An evening with James Holland

It should have been an easy victory. After triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with Italy finally knocked out of the war, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943.

And yet it didn't happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional phases of the Second World War. Even though they were short of supplies and support, even in retreat, the German troops made the Allies fight for every bitter yard.

By early 1944, they had created a formidable defensive position across the Italian peninsular: the Gustav Line, a barrier of bunkers, minefields, booby traps, dug-outs and strategic artillery positions. This, and the combination of dogged defence and utterly debilitating conditions, brought the Allied advance to a standstill some sixty miles south of Rome, at the foot of the hill on which stood the thousand-year-old abbey of Monte Cassino.

The battle for that rock was one of the most brutal of the entire war, would last more than five long winter months and cost the lives of over 75,000 soldiers and civilians.

Following a rich cast of characters and with access to new information from all sides of the battle, both military and civilian, Cassino '44 is the definitive account of one of the most pivotal battles of the war.