Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war.
A (literally) day-by-day account of the fighting that alternates between American, British and Commonwealth, German, and Italian sources. It’s an approach that risks becoming a dull litany of events, but the author avoids the pitfall by detouring into character vignettes and war-nerd-satisfying weapons analysis ... Holland has no inclination to experiment with structure—but no matter ... History should be tragic and glorious, sobering and enlightening, but instead we’re fobbed off with fodder and muck cranked out by cable-news hosts, third-rate thriller writers, propagandists posing as journalists, and grifters masquerading as scholars. Their combined talents have achieved the singular feat of making history both tedious and tendentious. We need more American Hollands.
Holland concentrates on the four months between the completion of the conquest of Sicily in mid-August 1943 and the close of that year when the dream of reaching Rome for Christmas dissolved in torrential rain and mud.
Holland effectively conveys the drama on the front lines while giving a comprehensive account of what was going on at the strategic level. A riveting, often appalling look at an under-recognized part of the fight against Hitler—a must for WWII buffs.
