Mistake to invade Italy instead of France 43?

[agent 009]

As the Tunisian campaign was nearing its conclusion, the Allied leaders met in Washington for the Trident Conference. Again, the arguments were dominated by the question of priorities, with the Americans still deeply suspicious of the "distraction" of the Mediterranean theater and the British, to General Marshall's continuing frustration, doing their utmost to delay the cross-Channel invasion. Repeatedly throughout 1943, Churchill would return to his worries about this operation, fearing that the Germans' excellent transport links to northern France would enable them to assemble "an overwhelming force against us and to inflict on us a greater military disaster than Dunkirk.

There were disagreements, too, among the commanders of the various service arms, both between and within the two Allied camps. The US Army chief of staff General Marshall, together with the air commanders of both sides, wanted Mediterranean operations scaled down in favor of the cross-Channel invasion; British sea and land commanders wanted to concentrate on knocking Italy out of the war.

The outcome was compromise and indecision. Eisenhower's staff was told to prepare plans for invasions of Sardinia and Corsica as well as of southern Italy, but the Mediterranean force was to lose most of its assault shipping and seven experienced divisions by November 1943, to return to England for the cross-Channel invasion. Then called Roundup, this was set for May 1944.

[Steve]

From my readings, it seems a concensus that the Italy campaign was a mistake(simplfied).

[agent 009]

It would seem so. Here is some British thinking on this topic at the time.


The British Chiefs of Staff contended that Mediterranean operations were not only the most important immediate objective but that they were also essential in order to create conditions which would permit the mounting of ROUNDUP in the spring of 1944. [74] In General Brooke's opinion, without further Mediterranean operations, ROUNDUP would not be possible before 1945 or 1946. In a detailed estimate of the probable situation in northwest Europe in 1944, the British planners concluded that the Allies could not hope to compete successfully with enemy build-up either on the ground or in the air unless the enemy's ability to reinforce his coastal defenses was weakened by forced withdrawals to take over the defense of Italy and Italian commitments in the Balkans.

Spread the germans thin by making em defend Italy seems to be the logic here.