Alexander's Boundary Analysis

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Division. As the Eighth Army's drive toward Catania and Gerbini bogged down in heavy fighting, Montgomery persuaded Alexander to shift the boundary line between the American Seventh and British Eighth Armies west, thereby permitting him to advance on a broader front into central Sicily and sidestep the main centers of Axis resistance. The boundary change, which Alexander communicated to Patton just before midnight on 13 July, stripped Highway 124 away from Seventh Army and assigned it instead to the Eighth Army. Under the new instructions, a part of the Eighth Army advanced up Highway 124 to Enna, the key road junction in central Sicily, before turning northeast toward Messina. Basically, Alexander was intervening British forces between the