Bernard Montgomery
During the autumn of 1943, Montgomery continued to command the Eighth Army during the landings on the mainland of Italy itself. In conjunction with the Anglo-American landings at Salerno (near Naples) by Mark Clark's Fifth Army and seaborne landings by British paratroops in the heel of Italy (including the key port of Taranto, where they disembarked without resistance directly into the port), Montgomery led the Eighth Army up the toe of Italy. Some criticism was made of the slowness of Montgomery's advance. The Eighth Army, responsible for the eastern side of the Allied front, from the central Apennine mountain spine to the Adriatic coast, fought a succession of engagements alternating between opposed crossings of the rivers running across their line of advance and attacks against the cleverly constructed defensive positions the Germans had fashioned on the ridges in between. The Eighth Army crossed the Sangro river in mid-November and penetrated the German's strongest position at the Gustav Line but as the winter weather deteriorated the advance ground to a halt as transport bogged down and air support operations became impossible. Montgomery hated the lack of coordination, the dispersion of effort, and the strategic muddle and opportunism he perceived in the Allied effort in Italy and was glad to leave the "dog's breakfast" on 23 December