Anzio Nettuno
A Battle of Leadership Mistakes
Jörg Staiger, trans. Linden Lyons, and edited by Matthias Strohn
Casemate, Philadelphia, 2024, 192 pages
Book Review published on: February 9, 2024
For students of history, tactics, and military decision making, Linden Lyons’s translation of Jörg Staiger’s short history Anzio Nettuno: A Battle of Leadership Mistakes is a concise and easily readable account of Operation Shingle, the Allies’ early 1944 amphibious assault at Anzio, and subsequent German efforts to destroy those U.S. and British forces within that beachhead. Operation Shingle was a corps-sized landing in the rear of the German defense in southern Italy meant to open the way for the Allies to advance on Rome.
The book was originally published in 1962 as part of the Die Wehrmacht Im Kampf series created to record German military operations during World War II. Of note, the translator maintained the author’s original illustrations in German and their associated operational graphics. (No legend of specific symbols is provided, but the maps are still easily understood to the average reader of military history.)
Staiger commanded a Panzer battalion that took part in the Wehrmacht’s unsuccessful efforts to destroy the British and American forces inside the Anzio beachhead. Anzio Nettuno provides an engaging overview of the major military actions during the first seven weeks of the operation from the initial landings on 22 January 1944 through the beginning of March 1944 when both sides transitioned to a static defense. Although Staiger clearly writes from the German perspective, the book is not a memoir, as he addresses the successes and the failures of both sides throughout. Additionally, he captures the moral and physical challenges faced by Axis soldiers serving in a secondary theater of operations late in a war that most of them realized they could not win.
While broader geopolitical and strategic issues are only mentioned briefly, Anzio Nettuno provides excellent descriptions and reflections of division and corps tactics, and operational level of war issues, such as the nesting of purpose (or the lack thereof) within plans and the impact of joint fires and multidomain operations (although Staiger does not use that terminology). Unfortunately, the book neither delves into the motivations, fears, or leadership qualities of key leaders nor does it explore the personal experiences of the common soldiers, sailors, or airmen fighting each other within this confined battlespace.
Similarly, analysis of the Allied and Axis forces’ failures in Anzio Nettuno are thin. Staiger never answers the key question of whether the efforts at Anzio were worth the expenditure of resources for either side in their pursuit of victory in the larger war. He does discuss mission command versus “top-down” command, but never really gets at the heart of the issues for either the Allies or the Axis. Unanswered are the questions of why the Allies developed a culture of caution and mistrust, or why the Germans squandered precious men and matériel trying to annihilate a threat that was effectively contained within the first few days of Shingle. Ultimately, Anzio Nettuno’s straightforwardness and accessibility make it an excellent primer about the operations in and around the Anzio beachhead. Students of operational art, multinational operations, and amphibious warfare will find Staiger’s narrative interesting and thought-provoking.
Book Review written by: Lt. Col. Darin J. Fox, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas