10. Taking six weeks for the Allies to push just seven miles across rugged Italian terrain, the Battle of the Bernhardt saw some of the worst fighting of the Second World War to breach German defensive lines and open the road to Rome
Following the Allied invasion of Italy and subsequent surrender of the Italian government, the German Army continued to wage war in the country nevertheless. Forming the Winter Line, a series of military fortifications running in three lines – the Gustav Line, Bernhardt Line, and Hitler Line – focused around the town of Monte Cassino, the defensive organization was designed to preclude Allied access to Rome. Pushing past two temporary lines intended merely to delay their arrival, suffering more than ten thousand casualties during the Volturno Line Offensive alone, the U.S. Fifth Army launched its assault upon the Bernhardt Line on December 1, 1943.
Fighting across immensely unsuitable terrain, including the Monte Maggiore – a six-mile-long and four-mile-wide hill mass – during just the month of December, the Allied forces endured five thousand battle-inflicted casualties as well as a further seventeen thousand from fevers and jaundice. Launching fresh assaults throughout the New Year, a final attack began on January 10, 1944, to drive the Germans from their positions and open the road north. Taking until January 15 to break the Bernhardt Line, capturing just seven miles across the six weeks of the intense battle, final casualty figures for the Allied forces surpassed sixteen thousand.