And so the 10th Army and subordinate staffs were ordered to signal back with maximum urgency to Army Group as soon as the French had been identified on the front. The Expeditionary Corps had camouflaged itself so well when it moved into position in the foothills of the Monti Aurunci that Kesselring only realised it was there when the Monte Majo action was over. A clever decoy movement by Alexander made him think that the frontal attack would be combined with a landing in the area of Civitavecchia and would start on May 14, and so two German divisions were held north of Rome, and arrived too late at the battle for the Gustav Line.
At zero hour on D-day the German 10th Army was deployed as follows:
1. from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Liri: XIV Panzer Corps (94th and 71st Infantry Divisions);
2. from the Liri to the Meta (7,400 feet): LI Mountain Corps {Gruppe "Baade”, 1st Parachute, 44th Infantry, and 5th Gebirgsjdger Divisions);
3. from the Meta to the Adriatic: Gruppe "Hauck” (305th and 334th Infantry Divisions, 114th Jdger Division); and
4. in army reserve: 15th Panzer grenadier Division behind LI Mountain Corps.
The first encounter was thus to be between the 12 Allied divisions (two Polish, four British, four French, and two American) and six German. The inferiority was not only numerical: at the moment when the attack started both General von Senger und Etterlin, commander of XIV Panzer Corps and Colonel-General von Vietinghoff were on leave, and, in spite of Kesselring’s order, 94th Division (Lieutenant-General Steinmetz) had no men on the Petrella massif.
World History
