The Gustav Line and the British Army
Pietransieri represents one of the many natural strongholds of the German military defensive system, a strategic post to watch over the Gustav-Bernhard line that from the Tyrrhenian Sea reached the Adriatic.
From the heights of Pietransieri one descends to the valley with great speed. For the Germans it is therefore highly improbable to imagine a breakthrough of the front at this height.
On the basis of these convictions, Field Marshal Kesselring issued the displacement order, expiring on November 9, not caring what the inhabitants who opposed the displacement actually did.
Kesselring is a German probably bored by the situation and by the weather, who carries out the last raids in the absence of particularly resonant episodes related to the partisans. Aware of the presence of the People of Pietransieri ("Pietransieresi") amassed in the farmhouses of Limmari and in the woods, together with their animals kept hidden from the army, he tolerates this coexistence in a quiet manner.
But between November 9 and 15, on the other side of the Sangro river, the 78th division of the British infantry arrives and establishes itself. This division begins to cannonade in a discontinuous manner and sends patrols in the night to make a recognition of the territory.
The Germans, on the whole less than 80 soldiers according to what is reported in the archives, are afraid to go out at night and to disperse the few units of the 11th Company. They have the task of keeping a very large, wooded and impervious territory under control.
The front is strategically divided, from east to west, into rectangular strips that descend from the top to the Sangro river, and the 11th company is responsible for guarding the strip that descends from the village of Pietransieri.
Paratroopers, probably of no great martialism, who had also been in Russia, the Germans never carried out raids to remove refugees from the front line area who had opposed the displacement order.
It therefore happens that, unexpectedly, those who occupy the farms and who until then had considered the arrival of the war front difficult, find themselves instead in the war zone, on the main German defense line, in the worst possible condition: between the Germans and the English.
Although initially unlikely that the British men could break through the lines in these very areas, the possibility of this happening may materialize and the German soldiers begin to fear.
The line that separates the two fronts is the Gustav line, a complex defensive system prepared by Field Marshal Kesselring, that contemplates and integrates more defensive lines. In the area of Pietransieri there is a part of the Gustav line, the Eberhard line.
On November 15, the Germans understand, also from intelligence information, that the British have a dangerously large front ready to attack due to their clear numerical inferiority.
