An Italian journalist writes for Churchill references to the attacks on Monte Cassino during the Italy campaign in spring 1944, asking about “his silence, later contradictory” on the bombing of the town’s ancient monastery. If the implication is that Churchill was uncaring over the destruction of ancient shrines and grand buildings, that would contradict his revulsion over the bombing of Dresden. If it is that this particular destruction didn’t appear in his statements at the time, that is true. War is hell, and to expect him to eulogize every devastating loss is to expect a lot. He did more eulogizing than his allies.

Churchill issued many letters and speeches on the Anzio and Cassino campaigns, and provided a very frank account in Closing the Ring. (Less “soft underbelly,” Mark Clark said, than “tough gut.”) He broadcast about the campaign on March 26th, though he was far from well, and it showed. Later he paid a three-week visit to Mediterranean theaters of war, returning exhausted and with pneumonia. We tend to forget the strain that war put upon those who had to direct it. “People seem to think that Winston’s broadcast last night was that of a worn and petulant old man,” Harold Nicolson wrote in his diary on March 27th. He added: “I am sickened by the absence of gratitude towards him.”

Campaign in Italy

We hear a great deal about Churchill’s support for the “futile and wasteful” Italian campaign. Yet Martin Gilbert notes that Hitler admitted it had tied up 35 German divisions in 1944. That, Churchill telegraphed to Stalin, was 35 fewer divisions than might have opposed Operation Overlord, the upcoming invasion of France in June. On May 18th the town and monastery of Monte Cassino finally fell to Alexander‘s army. Polish troops took the monastery itself. The Poles were “elated,” General Wilson telegraphed to Churchill. “I am very glad the battle is going so well,” Churchill replied.

The capture of Cassino was “a trophy,” Churchill telegraphed to Stalin. He noted that the Poles and French had “fought bravely. Some 30 German divisions remained in Italy, “away from Overlord.”

More than met the eye

Churchill could have used a better word than “trophy,” though from his standpoint there were few trophies to brag about. Of course he desperately wanted to reassure Stalin. Only later did it come out that most of the abbey’s treasures, and personnel, were removed by the Germans before the destruction, and that both sides had pledged not to molest it. From Calvocoressi, Wint and Pritchard, Total War: The Story of World War II (second edition 1985):

The Germans supervised the removal to Rome of the abbey’s treasures and most of its monks in October 1943 when the U.S. Fifth Army, by crossing the Volturno and then the Sangro rivers, threatened the Gustav Line. Monte Cassino, although an obstacle to allied progress, was not of prime military importance. It was surrounded by higher peaks. Combatants supposedly assured the Pope that the abbey would be neither fortified nor attacked from the air….

Fog of war

So the abbey should have survived—but war is hell, and its uncertainties worse. The authors continue:

…The Germans denied that the abbey was being used for military purposes but their enemies were not prepared to believe anything they said and General Ira C. Eaker, who was one of a number of senior commanders to make a personal air reconnaissance, reported that he had seen German troops in the abbey. The allied command declared that the abbey would no longer be spared and although American, British and French generals opposed its bombardment it was attacked on 15 February by 142 Flying Fortresses and destroyed. This operation was, however, fruitless.

The battle resumed a month later. Air and artillery bombardment ultimately reduced the town of Monte Cassino to a shambles. Not until May was the assault over. The cost was higher for the Allies than the enemy. Monte Cassino produced 55,000 Allied casualties, compared to an estimated 20,000 for the Germans.

Per the previous post, I append for reader comment the contents of my next book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What Churchill Stood For.

I have written on most of these matters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowledge and cross-reference the work of experts who know far more than I, particularly in the fields of genealogy and medicine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “contact” page.

The historian David Stafford wrote: “Myth only develops and takes hold when the time is right, and the climate has long been ripe for the emergence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a totalitarian foe and smote an evil empire.”

Churchill myth is born both of exaggeration and criticism, created either to glorify the record or to belabor it. The former I suppose is somewhat less harmful, born of ignorance. The latter obfuscate the record and distract us from the truth, sometimes intentionally.

Paul Addison wrote, “Paradoxically, I have always thought it diminishes Churchill to regard him as superhuman,” Yet Professor Addison has no doubt about Churchill’s greatness. The most memorable words on that subject were by Churchill’s official biographer, the late Sir Martin Gilbert:

In every sphere of human endeavour, Churchill foresaw the dangers and potential for evil. Many of those dangers are our dangers today. Some writers portray him as a figure of the past, an anachronism, a grotesque. In doing so, it is they who are the losers, for he was a man of quality: a good guide for the generations now reaching adulthood.

The aim of this book is to skewer the most popular allegations about Churchill, to offer readers what he really thought and did, sometimes about matters that are still on our minds today—for as Twain wrote, history never repeats; but sometimes it rhymes.

Youth: Lady Randolph’s indiscretions…The parentage of Jack Churchill…The Menace of Education….The death of Lord Randolph…Women’s Suffrage.

Young Parliamentarian: The loss of  the Titanic…The unpleasantness on Sidney Street…”The sullen feet of marching men in Tonypandy“…Irish independence.

World War I: Warmonger image, peacemaker reality…Defense of Antwerp…Dardanelles and Gallipoli…Sinking the Lusitania…Chemical warfare...America’s involvement in the Great War.

Between the World Wars: “Taking more out of alcohol”…“The foul baboonery of Bolshevism”…Trial by Jewry…”Half-Naked Fakir“…”The Truth About Hitler.”

World War II: Broadcasting the war speeches…Refugees and enemy aliens…Torture as tool or terror…Bombing of Coventry…Pearl Harbor…The Holocaust…Famine in Bengal…Destruction of Monte Cassino…Overtures to Mussolini…Feeding occupied Europe…Firebombing Dresden.

Postwar Years: The fate of Eastern Europe…Nuking the Soviets…The Conservative Party…”Only to have accomplished nothing in the end.”

Appendix: “Things That Go Bump in the Night” (so far-fetched that they defy categorizing). Converting to Islam…A life twice-saved by Alexander Fleming...Engineering the Wall Street Crash…The myths of the Black Dog and an unhappy marriage.