Word: arnos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had been pushed back to the Arno virtually throughout its length. But at many points he had not been pushed beyond the river -an important distinction. Eighth Army positions were open to harassing mortar and artillery fire from isolated German pockets on the south bank and from the high ground of the Prato Magno in the great bend of the Arno, southeast of Florence. If the situation was bad for Kesselring, it was also uncomfortable for General Sir Harold Alexander...
...Allied Commander General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander might regroup, force the Arno as he did the Rapido. There would still lie ahead the mountains and pillboxes of the Gothic Line...
With British Guards and South Africans, the New Zealanders reached the southern gates of Florence, sent patrols into the old city to the southern bank of the Arno. They found every evidence that the Germans would make a fight for it despite their declaration that Florence was an open city...
...Sadistic . . . Wanton." Allied headquarters roundly denounced the Germans for wrecking five of the six bridges across the Arno, called the "wanton destruction" another example of "Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's order to his troops to carry out demolitions with sadistic imagination." The enemy "has seen fit to use it [Florence] for his military traffic. . . . His paratroops are posted along the northern bank of the Arno within city limits. ... It is clear that the enemy intends to oppose the crossing of the Arno on both sides of the city, which remains in no man's land...
...masterly sculptures, including Michelangelo's celebrated marble David, Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise bronze doors to the Baptistery, the Bargello collection of pieces by Michelangelo, Donatello, Luca della Robbia, Benvenuto Cellini. However, while the retreating Germans had destroyed five of the six bridges over the Arno, they had left the oldest and most valued of all, the legendary Ponte Vecchio (see cut). Built in 1345, its roofed street was a promenade for Dante, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci; in modern times, jewelry shops have succeeded its Renaissance goldsmiths. Over the bridge runs a covered passageway connecting the Uffizi...