Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly British historian and journalist Holland (Fortress Malta) vividly recalls the final year of World War II in Italy in this masterful narrative. The controversial decision to invade Sicily and Italy following the North African campaign was "purely opportunistic" and intended to draw German resources away from the main action in Normandy. As critics had feared, Italy, with its rugged mountains, was "a truly terrible place to fight," and the campaign became a bloody war of attrition. The final toll on combatants, civilians, and the Italian landscape was staggering; total casualties exceeded a million and entire cities were leveled. Cassino, the site of a decisive battle, was "utterly-100 per cent-destroyed" and Benevento resembled "a post-apocalyptic ruin." Holland's balanced account of the savage fighting and wholesale destruction draws on the eyewitness testimony of Allied and German combatants, Italian partisans and Fascist loyalists. He concludes-echoing historian Rick Atkinson's excellent recent account of the campaign, The Day of Battle-that despite its terrible cost, the fight in Italy played a decisive role in defeating Germany. A complementary volume to Atkinson's account focusing on the earlier stages of the campaign, this is popular history at its very best: exhaustively researched, compellingly written and authoritative. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist During the course of the past few years, historians and publishers have shown a renewed interest in World War II. The popularity of Ken Burns’ recent documentary The War is evidence that the general public is still fascinated by this iconic twentieth-century conflict. Though much has been written about the war in Europe, comprehensive treatments of the Italian campaign are far outnumbered by the vast array of books that document D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the race across Western Europe to Berlin. Holland attempts to fill the void with this meticulously researched history of the final year of the war in Italy. Readers new to this subject may be surprised to learn of the tremendous havoc and destruction wreaked upon Italy during 1944 and 1945; those more familiar with martial history will welcome this inclusive chronicle of the Allied, German, and Partisan campaigns in both the south and the north of the Italian peninsula. --Margaret Flanagan Review Praise for Italy's Sorrow:'James Holland has written his best book yet, a gripping, yet compassionate account of the terrible war in Italy, with a memorable depiction of civilian suffering.'-- Antony Beevor, award-winning author of The Fall of Berlin 1945 and StalingradPraise for Together We Stand:"Compelling and detailed...Entertaining though scholarly, this exhaustively researched narrative moves seamlessly from the exalted strategy conferences of generals and presidents to the individual grunt on the front line, offering as complete a portrait of this important episode in WWII as we are likely to see."--Publishers Weekly"Holland deftly brings alive this harrowing and heroic story."--James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers“Holland tells the story brilliantly. He has delved in archives for letters and diaries and diligently tracked down survivors…Holland is also excellent on high strategy and the strengths and weaknesses of commanders…Vivid, intelligently, movingly, Holland’s monumental chronicle tells it like it was.”--Mail on Sunday (UK)“His first book of military history, Fortress Malta, proclaimed the arrival of a promising talent. This one confirms it. With the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe upon us, the bookshops are currently awash with Second World War titles. This one stands out from the crowd.”--Literary Review (UK)Praise for Fortress of Malta:"[A] superbly engaging history."--Publishers Weekly“Powerful…Behind most great epic battles are the individual tales of human endurance and triumph, shards of tile that comprise the entire mosaic. Mr Holland provides those with painstaking care, frequently overlapping the daily l... About the Author James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and studied history at Durham University.  A member of the British Commission for Military History and the Guild of Battlefield Guides, he also regularly contributes reviews and articles in national newspapers and magazines.  He is the author of three previous historical works – Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege, 1940-1943; Together We Stand: North Africa 1942-1943 – Turning the Tide in the West; and Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War.  His many interviews with veterans of the Second World War are available at the Imperial War Museum.  James Holland is married with two children and lives in Wiltshire. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.   