The British were more in favour of this strategy than the Americans, but the fall of Mussolini had emboldened Allied plans and the prospect of quickly capturing Rome, one of the three Axis capital cities, proved an alluring prospect. The extension of the Mediterranean campaign onto the Italian mainland was intended to pin down German forces that might otherwise be deployed to the Russian front, or be sent to France to counter the cross-Channel invasion planned for the following year. Meanwhile, the US Fifth Army under General Mark Clark attacked further north at Salerno. In September 1943 the British Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery invaded the Italian mainland from Sicily, landing at Reggio and Taranto in the extreme south of the country.
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