Bitter Victory: The Battle for Sicily, 1943 Hardcover – September 29, 1988

This is a fine history, combining a wealth of in-depth, primary source research with a clear, easy-to-comprehend writing style. D'Este's book is an excellent military history, and it probably remains the definitive history of the campaign, and will be for some time.

I recently read Mitcham's "The Battle of Sicily: How the Allies Lost Their Chance for Total Victory," so I'll shorten comments on the campaign itself to focus on where the books differ, and especially on what D'Este adds.

D'Este primarily focuses on the Allied side. While that approach could easily fall back to the baseline of official histories, he goes way beyond them, and even criticizes them at points. He had personal conversations and correspondences with many of the Allied leaders, or used archival reports of those one-on-one conversations with other researchers. In doing so, he builds a rich portrait of the events that took place in the campaign, and uncovers the mindset of the leaders. He focuses on military events, so casual readers should be cautioned that much of the book focuses on generals and the movement of combat units, not so much everyday civilians, political leadership, or even soldiers.

It's clear from D'Este's account that Alexander was at fault for letting the overall ground campaign go on divergent paths. D'Este spends a lot of pages debunking the myth of a feud between Monty and Patton. Patton was somewhat insecure and untrustful of the British after key events, such as the general snobbery toward the Americans after Kasserine, and the particularly divisive move by Monty to relegate Bradley's corps to a defensive role in Sicily. Yet, Monty, as depicted here, changed his attitude once he realized that the Americans had fought well and were in the best position to succeed. D'Este notes several times that Monty's attack toward Catania was similar as his later one toward Caen, as it developed more like the spread fingers of a hand rather than a fist, over difficult terrain and against top-notch German defenders. With Patton in Palermo and Monty's army stalled before Catania, Monty realized that the Americans were in the best position to win, and end, the campaign. Patton and Monty fought the campaign accordingly, and Alex could only approve, rather than direct.

In terms of operations, D'Este spends several chapters describing perhaps the most fascinating parts of the battle. First, the section on the battle for Primosole Bridge is particularly good, and he uses accounts from both sides to paint a full picture of the fighting there. Second, he has an expansive, in-depth chapter on the German evacuation and the failure of the Allies to stop it. Again, just as with Primosole, D'Este uses sources from both sides in a comparative analysis of events, pulling in diaries, memoirs, and other sources to support his view. Simply put, the Axis achieved more that what the British did at Dunkirk, as the Axis were able to evacuate not only soldiers, but also their equipment and other heavy assets, in the face of overwhelming Allied superiority on the sea, in the air, and on the ground.

He attributes the Allied failure to a lack of leadership, as the Allies did not have a plan to stop the Axis from escaping. D'Este doesn't clearly say it, as he seems to imply all of the 3 Allied force heads were to blame, but this is a glaring failure of Eisenhower's leadership most of all. The lack of coordinated planning from the beginning was also a key factor, and it's important to note that Monty's plan was chosen. The Allies simply forced the Axis ground forces back toward Messina in front of them. The Germans were left wondering why the Allies didn't land in Calabria (the Italian boot) to simply trap all of the Axis forces in Sicily for minimal effort. When the time came to stop the evacuation, each of the key higher commanders were hundreds of miles apart all across the Mediterranean.

Indeed, one is left wondering what the Allies achieved in Sicily, and that is a question not conclusively answered by D'Este. While Mussolini fell, and the Allies took an island, the Allies failed to destroy the German defenders, and many of the Italians got away as well. (The Italians tended to surrender, D'Este explains, because they didn't want to fight against the better way of life offered by the Allied governments, not by the fascists). One is left with the impression from "Bitter Victory" that Sicily can be seen as the first step in a largely wasteful Italian campaign that accomplished little.

The maps, tables of organization, and other supporting matter aid in understanding of this battle. The footnotes in the paperback printing are microscopic, which is a shame, because in them D'Este adds many colorful personal details that bring his subjects to full life. The footnotes are worth reading even if they divert focus from the main narrative.

In summary, I'd recommend reading D'Este before Mitcham, and perhaps only D'Este. While Mitcham provides more detail of the Axis side, his book does not rise up to the level of method, writing style, or insight that D'Este achieves here.

