Cassino, the Hollow Victory

The struggle to capture Monte Cassino, the impregnable heights barring the Allied advance on Rome in 1944, was the longest land battle fought in Western Europe in World War II and among the most costly. In four separate assaults over the course of the grim six-month epic, more than 105,000 men from the Allied armies and at least 80,000 Germans became casualties, and, between the attacks, the armies of both sides endured conditions of appalling privation. In John Ellis' classic account of the battle, few of the Allied commanders, except for the Free French General Juin, emerge with credit. But the author has nothing but admiration and compassion for the courage and endurance of the common soldiers whose experiences he vividly recreates in the pages of this narrative.