Customer Reviews

Monte Cassino: The Hardest Fought Battle of World War II

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This book interested me for two reasons: 1: my father was one of those unfortunate souls trapped on the Anzio beachhead that was involved in the Monte Cassino operaton, and 2: being Polish I've always felt proud that the monastery was finally taken by Polish troops. That being said, I will admit that I enjoyed reading this book, as it revealed again that high ranking oficers well behind the front lines look at maps on walls and send men out to die without thinking through their "strategy". This was most likely carnage that could have been largely avoided, and was only successful due to the simple courage of the men on the front lines. Both Allied and Aixs fighters were interviewed for this book, and it's quite important to hear from these men, who are dying off every day. Their stories should not be lost to history, for both the victors and the vanquished have something important to impart to us about the horror and cruelty of war, even a "just war".

Many of us remaining veterans of the Second World War have an incomplete picture of what was happening in Theaters of War other than our own. In my case, I was in the ETO (France, Holland, and later Germany)during the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. We thought we had a tough time, but reading Matthew Parkers detailed and precise history of that important battle pointed out how little we knew of what was happening to our fellow combatants (English, French, Polish) off in another part of the conflict. I recommend that young men and women read the history in light of todays "war." Veterans of all wars will be moved to tears as I was after reading Parkers final chapter.

Having visited Salerno this past summer, I was disappointed to discover very little local information on the war and the Allied invasion there. Since I was staying with my wife's family, I asked them to recount their memories, which included climbing high on the coastal mountains as children and watching the troops come ashore. In their recollections they believed the invasion was virtually casualty-free for all. This surprised me, and I began searching for more information back here in the States.

Not only does Matthew Parker's book recount the battles of Monte Cassino, but it also provides significant background information on the events and decisions leading up to the Mediterranean invasions, including the one at Salerno, which was not casualty-free.

I read Parker's book while on Christmas holiday in Genova, Italy (2005), but unfortunately did not make it to Monte Cassino itself for a visit. Next time. Parker's book was difficult to put down and I've already recommended it to others.

I look forward to reading more from this well-researched historian. His work has brought much "readable" attention to aspects of WWII that are often overlooked. This is not a typical history book. It is accessible, well-written, and a good read. His reliance on eye-witness accounts and testimony is excellent. I hope he plans to write others books about WWII topics often overlooked, like the involvement of Polish troops throughout various theatres, like the Battle for Monte Ormel in the Falaise Pocket for instance, a valley of brutal fighting reminiscent of the horrors depicted at Monte Cassino.

Monte Cassino is one of those rare stories of war that reaches into your heart and mind, and somehow is able to stir both beyond the actual weight of the words printed between the covers. There is something intangeable about the way this story siezes the reader. Mathew Parker captures the events in a very graphic, no-nonsense manner and yet somehow manages to eloquently convey the experiences of soldier in the field during the Cassino battles. The feelings of terror, anger, bitterness, loneliness, acceptance of ones fate as well as the hope of somehow making it back home in one piece are masterfully described to the reader.

The book is divided into sections which describe both the preliminary battles in the Mediterranean theater which led to it and the horrific battle of attrition in central Italy itelf. Each battle is clearly laid out by the planning involved and how it evolved as well as it's results. Thus the struggle for Monte Cassino is not described as a single long assault but instead as a series of attacks, counterattacks and pauses to refit and rest. Mr. Parker also spends a good deal of space explaining the moral and economic cost of the war on civilians around Monte Cassino and in Italy, as well as the interactions between the various hostile nationalities and the civilians. Throughout the book Mr. Parker has done a credit to historians of this little studied theater of operations. He has written a book which possesses a balance of both the operational goals and strategy in Italy and the human cost of this strategy. He does this through a large number of personal accounts of the war by the average soldeir and civilian in the Italian theater.

