'Chuckle' was was a British and Canadian offensive by Lieutenant General Sir Richard McCreery’s British 8^th Army across the Montone river and the Fiumi Uniti (conjoined Ronco and Montone rivers) toward the line of the Senio river in northern Italy (2 December 1944/15 January 1945).

By the end of September 1944, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark’s US 5^th Army and Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese’s 8^th Army of Field Marshal the Hon. Sir Harold Alexander’s Allied Armies in Italy (from 12 December the Allied 15^th Army Group) command had broken though the German defences of the 'Gustav-Linie' right across the whole of the Italian mainland except the extreme west, but were brought to a halt by almost total exhaustion on 20 October despite being short of the objectives set for their autumn offensives. On 28 November Alexander issued his instructions for what would clearly be the last operation which could be undertaken at anything but the smallest scale before the return of more clement weather with the spring of 1945.

Major General A. D. Ward’s British 4^th Division was scheduled to leave Italy and its replacement, Major General R. A. Hull’s British 5^th Division, would not reach the theatre until January 1945. The only reinforcement received in this period was a second regiment of Tenente-General João Batista Mascarenhas de Morais’s Brazilian 1^st Division, and this was not yet ready for front-line service. By 5 December the four US divisions of Major General Geoffrey T. Keyes’s US II Corps would be ready, but the Americans had artillery ammunition sufficient to support only 15 days of major combat, and little could be expected in the way of major support from Lieutenant General S. C. Kirkman’s British XIII Corps as its divisions were exhausted. The 8^th Army to the east of the 5^th Army had artillery ammunition for about three weeks of major operations.

These were considerations which were therefore factored into Alexander’s plan for the early winter. This plan envisaged a two-phase offensive. In the first of these the 8^th Army would break through the line of the Santerno river and then, in the second phase, both armies would drive on Bologna: the 5^th Army would advance straight along Highway 65 with a subsidiary thrust at San Pietro, and the 8^th Army would advance to the north of Highway 9. The date scheduled for the second phase was 8 December or later, and would be postponed if the weather was adverse.

The 8^th Army, commanded from the last day of the year by McCreery in succession to Leese, was to launch the offensive with all three of its corps in the line with Lieutenant General C. Foulkes’s Canadian I Corps in the east along the coast, Lieutenant General C. F. Keightley’s British V Corps in the centre with Highway 9 as its axis, and Generał dywizji Władysław Anders’s Polish II Corps in the west to push forward through the eastern foothills of the Apennine mountains.

This was a notably ambitious plan given the time of the year and the state of the forces which were to be committed. So far as the British element was concerned, the 8^th Army had to cross the Lamone and Senio rivers and then take bridgeheads on the northern bank of the Santerno river, preferably by 7 December.

Facing the 8^th Army, Generaloberst Heinrich-Gottfried von Vietinghoff-Scheel’s 10^th Army of Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’s Heeresgruppe 'C' had its defences based, as had become standard in the Italian campaign, on river lines. The German line followed the Fiume Uniti and Montone rivers to a point some 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream of San Pancrazio, and was then aligned through Albereto and Scaldino to link with the defences on the Lamone river to Faenza and beyond. On the Adriatic coast the headquarters of General Hans Schlemmer’s relatively new LXXV Corps had been allocated responsibility for the sector between the sea and the switch line to the south-east of Russi with three divisions, including Generalleutnant Ernst Baade’s 90^th Panzergrenadierdivision transferred from army group reserve to the north of Bologna. General Traugott Herr’s LXXVI Panzerkorps had four divisions, including Generalleutnant Eduard Crasemann’s 26^th Panzerdivision and Generalmajor Fritz Polack’s 29^th Panzergrenadierdivision, with which to cover Highway 9 and the area as far to the south as the Santerno.

The central sector, opposite the 5^th Army’s salient near San Pietro and the approaches to Bologna along Highway 65, was the responsibility of the five divisions of General Fridolin Ritter und Edler von Senger und Etterlin’s XIV Panzerkorps, while Bologna’s south-western approaches were held by the three divisions of Generalleutnant Richard Heidrich’s I Fallschirmkorps. The 10^th Army also had some three or four divisions in reserve in the region of Bologna.

The long western flank between Vergato and the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea was held by General Heinz Ziegler’s (from 22 November General Traugott Herr’s) 14^th Army with General Valentin Feurstein’s LI Gebirgskorps of two German and two Italian divisions. The one Italian and two German divisions of Schlemmer’s LXXV Corps were located on the Franco/Italian frontier, and another Italian division held the coast of the Gulf of Genoa.

Taking into account four weak divisions in north-eastern Italy, Heeresgruppe 'C' now comprised 27 German and four Italian divisions, the former including one Panzer and three Panzergrenadier divisions. Of the German divisions, 14 were positioned along the front between Bologna to the Adriatic, and another four were in reserve behind Bologna.

On the other side of the front, the Allied Armies in Italy had two armies comprising 16 infantry and four armoured divisions, as well as the equivalent of six infantry brigades and eight armoured or tank brigades.

The 8^th Army’s three corps for the new offensive had six infantry divisions (as well as Brigadier A. R. Barker’s Indian 43^rd Lorried Brigade) and two armoured divisions, as well as three armoured brigades and one tank brigade.

In the second phase planned by Alexander, the combined British and US drives on Bologna, the whole strength of Keyes’s US II Corps, totalling four infantry divisions and one armoured division, would be added.

In November Field Marshal Sir John Dill died in Washington, and early in December Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson was appointed to take his place as head of the British Joint Staff Mission and also as Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s personal military representative in the USA. Now a field marshal (backdated to June), Alexander replaced Wilson as Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean Theatre on 12 December and, at Churchill’s request, Clark became commander of the 15^th Army Group, while Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott returned from France to take command of the 5^th Army.

On 1 December Foulke’s Canadian I Corps took over from the interim 'Porter' Force and prepared to take the offensive through Major General D. W. Reid’s Indian 10^th Division, which was holding the area between the two rivers opposite the German switch line near Albereto. The Germans were believed to be comparatively weak in this sector and it was decided that the Canadian I Corps would launch a surprise attack to cut Highway 16 to the west of Ravenna, and also to capture the city.

Striking at Russi and San Pancrazio on 2 December, the Canadians opened a gap between Generalmajor Hans-Joachim Ehlert’s 114^th Jägerdivision and Oberst Kleinhenz’s 356^th Division near Govo, and the corps' armour drove through this gap to sever Highway 16 at Mezzano. By dawn on 5 December the corps had taken Ravenna, the Italian 28a Brigata Garibaldi 'Mario Gordini' proving its worth with an attack on the rear of the German defences after a wide outflanking movement.

By 6 December the Canadian 5^th Armoured Division had reached the Lamone river on a front 5 miles (8 km) wide. During the night of 3/4 December Major General C. E. Weir’s British 46^th Division and Generał brygady Bolesław Bronisław Duch’s Polish 3^rd Carpathian Division went over to the offensive across the Lamone river to the south of Highway 9, and by 7 December had secured a bridgehead, between Pideura and Montecchio, in the face of stiffening German resistance. It was at this stage of the battle that von Vietinghoff-Scheel unsuccessfully committed one of his reserve divisions against the 46^th Division which was, on 9 December, being relieved by Reid’s Indian 10^th Division. This German repulse could have been exploited but for the fact that the 46^th Division, already much reduced in strength, could not develop its advantage. Faenza was still in German hands, and there was only one very poor road for the maintenance of the two divisions across the Lamone river, although a second bridge had been constructed by 13 December and a tank regiment had crossed to the northern bank.

By the following day a regrouping of the forces in the bridgehead had been undertaken, with the Indian 10^th Division on the left and Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyberg’s New Zealand 2^nd Division straddling the river to the south of Faenza. In this time Foulkes, who had succeeded Lieutenant General E. L. M. Burns on 10 November as commander of the Canadian I Corps, had been preparing a co-ordinated attack by both of his Canadian formations to force a crossing over the lower reaches of the Lamone river, but the weather reports suggested that there would shortly be storms in the mountains, further swelling the already swollen river, and the attack was postponed until the evening of 10 November.

A surprise attack by Major General B. M. Hoffmeister’s Canadian 5^th Armoured Division was launched without previous artillery support and was followed on the left by an attack by three infantry battalions of Major General H. W. Foster’s Canadian 1^st Division, making full use of 'artificial moonlight' (searchlights playing on the underside of the clouds) and artillery support. Both attacks made ground during the night and on the following day received excellent support from Air Vice Marshal H. Broadhurst’s British 1^st Tactical Air Force (originally the Desert Air Force).

von Vietinghoff-Scheel was still uncertain about the advisability of reducing his reserves near Bologna and extemporised a counterattack with local reserves, amounting to three weak battalions and about 20 tanks, from his three left-hand corps. Early on 11 December this Kampfgruppe attacked the northern end of the Canadian 5^th Armoured Division’s bridgehead, but three German attacks were beaten back during the day. By 12 December the Canadian engineers had completed tank bridges across the Lamone river and the infantry had reached the Fosso Vecchio, with the Germans holding the sector north and south of Bagnacavallo on the Canale Naviglio.

