This classic account of the Allies' Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War is from a series of lectures delivered by Michael Howard (who himself had taken part in the Italian campaign as an infantry platoon commander) at a time when he was involved in writing the volume of the official history of the war concerned with British grand strategy - a task that gave him access to information contained in official records not then available to the public. The generally held view after the war ended was that the British strategy for striking up into central and eastern Europe from the south was frustrated by American determination to concentrate its major resources on the cross-Channel invasion of 1944. The records Michael Howard consulted, however, revealed another picture: in the no man's land between two different cultures Britain failed to convince her ally that with the postponement of the cross-Channel invasion until 1944 the weaker of the Axis partners should be attacked in force as a preliminary, and not as an alternative. In this clear and readable explanation of how the Mediterranean strategy evolved, Sir Michael Howard shows how British strategy developed during the early years of the war; how, with the advent of America into the war at the end of 1941, the strategy for what happened in the Mediterranean evolved; and he ends with a study of what happened during the hard-fought bitter campaign in southern Europe during the years 1943-4, and the conclusions to be drawn. -- From Amazon.com.

Based on a course of lectures given at Trinity College Cambridge, autumn 1966. Originally published: New York, Praeger, 1968. With new preface.

The shaping of British strategy, 1939-1941 -- The making of the Mediterranean strategy, 1941-3 -- The invasion of southern Europe, 1943-4.