Editing Battle of Monte Cassino (section)

==Legacy==

===Evacuation and treasures===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-729-0003-13, Italien, Überführung von Kunstschätzen.jpg|thumb|right|Unloading of Monte Cassino property in the Piazza Venezia in Rome]]
In the course of the battles, the ancient abbey of Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict in AD 516 first established the [[Benedictine Rule|Rule]] that ordered [[monasticism]] in the west, was entirely destroyed by Allied bombing and artillery barrages in February 1944.{{refn|group="nb"|It would not be the first time the abbey had been demolished over the centuries: between 577 and 589 Monte Cassino was destroyed by the Lombards; by the Saracens in 883; and by an earthquake in 1349.<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 31</ref>}}

Some months earlier, in the Italian autumn of 1943, two officers in the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, Captain Maximilian Becker and Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel, proposed the removal of Monte Cassino's treasures to the Vatican and Vatican-owned [[Castel Sant'Angelo]] ahead of the approaching front. The officers convinced church authorities and their own senior commanders to use the division's trucks and fuel for the undertaking. They had to find the materials necessary for crates and boxes, find carpenters among their troops, recruit local labourers (paid with rations of food plus twenty cigarettes a day), and then manage the "massive job of evacuation centered on the library and archive",<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 33</ref> a treasure "literally without price".<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 4</ref> The richness of the abbey's archives, library, and gallery included "800 papal documents, 20,500 volumes in the Old Library, 60,000 in the New Library, 500 ''[[Incunable|incunabula]]'', 200 manuscripts on parchment, 100,000 prints and separate collections".<ref>Gontard, Friedrich. ''The Chair of Peter, A History of the Papacy''. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1964, p. 154</ref> The first trucks, carrying paintings by Italian old masters, were ready to go less than a week from the day Becker and Schlegel independently first came to Monte Cassino.<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 35</ref> Each vehicle carried monks to Rome as escorts; in more than 100 truckloads, the convoys saved the abbey's monastic community.<ref name="Hapgood & Richardson, p. 37">Hapgood & Richardson, p. 37</ref> The task was completed in the first days of November 1943. "In three weeks, in the middle of a losing war, in another country, it was quite a feat."<ref name="Hapgood & Richardson, p. 37"/> After a mass in the basilica, Abbot {{interlanguage link|Gregorio Diamare|it|Gregorio Diamare}} formally presented signed parchment scrolls in Latin to General [[Paul Conrath]], to ''tribuno militum Julio Schlegel'' and to ''Maximiliano Becker medecinae doctori'' "for rescuing the monks and treasures of the Abbey of Monte Cassino".<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 38</ref>

Among the treasures removed were [[Titian]]s, an [[El Greco]], and two [[Francisco Goya|Goyas]].<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, p. 15</ref>

===''A Canticle for Leibowitz''===
The American writer [[Walter M. Miller Jr.]], a Catholic, served as part of a bomber crew that participated in the destruction of the ancient Monte Cassino monastery. As Miller stated, this experience deeply influenced him and directly resulted in his writing, a decade later, the book ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'', which is considered a masterpiece of science fiction. The book tells the story of a group of monks who are committed to preserving the remnants of scientific knowledge after a [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]] until the world is ready to receive it again.<ref name="garvey">{{cite journal | last = Garvey | first = John | title = A Canticle for Leibowitz: A Eulogy for Walt Miller | journal = Commonweal | volume = 123 | issue = 7 | pages = 7–8 | publisher = Commonweal Foundation | date = 5 April 1996|quote=I went to war with very romantic ideas about war, and I came back sick.}}</ref><ref name="roberson">{{cite book | last = Roberson | first = Williams H. |author2= Battenfeld, Robert L. | title = Walter M. Miller, Jr.: A Bio-Bibliography | series = Bio-Bibliographies in American Literature | publisher = Greenwood Press | date = 30 June 1992 | location = Westport, CT | isbn = 978-0-313-27651-4}}</ref>

===United States military history reviews===
The U.S. government's official position on the German occupation of Monte Cassino changed over a quarter-century. The assertion that the German use of the abbey was "irrefutable" was removed from the record in 1961 by the Office of the Chief of Military History. A congressional inquiry to the same office in the 20th anniversary year of the bombing stated: "It appears that no German troops, except a small military police detachment, were actually inside the abbey" before the bombing. The final change to the U.S. Army's official record was made in 1969 and concluded that "the abbey was actually unoccupied by German troops."<ref>Hapgood & Richardson, 2002 p. 237</ref>

