[4] Total Allied casualties spanning the period of the four Cassino battles and the Anzio campaign with the subsequent capture of Rome on 5 June 1944, were over 105,000. [90] In Italy the victims of these acts were described as Marocchinate meaning literally "Moroccaned" (or people who have been subjected to acts committed by Moroccans). Polish II Corps lost 281 officers and 3,503 other ranks in assaults on Oberst Ludwig Heilmann's 4th Parachute Regiment, until the attacks were called off. I never really appreciated the difficulties until I went over the ground after the war. The German 14th Army, facing this thrust, was without any armoured divisions because Kesselring had sent his armour south to assist the German 10th Army in the Cassino action. Crucially, the engineers of Dudley Russell's 8th Indian Division had by the morning succeeded in bridging the river enabling the armour of 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade to cross and provide the vital element (so missed by the Americans in the first battle and New Zealanders in the second battle) to beat off the inevitable counter-attacks from German tanks that would come. However, attempts to take Monte Cassino were broken by overwhelming machine gun fire from the slopes below the monastery. On 18 May, a Polish flag followed by the British Union Jack were raised over the ruins. The next three days were spent stabilizing the front, extracting the isolated Gurkhas from Hangman's Hill and the detachment from New Zealand 24th Battalion which had held Point 202 in similar isolation. Clark also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units: In spite of the stiffening enemy resistance, the 2nd Moroccan Division penetrated the Gustave [sic] Line in less than two-day's fighting. On the western front, the American Fifth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, which had suffered very heavy casualties during the main landing at Salerno (codenamed Operation Avalanche) in September, moved from the main base of Naples up the Italian "boot" and on the eastern front the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, advanced up the Adriatic coast. (1983) "Bombing Policy in the Rome and Pre-Normandy Invasion Aerial Campaigns of World War II: Bridge-Bombing Strategy Vindicated – and Railyard-Bombing Strategy Invalidated". The German cemetery (Deutsche Kriegsgräberstätte Cassino) is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Cassino in the Rapido Valley. As late as the second day of the final Cassino battle, Kesselring estimated the Allies had six divisions facing his four on the Cassino front. As it happened, Fifth Army HQ failed to appreciate the frailty of the German position and the plan was unchanged. British XIII Corps in the centre right of the front would attack along the Liri valley. The last one was Monte Cassino, The Hardest Battle of World War II by Matthew Parker. (2004) "Die militärische und innenpolitische Entwicklung in Italien 1943-1944", Chapter 11. The German positions on Point 593 above and behind the monastery were untouched.[37]. The idea was to clear the path through the bottleneck between these two features to allow access towards the station on the south and so to the Liri valley. The Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the Winter Line in Italy held by Axis forces during the Italian Campaign of World War II. At the height of the battle in the first days of February von Senger und Etterlin had moved the 90th Division from the Garigliano front to north of Cassino and had been so alarmed at the rate of attrition, he had "...mustered all the weight of my authority to request that the Battle of Cassino should be broken off and that we should occupy a quite new line. It is now known that the Germans had an agreement not to use the abbey for military purposes. The intention was to take a perimeter that would allow engineers to build a causeway for armoured support. In fact there were thirteen. [39], It is certain from every investigation that followed since the event that the only people killed in the monastery by the bombing were 230 Italian civilians seeking refuge in the abbey. The lack of time to prepare meant that the approach to the river was still hazardous due to uncleared mines and booby traps and the highly technical business of an opposed river crossing lacked the necessary planning and rehearsal. The main invasion force landed around Salerno on 9 September on the western … An opportunity was indeed missed and seven divisions of 10th Army[73] were able to make their way to the next line of defence, the Trasimene Line where they were able to link up with 14th Army and then make a fighting withdrawal to the formidable Gothic Line north of Florence. Pius XII, Pope and Taylor, M.C. I would not comply with the order without first talking to General Clark in person. By 13 May the pressure was starting to tell. On 15 February American bombers dropped 1,400 tons of high explosives, creating widespread damage. Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), travelled to the Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, which had been badly damaged, and distributed 2 million lire to the crowds. However, General Alexander, C-in-C of the AAI, had clearly laid down the Army boundaries before the battle and Rome was allocated to the Fifth Army. The Joint Allied Forces Headquarters was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre and it planned and led the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, followed in September by the invasion of the Italian mainland and the … Battle honours were awarded to some units for their roles at Cassino. "In three weeks, in the middle of a losing war, in another country, it was quite a feat. The withdrawn American units were replaced by the New Zealand Corps (2nd New Zealand and 4th Indian Divisions), commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyberg, from the Eighth Army on the Adriatic front. The neutral Vatican City sat within Rome, and the Vatican also owned many churches and other buildings outside its territory but within Rome city limits. The balance of Clark's forces participated i… An immediate follow-up assault failed and Eighth Army then decided to take some time to reorganize. (ed.) [8] After the raid, Pius XII, along with Msgr. Under constant artillery and mortar fire from the strongly fortified German positions and with little natural cover for protection, the fighting was fierce and at times hand-to-hand. The corps did not have the extra men, but there would certainly have been time to alter the overall battle plan and cancel or modify the central attack by the U.S. II Corps to make men available to force the issue in the south before the German reinforcements were able to get into position. Immediately after the cessation of fighting at Monte Cassino, the Polish government in Exile (in London) created the Monte Cassino campaign cross to commemorate the Polish part in the capture of the strategic point. Battle of Mylae – A Roman naval force under C. Duillius defeats the Carthaginian fleet, giving Rome control of the western Mediterranean. [29] Tuker said he could not be induced to attack unless "the garrison was reduced to helpless lunacy by sheer unending pounding for days and nights by air and artillery". On the right, the Moroccan-French troops made good initial progress against the German 5th Mountain Division, commanded by General Julius Ringel, gaining positions on the slopes of their key objective, Monte Cifalco. Improved weather, ground conditions and supply would also be important factors. There was no natural shelter and the weather was wet and freezing cold. Read more about Battle of ... First, it is aiming to offer interesting and useful information about WW2. Lying in a protected historic zone, it had been left unoccupied by the Germans, although they manned some positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey's walls. One of the most famous battles of ancient Rome was the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC which was also the most important battle of the Second Punic War. In 2006, a memorial was unveiled in Rome honouring the Allied forces that fought and died to capture the city. "[84] After a mass in the basilica, Abbot Gregorio Diamare [it] formally presented signed parchment scrolls in Latin to General Paul Conrath, to tribuno militum Julio Schlegel and Maximiliano Becker medecinae doctori "for rescuing the monks and treasures of the Abbey of Monte Cassino". Smashed by bombing it was a jagged heap of broken masonry and debris open to effective fire from guns, mortars and strafing planes as well as being a death trap if bombed again. However, the British War Cabinet refused to see bombing Rome as a crime against humanity. The army of the Roman Republic was being led by consuls Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Terentius Varro. [9][10] Between 11 a.m. and 12 noon, 150 Allied B-17 Flying Fortresses attacked the San Lorenzo freight yard and steel factory. By now, many of the ship’s electrically controlled systems, its directors and gun mounts were out. Her soldiers were fighting alongside the British in North Africa. Following the first Allied bombing of Rome on May 16, 1943 (three months before the German Army occupied the city), Pius XII wrote Roosevelt asking that Rome "be spared as far as possible further pain and devastation, and their many treasured shrines… from irreparable ruin." & Director Maurizio Carta, Producer Claudia Pompjli, CTV Centro Televisivo Vaticano. Once again the two regiments attacked but with no more success against the well dug-in 15th Panzergrenadier Division: the 143rd Infantry Regiment got the equivalent of two battalions across, but, once again, there was no armoured support and they were devastated when daylight came the next day. There is no clear evidence it was, but he went on to write that from a military point of view it was immaterial: If not occupied today, it might be tomorrow and it did not appear it would be difficult for the enemy to bring reserves into it during an attack or for troops to take shelter there if driven from positions outside. Highway 6 ran through the Liri valley, dominated at its south entrance by the rugged mass of Monte Cassino above the town of Cassino. Forward units of the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division had also by-passed Monte Cifalco to capture Monte Belvedere and Colle Abate. The British press and C. L. Sulzberger of The New York Times frequently and convincingly and in (often manufactured) detail wrote of German observation posts and artillery positions inside the abbey. suggest this failure to capitalize on initial success could be put down to Clark's lack of experience. The day following the battle, the Goumiers, French Moroccan colonial troops attached to the French Expeditionary Forces, have been accused of rape and murder through the surrounding hills. : The Argentinean Connection, Correspondences between Pius XII and Roosevelt, Vatican TV-documentary "Bombing of Rome", Road Television srl, Executive Prod. The Germans had had three months to prepare their defensive positions using dynamite and to stockpile ammunition and stores. [citation needed] Most commentators point to Clark's ambition to be the first to arrive in Rome although some suggest he was concerned to give a necessary respite to his tired troops (notwithstanding the new direction of attack required his troops to make a frontal attack on the Germans' prepared defences on the Caesar C line). [42] One monk, Carlomanno Pellagalli, returned to the abbey; when he was later seen wandering the ruins, the German paratroopers thought he was a ghost. The operation was undertaken by General Sir Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group and followed the successful Allied Invasion of Sicily. The Germans had been very alarmed by the capture of the station and from a conversation on record between Kesselring and von Vietinghoff, had not expected their counter-attack to succeed.