By 16 May 1944, the French Expeditionary Corps had broken the Gustav Line in the Aurunci Mountains and outflanked the Germans in the Liri Valley. But what German soldiers could not do, Italian civilians did. The victorious Goumiers sought out every remote mountain village and plundered and abused the “infidels” as they believed they were entitled to as spoils of war. Over the next four days, the Moroccans raped over 7000 men, women, and children ranging in ages from 11 to 86. 800 Italians were murdered. Italy would remember this as the “Marocchinate” or “The Time of the Moroccans”. Though the Germans were confused by the unexpected French delay, they were appreciative, had the French continued, Monte Cassino would have been isolated.

To the French right but far to their rear at the mouth of the Liri Valley, the entire British 78th Infantry Division of the British XIII Corps was across the Rapido and pushing further up the south wall of the valley. One by one, positions systematically fell to the British, Indians, and Canadians as the Germans looked over their shoulders for the French advancing through the mountains behind them. The British were about to do what had almost never been done before in history: proceed up the Liri Valley with Monte Cassino in hostile hands. But that was because the Germans in the Abbey and its surrounding points had more pressing problems than the valley below them; they were clinging to Monastery Hill by the slimmest of margins.

It took two days, under constant fire, for the Polish II Corps to organize the replacements, assign them to the assault battalions, and clear assault lanes through the Fallschirmjaegers’ newly placed minefields. But on the night of 16 May, the Carpathian Division conclusively overran Pt 593 and the expected German counterattacks were defeated. In the after action review Polish junior officers and NCOs credited its capture to their quadruple issue of grenades. Moreover, the Kresowa Division broke through to the Liri Valley from Monte Cairo north of Monte Cassino, where Juin would have broken through in January had Clark supported him. The Germans on the Monastery Hill were not surrounded, but only just so.

When the sun rose of the 17th, the Poles, like the Benedictine monks before them, began to make the monastery defenders’ lives a living hell from Pt 593.