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Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. The battle has been described as a Pyrrhic victory. The capture of Monte Cassino resulted in 55,000 Allied casualties, with German losses estimated at around 20,000 killed and wounded. Following this Allied victory, the German Senger Line collapsed on 25 May, and the German defenders were driven from their positions. On 18 May, a Polish flag and the British flag were raised over the ruins. On 16 May, soldiers from the Polish II Corps launched one of the final assaults on the German defensive position as part of a twenty-division assault along a twenty-mile front. Fallschirmjäger forces occupied the area and established defensive positions amid the ruins.īetween 17 January and 18 May, Monte Cassino and the Gustav Line defences were attacked on four occasions by Allied troops. On 15 February 1944, Allied bombers dropped 1,400 tonnes of high explosives, causing widespread damage. Fears escalated, along with casualties, and despite evidence, it was marked for destruction. Repeated artillery attacks on assaulting allied troops caused their leaders to incorrectly conclude that the abbey was being used by the Germans as an observation post, at the very least. Lying in a protected historic zone, it had been left unoccupied by the Germans, although they manned some positions set into the slopes below the abbey's walls.

Monte Cassino, a historic hilltop abbey founded in 529 by Benedict of Nursia, dominated the nearby town of Cassino and the entrances to the Liri and Rapido valleys. Together, these features formed the Gustav Line. In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Winter Line was anchored by German forces holding the Rapido- Gari, Liri, and Garigliano valleys and several surrounding peaks and ridges. The objective was to break through the Winter Line and facilitate an advance towards Rome. The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome, was a series of four military assaults by the Allies against German forces in Italy during the Italian Campaign of World War II.

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