How would the war plan be like according to Churchill who favoured to attack from the soft belly instead of..?

Question

Normandy? Why didn't the Allied comply with his desire?

Answer 1

This was always a famous fantasy of Churchill's. He tried in WWI at Gallipoli with disastrous results. He apparently never learned.

Attacking the Balkans would have pinned down huge amounts of Allied troops with very little effect. The terrain is prohibitive, and the logistics tail would have been unmanageable. We had enough problem with some hedgerows. Imagine what would have been the effect of trying to fight over alpine passes, dragging along a supply trail twice as long as anything we dealt with in France?

Italy doesn't qualify as the "soft underbelly". The peninsula was to narrow to explouit, and very difficult to advance through. At one point the Germans referred to our beachhead there as "Europe's largest self-sustaining prisoner of war camp."

Answer 2

there was not an either/ or situation. Churchill referred to Italy as the soft underbelly, because he knew the Italians were the wink link in the German defenses and the Allies did attack there. If things would have gone as Churchill had thought, perhaps Normandy would have not been necessary. But the terrain helped in the defenses so as it turned out the soft underbelly was simply a first step, and it did soften up the German defenses, tyeing up valuable troops in the Italian peninsula instead of being available for the main push thru France

Answer 3

They did attack the soft underbelly of Europe, it just wasn't as soft as Churchill predicted. Sure, they captured Italy, but even right up to the end of the war they could not push north through the Alps. And since the Germans could hold out almost indefinitely there with few troops, a second front was needed to help take pressure of the beleaguered Russians.

Answer 4

The actually did. The allies attacked Italy from the south and eventually took over the whole peninsula. The south or Italy WAS the soft underbelly that Churchill had talked about.

Answer 5

Montgomerie. The Allies probally would think that Montgomerie was just trying to get attention and glory. He was a bit full of himself,and when Montgomeries plan Haymarket went terribly wrong the Allies nixed any more hairbrained ideas.