|
Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944--1945 | 
 enlarge | Author: James Holland
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $29.96 (75%)
New (38) Used (16) from $8.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 82129
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 656
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 2.3
ISBN: 0312373961
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.54215
EAN: 9780312373962
ASIN: 0312373961
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
During the Second World War, the campaign in Italy was the most destructive fought in Europe – a long, bitter and highly attritional conflict that raged up the country’s mountainous leg. For frontline troops, casualty rates at Cassino and along the notorious Gothic Line were as high as they had been on the Western Front in the First World War. There were further similarities too: blasted landscapes, rain and mud, and months on end with the front line barely moving. And while the Allies and Germans were fighting it out through the mountains, the Italians were engaging in bitter battles too. Partisans were carrying out a crippling resistance campaign against the German troops but also battling the Fascists forces as well in what soon became a bloody civil war. Around them, innocent civilians tried to live through the carnage, terror and anarchy, while in the wake of the Allied advance, horrific numbers of impoverished and starving people were left to pick their way through the ruins of their homes and country. In the German-occupied north, there were more than 700 civilian massacres by German and Fascist troops in retaliation for Partisan activities, while in the south, many found themselves forced into making terrible and heart-rending decisions in order to survive. Although known as a land of beauty and for the richness of its culture, Italy’s suffering in 1944-1945 is now largely forgotten. This is the first account of the conflict there to tell the story from all sides and to include the experiences of soldiers and civilians alike. Offering extensive original research, it weaves together the drama and tragedy of that terrible year, including new perspectives and material on some of the most debated episodes to have emerged from the Second World War.
Book Description
Today Italy is a land of beauty and prosperity but in 1944-45 it was a place of nightmares, violence, war, and destruction. James Holland's ground-breaking account expertly details Italy’s hidden history. Few people know more allied than German troops were killed in Italy than in Northwest Europe; or 700 separate civilian massacres were carried out by the Germans. In this revelatory account of the terrible events that occurred during those brutal twelve months of the campaign in Italy at the tail end of the WWII, Holland's brilliantly researched study reveals the true stories behind the one-sided accounts typically offered of this brutal yet edifying time in Italy's history. Re-examining appalling Partisan and Civilian massacres at German hands and a three day rampage on Monte Sole—the single biggest civilian atrocity committed by the Nazis in western Europe, Italy's Sorrow follows the lives and fortunes of commanders and ordinary men alike, allied and enemy, making up a collection of extraordinary personal stories that demonstrates that whichever side you were on, these very human dilemmas were suffered by all.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Very good, if not for a few oddities November 19, 2008
I've never read anything by James Holland before. Apparently I'm going to have to get used to historians (to say nothing of a President) who are younger than I, which is something of a jarring experience. The current book, however, is a well-researched, well-written account of the course of the campaign in Italy, basically from the last battle of Cassino up through the end of the war. The author spends a lot of time (more than used to be the fashion) discussing the impact of the war on civilians, and he also spends a lot of time discussing the lives of individual soldiers on both sides of the lines.
Cassino was one of the most frustrating battles of the war, for the Allies, and the author starts with it, recounting briefly the earlier battles, then recounting in considerable detail the successful attack by the Poles. He also spends a lot of time talking about the famous attack out of the Anzio bridgehead by Mark Clark's Fifth Army, and interestingly defends Clark's decision to turn towards Rome and capture it, as opposed to moving to the fabled Valmontane, where Alexander had ordered him to go. Holland discusses this incident, and the produces a map which shows the main German retreat routes from the Cassino front. Only one of them goes through Valmontane, and the author lets you know this was an alternate, less-important, route. The four further north, out of reach of Clark's forces no matter what he did, were the significant ones. Very interesting thesis.
That, in some ways, was the highlight of the book. There's a great deal of information here about various forces and battles, later in the campaign, and much of the information is very well-presented and the judgements are thoughtful. There isn't, however, anything in the way of ground-breaking scholarship for the rest of the book.