As a matter of fact, the author skillfully uses the larger operational plans to directly feed into the personal accounts of the fight for Monte Cassino. Several examples of this are the patched together and rushed nature of the battles to either take or outflank the town of Cassino and the monastery above it. He puts the reader into the field with the infantryman who is faced with the consequences of one ill-planned and little-prepared-for battle after another. The reader is placed in the middle of infantry assaults devastated becuase of a lack of, or even misdirrected artillery, tank attacks not supported by infantry due to a lack of coordination, as well as amongst civillians caught in the cross-fire of these engagements. Mr. Parker clearly details the lack of understanding of the terrain by the commanding generals and how this led to the hopelessness of the early allied assaults. Decision after decision is poorly carried out or, even worse, ineptly conceived. The author even argues quite effectively that the architect of the campaign, General Mark Clark, needlessly sacrificed many soldeirs lives in his quest for respect and glory.

In the long run, the distinguishing characteristic of this history of one of the most bloody and, oddly enough, least known battles of the second world war, is it's emphasis on the cost in human terms. It is clear that to the author, when weighed against the terrible loss of life by both sides in fight to control this piece of ground, the operational and strategic goals of Churchill and the generals involved made little or no sense. Time and again the personal accounts collected here support this. With this book Mr. Parker has made an invaluable contribution to the understanding of what the soldiers of every nationality went through in that terrible battlefield in Italy.

For some odd reason, Allied strategists considered Italy the "soft underbelly" of German-ruled Europe. It proved virtually the opposite. Parker points out that the very geography of Italy nullified the advantages that the Allies had acquired over the Germans by 1944. Furthermore, German forces dug in and stiffened their resistance in Italy. Every Allied attack on Monte Cassino was beaten back with heavy losses. Allied bombing and shelling of this German fortification seemed to have little effect--at least at first.

Matthew Parker presents a great deal of detail on the Polish Corps, much more than usually seen in non-Polish publications. As a Polish-American whose biological father fought at Monte Cassino, I have a special interest in this battle. There were about 50,000 soldiers in the Polish Corps, and 80% of them had recently been imprisoned in the Soviet Union. They were led by General Wladyslaw Anders, who himself had recently spent time in Soviet prisons.

Having analyzed the failure of previous attempts to take this objective, General Wladyslaw Anders decided on a strategy of attacking all German positions simultaneously. This would keep the Germans from temporarily retreating from one hideout to another and then freely coming back to counterattack the advancing Allies. The Poles intercepted a German order to retreat from Monte Cassino. This gave the Polish Corps a chance to trap the Germans before and during their retreat. Anders' strategy worked. The fighting was exceptionally fierce, and the Poles took Monte Cassino. The stench of the dead was everywhere.

Matthew Parker describes the red poppy flowers growing on the hillsides that surround Monte Cassino. Unfortunately, he fails to mention the fact that these very flowers inspired a military song: "Red Poppies at Monte Cassino" by Ref Ren. The song describes Polish soldiers treading and dying on these poppies "because anger was greater than fear of death". The poppies imbibed Polish blood instead of dew. In time, the flowers of these poppies would be redder than ever because of their diet of Polish blood.

When the Poles took Monte Cassino, the captured Germans became white with fear once they saw the Polish eagle insignia on the uniforms. In March 1983, a West German source published an article that accused the Poles of killing wounded Germans following the capture of Monte Cassino. Robert Frettlohr, one of the wounded German veterans captured by the Poles, spoke up. He forcefully repudiated the scurrilous accusation of Polish soldiers killing wounded Germans. He then got acquainted with Kazimierz Gurbiel, one of the Polish soldiers who had captured Frettlohr decades earlier. A friendship developed. Both former enemies were reunited at Monte Cassino in 1989, 45 years after their first meeting. Frettlohr regretted the war, pointing to its senselessness. He urged that Germans and Poles never again shoot at each other. For his part, Kazimierz Gurbiel, who had been severely wounded in a later battle, stated that he could not hate Germans.

General Leese realized that the Poles' capture of Monte Cassino soundly refuted the Soviet propaganda accusation of non-Communist Poles being unwilling to fight the Germans. Unfortunately, in this respect, it made no difference. Poland had already been sold out, by the British and Americans, in the events leading up to and including Teheran and, later, Yalta. In fact, Parker refers to the giveaway of eastern Poland to the Soviet Union at Teheran. General Wladyslaw Anders not only dared not return to his native Poland, but was constantly and profusely vilified by the Soviet stooges installed over "liberated" Poland. He died in 1970, in exile, and was buried at the Polish military cemetery at Monte Cassino, the final resting place of the Poles who fell in combat against the Germans in that dramatic battle.