Carlo D'Este has always been an author whose material I have wanted to delve into for sometime, and I finally decided to read his books on Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. I naturally read this one first since it came first in chronological order, and I must say if the other two are even close to the awesomeness that was this book I will be very impressed.

The book discusses the events leading up to Operation Husky, the Allied campaign in Sicily, the neighboring island to the West of Italy. D'Este gives background information on Operation Torch in Africa, as well as the planning (or lack of it) that went into Operation Husky. D'Este also delves into the various characters of this campaign such as Patton, Eisenhower, Monty, Bradley, as well as lesser known members of the Allied Forces, including Alexander, Tedder, Cunningham, etc. D'Este also explores the German and Italian forces main players such as Guzzoni, Hube, Kesselring, etc.

The actual part of the book concerning Operation Husky and its immediate aftermath are very well done as well, and an enjoyable read throughout. D'Este was fair to those who deserved it and called out those who deserved it as well at times in this book, which is refreshing to see when so many authors choose to just kiss up to the heroes of the Allies of WW2.

Overall, a great read on a lesser covered campaign of WW2!

Carlo d'este is a great author, and this as a work is a great book. But, the rendering into Kindle format is terribly executed. Very good maps provided by the author are digitized at such low resolution that text on the maps cannot be deciphered. Bizzare misspellings are everywhere, indicating it was digitized from a hard copy format and OCR'ed. Entire paragraphs are missing. Whoever did this conversion work made a mess of it.

On July 10, 1943 while the great battle in the east at Kursk was being fought, the Western Allies took their first big step to get back on the continent by landing on Sicily. Within a few days Hitler will start transferring divisions back to southern Europe to protect his southern flank.

Bitter Victory is an exhaustive and brilliant telling of not only the Sicily invasion but of one of the most discordant times between the US-British alliance. The author will describe the battle for Sicily in great detail but will also cover the friction between Patton and Montgomery and the upper echelons of British and American Commands.
The author methodically takes you step by step from the Allies choosing of strategy to follow, to the North African campaign when the Allies were first thrown together to the contentious planning of Operation Husky, to the troubled landings on Sicily. Once on the island the author delivers a detailed day to day account of the battles as Patton and Montgomery move north to capture the island and the Axis forces defending it. The island was captured but much of the garrison was allowed to escape to Italy.

To get a better understanding of the invasion of Sicily, the author starts in North Africa and the Torch landings where the mistrust and animosity began. The early days of 2nd Corps under General Fredendall were not auspicious; Alexander and Montgomery looked down on the Americans from the very beginning and their attitudes wouldn't change throughout the war despite the fact that once competent commanders took over and with a little experience, the American soldier became as good a soldier as British or French etc. They both continued to undercut, and subordinate American involvement in Tunisia and later in Sicily.

The planning for Sicily was simply terrible, uncoordinated and lacking confidence. Once the airborne / amphibious landing took place in the south, Montgomery almost immediately changed the battle plan, excluding the Americans from their part in the plan. It was a terrible mistake on Montgomery's part for several reasons. First, the German resistance was stronger than Montgomery figured and the US forces would have been a big help if they were deployed as planned. Second, he underestimated Patton for Patton went ahead on his own and captured the majority of the island and beat Montgomery to Messina. The plan for the ground assault was faulty and insufficient air and sea power was not called in as well allowing most of the Axis garrison to leave through Messina and reach Italy where the Allies would have a much tougher time defeating them. These aspects and more are covered by the author.
Fifteen maps and 40 photos are included. The maps cover the key engagements on the island. The photos show mostly officers and men and a few battlefield shots. There is also an impressive Appendix that show Org charts and Order of Battle, key documents and further commentary. They're also extensive Footnotes and Bibliography as well as a useful Index if further study is desired.

The author has written the definitive account of this campaign. Mr D'Este, a veteran, knows his subject matter thoroughly and gives an excellent assessment of all aspects of it: the operational, political and personal. Eisenhower, Montgomery, Patton, Alexander and Bradley as well as some of their subordinates are discussed and appraised. A new reader after finishing this book will have a good understanding of the hardships of Operation Husky as well as the friction that grew between the two Allies. The more experienced reader will enjoy it for its sound tactical appraisal. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in the campaign or the early relationship of the Allies. The author's books on the Anzio landings and on Normandy are also comparable accomplishments and should be considered as well.