At this point the remainder of Generalleutnant Alfred Reinhardt’s 98^th Division, which had already supplied a battalion for the earlier counterattacks, was hastily shifted from the sector of the XIV Panzerkorps to hold Bagnacavallo, and a heavily armed machine gun battalion was allotted to the 114^th Jägerdivision in the sector to the north of the town. When the Canadian I Corps attacked on the night 12/13 December on either side of Bagnacavallo, in its effort to capture bridgeheads across the Naviglio, its units encountered determined resistance and strong counterattacks by Generalleutnant Martin Gareis’s 98^th Division and several groups of tanks. North of the town the fighting was particularly fierce and one German counterattack, supported by six regiments of artillery and two regiments of mortars, was repulsed only with the aid of the concentrated artillery fire from both Canadian divisions and the endeavours of a number of fighter-bombers.

Farther to the south, between Bagnacavallo and Crotignola, three days of combat ended with the leading Canadian brigade still to the east of the Fosso Vecchio after being ejected from its small bridgehead.

Foulkes then decided on a co-ordinated attack to the north of the town in the area where the Canadian 5^th Armoured Division had consolidated its bridgehead. Here a series of attacks allowed the Canadians to reach the line of the Senio river by 21 December, the date on which the Germans withdrew, under pressure, from Bagnacavallo. To the south of the town the Germans held on for several days but by 4/5 January 1945 both Foster’s Canadian 1^st Division and Major General J. Y. Whitfield’s British 56^th Division had closed up eastern bank of the river.

During the night of 14/15 December, the British V Corps and Polish II Corps had resumed their strongly resisted attempt to outflank Faenza with a thrust from Pideura toward Highway 9 to the west of the town. On the inner flank the New Zealand 2^nd Division captured Celle on 15 December and reached the Senio river on 16 December. On the left of the New Zealanders, the Indian 10^th Division captured Pergola and by 17 December had gained a pair of small bridgeheads over the river.

Farther into the Apennine mountains Generalmajor Hanns von Rohr’s 715^th Division suffered heavy losses and failed to halt the Polish II Corps. The 26^th Panzerdivision had by now been cut to 1,000 men, and while attempting to hold Faenza now found itself outflanked, allowing the Indian 43^rd Lorried Brigade to enter the town on 16 December. The 26^th Panzerdivision nonetheless managed to hold a switch line between the Senio and Lamone rivers, immediately behind Faenza’s north-eastern outskirts, and successfully beat off the Indian attack of the following day before being relieved by Polack’s 29^th Panzergrenadierdivision of the XIV Panzerkorps.

Both Allied divisions was now severely constrained by supply problems and heavy casualties, and this made any full-scale attack impossible, at least until new bridges could be built at Faenza. On the night 19/20 December the British 56^th Division continued to press the northward attack from Faenza, and by 6 January had cleared the eastern bank of the Senio river to link with the Canadian II Corps near Cotignola. This was a period of bitter fighting with the Germans contesting every yard of ground.

By now winter weather had arrived with a vengeance, with blizzards and heavy snow in the mountains and snow also falling in the plain. The 8^th Army offensive had not drawn to its front as much of the German strength as had been hoped, but there had nonetheless been a reduction of the German forces in the region of Bologna as a result of the fighting for the Lamone river crossing and the advance to the Senio river. Since 20 November the XIV Panzerkorps had been ordered to send three divisions to help this flank, one being allocated to the LXXV Corps and the other pair to the LXXVI Corps. Two of these divisions had been replaced from local reserves, however, and to compensate for the loss of the third the XIX Panzerkorps' front had been reduced. Another formation, the 90^th Panzergrenadierdivision, had been committed from army group reserve behind the XIV Panzerkorps' front, and von Vietinghoff-Scheel carefully hoarded the rest of the central reserve.

So strongly did the continued defence of northern Italy feature in the plans of Adolf Hitler, moreover, that when during November von Vietinghoff-Scheel was ordered to despatch two infantry divisions to meet a crisis in Hungary, these were immediately replaced from Germany’s now very limited manpower reserves: indeed, one of the divisions travelled from Norway to reach Italy in mid-December.

In a final attempt to reach Bologna before winter put a forcible end to operations in the mountains, Alexander decided that the 5^th Army’s offensive could no longer depend on the 8^th Army’s arrival on the Santerno river. Even though the weather was still not suitable, the 5^th Army was on 22 December put on two-day alert for a renewed offensive. Lack of artillery ammunition was now the single most limiting factor in Allied planning. The offensive would probably last for three more weeks, and if it started after about 25 December the whole of January 1945’s allocation of ammunition would be used by the middle of the month. Such a situation would not only leave the Allies vulnerable a major counterattack but offer insufficient time for the rebuilding of the stocks necessary for the planned final offensive of the spring.