PART IThe Road to RomeONEThe Eve of Battle May 1944There were many nationalities and differing races in the two Allied armies waiting to go into battle. The British and Americans formed the largest contingents, but there were also French, Moroccans, Algerians, Canadians, New Zealanders (whites and Maori), Poles, Nepalese, Indians (all faiths), South Africans (white, Asian, black, Zulus), and in the air forces, Australians, Rhodesians and others beside. Whatever their differing creeds and wide-ranging backgrounds, they all were relieved to see that on this day, the eve of battle, the weather was being kind. Thursday, 11 May 1944, was a glorious day: warm, with blue skies, and, by the afternoon, not a rain cloud in sight, just as it had been for most of the month. By evening, the temperature had dropped somewhat, but it was still warm, with just the faintest trace of a breeze – even near the summit of Monte Cassino, some 1,700 feet above the valley below. In their foxholes, the men of the 45,600-strong II Polish Corps waited, repeatedly checking their weapons; eating a final meal; exchanging anxious glances. The minutes ticked by inexorably slowly. It was quiet up there, too; quieter than it had been for many days. Not a single gun fired. The mountain, it seemed, had been stilled.It was now three weeks since the Poles had taken over the Monte Cassino sector and since then, almost every minute, both day and night, had been spent preparing for and thinking about the battle ahead. By day, the men had trained; they had held exercises in attacking strongly fortified positions, practising rock climbing and assaulting concrete bunkers. New flamethrowers were also introduced, while each squadron and platoona was given clear and detailed instructions as to what they were supposed to do when the battle began.By night, the Poles had been even busier. Vast amounts of ammunition and supplies had to be taken up the mountainside, a task that was impossible during daylight when the enemy would easily be able to spot them – secrecy was paramount; so, too, was saving lives for the battle ahead. It was also a task that could only be achieved by the use of pack mules and by the fortitude of the men, for there were just two paths open to them – both old mountain tracks, which for more than six miles could be watched by the enemy. A carefully adhered-to system had been quickly established. Supplies were brought from the rear areas by truck. Under carefully laid smoke screens, they were loaded onto smaller, lighter vehicles, then, as the mountain began to rise, they were transferred onto mules and finally carried by hand and on backs by the men themselves, slogging their way up the two mountain tracks that led to the forward positions. All this was done in the dark, without any lights, and as quietly as possible. Even so, the men were often fired upon. The German gunners around Monte Cassino would lay periodic barrages along various stretches of these mountain paths and despite their best efforts, casualties mounted – casualties II Polish Corps could ill-afford.Now the waiting was almost over, and as the sun slipped behind the mountains on the far side of the Liri Valley, and darkness descended, the Poles knew that at long last the moment for which they had endured so much in the past four-and-a-half years was almost upon them.In what had once been a lovely mountain meadow, the men of the 2nd Squadron, 12th Lancers, were now dug in. Part of the Polish Corps’ 3rd Carpathian Division, they were some 600 yards from the crumbled ruins of the monastery, and the ground ahead of them was pockmarked and churned by shell holes, and strewn with twisted bits of metal and remnants of the dead. Not that twenty-seven-year-old Wladek Rubnikowicz had had much chance to examine the area that was to be his part of the battlefield. In an effort to keep their presence a secret, Wladek and his comrades had been forbidden to send out patrols to reconnoitre the area. In fact, since arriving in their positions on the night of 3 May, Wladek had done little but bring up more supplies by night and brace himself for the attack by day.The Lancers were cavalry, trained to use armoured cars and to operate as a fast-moving reconnaissance unit, but for the battle they had become infantrymen, foot-sloggers like almost every other soldier that had fought across this damnable piece of land for the past four months. The armoured cars now waited for them miles behind the line with the rear echelons. Only once the battle was won, and the men were out of the mountains and into the valleys below, would they get their vehicles back.For the vast majority of Polish troops now lying in wait on the mountain, their journey there had been long and tortuous – an epic trek that had seen them travel thousands of miles, crossing continents and enduring terrible losses and hardship – and Wladek was no exception. It was a miracle that he was alive at all.The blitzkrieg