It was the most gruelling, the most harrowing, and in many ways the most tragic of all the battles fought in Europe during the Second World War. It was also the most international - soldiers of 16 countries fought and died there. It has become, too, a battle to be mulled over, puzzled out, and re-fought, not just by professional soldiers and military historians, but also by armchair strategists, for it is full of controversy: not least the bombing by the Allies of the historic Benedictine monastery on the summit of Monte Cassino.

But to the men who took part, the battle will chiefly be remembered for the mud and the cold, and above all for the hypnotic attraction of the gr4eat monastery itself - an all seeing eye, glowering down from that sheer hill and noticing everyone and everything.

Unique archive material of the battle from both sides has been utilised together will newly-filmed sequences of the rebuilt town and monastery, as well as dramatic eye-witness accounts from many of the surviving major participants.