British historian and journalist Holland (Fortress Malta)
vividly recalls the final year of World War II in Italy in this
masterful narrative. The controversial decision to invade Sicily
and Italy following the North African campaign was ""purely
opportunistic"" and intended to draw German resources away from
the main action in Normandy. As critics had feared, Italy, with
its rugged mountains, was ""a truly terrible place to fight,""
and the campaign became a bloody war of attrition. The final
toll on combatants, civilians, and the Italian landscape was
staggering; total casualties exceeded a million and entire
cities were leveled. Cassino, the site of a decisive battle, was
""utterly-100 per cent-destroyed"" and Benevento resembled ""a
post-apocalyptic ruin."" Holland's balanced account of the
savage fighting and wholesale destruction draws on the
eyewitness testimony of Allied and German combatants, Italian
partisans and Fascist loyalists. He concludes-echoing historian
Rick Atkinson's excellent recent acco