Normandy (and Italy) alternative
It seems to me that US was always isolationist unless there was a real gain from their actions.
So far as US role on the Western Front in WW1 is concerned, the influx of US troops was negligible to Germans. A year prior Russia left the war and vast numbers of experienced troops became available. The German offensive which caught British by surprise, and Australians were thrown in to plug, was the last effort for very different reason - they had run out of ammunition.
The simple truth is that someone in the Administration realised that Allies are going to win, and that it would be useful to be on the winning side when bidding for reconstruction contracts. Actually something better happened when Germans asked for a loan.
Same thing pretty much happened in WW2. Although Japanese invaded China in 1933, and Germany's new NAZI government made no effort to hide their intentions towards either human rights or democracy after that year, US waited. Actually they didn't wait exactly, because the US companies continued to trade with German companies and German companies were allowed to buy into US companies.
Finally after December 7, 1941 US was forced into a war by denying Japan access to scrap metal (effectively imposing US limit over Japan's industrial capacity though that capacity was being used to build naval vessels).
Was US getting ready to enter the war against Germany in 1941 by making preparations since 1933, 1936, 1939? Nope, neither Hitler's coming to power, not his support for Franco in Spain or Italy in Africa, or annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland jolt US into frantic preparation to enter the war on Allied side. Only when Moscow, widely predicted to fall, didn't, do US really swung into action.
Not that once this action begun it was not appreciated. However when Stalin asked for a Second Front, he almost certainly didn't expect the route taken to be the longest available! Of all the ways to invade Europe, going through North Africa and Italy was surely the worst possible. Even Hannibal recognized this 2,000 years earlier.
Now when I had a chance to think, it seems that there was an alternative to Normandy.
In 1942 (particularly after Stalingrad) Rommel's Africa Corps was spent. It was not receiving replacements, equipment and most importantly fuel. It was never going to threaten Egypt again.
It seems to me that the Western Allies were quite able to convince neutral Portugal to join Allied cause in 1943, invade and depose Franco, and advance into France by the same route Wellington took in 1812. I am absolutely sure that crossing the Pyrenees laterally with support of Spanish Army (even if only a part) is far easier then crossing the Apennines longitudinally fighting the Italian Fascists.
Imagine the lives saved by not having to conduct multiple opposed amphibious assaults in Italy, and breaking through mountain passes and fortified lines. Imagine German efforts to stretch their supply lines to the Spanish border while preparing for Typhoon instead of an easy reach of Italy. Imagine having to send troops to defend Southern France while still expecting a possible invasion in the North.
Hmmm…who was that great strategist that chose Torch as American entry into the European Theatre?
So why was this strategy rejected?
Some background from
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp6.html
Prior to the outbreak of WWII, England was Portugal’s largest trading partner in 1938. Portugal had joined the British early in WWI and sent 50,000 troops to the front lines.
Portugal’s association with Nazi Germany emerged during the Spanish Civil War. During the conflict, the strong man dictator Dr. Antonio de Oliviera Salazar sided with Franco and Hitler. Salazar helped Germany smuggle arms to Franco’s forces and dispatched Portuguese volunteers to fight with Franco. In doing so, Salazar hoped to achieve his long-term goal of stabilization and development of the country's economy. By the end of 1938, Germany was Portugal’s second largest trading partner. Salazar did however, protest Hitler’s invasion of Catholic Poland.
Salazar’s choice to remain neutral during WWII had as much basis in geography as it did in any ideology. Portugal occupied a strategic position on the map of Europe in that it had many ports along its Atlantic coast that would be harder for Britain to blockade. However, Salazar’s main fear was an invasion of Portugal by the Nazi war machine. After the occupation of France, the Wehrmacht was less than 260 miles from Portugal's border. His other fear was that if Hitler and Franco would form an alliance placing Nazi troops at Portugal’s border. Dean Acheson, then Assistant Secretary of State, expressed the opinion that Salazar granted favors to Germany in the trade war after computing "the relative danger of German and allied military pressure on him."
Salazar promised both Britain and Germany open trade for Portugal's valuable domestic and colonial resources. By remaining neutral, Portugal’s economy benefited tremendously. Portugal’s balance of trade went from a $90 million deficit in 1939 to a $68 million surplus in 1942. Assets in private banks nearly doubled over the first four years of the war, while the assets of the Bank of Portugal more than tripled. Both the Nazis and Allies waged an economic war through threats and lucrative trade deals. However, Portugal couldn’t cut its ties with the Allies, as it was dependent upon the U.S. for imports of petroleum, coal, ammonium sulfate, and wheat. In October, Britain capitalized on its long-standing relationship with Portugal by inducing Portugal to accept sterling in payment for goods. At the time, Britain’s gold reserves were low, and Sweden and Switzerland were demanding gold for payment.
Portugal’s economic success hinged on its rich wolfram ore deposits. The Nazis were totally dependent on Portugal and Spain for its wolfram supplies. Wolfram or tungsten has a variety of uses including its use as the filament in light bulbs. However, it was of particular value in producing war munitions. Germany’s machining industry used tungsten carbide almost exclusively, whereas the U.S. was still largely using inferior molybdenum tipped tools, primarily because of the cartel agreement GE held with Krupp concerning carboloy or cemented tungsten carbide. Additionally,
tungsten was useful in armor piercing munitions. [and also steel machining tools in armour manufacturing - FT]Britain and the U.S. agreed that Germany’s minimum requirements for wolfram were 3,500 tons per year.