[50]. Roosevelt, F.D. [58], The German defenders too had paid a heavy price. Poor Dimoline (acting commander of 4th Indian Division) was having a dreadful time getting his division into position. That same afternoon and the next day an aggressive follow-up of artillery and a raid by 59 fighter bombers wreaked further destruction. Running across the Allied line was the fast flowing Rapido River, which rose in the central Apennine Mountains, flowed through Cassino (joining to the Gari River, which was erroneously identified as the Rapido[9]) and across the entrance to the Liri valley. Damningly, the air raid had not been coordinated with ground commands and an immediate infantry follow-up failed to materialize. Intended as a daring outflanking move that would open up the way to the capture of Rome, the Anzio landings degenerated into World War II deadlock: the Allies unable to drive forward from their bridgehead and the Germans without the means to push the invaders back into the sea. [nb 3], During prior months in the Italian autumn of 1943, two officers in the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, Captain Maximilian Becker and Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel, proposed the removal of Monte Cassino's treasures to the Vatican and Vatican-owned Castel Sant'Angelo ahead of the approaching front. Freyberg was convinced that the attack could not continue and he called it off. D'Oro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy... For this performance, which was to be a key to the success of the entire drive on Rome, I shall always be a grateful admirer of General Juin and his magnificent FEC. He also pointed out that with 150-foot (46 m) high walls made of masonry at least 10 feet (3.0 m) thick, there was no practical means for field engineers to deal with the place and that bombing with "blockbuster" bombs would be the only solution since 1,000 pound bombs would be "next to useless". The assault had been a costly failure, with the 36th Division losing 2,100[17] men killed, wounded and missing in 48 hours. Later, an imposing Polish cemetery was laid out; this is prominently visible to anybody surveying the area from the restored monastery. It was very tough going: the mountains were rocky, strewn with boulders and cut by ravines and gullies. [nb 2] Following its destruction, paratroopers of the German 1st Parachute Division then occupied the ruins of the abbey and turned it into a fortress and observation post, which became a serious problem for the attacking Allied forces. Movements of troops in forward areas were confined to the hours of darkness and armoured units moving from the Adriatic front left behind dummy tanks and vehicles so the vacated areas appeared unchanged to enemy aerial reconnaissance. The Germans were fighting from a series of prepared positions in a manner designed to inflict maximum damage, then pulling back while buying time for the construction of the Winter Line defensive positions south of the Italian capital of Rome. The entire working class district of San Lorenzo was destroyed, and 3,000 Italian civilians were killed in the raids over five residential/railway districts. The French Corps had captured Monte Maio and were now in a position to give material flank assistance to the Eighth Army in the Liri valley against whom Kesselring had thrown every available reserve in order to buy time to switch to his second prepared defensive position, the Hitler Line, some 8 miles (13 km) to the rear. The story of their forefathers’ fight against Etruscan tyrants was told by Romans over generations, but historians are divided over whether it actually took place. Battle of Anzio, (22 January–5 June 1944), World War II event on the coast of Italy, south of Rome. The capture of Monte Cassino came at a high price. [12], 112 USAAF bombers attacked the Prenestino marshalling yard; the objective was hit, but the surrounding districts also suffered damage, with 150 civilian casualties.[12]. [1947] (2005), This page was last edited on 19 December 2020, at 15:15. The Allies suffered around 55,000 casualties in the Monte Cassino campaign. Battle of Anzio Background. The Allies invaded Italy in 1943 but by 1944 had progressed only as far as the Gustav Line south of Rome. [68] The only remnants of the defenders were a group of thirty[68] German wounded who had been unable to move. In the afternoon, the second target was the "Scalo del Littorio" on the northern side of Rome. Whilst General Alexander, C-in-C of the AAI, chose (for perfectly logical co-ordination arguments) to have Cassino and Anzio under a single army commander and splitting the Gustav Line front between the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, now commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese, Kesselring chose to create a separate 14th Army under General Eberhard von Mackensen to fight at Anzio whilst leaving the Gustav Line in the sole hands of General Heinrich von Vietinghoff's 10th Army. In the mountains above Cassino, the aptly named Mount Calvary (Monte Calvario, or Point 593 on Snakeshead Ridge) was taken by the Poles only to be recaptured by German paratroops. In the 1950s, a subsidiary of the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza distributed Lamps of Brotherhood, cast from the bronze doors of the destroyed Abbey, to representatives of nations that had served on both sides of the war to promote reconciliation.[91]. 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