I did have a few misgivings. At times Holland's understanding of military technology seems a bit weak. One passage includes a discussion of something called an "Ofenrohre". I'm not the world's greatest expert on German militaria, but I know a lot of other amateur experts, and none of us had ever heard the term. It turns out "Ofenrohre" means "stovepipe" in German, and that this was the nickname for the Panzerschrek. *That* we would have understood, but he didn't include the name in the text or anywhere else. At other points he seems to get confused about gun calibers and things of that nature. He also has an odd habit of referencing U.S. Infantry divisions by their divisional nicknames, and occasionally getting them a bit wrong. So for instance, he refers to the 92nd "Buffalo" Division, when of course it should be (if you're going to do it this way) the 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division. The term "Buffalo Soldier" traces back to the Indian wars, when said Indians thought a black person's hair looked like buffalo fur.
Those few misgivings aside, this is an interesting, well-written book. It includes a considerable amount of information, and the text is well-illustrated by enough maps for you to follow the action as to what's going on. I really enjoyed the book, and would recommend it.
 Not Bad October 12, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This covers the Italian campaign from just before the breaching of the Gustav line till the end of the war. The main thing that is new in the book is the discussion of the effect of the war on the Italian people. The Germans were able to use the mountainous territory of the Italian Peninsular to fight their most successful defensive campaign of the war. As they retreated the Germans destroyed all bridges and transport infrastructure. The allies used their air power to destroy anything power stations and other infrastructure. This meant that for the year covered by the book the lack of transport in both the German and Allied areas meant that civilians were on the brink of starvation. In the allied occupied areas at least half the woman under forty contracted venereal diseases as they turned to prostitution to try to make ends meet. French colonial troops also were poorly disciplined and raped very large numbers of Italian women.
In the context of the war the Italian campaign has been seen as something of a failure. The Russians wanted the allies to open a second front in France to draw large numbers of German troops away from the Eastern Front. Instead the allies first cleared the Germans out of Africa in 1942 and then invaded Italy in 1943. Churchill was the main advocate of the Italian strategy. He referred to Italy as the "soft underbelly of Europe". In the light of the bitter fighting that occurred for the next year this was seen as something of a bad joke. However there was some truth to Churchill's approach. The danger for the allies was that if they landed in France the Germans could use the European transport system to concentrate troops and actually win. In Italy the remoteness meant that they could not use allied mistakes to achieve a decisive victory. Thus the allies when they landed troops at Anzio moved slowly and soon their units were surrounded. However the Germans were not able to concentrate forces and to eliminate the beech head.
Whilst the Italian campaign was thus a safer option than France the terrain and remoteness which protected the allies from any real danger meant that the Germans were able to use reasonably limited forces to fight a tenacious defensive campaign.
In retrospect the Italian campaign does not seem to have achieved much. The major success was Italy overthrowing Mussolini and pulling out of the war. However the reality was that the Italian army by 1943 was ineffectual. The Germans were able to occupy Italy and they promptly occupied the industrial areas. They used Italians and slave labourers and sent of thousands to free up German workers for the army. In all probability this arrangement was more productive for the Germans as it is likely that if Italy continued to be a co-belligerent there would have been more active resistance to the use of workers as slave labourers.
The book is interesting as it does raise the issue of how dreadful the impact the campaign was on the civilian population and it gives a good narrative of the events. The weakness of the book is putting the campaign in the strategic context and seeing what effect it had on the rest of the war.
 a splended book May 16, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Rick Atkinson's coverage of the war in Italy through the capture of Rome was an excellent read, but Italy's Sorrow is an essential supplement as well as a great piece of historical writing on its own. The war in Italy was not over when Rome fell, and during the final year much went on that is of considerable interest including two major allied offenses. In addition Holland spends much time covering what the Italians were doing during 1944-45, a history of the Polish divisions before and in Italy, and (as reportedly in his other books) the war as seen by civilians, generals, and grunts. While Atkinson is American and Holland British, it is Holland who makes the best case for Clark and Alexander as able, talented generals.
There are many helpful maps, 32 pages of illustrations, and 539 pages of gripping text.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
