 1944 (Commissione italiana di storia militare, 1995), p. .
- ^ Nino Arena, RSI: Forze armate della Repubblica Sociale Italiana – La guerra in Italia, 1945 (Emanno Albertelli Editore, 1999), p. 279.
- ^ Roberto Nicco, La Resistenza in Valle d'Aosta (Musumeci, 1995), p. 309.
- ISBN 9788834324585
- ^ a b Marco Picone Chiodo, In nome della resa: l'Italia nella guerra, 1940–1945 (Mursia, 1990), p. 543.
- ^ Ring 2014.
- ^ "La Campagne des Alpes 1944-45". Musée Militaire de Lyon et de la région Rhône-Alpes. 2011-04-25. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
- ^ Demouzon, Laurent. "Bataille des Alpes: Maurienne". Retrieved 2018-11-13.
- ^ Morel & Lesueur 2012, p. 27.
- ^ Cook p. 281
- ^ See Wildgen 1970.
- ^ a b Harris, Charles Reginald Schiller (1957). Allied military administration of Italy, 1943-1945. H. M. Stationery Office. pp. 318–20.
- ^ a b Weinberg, Harry L. Coles, Albert K. (1964). United States Army in World War II. Special Studies...: Civil affairs : soldiers become governors, by Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg. Government Printing Office. pp. 569–70.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Paxton & Wall p. 118
- ^ Rowland pp. 49-51
- JSTOR 621046.
- ^ "fctp - L'ultima battaglia delle Alpi". www.fctp.it.
Bibliography
- Cook, Don (1983). Charles De Gaulle: A Biography (3 ed.). G.P. Putnam's. ISBN 9780399128585.
- Dempsey, Louis Roger. "L'intervention anglo-américaine en Vallée d'Aoste, Italie, en 1945". Le Flambeau 3–4 (1972).
- Doyen, Paul-André (1948). La Campagne du détachement d'armée des Alpes (mars, avril, mai 1945). B. Arthaud.
- Girard, Joseph. "La participation des F.F.I. à la libération des Alpes-Maritimes", Cahiers de la Méditerranée 12 (1976), pp. 17–28.
- Klingbeil, Pierre-Emmanuel (2005). Le front oublié des Alpes-Maritimes (15 août 1944 – 2 mai 1945). Serre Editeur. ISBN 2-86410-422-9.
- Kundahl, George G. (2017). Riviera at War: World War II on the Côte d'Azur. I. B. Tauris.
- Lamb, Richard (1993). War in Italy, 1943–1945: A Brutal Story. Da Capo Press.
- Lipgens, Walter (1982). A History of European Integration: 1945-1947 Volume 1. Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198225874.
- Morel, Bernard; Lesueur, Gérard (2012). La Ligne Maginot en Haute Ubaye: Forts de Roche-la-Croix et du Haut de Saint-Ours. Barcelonette: Association pour la valorisation du patrimoine de l'Ubaye. ISBN 978-2-9081-0305-2.
- Paxton, Robert O; Wahl, Nicholas, eds. (1994). De Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal. Berg. ISBN 9780854969982.
- Riccioli, Jean-Louis (1996). "La deuxième bataille des Alpes : printemps 1945". Cahiers de la Méditerranée (in French). 52 (1): 93–118. ISSN 0395-9317.
- Ring, Jim (2014). Storming the Eagle's Nest: Hitler's War in the Alps. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0571282395.
- Rowland, Benjamin M, ed. (2011). Charles de Gaulle's Legacy of Ideas. Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739164549.
- Wall, Irwin M (1991). The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521402170.
- Wildgen, John K. "The Liberation of the Valle d'Aosta, 1943–1945", Journal of Modern History, 42, 1 (1970), pp. 21–41.