The Battle for Monte Cassino a History
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The Battle for Monte Cassino A History The struggle for the Gustav Line dragged from the winter of 1943 to the spring of 1944. It was an inspiring and traumatic test of endurance for the Allied troops forced to extract the Ger- mans from their positions in the mountains of southern Italy. The most famous flaring of this bitter conflict came in a series of four battles fought between January 17th and May 18th in 1944, which have since become collectively known as the Battle of Monte Cassino. The sleepy backwater of Cassino, with its ancient Benedictine abbey atop the mountain, became for a few months the very tipping point of the Allied advance north. The prize for its capture was an open road to Rome. Geographically, Monte Cassino provides the ideal defensive position, a fact cemented by the constant study of these qualities in military colleges. Sitting astride the mountainous spine of central Italy, the peak looms over three converging valleys – the Liri, the Garigliano and the Rapido – each with their own river. The latter two of these rivers create a natural moat to the south, while the Aurunci Mountains stretch between the Liri valley and the coast. These mountains make for dangerous terrain, being uneven and without footpaths. Finally, at its rear, the Cassino massif rises into the Abruzzi range. The Germans used the natural fortification of the land to their advantage, seeding it with countless defences that extended between Gaeta and Ortona, across the breadth of the Gus- tav Line. Here, the Allied troops met with the most formidable defensive system of any in the war. Taking a special interest in the Gustav Line, Hitler ordered that it be upgraded to ‘fortress strength’. Defences were multi-layered, underground passages linked dugouts, and anti-personnel minefields covered the plains below the mountains. By removing buildings and trees and replacing them with fields of fire, the Germans enhanced the defensive advan- tages naturally afforded by the land. Furthermore, caves had been extended, while cover was strengthened with railway girders and concrete. Hitler was also adamant that retreat from the line was not an option. British and American bombers dropped leaflets over the German defenders on January 24th 1944, offering them “Stalingrad or Tunis” – destruction or surrender. Yet Hitler issued the following decree on January 28th, declaring that surrender was unthinkable: “All officers and men...must be penetrated by a fanatical will to end this battle vic- toriously, and never to relax until the last enemy soldier has been destroyed... the battle must be fought in a spirit of holy hatred for an enemy who is conducting a pitiless war of extermination against the German people... The fight must be hard and merciless, not only against the enemy, but against all officers and units who fail in this decisive hour.” Fourth Culture Films Production Company 1 German Panzer commander Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin claimed that, when there was a question of retreating or not, “Hitler’s simple solution was no, which of course was in very many cases simply quite impossible because we were thoroughly beaten and had only the chance to go back and rally again or be made prisoners”. Both the resilience of the Germans and their geographical situation posed a considerable bar- rier to the Allied penetration north. Napoleon’s statement that “Italy is a boot. You have to enter it from the top” was testimony to the mountainous task that the geography of the land quite literally posed. Historically, Rome had proven particularly difficult to storm from the south and success had not occurred since Belisarius’ triumph in AD 536. The advance of the British Eighth Army under Sir Bernard Montgomery on the Eastern coast of Italy – captur- ing Ortona as they went – had been halted by atrocious weather conditions by the turn of the year. This ruled out Route 5 to Rome, leaving only Routes 6 and 7. Route 7, the old Appian Way, was deemed an unsuitable axis of attack. Being narrow and easily defensible, as the Allies quickly discovered, this sequence of valleys along the western coast was rejected in favour of an approach towards Cassino. Thus it was Route 6, which ran up the old Via Casiliana, that the Allied Command turned in early 1944. Not only was this impregnable position their third choice of advance but also the weather that beset the Eighth Army continued to batter their comrades to the west. The winter of 1943-44 was dire – frosts fractured metal, frostbite and exposure accounted for more casualties than action, and it rained for fifty of the last seventy days of 1943. Despite the new technologies available to both sides in WWII, the terrain of Monte Cassino “sent the