Considering the quantity the Nazis required and the extraordinary means they went to insure supplies of the ore, the Allies correctly surmised that for the Nazis wolfram was a vital resource. It was equally important to the Allies, but the Allies were not solely dependent upon Portugal or Spain and could obtain wolfram from other sources. Thus, one of the allied goals was to deprive Nazi Germany of as much wolfram ore as possible. In this end, the Allies bought as much wolfram as possible from Portugal. The competition for the ore was intense and by 1943, to Portugal’s benefit, the price of ore had increased 775 percent over pre-war rates. Production also soared from 2,419 metric tons in 1938 to 6,500 tons in 1942.
To maintain its neutrality, Portugal set up a strict export quota system in 1942. The system allowed each side to export ore from their own mines and a fixed percentage of the output from independent mines. England owned the largest mine, while Germany owned two mid size concerns and several smaller mines. The output of Portugal's second largest mine was owned by France and the output was tied up in legation throughout 1941. In January 1942, Portugal concluded a secret trade pact with Germany. The pact allowed the Nazis export licenses for up to 2,800 tons of wolfram. In turn, Germany was to supply Portugal with coal, steel, and fertilizer, which Portugal needed and which the Allies could not supply. In 1943, the Allies tried to negotiate a new wolfram agreement. Portugal asked for price reductions in ammonium sulfate, petroleum products, and other materials from the Allies. The Allies refused any price reductions and Portugal refused to increase the Allies export licenses. At the same time, Portugal completed a new agreement with Nazi Germany.
Parallel with the wolfram negotiations were the negotiations to acquire air bases in the Azores islands. The islands would be able to provide a critical base for antisubmarine warfare, as the battle in the Atlantic was reaching a peak. The Allies had failed to take the Azores by force, fearing Germany would invade Portugal as a reprisal. On August 17, 1943, Britain concluded an agreement with Portugal to use the islands starting in October after invoking the old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. In late 1943, Portugal interrupted the agreement as to include the U.S. air force as well.
By April 1944, the U.S. decided to use economic sanctions to induce Portugal to cut off the Nazi’s supply of wolfram. Portugal was dependent upon the U.S. for petroleum and other products. On June 5, 1944, the Allies pressed Portugal to cease wolfram shipments to Germany. The Germans immediately began to cloak their mining interests in Portugal by selling them and buying up other businesses. By June 1946, the Allies estimated that the Nazis had cloaked about $2 million dollars in hotels, cinemas, etc. At the same time a German U-boat seized a Portuguese vessel, increasing the anti-German sentiment inside Portugal. The U.S. also began negotiations to construct an air base in the Azores. Construction was delayed until and agreement was reached on a wide range of supplies and services. On November 28, 1944, the agreement was signed. Additionally, the U.S. agreed to Portuguese participation in the campaign to liberate Timor from the Japanese.
An even longer description can be seen here
http://ideas.repec.org/p/rut/rutres/200008.html
In Bowen, Wayne H. Spain during World War II. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006 also provides interesting insight into why the strategy was not followed. However to support the strategy there is also much there:
the first chapter concludes by repeating that during much of 1940 both Franco and Hitler wanted Spain as an actively belligerent military ally of Germany, and such an alliance failed to materialize due to the Fuehrer's unwillingness to make serious promises to Madrid rather than the Caudillo's rejection of Berlin's offers.
With the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the strategic position of Spain transformed overnight. For one thing, it was no longer likely that the Germans would invade Spain, or pressure it to allow for an assault on Gibraltar, no matter how frustrated they were with Franco. For another, the Nazi return to anticommunism was tremendously popular. Spontaneous anticommunist demonstrations, encouraged by members of the regime, erupted throughout Spain at the news. For many Spaniards the invasion was more than just an extension of the existing conflict—it was a "war for the cause of Europe" and a "total European enterprise" against the "virus" of communism. While Falangists, Alfonsin monarchists, Carlists, Catholics, and those with business interests may have had major political differences, they shared in hatred for communism and anger at the Soviet Union for having assisted the Second Republic. Franco appears to have briefly considered declaring war, at the request of Germany, but Spain's economic dependence on Great Britain made this action unlikely. While Spain did not enter the war after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazi betrayal of Stalin began the greatest period of open collaboration between Franco's Spain and Hitler's Germany, a collaboration that would cause serious damage to the Spanish economy as well as to Spain's international image and its practical interests.
To demonstrate its "moral belligerency," Spain recruited a division of volunteers—the Division Espanola de Voluntarios, or Blue Division—dispatched to the Russian Front to serve as a formation of the German Army. Bowen briefly outlines the service of the Blue Division, quickly noting that the British took considerable exception to such a violation of Spain's neutral status, to the extent that Churchill nearly ordered an invasion of the Canary Islands. Following American entry into the war, the Allies began a program of squeezing Spain with economic sanctions designed to prevent Franco from moving any closer to Hitler. In the wake of the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942, the Spanish Army underwent mobilization, but at the same time Franco realized Spain's strategic position had been entirely transformed. At this point the Generalissimo began to succumb to Allied pressure, gradually limiting or ending various concessions previously offered to the Axis, such as refueling facilities for U-boats. (Bowen does not otherwise address the issue of U-boats and German supply ships in Spanish waters.) The fall of Mussolini in the summer of 1943 also gave Falangist leaders pause as they considered how rapidly their comradely regime had collapsed.
In October Franco announced that Spain was shifting its policy from non-belligerency to neutrality. A few weeks later the Blue Division was withdrawn from the Russian Front. In addition, Spanish workers were gradually recalled from Germany. By the time Allied ground troops in France reached the Spanish border, permanently isolating Spain from Germany, Madrid's realignment to strict neutrality was almost complete, and "...the Franco regime made every effort to get on the good side of the Allies."
http://sonic.net/~bstone/archives/060813.shtml
It seems to me the way was more then open for the Allies to land unopposed in Portugal and march across Spain into France avoiding Italy and Normandy.
