Second Battle of the Alps

The Second Battle of the Alps (French: deuxième bataille des Alpes; Italian: seconda battaglia delle Alpi) was a military campaign fought between combined German and Italian Social Republic forces, and the re-established French Republic led by Charles de Gaulle and other Allied forces.

Since 1943, French general Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French forces, had been planning revenge against Italy for the "stab in the back", the invasion of southern France ordered by Benito Mussolini in June 1940, while France was falling to Germany during the Battle of France. While in Algiers de Gaulle began studying a plan for occupying Italian territory with French influences: the Aosta Valley, western Piedmont, and the coastal cities of Ventimiglia and Imperia in Liguria. The Armistice of Cassibile however caused the division of the Italian peninsula between the Kingdom of Italy in the south, under King Victor Emmanuel III, and the Italian Social Republic in the north, led by Mussolini under German influence. The conditions of the Armistice made the United States, the United Kingdom and the Italian Co-belligerent Army the only nations permitted to occupy Italian territory, thereby leaving out the French. After Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France, the Allies were able to bring the campaign up to the Alps by the Autumn of 1944.

During 1945 de Gaulle was able to send soldiers and partisans to help the Italian resistance near the city of Aosta, and could have occupied a territory of 20 km from the Franco-Italian border if necessary. The general used this excuse to gather a large number of soldiers near the front, ready to conquer as much Italian land as possible from the Aosta Valley to Liguria. French spies were sent to spread French propaganda to gain the population's support during the invasion, but the majority of Italian citizens did not want to join France. French soldiers retreated in the summer of 1945, except from the villages of Tende and Brigue, which were later annexed with the peace treaty (1947). A significant part of the population left the two villages to avoid having to become French citizens.^{[need quotation to verify]}

Between November 1944 and March 1945 France set up the Détachement d'Armées des Alpes (Army Detachment of the Alps) under General Paul-André Doyen, an officer of the Chasseurs alpins who was recalled into active service for the occasion.

In the Northern part of the theatre the main French unit was the 27th Alpine Infantry Division which was formed from local French Resistance units, among whom some were veterans of the defense of the Alps in 1940. Within its ranks were some of France's foremost mountaineers including Lionel Terray, Maurice Herzog, Jacques Boell and Honoré Bonnet. However the overall level of training was poor and the division was starved of equipment and supplies which the Americans preferred to channel towards the more important offensive into Germany.

Further south in the Alpes-Maritimes the 1st Free French Division was deployed under General Pierre Garbay. This was a well-equipped and well-trained unit which had acquired extensive combat experience in different theatres of war. It comprised three brigades of motorised infantry (1st, 2nd and 4th) an armoured reconnaissance regiment, the 1er Régiment de Fusiliers Marins equipped with Stuart tanks, an artillery regiment and various support units. Various units were attached to the division for the offensive. These included the former FFI 3rd Alpine infantry regiment, a company of ski scouts and various ad hoc units. The bulk of the French troops, some 30,000 men, were deployed in the southern part of the front, whereas the units in the northern sector numbered only a few thousand. This choice was partly due to political considerations as French claims on Italian territory in the southern sector, namely the districts of Tende and La Brigue, were more likely to be accepted by the international community.

The French troops on the alpine front were subordinate to General Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group though in practice they received their instructions from the French Army headquarters and thus from de Gaulle himself. At first they were assigned the strictly defensive mission of defending the 6th Army Group's supply lines. However, Devers later authorized an attack in order to support the Allied offensive in Italy, with the French being allowed to advance up to 20 km inside Italian territory.

The defense of the Franco-Italian border was entrusted to LXXV Army Corps, under General der Gebirgstruppe Hans Schlemmer of General Rodolfo Graziani's Army Group Liguria, with all Axis forces in the area coming under its purview.