In the end Benito Mussolini, leader of the Salò Republic (revived Fascist state in northern Italy) forced the matter when, looking for a major military success for the new divisions of his army, he persuaded von Vietinghoff-Scheel to co-operate in an attack against the left flank of the 5^th Army. For this Generale di Divisione Mario Carloni’s 4a Divisione Alpina 'Monterosa', already in the line at the location selected for the offensive, was complemented by Generale di Divisione Guido Manardi’s apparently capable 1a Divisione Bersaglieri 'Italia'. von Vietinghoff-Scheel had been asked to match the Italian strength with two German divisions, but decided against more diminution of the forces on the Bologna sector of the front and therefore allocated only Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico’s 148^th Division in the form of two independent mountain battalions for what the Germans termed 'Wintergewitter' (ii) or 'Wintermärchen' (iii).

The Allies had never attempted to penetrate far into the mountains in the western sector, being satisfied to hold the southern slopes at a sufficient distance to cover the port of Leghorn, through which the supplies for the 5^th Army were delivered. On the left of Major General Willis D. Crittenberger’s US IV Corps, Major General Edward M. Almond’s US 92^nd Division was holding an extended but very quiet sector from Bagni di Lucca for about 25 miles (40 km) to the sea. Through this formation’s sector ran the Serchio river, dropping through Lucca into the valley of the Arno river. An attack in strength down this valley would be very dangerous to the Allies if it threatened the supply base and port of Leghorn. About 22 December reports of an impending attack in some strength from this direction began to arrive, and the Allies started to become concerned that von Vietinghoff-Scheel might be intending to commit a major part of his reserves in a desperate blow, as had just been attempted in the Ardennes offensive in North-West Europe.

Interrogation of prisoners from SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Baum’s 16^th SS Panzergrenadierdivision 'Reichsführer-SS' apparently confirmed such an eventuality. The threat was too real to be ignored and Major General D. Russell’s Indian 8^th Division, less one brigade, was detached from the British XIII Corps as a reserve for the Serchio sector. The Indian troops arrived on 25 December and dug in behind the 92^nd Division, and on the next day the Axis offensive began to develop on each side of the river.

The US forward positions were overrun, and east of the river the defenders yielded and allowed a reinforced German battalion to enter a gap which was developing, with the result that the whole of the forward positions on both sides of the river had been overrun by the afternoon of 26 December. The Germans then took the Allies' second line 24 hours later, and by this time the disorganised elements of the 92^nd Division were streaming back through the positions of Brigadier T. S. Dobree’s Indian 19^th Brigade. By now the Indian 8^th Division had taken control of the threatened sector and after nightfall on 27 December sent forward fighting patrols which soon made contact with the German advance.

The Germans moved up reinforcements during the next day, but in this time the Indian 8^th Division had prepared an attack with strong air support. Within 24 hours the Indian formation had retaken Barga, and two days later had retaken all of the territory which the Americans had lost. As a result of the Axis effort, spearheaded by five or more German battalions, the 5^th Army moved three divisions from the main arena as Truscott had ordered the 85^th Division, with strong tank and artillery support, to the vicinity of Lucca as an immediate reserve, and on 28 December moved Major General Vernon E. Prichard’s US 1^st Armored Division into the same area.

Back on the main part of the front, heavy snow continued to fall in the mountains, and on 30 December the 5^th Army ended its attack toward Bologna, and Alexander ordered both the 5^th and 8^th Armies to go onto the defensive. In the 8^th Army’s sector both the Canadian II Corps and British V Corps launched limited attacks to expel the German forces from their remaining positions to the east of the Senio river. Near the southern end of Lake Comacchio the Senio river joins the Reno river, and skirting the lake itself crosses the narrow strip of land to the east to enter the Adriatic. Securing this line was vital to the protection of the Canadian II Corps' right flank. Taking advantage of some good weather with freezing conditions, the Canadians used a strong force of armour with considerable air support to clear the area from a point to the north of Ravenna to the Reno river at the southern tip of Lake Comacchio on 2/5 January in the face of several counterattacks by Baum’s 16^th SS Panzergrenadierdivision, which had been transferred from Bologna in the hopes of launching a counterattack to recapture Ravenna. The British V Corps made a similar limited attack with Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers, making their first appearance in the theatre, and by 5 January the only significant German foothold on the 8^th Army’s front to the east of the Senio river was that at Alfonsine.

By 7 January the 8^th Army had settled down to hold the line of the Senio river. By this time Kesselring, after recovery from an accident, had resumed command of Heeresgruppe 'C' from von Vietinghoff-Scheel and, seeing that the main threat to Bologna was now from the east, carried out a regrouping of his forces. The I Fallschirmkorps was re-formed to include both available parachute divisions and inserted into the German line between the XIV Panzerkorps and LXXVI Panzerkorps. Two divisions were sent to reinforce the defences on the sector covering Lake Comacchio and the lower reaches of the Senio river, and four divisions were allocated, under the command of the XIV Panzerkorps, to cover the approaches to Bologna. Thus was the stage set for the final campaign in Italy, to be fought in the spring of 1945.