that followed the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 had lasted just twenty-eight days and on 29 September, the country was carved in two by the month-old allies, Germany and the Soviet Union. What had been a beacon of democracy was now subjugated under fascism in one half and Stalinist communism in the other. Its cities and towns lay in ruins, while its stunned people wondered how this apocalypse could have happened in such a short space of time.Wladek, then a cadet with the Polish Army, had been wounded in the shoulder in the final days before the surrender. Left behind in a disused schoolhouse, he was helped by some local girls who tended him and brought him food and water and, once fit enough to walk, he began the long journey back home to Glebokie, a small town in what had been north-east Poland, but which had now been consumed by the Soviet Union.His older brother had been killed in the fighting, leaving a wife and two small children, while his home town had been devastated by the war. ‘I could see that every thing that made life worthwhile had come to standstill,’ Wladek recalled. Nor could he stay at home. Russian troops were everywhere, arresting Poles in their droves. He eventually managed to get to Warsaw after travelling most of the way by clutching to the buffers of a train in temperatures well below freezing, and despite being arrested at the German – Russian border. Temporarily locked in a barn, he quickly escaped and made his way through the snow into the German-occupied half of Poland.For a while Wladek worked for the Polish resistance movement, but on a mission back into Russian-occupied Poland, he was arrested at the border once again. This time he did not escape.For thirteen long months, Wladek was held at Bialystok prison. He was one of fifty-six prisoners crammed into an eight-man cell. Occasionally he would be interrogated and beaten. Eventually he was sentenced to three years in a Siberian labour camp. In June 1941, he and 500 others were loaded onto a goods train, fifty to a wagon, and sent to a labour camp in the Arctic Circle.Ventilation for the wagon came from a small, barred hole and an opening in the floor used as a toilet. There was not enough air and they all struggled to breathe properly. Each prisoner received 400 grammes of bread and one herring at the start of the journey, but the salty herring made them thirstier. They were eventually given a small cup of water each, which, they were told, had to last until the following day. Dysentery soon gripped many men, and most had fever. A number died, their bodies remaining where they lay amongst the living. ‘Can you imagine?’ says Wladek. ‘We didn’t realise then that of course the Soviets hoped these conditions would kill off many of us on the way.’The journey lasted two weeks. The further they travelled the more bleak and desolate the surrounding country became. Eventually they halted at a railhead on the Pechora River. Staggering off their wagon, they were herded towards a transit camp before continuing their journey by paddle steamer. This took them a further 700 miles north. They disembarked a week later at Niryan-Mar Gulag, in one of the most northern parts of Russia.Conditions had been bad at Bialystok, but Niryan-Mar reached new depths of deprivation. The men were housed in large marquee-like summer tents, each sheltering around 180 men, and although they each had a rough wooden bunk to sleep on, there were neither mattresses nor blankets and the prisoners slept fully clothed at all times. They kept their clothes stuffed with cotton wool and although they just about managed to keep warm, they were soon plagued by lice.Every day the prisoners were put to work at the nearby port on the mouth of the Pechora for twelve-hour days of physically demanding labour, sustained only by meagre rations of water and hard bread. As Wladek says: ‘We worked as slaves.’The camp was surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers, but there was nowhere a prisoner could go even if he did escape: they were miles from anywhere and the surrounding forests and marshes were home to wolves. Even so, Wladek did make one bid for freedom. A Swedish vessel came into port and thinking the crew seemed friendly and sympathetic, he managed to slip away and hide in the hold. He misjudged them, however. Soon discovered, he was handed back to the Soviets. ‘The punishment I received I shall never forget,’ he says; Wladek was beaten to within an inch of his life.Inevitably, many prisoners succumbed to disease. Illness, however, was no excuse not to work. Despite high fevers and crippling dysentery, prisoners had to keep going, as ‘the alternative to working was death’. Wladek’s malnutrition caused him to start to go blind. His affliction was worse in the evening and to ensure that he did not step out of line and that he made it safely back to camp each night, he depended on others to g... Read more