The Savage Storm Quotes

“History does not repeat itself, but patterns of human behaviour do and lessons from the past need to be learned.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Casualties among the infantry in Italy were proportionally higher than they had been during the slaughter on the Western Front in the last war.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“How much the ordinary German soldier aligned himself to this kind of Nazi pseudo-spiritualism was neither here nor there; it was allowed to filter down,”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“General Hube and his Chief of Staff, General von Bonin – a vital motivation was the profound belief that they were part of some bigger, esoteric force that was directing them and for which they had to be worthy: the righteousness of Aryan superiority. ‘The white race,’10 wrote Mauss, after a lengthy philosophical discussion in the XIV Panzerkorps headquarters mess, ‘by spirit, ethic and body, absolutely must remain on top.’ Christianity, they believed, because of its origins in Judaism, had lost its right to exist.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“It didn’t mean they had become fatalistic, but rather they were people who still had both feet on the ground. As a battalion commander, that helped Zellner lead from the front and instil similar notions in his men.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“They were at the top of affairs in Italy,’5 added Moorehead, ‘not because they loved Italy but because they had accepted Mussolini.’ And at a time when leadership, courage and duty to their people had been so desperately required, they had cut and run like the feckless cowards they were.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“It was as though they were claiming that all Italy’s ills had been caused by Mussolini, but Moorehead, for one, refused to swallow it; all of these men had earlier thrown in their lot with Fascism, had worn its uniforms and medals and accepted its riches.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Alan Moorehead saw the Army Group commander and was reminded of when Alex had turned up at the front the previous February, in Tunisia, and had spread calm assurance, confidence and singleness of purpose.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“There mustn’t be any doubt in your minds,’4 he told them. ‘We don’t give an inch. This is it. Don’t yield anything. We’re here to stay.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Now was not the moment to pray, it was the time to think clearly and act decisively.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“What he was after was bright, physically fit young men able to use their initiative and think on their feet – men who were prepared to go the extra yard. Men who wanted to be part of a special and elite unit.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“For a general commanding his first amphibious operation these were very tough and thorny decisions to make, but ones that were demanded by senior command. One had to weigh up the pros and cons of such options, make a call, stick to it and hope for the best. The truth, of course, was that Clark had been dealt a very tough hand because of the shortage of shipping. Needless to say, if the assault was a success, such debates would slide into the background.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“You must never let the enemy choose the ground on which you fight,’ he told them, echoing the thoughts of the Duke of Wellington, an earlier British general.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“His mouth was dry and his head felt heavy as he groped his way to the main body of the craft. A blast of cool air to clear the weariness away. Cole peered into the darkness, only faintly sensing the land mass ahead of them, then suddenly the Sicilian coast behind erupted in a flash of light. The barrage Alan Moorehead watched from the Sicilian hills had begun.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“These Italians are a rotten crowd,’ he told them. ‘They just lie among their grapes and lemons and breed. Far too many of them. That’s the trouble. Far too many of them.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“That was no easy task, but Clark, along with his fellow senior commanders in the Mediterranean, understood that victory could not be achieved without young men under their command getting killed. To keep the casualties down meant using bombers and immense firepower, mechanization and modernity to do a lot of the hard yards. And if that involved destroying cities, towns and villages which barred the Allies’ path, then it was the price that had to be paid. Better a building than young Allied lives. Better Italian civilians than young Allied lives. After all, the Allies never asked the Italians to enter the war. Yet there was the paradox, for if the Allies were liberators, was it right that they should be killing the people they were supposed to be liberating?”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“That was no easy task, but Clark, along with his fellow senior commanders in the Mediterranean, understood that victory could not be achieved without young men under their command getting killed. To keep the casualties down meant using bombers and immense firepower, mechanization and modernity to do a lot of the hard yards. And if that involved destroying cities, towns and villages which barred the Allies’ path, then it was the price that had to be paid. Better a building than young Allied lives. Better Italian civilians than young Allied lives. After all, the Allies never asked the Italians to enter the war. Yet there was the paradox, for if the Allies”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Operations invariably create a vacuum in which it is essential to pour in more and more means. Once undertaken the operation must be backed to the limit.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Forward-thinking, visionary and extremely energetic, he oozed competence and good sense from every pore.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“He was now in command of the Northwest African Strategic Air Forces, so was responsible for the relentless attacks on Axis lines of communication in Italy,”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Tedder and Coningham began to pioneer how close air support might work. Key was maintaining the decisions over what targets to hit rather than allowing the army to call the shots. This was because army commanders had less understanding and appreciation of how air power worked, and also because they could rarely see beyond the immediate battlefield.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“The old adage about the plan being the first thing to go awry the moment contact was made with the enemy was a cliché because invariably it proved to be the case.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“The loss of these 3. Panzergrenadier men was a stark example of the difference between experienced troops and those less well trained and struggling with issues of morale.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“the Royal Navy, especially, had always been Britain’s most polished arm; after all, it had been the largest navy in the world in 1939 and its professionalism ran deep.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Moorehead reckoned that in a crisis there was no one better. ‘He seemed to have that rare talent,’17 noted Moorehead, ‘of seeing things clearly and wholly at a time when he himself was under fire, and when from all around the most alarming and confusing information was pouring in.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Soldiers like Pöppel had been taught that concentration of force was key.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“You must never fight the battle his way. You must choose the ground. He must be made to fight the battle according to your plan. Never his plan. Never.’ That was all very well, but the terrain and limited infrastructure of Italy would inevitably inhibit Monty’s freedom of manoeuvre – and consequently choice of ground.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“of manpower, was the limiting factor for the invasion.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“Putting on his finest uniform, his peaked cap that had been specially designed for him by his hatters in St James’s in London, and with his Army Group commander’s flag fluttering, General Alexander drove over, pulling up outside the negotiations tent.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943

“the really significant consequence was that German troops remained south of Rome, both to disarm the Italians and to defend the Allied invasion, rather than pulling back swiftly to a defensive line to the north as Rommel – and Hitler – had planned. The terrible irony was that, had the Allies done what Ambrosio, Badoglio, Roatta and Carboni et al. had wanted and postponed the announcement – and the invasion – until 15 September, southern Italy would have been theirs for the taking. The outcome would have been the very opposite of what they had feared. What an incredible missed opportunity for the Allies! And for Italy, for that matter. But they had not known that. And so, already, the Italian campaign was starting to play out in a very different way to how all parties had envisioned.”
― James Holland, The Savage Storm: The Heroic True Story of One of the Least told Campaigns of WW2