Mr. Parker has done a good job describing the campaign to capture Monte Cassino. Using a mixture of his own analysis and veterans experience (ala Stephen Ambrose) to describe one of the bloodier battles of WWII. Mr. Parker describes the men and events surrounding the 4 battles for Monte Cassino. Of particular interest in his text, is his dislike for General Mark Clark (understandable) and his like for General Alexander. Of particular rememberance while reading the book though is the descriptions provided by the veterans.

What I did find interesting in the book is that Mr. Parker goes to greater lengths than most writers to describe the 1st battle for Monte Cassino, and includes the British push on the coast just prior to the 36th ID giving it a go. Something that stung me in reading the book is how the allied commanders focused on bashing their heads against dug in troops. Look, all four battles were slug outs. The first battle (for the Americans) was really a recon in force for the allies. What was disappointing in the 2nd and the 3rd battles is that the "elite" 2nd New Zealand and 4th Indian Divisions used very non-elite methods to achieve the ends (note, in the 3rd battle, this corp committed 7 battalions out of a possible 25 to achieve their goal). I have to wonder what would have happened if Patton had been in charge down there rather than Clark.

Something Mr. Parker pointed out was that because of destruction of the montessary, GFM Kesselring chose to not fight in other cities and historical sites in Italy. A very interesting note.

Despite how welly written the text is, I found myself wishing that Mr. Parker had provided more analysis of the battle and fewer transitions from the overarching battle down to personal accounts. I seriously wish that more writers would follow in the steps of Cornelius Ryan than Stephen Ambrose! I also wish that Mr. Parkers text had provided additional maps as to the area and the operations occuring. Basically, a weak 4 star book. Amazon, you really need to provide half star ratings.

As for the first review, consider the quote in the book from a german solider who'd fought at Stalingrad and Monte Cassino; he considered Monte Cassino to be the harder fight.

An interesting, informative account of that controversial battle. Mr. Parker gives an unbiased and very detailed description of the battle based upon the accounts of those "front line" troops that were there..Allies, German and Italian. It's a book that once begun you won't be able to put down.

Monte Cassino was a true "Battle of the Nations". The Orders of Battle at the end of this book list Divisions from the UK, the USA, Poland, New Zealand, India, France - including Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia - and, of course, Germany. All did honour to their respective countries. In particular, never did men fight so well for such a bad cause as the German parachutists did. Parker, a historian of whom I had heard little but of whom I would like to read more, shows exactly how military history should be written. He sketches the strategic outline concisely and then lets the men who fought tell their own stories, without boring us with his own opinions and theories. The result is a vivid account of the follies and horrors of war. The book's subtitle is a mistake - the hardest fought battle of World War Two was almost certainly Stalingrad, where both sides fought without relief - but to try to compare horrific battles is to miss the point: all are horrific. This book certainly destroys any subconscious illusions - based on experience of Italy only as a very pleasant tourist destination - that the Italian Campaign must not have been as unpleasant as some others. The fact is that even the most beautiful country can be turned into a place of torture by total war. Young men read about wars and wish that they could have fought, but reading books like this makes one thank God that one never had to fight. It left me with a profound sense of gratitude to the generation who went to war so that my generation did not.

Authors of books on military campaigns face a difficult task. They need to describe actions taken by two opponents on multiple fronts at the same time at strategic and tactical levels. Matthew Parker manages to do this well AND add often heartwrenching personal views of both sides of the battle gleaned from diaries, letters and interviews. And it is the personal accounts that raise this book above the average. This is not a description of the heroic Allies vanquishing the evil Nazis. Parker presents the grotesque realities and complexities of war. Not a book for the first time 'military' reader, better referencing of the otherwise clear maps and a better glimpse of the campaign from General Clark's and Alexander's perspectives (who are both criticized) would be improvements. But these are minor items against an otherwise fine work.

A very well researched book; the author uses multiple interviews with vets from both sides as well as official accounts. It was a very gruesome campaign and the author overall does an excellent job of describing it.

The false claims the previous reviewer refers to about the "harderst fought battle of WWII and the 350,000 dead are on the dust cover and not the author's view, blame the publisher's marketing department.

At any rate some people should be more impartial and learn to put their political views aside when reviewing books.