Product Description

The Allies fought the Germans in Italy from July 1943 to May 1945 in a campaign reminiscent of World War I. The terrain was difficult, the weather bitter, the adversaries fierce and in no way inferior in strength. The Allies felt they played "second fiddle to the cross-channel invasion; that victory was not going to be won by them, and that their sacrifices and suffering were not essential to it and would not be appreciated. This feeling was accentuated by the number of attacks to which they were committed which clearly had only slender changes of success" (Lord Carver). Had the Germans been able to deploy their forces in Italy against the D-Day landings and subsequent offensive, there could have been a very different situation in northern Europe in 1944-45. The hard-fought campaign in Italy portrayed in this book probably made the difference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #295108 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Field Marshal Lord Carver served in Italy in 1943 as a 28-year old lieutenant colonel in command of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment. He held important command and staff appointments as Chief of General Staff and, as Field Marshal in 1973, Chief of the Defence Staff. Author of fourteen books and editor of two others, he was created a life peer in 1977. Lord Carver died in 2002.

Customer Reviews

Excellent first hand accounts
I enjoyed this book, particularly the first hand accounts. It is impossible not to be moved and impressed by what ordinary people went through in the war. It also makes you realise the reality behind even the most 'minor' of engagements in the war - engagements which would often be considered too minor to be included in history books with a more sweeping narrative. My only reservation about the book is that it does not go very far in proving that the Italy campaign did make a vital contribution to the overall war effort. And also, as nearly always with military books, there were not enough maps or good enough maps. However, I would recommend this book and also the Imperial War Museum book on the Burma campaign.

Too much eyewitness testimony
I have been impressed with other books in this series - Max Hasting's Overlord is a particularly good example. It was a good narrative to the D-Day and following operations in Normandy. The main problem with this book is simply that there is far too much eye-witness accounts from the soldiers involved. I almost gave half-way through the first chapter, which outlined the operation in Sicily. There was about three of four paragraphs about what the plan for invasion was, and then about twenty pages of eye-witness testimony. I know as a historian it is always good to have plentiful primary sources to hand, but could some not just be footnoted? Do we really need to read six different accounts - some which go on for two pages - about the landings in Sicily? The author probably contributes about three pages of writing to the first thirty or so. Having eye-witness accounts is a good thing, but in this book it forms almost the whole body of the text. I'm sorry to say, but it just ends up being boring.

That said, I'm still prepared to give this book three stars, because it is evident a lot of work has gone into gathering all these accounts. It's a good for primary sources, but not if you just want to understand what happened on the Italian front during WW2.

Excellent first hand accounts
I enjoyed this book - I thought that the quantity and quality of the first hand accounts is what made this book stand out - it is impossible not to be moved and impressed by what ordinary people went through in the war. It certainly makes you realise the reality behind even the smallest engagements in the war, many of which are too 'minor' to make it into the more usual sweeping narratives of history books. My only reservation is that I didn't feel that the book went very far in proving the strategic value of the Italy campaign. I would also recommend the Imperial War Museum book on the Burma campaign, which was probably better overall.