ALLIED TASK AHEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1943, Page 5

ALLIED TASK AHEAD

TOUGH GOING BEFORE ROME

LONDON, October SO,

The prospect that the coming weeks and months may present a great danger for the western Allies as well as great opportunities .is foreseen by wellinformed London observers. The Italian front is the only- European theatre in which their troops are in action, but the invasion of Italy is only one part of their strategic plan. In allocating troops, equipment, and transport for the Italian front, Allied headquarters must steer between the Scylla of too much and the Charybdis of too little. In less than two months British and American forces which had previously seized Sicily and the whole of North Africa from Egypt to Morocco have captured about onethird of the mainland of Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. That the initiative is still in their hands after one year's continuous advance is attributed to the highly successful military and political strategy pursued jointly by the two Allies in agreement with Russia. The Italian peninsula, however, is no open steppe or desert —every winding road is mined, bridges are wrecked, and lines of advance are dominated by mountain ridges held by a tenacious enemy. Along the coast, the Fifth Army has been edging its way towards and round Monte Massico, over swampy ground intersected by dikes. Towards Formia and the River Garigliano, the coastal plain narrows till the mountains come down to the sea. The way round is inland along a valley traversed by the ancient Via Latina, and through Fsosinone towards Rome.

Between the Allied forces and Rome lie 90 miles of tangles ■ of mountains, rivers, and swamps which, since it is resolutely defended, is regarded in London as a very tough military proposition. When the Allies have forced the enemy back to Isernia, and it may take some time to do so, their left wing will have roughly four parallel geographical features before it. These are the Pontine Marshes, the Lepini Mountains, the broad Valley of the Via Latina, and the great Apennine "massif. What General Alexander called "slogging up Italy" therefore looks like being a protracted business.