GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER’S DECISION to invade the Italian peninsula,
based on wishful thinking and best-case scenarios, had drawn the Allies
into a campaign without clear strategic objectives beyond a vague
desire to capture Rome and tie down German divisions. But pinning down
those divisions obliged the Allies to execute offensive operations
across a tormented landscape that goats would find challenging. The
difficulty spiked considerably once German commander Albert Kesselring
completed a series of defense-in-depth barriers across central Italy.
The most formidable, the Gustav Line, ran from the Adriatic to the
Tyrrhenian Sea, with the medieval Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino
as its anchor point.
