Historians are naturally attracted to issues involving large personalities and great debates so there are numerous studies of the Allied leaders and their interaction but surprisingly little attention has been paid to purely military considerations. At Casablanca he accepted the logic of employing the Anglo-American armies against Sicily, a million men could not be kept out of action for a year, but Marshall still regarded the Mediterranean as a diversion which prolonged the war. When Marshall was forced to accept the first phase of Winston Churchill’s strategy of “closing the ring”, he had warned President Franklin Roosevelt that the landings in North Africa in November 1942 would postpone the invasion of France until 1944, drawing the Americans into Britain’s Mediterranean obsession. Army chief of staff, and most of his countrymen, opposed the plan but were unable to offer a viable alternative. The decision to attack the island of Sicily was made at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. My debt to McAndrew and other specialists will be evident to all. In the next several articles I will be exploring aspects of the war in Italy and the development of the Canadian forces in 1943. His special interest in questions of morale, combat effectiveness and battle exhaustion is evident throughout and there is much to be learned about Canada’s war that goes well beyond the specifics of the Italian campaign. Throughout the book McAndrew uses personal accounts to illuminate and humanize the analysis of a complex story.
#The invasion 1997 professional#
McAndrew has written an original and insightful account which will please veterans, the general reader and professional historians.
Once again no expense has been spared in producing the volume, but do not let the coffee-table format confuse you.
#The invasion 1997 series#
Now for 1996 we have the superbly designed and illustrated Canadians and the Italian Campaign 1943-45 by Bill McAndrew.This new title is the latest in a series sponsored by the Directorate of History and Heritage of the Department of National Defence. The Canadian role in Italy is also the subject of some of our best memoirs including Sydney Frost’s Once a Patricia and Strome Galloway’s books and articles. This view persists despite the popularity of Farley Mowat’s books, the high quality of the official history of the campaign and the excellence of the popular history The D-Day Dodgers: The Canadians in Italy 1943-45 by Daniel G. One of the most enduring myths about Canadian military history is that historians and the general public have concentrated their attention on the campaign in Northwest Europe ignoring the “D-Day Dodgers” and the battles in the Mediterranean.
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