The Savage Storm

Acclaimed WWII historian James Holland

both narrates and reframes the controversial first months of the Italian

Campaign and sets a new standard in the chronicling of war

Following victory in Sicily, while

the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops

crossed into southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces

north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German

divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one

of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war.

James

Holland's The Savage Storm, chronicling the dramatic opening months

of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail, is unlike any

campaign history yet written. Holland has always narrated war at ground level,

but here goes further by chronicling events almost entirely through the

contemporary eyes of those who were there on all sides and at all

levels--Allied, Axis, civilians alike. Weaving together a wealth of letters,

diaries, and other documents--from the likes of American General Mark Clark,

German battalion commander Georg Zellner, New Zealand lance-corporal Roger

Smith, legendary war reporter Ernie Pyle, and Italian politician Filippo

Caracciolo--Holland traces the battles as they were experienced across plains,

over mountains, through shattered villages and cities, in intense heat and,

towards the end of December 1943, frigid cold and relentless rain.

Such close-up

views persuade Holland to recast important aspects of the campaign,

reappraising the reputation of Mark Clark himself and other senior commanders

of the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth armies. Given the shortage of Allied

shipping and materiel allocated to Italy because of the build-up for D-Day,

more was expected of Allied troops in Italy than anywhere else, and, as accounts

at the time attest, a huge price was paid by everyone for each bloodily

contested mile. Putting readers vividly in the moment as events unfolded, with

characters made unforgettable by their own words, The Savage Storm is

a defining account of the pivotal months leading to Monte Cassino, and a

landmark in the writing about war.