21:45
- [Tom] In May, 1943, the prime minister of Great Britain and the president of the United States meet in Washington DC for the third time since American entry into the war. [suspenseful music] Rarely in history have political leaders forged as personal a bond as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. - Churchill still feels he's the senior partner. He can get what he wants out of Roosevelt. - [Robert] So after Tunis, after the big victory in North Africa, Churchill's argument is that there's one logical next step, and that next step is Sicily.
So campaigning in the Mediterranean will not only knock over one of the three big Axis powers, Mussolini's Italy, it will also open a back door to Hitler's Germany. - And the American commanders are saying, "Why? Let's just go straight for Berlin. What are we doing? Why are we dancing around the edges here with this Mediterranean nonsense?" And they think that Franklin Roosevelt is being persuaded by Churchill's pretty words. - There were charges then and since that Churchill wanted to go up through the bottom of Europe in order to preserve the British Empire.
- Britain was a Mediterranean power. The Americans suspected that this was all about defending British interests in Egypt, in the Suez Canal that controlled India and the Persian Gulf where British oil was. [suspenseful music] - [Tom] FDR's not interested in preserving the British Empire, but he understands there are sound, strategic reasons to capture Sicily. - One of Churchill's arguments was, they had these commitments to take some pressure off the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin has been pushing for a second front.
Churchill says, "You have all of these armies that are now freed up after the North African campaign is over. What are you gonna do with them? They're right there." - [Sarada] The truth is that the Allies still don't have enough actual material to conduct a cross-channel invasion and land in France. - [Tom] Allied military leaders are already planning a cross-channel invasion, Operation Overlord, but it will not be ready for months. To relieve the military pressure on the Soviets, and sustain the momentum established by the victory in North Africa,
FDR agrees to attack Sicily. - [Robert] After Sicily, they will pull, let us say, the Allied A-team out of the Mediterranean, the leadership team, most of the landing craft, most of the air power, deploy it to Great Britain to begin, finally, preparations in earnest for an invasion of Western Europe. - [Dan S.] Churchill's like, "Yes, of course, I'm sure things will go really fast. We'll be back in time for a nice early D-Day in 1944." He goes, "Look, we're all dressed up, we're ready to go to the ball.
Let's do Sicily." - [Tom] The British Eighth Army, under general Bernard Montgomery, will advance north to Messina, while the American Seventh Army, under General George Patton, guards his left flank. - If you get to Messina, any troops that are on Sicily cannot cross back over it into Italy proper. And now you've captured all the troops that are on Sicily and you own Sicily. - [Robert] And that's especially crucial for the German divisions, so that the Allies won't have to face them at some future point in some future battle.
- [Tom] As in North Africa, British and American forces are required to operate as one force. - [Dan S.] This is a really ambitious attempt to just bring two nations with two different traditions very, very close into harmony. And as you might expect, there's teething trouble. - [Saul] Montgomery and the British senior commanders all had a similar attitude to the Americans, which is, they're green. There were disasters and setbacks in North Africa, they're still learning their trade. We've been at this since 1940. Patton, on the other hand, thinks Montgomery has no kind of understanding of what American servicemen can actually achieve.
[explosions booming] - [Tom] Both armies endure horrendous conditions. The mountainous terrain, the 100-plus degree heat, thousands are felled by malaria. - [Col. Douds] Sicily in the summertime is incredibly hot, it is disease ridden. Fighting there is brutal for everyone. [shellfire booming] [suspenseful music] - [Tom] Facing stiff German resistance, Montgomery's army stalls. He's given access to the road Patton's army has already taken. - [Robert] Patton goes ballistic. To his credit, Patton doesn't just sit there seething.
He comes up with a plan. - [Col. Douds] What Patton sees is, a drive north up to Palermo would put a feather in his cap. - [Robert] The Americans overrun the western half of Sicily before the Germans and Italians know what is happening. - [Tom] Patton captures the Sicilian capital of Palermo less than two weeks after the initial landings. - [Robert] This is the signal moment for the US army so far in World War II. [spectators cheering] - Patton's forces are greeted in the streets of Palermo by Sicilians who were never a hundred percent on board with fascism anyway,
and they're gonna greet the arriving American army as liberators. [spectators cheering] [suspenseful music] - [Tom] Yet again, Adolf Hitler must adjust for Italian military weakness. - [Tom] Benito Mussolini and his Italian fascist movement had set the stage for Adolf Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. [Mussolini speaking in Italian] [spectators cheering] [rousing music] - Mussolini is the inventor of fascism, is the embodiment of the virility of the fascist man. In the early phases of this relationship,
Hitler himself looks up at Mussolini, and he aspires to do what Mussolini has been able to achieve in Italy. - [Tom] Hitler consciously copied Mussolini's grab for power. - [Crowd] Duce! - [Tom] The symbolism. - Sieg heil. [spectators cheering] - [Tom] The political tactics, [spectators chanting] the violence. But Mussolini no longer commands an iron grip on his nation like Hitler does. - [Robert] Mussolini's war has brought Italy nothing but misery. The Italian people wanted very little part of this war at the beginning, they want no part of it now.
Things cannot go on like this. - [Saul] Hitler's getting situation reports of what's going on in Sicily, basically saying the Italians aren't fighting. He makes the decision to go to Italy to put some spine into Mussolini. [ominous music] He is shocked by the sight of Mussolini, who's really a broken man after the defeat in North Africa. There isn't much fight left in him, and Hitler is horrified by what he's seeing. - [Robert] Hitler harangues Mussolini for hours about his failures.
His failure to instill a war-like spirit into the armed forces, his failure to make true fascists of the Italian people, his failure to prosecute the war with sufficient vigor, and Mussolini has no choice but to sit there and take it. [suspenseful music] - [Tom] As Hitler and Mussolini meet, [bombs whistling] [explosion booming] the Allies begin a bombing campaign on Rome. - [Marco] The news comes as a shock to Mussolini, and he tries to convey to Hitler the gravity of the situation. Hitler continues as if nothing had happened.
[ominous music] - [Tom] The bombing of Rome is a shock to the Italians. The battles have been fought elsewhere, but now the price of Mussolini's war hits home. - [Robert] There's grumbling in the streets. Mussolini thinks he has the fascist brand counsel in his pocket, he thinks he has the top leadership in the military in his pocket, he thinks he has the King in his pocket. - [Marco] Victor Emmanuel III has been the King of Italy since 1900, and he's the one that handed the government over to Mussolini in 1922.
- [Tom] On July 25th, the day after the fascist council passes a vote of no confidence for Mussolini, the King summons him to his palace. - And he's told not to wear his uniform. This should have been an indication to him that trouble was afoot, and his wife, in fact, advises him not to go. Mussolini tells her, "No problem, I've got this." - [Tom] But the King has Mussolini arrested. He's rushed away in the back of an ambulance to hide him from public view.
- [Tom] His 21-year fascist reign is over. [suspenseful music]