===Marocchinate===
{{main|Marocchinate}}
Reports indicate that some French Moroccan troops attached to the French Expeditionary Forces committed acts of rape and murder in the surrounding hills after the battle. Some of these units were accused of committing atrocities against the Italian peasant communities in the region.<ref>{{cite web| first=George| last=Duncan| work=George Duncan's Massacres and Atrocities of World War II| title=Italy: Rampage on Monte Cassino| url=http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html| access-date=21 February 2012| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194232/http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html| archive-date=3 March 2016| url-status=dead}}{{unreliable source?|date=February 2012}}</ref> In Italy, the victims of these acts were described as ''[[Marocchinate]]'' meaning literally "Moroccaned" (or people who have been subjected to acts committed by Moroccans). A fictional instance of rape by Moroccan troops forms the basis of  [[Alberto Moravia]]'s 1957 novel [[Two Women (novel)|''Two Women'']].

===War graves and memorials===
<gallery mode=packed class="center" widths="150px" heights="140px">
File:Monte Cassino - the Polish War Cemetery - closer.JPG|Monte Cassino: the Polish War Cemetery
File:Monte Cassino Commonwealth Cemetery.jpg|Commonwealth cemetery
File:Cimitero militare Germanico Cassino 2010-by-RaBoe-52.jpg|German cemetery
File:Venafro-French cemetery.jpg|French Cemetery
</gallery>

Immediately after the cessation of fighting at Monte Cassino, the [[Polish government in Exile|Polish government in exile]] (in London) created the [[Monte Cassino campaign cross]] to commemorate the Polish part in the capture of the strategic point. Also during this time, the Polish song writer [[Feliks Konarski]], who had taken part in the fighting there, wrote his anthem "''[[Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino]]''" ("The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino"). Later, an imposing [[Monte Cassino Polish war cemetery|Polish cemetery]] was laid out; this is prominently visible from the restored monastery. The Polish cemetery is the closest of all allied cemeteries in the area, an honour given to the Poles as their units are the ones credited with the liberation of the abbey.

The [[Commonwealth War Graves Commission|Commonwealth War Graves]] [[Cassino War Cemetery|cemetery]] on the western outskirts of Cassino is a burial place for British, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian, Gurkha, Australian, and South African casualties. The Italians are on Route 6 in the Liri Valley; the Americans are at the [[Sicily–Rome American Cemetery and Memorial]] in [[Nettuno]]. The French Military Cemetery, with more than 4500 graves, is located in [[Venafro]], {{convert|15|km|mi}} east of Cassino.

The German cemetery (''Deutsche Kriegsgräberstätte Cassino'') is approximately {{convert|2|mi|km}} north of Cassino in the Rapido Valley.

In the 1950s, a subsidiary of the ''[[Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza]]'' distributed [[Lamp of Brotherhood|Lamps of Brotherhood]], cast from the bronze doors of the destroyed Abbey, to representatives of nations that had served on both sides of the war to promote reconciliation.<ref name=Schrijvers>{{cite book |title=The Margraten Boys: How a European Village Kept America's Liberators Alive |first=Peter |last=Schrijvers |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |date=15 March 2012 |isbn=9780230346635 |pages=99–100}}</ref>

In 1999, a [[Monument to the Battle of Monte Cassino, Warsaw|monument commemorating the Battle of Monte Cassino]] was unveiled in Warsaw and is located next to the street that is named after Władysław Anders.

In 2006, a memorial was unveiled in Rome honouring the Allied forces that fought and died to capture the city.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=[[The Guardian]]| date=5 June 2006| first=Barbara| last=McMahon| title=Memorial unveiled in honour of allies who liberated Rome| url=https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,,1790302,00.html| access-date=21 February 2012}}</ref>

On 8 July 2021, the Chief of Army Staff, General [[Manoj Mukund Naravane|M.M. Naravane]], inaugurated the Indian Army Memorial at Cassino to commemorate the Indian soldiers killed in action during the Battle of Cassino.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The glorious battle Indian soldiers fought in Italy, on a terrain as tough as the Himalayas|url=https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/the-glorious-battle-indian-soldiers-fought-in-italy-on-a-terrain-as-tough-as-the-himalayas/ar-AAMaPbR?ocid=msedgntp|access-date=2021-07-15|website=www.msn.com}}</ref>