CAUSES

The battle of Ortona, dubbed “Little Stalingrad” for its brutal up close combat, was a vicious battle. It was short, and contained, but still a bloodbath. It was fought between Italian and Canadian forces, and both suffered heavily losses. The Canadians were offensive in this attack.
There are several occurrences that led to the battle of Ortona. One of them being that Ortona was one of Italy’s only deep-water ports. The Allies thought they would be able to use this port to shorten the journey their supplies would have to make. This, and the fact that Ortona was in the path of Pescara, which was the next target of the Allies, made it a very good city to try to take. Since the goal of this battle was to obtain the city as a port, the Canadians were willing to fight very hard for it. The troops stationed in Ortona, however, had orders to “Fight for every house and every tree,” and that’s what they did. Ortona’s troops also had another motivation: there were still civilians in the city. Hitler thought they would fight harder if they were defending a “living city.” However, that backfired, because it made the Canadians fight harder as well.