Atkinson spices up what could be a dry military history with biographical information on the principal players, historical background on the lands they invade, and notes from diaries, letters, and memoirs that draw on the experience of the people back home. Ike’s chief challenge was running interference between Monty and Patton, FDR and Churchill. To quote one of his generals: Running a war seems to consist in making plans and then ensuring that those destined to carry them out don't quarrel with each other instead of the enemy. Reading this account one comes to understand that ‘military intelligence’ become a term of derision. In so many ways this became a war of attrition in which men’s lives were thrown away in battle plans that had little chance of success. The terrible human cost of war both to the soldiers who fought and the civilians whose homes were the battleground is made plain. Even in WW#2 the financial costs of war are staggering. When an artillery captain reported that one million dollars worth of ordinance had been thrown at the enemy he was reportedly told to throw a million more. Those were 1944 dollars, today a single jet costs $20 million. Interesting to read that racism made black soldiers a rarity whereas today poor blacks complain that war is a black man’s trade as white boys evade service and draft boards. Everything old is new, Allied troops killed by their own mine fields and by friendly fire.
We know the outcome of the battles described here but even so the author manages to generate suspense in describing them. The overall impression the reader receives is one of the futility and terrible human cost of this campaign. Hundreds of thousands of lives were thrown away in a war of attrition in an effort to divert German troops from the Eastern Russian Front and the eventual D-Day invasion of Western Fortress Europe. The Generals who oversaw this campaign learned on the job at the cost of the lives of the men they led. Those who had fought in North Africa were unprepared for the mountainous terrain that was the Italian Boot where uneven ground made the use of tanks ineffective and the shock and awe bombing campaign used later by a general named Schwartzkopf less devastating. I would not presume to claim that reading the 677 pages that constitute the account equates with the emotional impact on the men who suffered disease, hunger, bombardment, injury, emotional stress, and death but no caring individual can read this account and not feel its effect. Those who ignore history are fated to repeat it.
We know the outcome of the battles described here but even so the author manages to generate suspense in describing them. The overall impression the reader receives is one of the futility and terrible human cost of this campaign. Hundreds of thousands of lives were thrown away in a war of attrition in an effort to divert German troops from the Eastern Russian Front and the eventual D-Day invasion of Western Fortress Europe. The Generals who oversaw this campaign learned on the job at the cost of the lives of the men they led. Those who had fought in North Africa were unprepared for the mountainous terrain that was the Italian Boot where uneven ground made the use of tanks ineffective and the shock and awe bombing campaign used later by a general named Schwartzkopf less devastating. I would not presume to claim that reading the 677 pages that constitute the account equates with the emotional impact on the men who suffered disease, hunger, bombardment, injury, emotional stress, and death but no caring individual can read this account and not feel its effect. Those who ignore history are fated to repeat it.
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