I was watching Patton 360" on the History Channel,I enjoyed the show,but I was thinking,could or should the Allies invaded in Greece or Yugoslavia instead of Italy? Would this have worked perhaps knocking Bulgaria,Rumania,and Hungary out of the war.The Germans were still deep in the Soviet Union,so this could have the effect of forcing them to rapidly retreat to protect their flank,and this could have maybe kept the Soviets out of the Balkans.I'm just a WWII novice so I wanted to throw this out for discussion.

Thanks Anthony

There are a few reasons Italy was chosen over other routes. First, it was the easiest to mount an invasion due to the short route from Tunisia, to Sicily, to the Italian mainland. It was also seen as a soft target, "the soft underbelly of Europe", since it puts you right out into the heart of Europe over the Alps. Also, there was not as heavy of a German presence there as other areas. The Allies did not want to go deep into eastern Europe either. The goal was a two pronged attack, once Overlord was started the next year, to strike at the heart of Germany or into France. Italy puts you right at those areas. Truthfully, we were not concerned about the Balkans and they had already been decided upon as an area the Soviets would deal with.

I'm sorry to contradict you on this, Gino.
It was the Americans who didn't want to go into the Balkans. They wanted to end the war quick and economic and did not want any detours.
The British (Churchill) wanted to go to the Balkans, for he realised that after the American entry to the war, the Allies would win and as an anti-communist, he wanted the Russians as far away as possible.
It would have been difficult for Stalin to place a government in Eastern Europe, without military forces to bring them in power.
This was a repeating struggle between Britain on one side and the USA and the USSR on the other, for the Russians had, as we know now their own agenda for the Balkans.

Peter

I agree, I should have clarified that it was mainly the US that was against it, and of course Russia.