Operation Avalanche was disagreement between the Allies as to what the next step should be. Winston Churchill in particular wanted to invade Italy, which he called the "underbelly of Europe" (commonly misquoted as "soft underbelly"). Popular support in Italy for the war was declining, and he believed an invasion would remove Italy, and thus the influence of the Italian Navy ("Regia Marina") in the Mediterranean Sea, opening it to Allied traffic. This would make it much easier to supply Allied forces in the Middle East and Far East, and increase British and American supplies to the Soviet Union. In addition, it would
Allied invasion of Italy the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, and much of the American staff wanted to avoid operations that might delay an invasion of Europe, which had been discussed and planned as early as 1942, and which finally materialized as Operation Overlord in 1944. When it became clear that no cross-channel invasion of occupied France could be undertaken in 1943, it was agreed to invade Sicily, with no commitment made to any follow-up operations. However, both Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. President, accepted the necessity of Allied armies continuing to engage the Axis in the period after