Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, understood that risk, but he did not pass on his appreciation of the situation to his subordinate Lucas,[citation needed] who preferred to take time to entrench against an expected counterattack.

While Lucas consolidated, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German commander in the Italian theatre, moved every unit he could spare into a defensive ring around the beachhead.

But, instead of striking inland to cut lines of communication of the German Tenth Army's units fighting at Monte Cassino, Truscott, on Clark's orders, reluctantly turned his forces north-west towards Rome, which was captured on June 4, 1944.

Previously uninhabitable due to mosquitoes carrying malaria, in Roman times armies marched as quickly as possible across it on the military road, the Via Appia.

Invading armies from the south had the choice of crossing the marsh or taking the only other road to Rome, the Via Latina, running along the eastern flanks of the Monti Laziali, risking entrapment.

Should Germany have adequate reinforcements available to defend both Rome and the Gustav Line, the Allies felt that the operation would nevertheless be useful in engaging forces which could otherwise be committed on another front.

40,000 soldiers, and 5,000+ vehicles[16] Naval losses: 2 light cruisers, 3 destroyers, 2 minesweepers, 1 hospital ship[17] The Fifth Army's attack on the Gustav Line began on January 16, 1944, at Monte Cassino.

The point of the landing was to turn the German defences on the Winter Line, taking advantage of their exposed rear and hopefully panicking them into retreating northwards past Rome.

Noted military historian John Keegan wrote, "Had Lucas risked rushing at Rome the first day, his spearheads would probably have arrived, though they would have soon been crushed.

All the plans relied on his divisions each having previously organised a motorized rapid reaction unit (Kampfgruppe) which could move speedily to meet the threat and buy time for the rest of the defenses to get in place.

While one force was to cut Highway 7 at Cisterna di Latina before moving east into the Alban Hills, a second was to advance northeast up the Via Anziate towards Campoleone.

In heavy fighting British 1st Division made ground but failed to take Campoleone and ended the battle in an exposed salient stretching up the Via Anziate.

Some hours after the attack started the coherence of the front line had been completely shattered, and the fighting for the salient had given way to small unit actions, swaying back and forth through the gullies.

They held the line all day, taking heavy casualties, but were eventually ordered to pull back and made a fighting retreat at 5pm to the Factory with the aid of artillery, and a successful assault launched by the London Scottish, of 168th Brigade,[32] supported by the 46th Royal Tank Regiment (46 RTR).

They overran the 167th Brigade, of the recently arrived 56th (London) Division, and virtually destroyed X and Y Companies of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, each of which was reduced from around 125 down to a single officer and 10 other ranks.

In March the infantrymen of the "Barbarigo" Battalion (from Decima Flottiglia MAS under Captain Junio Valerio Borghese) joined the frontline along the Canale Mussolini.

In fact there is no military reason for Shingle.On February 16 at a high level conference hosted by Alexander and attended by Mark W. Clark and Henry Maitland Wilson, commander Allied Force Headquarters it was decided to appoint two deputies under Lucas, Lucian Truscott and the British Major-General Vyvyan Evelegh who were known to be more aggressive.

[50] Both sides had realised that no decisive result could be achieved until the spring and reverted to a defensive posture involving aggressive patrolling and artillery duels whilst they worked to rebuild their fighting capabilities.

It was also intended to trap the bulk of the 10th Army between the Allied forces advancing through the Gustav Line and VI Corps thrusting inland from Anzio.

Members of former Blackshirt Lieutenant-Colonel Degli Oddi's "Vendetta" helped defeat a determined effort by the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division to overrun their positions and captured a number of prisoners.

[54] The Germans were well dug in but were weak in numbers of officers and NCOs and, by the time of the late May offensive, lacked reserves (which had all been sent south to the Gustav line).

[55] Despite Alexander's plan for Diadem requiring VI Corps to strike inland and cut Route 6, Clark asked Truscott to prepare alternatives and to be ready to switch from one to another at 48 hours' notice.

This was no time to drive to the north-west where the enemy was still strong; we should pour our maximum power into the Valmontone Gap to ensure the destruction of the retreating German Army.

[71] Over the next day, the rearguards were gradually overwhelmed and Rome was entered in the early hours of June 4 with Clark holding an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Town Hall on the Capitoline Hill that morning.

He ensured the event was a strictly American affair by stationing military police at road junctions to refuse entry to the city by British troops.

They question whether the initial landing of just over two infantry divisions, with no supporting armour, had the strength to achieve the objectives: of cutting Route 6 and then holding off the inevitable counterattacks that would come, as Kesselring redeployed his forces.

He had clearly made great political efforts to procure certain resources, especially the extra LSTs needed to deliver a second division to shore, but also specific units useful to the attack such as with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Churchill also had to ensure the British-dominated forces in Italy were contributing to the war at a time when the Soviet Red Army were suffering tremendous losses on the Eastern Front.

The greatest loss was that if the VI Corps main effort had continued on the Valmontone axis from May 26, Clark could probably have reached Rome more quickly than by the route north-west from Cisterna.

General Mark Clark was so eager that the world should see pictures showing him as the liberator of Rome, that he allowed the armies of a delighted Kesselring to escape.