Circles Of Hell: The War In Italy 1943-1945 - Hardcover

Morris, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517578107 ISBN 13: 9780517578100

Publisher: Crown, 1993

Synopsis

A critical look at this appallingly managed campaign describes how the Allies triumphed in spite of dissent, desertion, venereal disease, and the actions of a weak and irresolute British commander and a power-hungry American one

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

The longest and costliest Anglo-American operation in the WW II European theater, the Italian campaign was beset by controversy: the slaughter of the 36th U.S. Division at the Rapido, the bombing of Monte Cassino, General Mark Clark's exclusion of the British from the capture of Rome. Morris's vigorous narrative is shaped around a harsh but well-supported indictment of Allied generalship in Italy, especially of the insistence on attacking the Germans where they were strongest. Mark Clark is presented as a publicity hound, mistrustful of British fighting prowess; Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as noncooperative and dilatory; and overall theater commander Field Marshal Harold Alexander as weak-willed and indecisive. Morris puts far more emphasis on the purely Italian dimension of the campaign than has any other historian to date, analyzing the weaknesses of the organized Italian military effort, the growing strength of the partisans and the suffering visited on the populace. The Allies, in the name of liberation, killed more Italians than the Germans did. Morris also addresses the biggest controversy of all: the degree to which the Allied armies in Italy actually contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0517578107
• ISBN 13: 9780517578100
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 498