The Gothic Line

Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy

De: Mark Zuehlke

Narrado por: Mark Ashby

Stretching like an armor-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified position the German army had yet thrown into the Allied forces' path. On August 25, 1944, it fell to Canadian troops to spearhead a major offensive: to rip through that fiercely defended line. This gripping chronicle tells, through the eyes of the soldiers who fought there, of the 28-day clash that ultimately ended in glory for the Canadians.

©2003 Mark Zuehlke 2003 (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

I wanted to like this more

The fight for Italy after the capture of Rome is really lost history. The focus shifts immediately to Normandy and Italy is nothing but an afterthought at best for the remainder of the war. Zuehlke tries to remedy this, focusing on the Canadian effort to break the Gothic line in the summer and early fall of '44. There's a long setup with command and order of battle before any shooting starts. Once it does, it lacks punch and focus. I give him full credit for avoiding the use of cliches and dreaded author indulgences of World War Two writing. In that aspect, he is a solid writer. He's so so on storytelling, varying between rivet counting moments and occasional blood and guts moments, but it all lacks immediacy and immersion, for me. The tone is far removed from the moment to moment life and death of infantry and tanks in the heat of battle, though there are a few good moments such as a tank knocked off a steep sided hill by an artillery shell, rolling over and over down the hill, with the crew bailing out one at a time through the top hatch as it completes each roll.

Really, the Germans are an afterthought here, too, after the setup with their order of battle they hardly intrude on the narrative, save with a few cuts to Kesselring here and there and just a snippet or two from German commanders with what are really obvious reaction quotes at the appropriate moment. Nothing insightful or meaningful.

Overall, it's OK, filling in a blank in WW2 reading but I think that unless you're a devotee of the Italian struggle and/or Canadian, I'm not sure this has any lasting value. This is the third part of a trilogy about the Canadian effort in Italy and he has other books about Canadians elsewhere in the ETO. I may investigate one of those but doubt I'll try his first two books of this trilogy. He's just too nice and above the fray of commenting on the political and command drama to nail the story down and make it really pop.