All Roads Lead to Rome

In May 1944, American forces stood on the doorstep of Rome, tantalizingly close to the Eternal City after an eight-month grind up the boot of Italy—yet still so far away. Would German resistance south of the city break at last? Would Allied strategy and politics divert the Americans from the great prize? Would the city fall before D-Day shifted the world’s attention—as well as vital men and materiel—from Italy to France? Capturing all the drama and uncertainty of this pivotal moment of World War II, All Roads Lead to Rome narrates the battles—at the front line and inside headquarters—that led to the liberation of Rome.

After amphibious landings in September 1943, the Allies clawed their way up the Italian peninsula. The terrain was unforgiving, the German resistance stubborn, but by May, the Americans and British were poised to crack the last major German line south of Rome and simultaneously break out of their beachhead at Anzio. But an argument was brewing at Allied headquarters. The British, who commanded the Mediterranean theater, wanted to block and capture German troops as they retreated while U.S. commander Mark Clark had his eyes on Rome. Clark thought the British might insist on sharing the glory or shut out the Americans entirely and knew the Allies would invade Normandy within days, thus turning Italy into a backwater. The clock was ticking.

As Allied forces blasted through the German defenses, Clark ordered his army to turn toward Rome. Clark’s Fifth Army converged on the ancient city, and gritty American GI’s fought scores of small-unit battles each day—squads fighting for road crossings, companies for hills and ridges, platoons for bridges (seventeen across the Tiber alone). On June 4, 1944, U.S. forces entered the city. The Germans had abandoned it, and a large portion of their army escaped north to fight another day. Clark gained his triumph, but at the cost of another eleven months of hard fighting. D-Day began two days later, forever eclipsing his army’s accomplishment.

All Roads Lead to Rome is vital military history chronicling a signature American victory and a fraught moment for the Anglo-American alliance during World War II.