Talk:Battle of Monte Cassino

message: I reverted this edit, adding the bear to the list of combatants. Note that I did so solely based on this being  acting inappropriately (see WP:SOCK). I take no stance on whether or not the bear should be included in the list, and my revert should not be understood as me advocating any position on that subject. I do really like the story of the bear, though. --Yamla (talk) 11:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been an issue on this page for several years, with some (usually drive-by) editors repeatedly adding "1 bear" to the allied belligerent strengths, and others (usually the regular editors of this page) reverting them. I completely support the reversions: even though Wojtek (bear) was technically enrolled in the Polish army, the belligerent strength numbers are necessarily very round figures, and there is absolutely no justification for singling out one "individual" who was present at but played no significant part in the battle. However, having said that, Wojtek is considered notable enough to have his own article (and was even once the subject of a "Did you know?" entry), and I would have no objection to his being given a very brief mention somewhere appropriate in the body of the article; or alternatively just being listed in the "See also" section. What do others think? GrindtXX (talk) 13:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we revisit this? Wojtek was an enlisted soldier and since bears cannot be categorized under men, tanks, or planes it is entirely appropriate to add in the "1 bear." It is misleading and detrimental to the article’s integrity to leave Wojtek out, GrindtXX. How does it actually hurt the article to add 1 bear? It is historically accurate and doesn't actually affect anyone. Aelimian21 (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

text: I take it no one is going to comment on this, so I'm going to make the change, if we discuss this at a later date and decide otherwise. Lindwigtoon 12:57, 9th October 2020 (BST)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:4C75:C500:C81F:19C7:DA7F:E33D (talk) 11:57, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bear 

message: I find it astonishing that there is almost nothing about the impact and the almost total destruction of the abbey (especially the building) itself. That especially since this abbey is  and was so much important as one of the original abbeys of the Benedictine Order. This historical importance is nowhere emphasized.
Compared against the great amount of detail and wealth of information of the battle itself, the destruction of the abbey's building itself is nowhere actually described. The battle is explained and described in every possible detail - but the actual destruction of the building - and what has actually been destroyed - is almost silenced to death.
Even more disturbingly, there does not even exist an English-language article about the abbey's building itself; there is only one single artice titled "Monte Cassino", and´the article begins as a description of the hill, not of the abbey. It does contain an description of the abbey - but the overall article's wording is always about the hill, not the actual abbey's building. Through this downplaying, readers can get the impression as if this special Benetictine founding abbey was "just another target" and didn't have any importance in Christian history at all. 
I can also see no article on the destruction of the town of Cassino, nothing about its bombing, and no article how much of the ancient roman town of Casinum was destroyed through the bombing. And nothing about the fact that many civilians lost their lives there.
There is also almost no mentioning of the Marocchinate and its reasoning. That an Ally officer apparingly implicitely allowed the mass rape (or so I understand its article) is something that should be within the Battle article.
Although this is clearly a part of the actual war, it is never mentioned within the main article, and the proposed thousands of cases of rape (if the numbers of the Marocchinate article are true) are thus downplayed as some kind of minor collateral damage. There is no mention of an scientific approac to the event, only the mention of an "claims of exaggeration" by a French Marshal, but this claim does not look to me like an the result of a scientific study.
When I compare the sheer amount of words of the paragraph called "the Battle" with the paragraph about the Marocchinate, then the reader can see how unimportant actual civilians are. Even the paragraph about "troop honours" is placed higher than the paragraphs about the civilians.
The article "Battle of Monte Cassino" is an military article. It should, however, show *everything* about the battle, and not downplay aspects of it, like the destruction of the actual, Abbey building, the mass rape called Marrocchinade, and the destruction of the town of Casino. 
On the page about the town Cassino there is a picture of the destroyed town "ruins of Cassino after the bombing". What I do not understand is that it is not shown within the "Battle of Monte Cassino" page, although its destruction was clearly a part of the whole battle. Alrik Fassbauer (talk) 13:34, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Impact on the Abbey building itself ? Impact on the town ? The Marocchinate ?

message: From the article as it stands: "Cardinal Secretary of State, Luigi Maglione, bluntly stated to the senior U.S. diplomat to the Vatican, Harold Tittmann, that the bombing was 'a colossal blunder … a piece of a gross stupidity'." That should clearly be (in correct English) "a piece of gross stupidity". Is Maglione being misquoted, or was his English poor? Can anyone check the cited source: Hapgood & Richardson, p. 225? Thanks. GrindtXX (talk) 18:34, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Haven't researched this particular quote and am not going to, but I feel compelled to point out that Romance languages do not use "a" and "the" the same way that English does. Very plausibly he was mistranslated, since this is a Top Ten translation mistake. Alternately, if he was speaking in English it is possible that he had not grasped this difference. It seems rather pointless to make a distracting issue of the use of language when the ellipsis could cover it: "a colossal blunder...gross stupidity". That said, I have no intention of doing a deep dive on the issue, consider this a drive-by suggestion. I am here trying to parse out which "corps" joined "Armée B". It wouldn't be the Germans and doesn't seem to have been the Fifth Army. Off to look further. Elinruby (talk) 15:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "After the bombing" quote 

message: If Polish forces captured Monte Casino why is the Polish unit not mentioned, only the British and Americans.  Surely the Polish unit had a name and a leader  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.121.235 (talk) 21:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polish unit that captured Monte Casino 

message: It wasn’t a separate country in 1944. Boscaswell talk 01:05, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newfoundland - a separate belligerent?  Huh?