Monte Cassino Ten Armies in Hell

The Italian campaign of World War II began in September 1943 and ended with the German surrender on May 2, 1945. Though overshadowed by planning for and execution of Normandy and the cross-Channel invasion of Europe, the campaign was extensive and costly. So brutal was the fighting at times that it reached the worst extremes of the Russian front; and the attrition rates often exceeded those of the Western Front. By the time the Italian campaign was over, the Allies suffered 312,000 killed, wounded and missing; over the same period, the Germans lost 435,000, an average loss to both sides of 1,233 men daily, almost one for every minute of the 606-day-long campaign. At the bleeding heart of it all was Monte Cassino, where some 200,000 casualties were inflicted during an engagement that endured for four months. The most famous battle of the campaign, Monte Cassino is remembered most vividly for the destruction of the town's central feature: a monastery built in AD 529 by Saint Benedict of Subiaco, who devised his regula monachorum within its walls. An architectural masterpiece, the monastery was levelled by the Allies in one of the most ferocious air raids of the war. A month later, their bombers returned and destroyed the town in similar fashion, when almost five hundred US aircraft delivered a thousand tons of high explosive onto the little town, pulverizing the centuries-old landscape. Peter Caddick-Adams provides an in-depth analysis of Monte Cassino, bringing to bear an intimate and detailed knowledge of the battlefield. He skillfully considers the effects of hostile weather, difficult terrain, and highly trained German soldiers on the Allied forces' morale and strategic decisions, while also placing the Italian campaign with the larger context of the war. Comprehensive, balanced, and detailed,Monte Cassinois a riveting and scholarly work of history.

Peter Caddick-Adams is a Lecturer in Military and Security Studies at the United Kingdom's Defence Academy and author of Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives. He holds the rank of major in the British Territorial Army and has served with U.S. forces in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.