Battle for the Dnieper

The defeat of the German armies in the battle of Kursk had ultimately wrestled out the strategic initiative from the hands of the German command. The collapse of the offensive plans had forced the Germans to seek different objectives in the conditions of the Soviet strategic offensive. The German front was broken in two sectors: western and south-western. Since July Soviet armies were developing their success, and in August they liberated Orel and Kharkov. A big gap emerged between the Amy Groups Centre and South. More >>>

Battles of Monte Cassino

On 12 January 1944 Algerian and Moroccan Arabs, fighting under the French banners, went to the first Cassino offensive. They struck against Monte Cassino, in the north of the town of Cassino. Arab divisions from the French Expeditionary Corps formed the right wing of the 5th Army. On the left wing British divisions moved along the coast. They entered action on 17 January, supported by two cruisers and seaborne troops. Some of those troops actually landed in the British rear, instead of behind the German lines, and caused a lot of confusion, but eventually the situation was clarified and the British gained some terrain with the town of Minturno. More >>>

Battle of Monte Cassino

Monte Cassino was one of the greatest battles of the Second World War, and the greatest one on the Italian front. It was the key point of the Gustav Line, which resisted Allied attacks for half a year, blocking their advance up the Apennine peninsula.

During the Casablanca conference (14-16 January 1943), the Allies agreed upon the operation Husky - namely landing in Sicily. It was a partial success of the British prime-minister Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, who insisted that landing in the Balkans could hasten the fall of the German Reich and liberation of East European countries. The American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt insisted, that the offensive against the German forces in Europe had to be driven along the shortest path - across the English Channel and West Europe. More >>>