The Monastery

By Fred Majdalany

A fictional account of one of the most famous, bitterly fought and controversial battles of World War II.

Few battles of the Second World War compare with Cassino for drama, the prolonged agony of the combatants and tragic controversy. About halfway between Naples and Rome, the Allied armies ran into strongly entrenched German forces determined to check their advance on Rome.

The place the Germans had chosen to make this stand was Monte Cassino, surmounted by the famous and ancient Benedictine Abbey, and it was here that four fierce and gruelling battles were fought between the Allies and the German Army.

This is the story of the last assault, written by an officer who played his own part in it – a story of the men of many nations who fought at Cassino under the menacing shadow of St. Benedict’s historic Abbey.