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Cassino: Portrait of a Battle (Cassell Military Classics)

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With "Cassino:The Hollow Victory" by Ellis being the standard, this book is a close second. It is also much easier to find, which avid military readers must keep in mind. The book starts out with the overall situation of the Italian front, describes the importance of Cassino, and descibes to battle to the reader. It seems like every book on the Italian Campaign sets up the books topic (compare with books on the Bulge and D-Day), the reader who is knowledgeable will breeze thru it and get to the heart of the book. If you can't find Ellis's work, grab this one.

There may be many things that people can find wrong with this book: not enough perpective from the German side, not enough linking it to the general political strategies for the push in Italy, etc. It is however rightly regarded as "The" classic account of this battle. The book roughly describes the 4 phases of the battle that went on over 6 months.

1) The initial poorly prepared, and exhausted, American attack across the Rapido, how it was doomed to failure from the start.

2) The initial battle of the ridges behind the town and the rough complex night and day engagements on the ridge between the Indian/ Gurkha companies and the German Paratruops (now there is the very definition of tough fighting; Gurkhas and German Paratruppen).

3) The attack of the marvellously well-equipped New Zealand Division in the town and the brutal house to house fighting and close in urban combat that went absolutely nowhere.

4) The last phase where, after trememdous build up and a weaking of the German defences to shore up Anzio, British-Commonwealth, Polish and French troops pushed in and broke the line after some of the most intense bombardment of the war.

One should not forget that Majdalaney fought in these battles and has an eye for detail. He maintains that although the Germans were on the surrounding heights of the monastery, they were scupulous in trying to move out the civilians and priests and never violated the Abbey. But it was never necessary that they be in the monestary anyway since the high ground around the monastery more than met the German observation needs.

Majdalany also ties in the battle well with the events in Anzio and how the Cassino battle played in counterpoint with that on the beaches. I am sure that there will always be another 800 page opus on any battle, the product of our societie's obsession with the word processing software, that will offer ever more detail, but for a measured history covering all of the main points of the battle --- all in under 300 pages ---- then it will be hard to beat Majdalany.

This book describes in detail the four battles for Cassino from the Allied perspective. It has many good points. For example the clarification of why Mountain tops are important even if they do not have troops on top (they are observation bastions that can direct artillery fire to any place in the map). Also during the description of the operations it makes clear the point that a Division on attack does not attack shoulder-to-shoulder with all available strenght. Rather one or a few of the Infantry battalions (which use one or two of its companies) attack to establish an initial penetration and then other battalions held in reserve use this penetrations as springboards for further attacks. If the attack fails the battalions in reserve may not even attack at all.
Although allied operations are described in detail and its order of battle established sometimes to the Company level, it almost forgets the German side. For much of the book you only know that they are fighting the "Germans" and their defensive maneuvers and countermeasures are either not described at all or they are commented at a very general level.
All in all it is a book worth reading. One has to remember only that its scope is the Allied offensive operations.

This book provides a basic overview of the battle for those seeking an introduction to the battle. However, the book does not thoroughly cover the battle in an in-depth manner. For example, very little perspective is provided as to the German side from nearly all aspects. For example, German goals and strategies as well as troop, weapon and supply dispositions are barely covered. The fact that the majority of German troops were elite is barely even mentioned. From the allied perspective, on the other hand, a much better picture is provided. This is true not only of strategies and objectives, troops and supply dispositions but officer interaction at the highest command (this is not even touched upon on the German side). When the book was written (1957) this was not a surprise as the German records were probably not organized enough for original research to be conducted and there was probably also a lack of serious secondary research for the same reason. But as of 2007 this is definitely not the case. Better researched books probably exist due to the fact that this problem has been overcome.

All and all a good introduction to the reader who knows little about the battle but does little to satisfy the appetites of those who are seeking a more in-depth history and analysis of the battle.