fighting back to a pre- mechanised age”, argues Parker. Always a hindrance, the conditions frequently became lethal too. Moreover, the troops had to resort to using mules to carry the wounded, so unsuitable were vehicles in the boggy and steep valleys of the approach to Cassino. The innumerable rivers of the region only served to slow the advance. It was thanks to Donald Bailey’s ‘Bailey bridges’ – pre-fabricated, easily deployable platforms, first used in Tunisia and subsequently in Sicily and Southern Italy – that the Allies could crawl across the torrential flows that barred their approach. Moving sluggishly, the Allies followed the Garigliano from the south and ar- rived at the flooded valley of the Rapido to the east. The sight that met them must have been awe-inspiring and not a little daunting – the peak of Monte Cassino on Hill 516, dominating the convergence of the valleys, it’s abbey resembling a Bavarian castle more than a house of worship. Built by St. Benedictine of Nurcia in AD 529, the abbey was an influential part of the culture of Christianity in Western Europe. Having been largely destroyed in an earthquake in 1349, it was quickly rebuilt, becoming the vast complex that dominated the massif and the town of Cassino below. Over the centuries, it has been a popular destination for pilgrims, a centre for fine arts, and home to the writings of Cicero, Horace, Ovid and Virgil, among others. Most significantly, in relation to the Battle of Monte Cassino, it had been declared a non-combatant zone. “Pax” or peace was the sole word carved above the gate of the abbey. But for five months this peace would be desecrated by fierce combat, unnecessary loss and devastation. This began with the German Tenth Army, commanded by the formidable Field Marshal ‘Smiling Albert’ Fourth Culture Films Production Company 2 Kesselring, who at 58 was one of the most resourceful and stubborn commanders in the en- tire Wehrmacht. Assiduously avoiding the abbey, the Germans dug into the slopes below its walls. They had prepared well, with a series of interlocking bunkers and fortifications sealing off southern Italy across the Gustav Line, and these defences were superbly constructed and ably manned. What is more, in the months preceding the battle, the Allies had chased the Germans north, reasonably assuming that they were fleeing all the way to Rome. Instead, the Germans were conducting a calculated withdrawal, buying themselves time to reinforce the Gustav Line. It would take 20 Allied divisions to smash through the German defences. First Battle The US Fifth Army, under Lieutenant-General Mark Clark, fanned out across the three valleys in the middle of January. Having endured some six weeks of heavy engagement to reach the Gustav Line on January 15th, Fifth Army had just two days to recover and prepare for the first offensive against the wall of mountains in its path. The order of battle was thus: the British X Corps on the left flank of the 20-mile front to cross the Garigliano; US II Corps in the centre to ford the Gari just south of Cassino, and the French Expeditionary Corps to wheel north- west to enclose the German forces with an attack on Monte Cairo. Speculation suggests that Clark was not fully convinced of the plan’s potential for success. Rather, with the landings at Anzio due on January 22nd, he had hoped to divert German attention and thus leave the right flank of the Gustav Line exposed. Either way, it is evident that the first attempt on the line was rushed, under-prepared and unlikely to strike the decisive blow. Nonetheless, on the night of January 17th, sections of British X Corps crossed the Garigli- ano where they were met by the fire of von Senger’s XIV Panzer Corps. Von Senger, a devout Catholic and member of the Benedictine order, marshalled the German defence brilliantly and with the British armour struggling to deploy effectively due to the terrain once crossing the river, the three divisions of X Corps suffered considerable casualties, rapidly weakening their position. Despite this, the Germans were clearly worried: von Senger requested reserves to bolster the 94th Infantry Division, and two additional Panzer divisions were drafted in from the north. Three days later, the US 36th Division, the renowned ‘Texas’ men, made a night-time attempt at crossing the Gari. They found the position untenable and were nearly obliterated in just two days, losing more than 2,200 soldiers. Only 40 men were reported to have made it back across the river. Once again, the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, whose vicious counterattacks pinned the 36th to the banks of the Gari, exploited the minimal Allied armoured support. On January 24th, the 34th Infantry Division of the US II Corps launched an attack across a fordable stretch of the Rapido, north of Cassino.