Your article is basically correct in my humble estimation. Russian did do by far the bulk of the ground fighting against the Nazis, But I don't know how you missed the basic excuse for the Italian campaign, that being for tying up many German divisions.

First off Churchill was a marvelous cheerleader for keeping up British morale, but as a grand military strategist he was a dismal failure. From his Turkish fiasco of World War One to insisting upon the Italian campaign of World War Two he cause tens of thousands of lives to be lost needlessly.

The thing is that with its rugged mountains Italy was a perfect terrain for the Germans to fight a punishing defensive campaign, making it a useless, bloody sideshow for the allies.

In point of fact because Hitler felt compelled to keep Italy out of allied hands he would have send many divisions to Italy so long as the Allies presented a mere threat to Rome.

So instead of killing off tens of thousands of American and British troops in the deadly mountains of Italy, while still making it look like Rome was the end target, men and material could have been sent up the Rhone Valley of southern France, which proved to be an expresswayright into the heart central France, so that between that attack and Normandy Germans in france would have been caught in a giant pincer.

The capture of Rome in the overall Allied war effort was hardy more that a prestige item to be taken, having great appeal to Churchill's ego.