1. 'Caporetto: the Scapegoat Battle', By Ronald Seth, London, 1965
2. 'Six Months On The Italian Front', By Julius M. Price, London, 1917
3. 'The War On The Italian Front', By Luigi Villari, London, 1932
4. 'Italy And The World War', By Thomas Nelson Page, New York, 1920
5. 'In Death's Fortress', By Joseph Gal, New York, 1937
6. 'Sardinian Brigade', By Emilio Lussu, 2000
7. 'Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War', by John R. Schindler, London, 2001
8.'Fight For The River', (Video), International Historic Films, 1996
The Italian Front: Italy in the Great War (Web Site, The Great War Society)
'The Sergeant in the Snow' (WW2), By Mario Rigoni Stern, 1998
'Few Returned: Twenty-eight Days on the Russian Front, Winter 1942-1943', By Eugenio Corti
Comando Supremo: Italy At War (WW2) Web Site
Italian Army, Afrika Corp (WW2)
The 'Italian Folgore' today #1
The 'Italian Folgore' today #2
The Folgore
THE 'NEMBO' (WW2)
The Incursori
The Bersaglieri
The Arditi (Italian Suicide Troops
Some Italian Military Facts.......
1. "The first aerial bombing on record is initiated in the 1911 Italo/Turkish war.
2. The Italians were the first to use tanks and Aircraft in the desert.
3. The first flamethrower tank is developed by the Italians in the form of the cv3/35 flamethrower tankette.
4. The last example of a classic cavalry attack is preformed along the river Don by the Italian Cavalry, a force of 600 routing and capturing 1000-2500 Siberian Shocktroops who in addition had Soviet mortar and artillery support.
5. Italy was the first country to Develop the Sub machine gun (in WW1)
6. Because of the successful use of flamethrowers in Abyssinia, the Germans who had considered it a product of static trench warfare and therefore had abandoned it, reinstated it into their arsenal.
7. Naval sabotage weaponry originated in WW1. It was developed primarily by the Italians to defeat the Austrians. Frogmen were distinctly Italian, and in ww2 Italian frogmen in attacks had put out of action battleships,cruisers and tons of shipping. They even had plans to attack N.Y. harbor, the Decima is the grandfather of all current navy seals/frogmen special forces.
8. Italians were also the innovators of the high speed torpedo boat,and in WW1 , and in WW2 were highly successful with them taking out cruisers and battleships with motorboats.
9. Italian naval architect General Vittorio M.Cuniberti designed the dreadnought concept which was embraced by the world prior to WW1, and during the duration of WW1.
10. The Italians were one of the 1st nations to embrace motorized divisions ,this was seen in the Spanish civil war.
11. The Italian 47mm A.T. Gun was adopted by the allies as a paratroop drop support gun with captured examples, thereby this weapon was the first used in this role.
12. By 1943, Italian planes claimed 72 allied warships and 196 merchant ships. They had damaged over 500.
13. The Italians were the first to build all metal battleships, also the Italians were the first to use three gun turrets on their fighting ships.
14. Italy was one of the 1st countries to have camouflage uniforms."
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     "Although celebrated by Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms', the Italian front in the First World War has been relatively neglected in literature. And yet some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place in the Alps between the Italian army and the forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over 650,000 Italians were killed, 947,000 wounded in the war."-'Sardinian Brigade', By Emilio Lussu
"This is the first account in English of a much-overlooked, but important, First World War battlefront located in the mountains astride the border between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not well known in the West, the battles of Isonzo were nevertheless ferocious, and compiled a record of bloodletting that totaled over 1.75 million for both sides. In sharp contrast to claims that neither the Italian nor the Austrian armies were viable fighting forces, Schindler aims to bring the terrible sacrifices endured by both armies back to their rightful place in the history of 20th century Europe."-'Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War', by John R. Schindler, London.
'Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War'. "The first definitive English-language account of WWI's just-about-forgotten epic clash between Italy and Austria-Hungary. The dozen battles fought in the Isonzo valley stand out for the scale of their slaughter, cruelty, courage and ghastly military-command pigheadedness in the face of failure. After 29 months and 11 major offensives, the Italian Army had advanced only a few miles, at a cost of more than 1.1 million casualties. The Austrians, with the aid of several German divisions, finally launched their own offensive, known as "Caporetto." The Italians crumbled, and soon the Austrians were threatening Venice. It's remarkable how long Italian troops fought and endured in the face of indescribable hardship. The Italian commander, Luigi Cadorna, had no concern for the state of his men. Trench conditions were appalling; medical facilities, dreadful (countless thousands of Italian soldiers died from cholera and malaria); leave, nonexistent; and infantry army pay, the worst in Europe, which meant incredible hardships for soldiers' families and contributed to plummeting morale. Discipline was barbaric."- Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine
"It should be noted, that the act of Decimation, was a practice, and not just a threat in the Italian Army. Gen. Cadorna had 750 Italian Soldiers executed by firing squad, regardless of their fighting spirit, just to set examples. These unfortunate men, who's only crime was to draw a short straw, regardless of their courage, were then branded "cowards" in official military dispatch. Their family homes and all their family's property was then proclaimed 'public domain'."
"In WW1 a million casualties were inflicted on this 200 mile front, ranging from the Mediterranean summer heat to the Arctic cold of the Alpine peaks, which made this one of the bloodiest battlefields of the world. It was fought over the river Isonzo which became synonymous with massacre, fear and despair for the soldier. Eleven major Italian offensives failed to break the Austro-Hungarian defenses and this is the story of massive allied failure against a background of huge undisclosed casualties. For the soldiers it was a war of endurance, artillery, mortar attacks, poison gas, machine guns, avalanches and rats. It was here that Ernest Hemingway fell in love with a hospital nurse and wrote Farewell to Arms. It was here too that both Rommel and Mussolini served their military apprenticeship. -'Fight For The River', 1996
"In the high mountains [Dolomiti, Adamello/Presanella and Ortler Ranges] during the three years of war, over 60,000 men on both sides would be killed in combat, by enemy gunfire. Some were company and battalion sized battles, others were remote mountaintop duels between patrols. Sixty thousand would freeze to death and at least 60,000 more would perish in avalanches, including a two-day period in December of 1916 that saw 10,000 troops being buried alive by the 'white death'.
THE ITALIAN FRONT
"Though the men of the Bell Tower considered the regular Army a sub-species, they held them in awe for making suicidal attacks, as on the Western and Russian fronts, in which they climbed out of their trenches and into a wall of machine-gun fire. On occasion, along a stretch of less than a kilometer, five thousand men might go over the top, and within a few minutes suffer a thousand instantly dead, a thousand wounded who would die slowly on the ground, a thousand grievously wounded, a thousand lightly wounded, and a thousand who were physically untouched but spiritually shattered for the rest of their lives, which, in some cases, was merely a matter of weeks."
"Horses that were lifted into the air on geysers of dirty blood and smoke, somersaulted and landed dead on their backs. Men were blown to pieces, vaporized, or slammed down by the shock waves. Others, who had taken shrapnel through their cheeks or their shoulders, staggered blindly away, but many of the wounded pointed their rifles and fired."- 'A Soldier of the Great War', By Mark Helprin, New York/London, 1991.
LJUBLJANA PASS
"For a few worthless pieces of soil, the Italians had paid with the blood of a quarter-million soldiers. The fighting was beyond praise for it's courage and resolution. There is no reason to scoff. It is wondrous that common soldiers would stick with such a repellent task. To brave death when every purpose is proved futile is the bitterest of all trials. We can only weep for these pitiful legions shattered on the rocks in a forlorn, long-ago attempt to gain the Ljubljana pass."- 'World War One', By S.L.A. Marshall.
Honored Soldier of the Great War, Giovanni Ellero (1878-1948). Combat Veteran of the Italian Front. Decorated for Valor, Italian-Turkish War (Libya/Africa)1911-1912, World War One 1915-1918, 3rd Army, First Line Trenches. Survived the the Carso/Piave/Isonzo Fronts; including the Battles of Gorizia, Montegrappa, Caporetto, Vittorio Veneto. Served in the Italian Royal Infantry from 1897-1900, 1911-1912, 1915-1920
Rare hand signed 8"x12" War period photograph of Italian Queen Elena. Signed and dated 1918, praising the good work of the nurse, Maria Teresa Guidi.
Rare hand signed 6"x10" ca. 1921 photograph of World War One Italian Commando Supremo, General Armando Diaz (1861-1928)
Very rare signed photograph, 7 3/8" x 11 ¼", of World War One Italian Commando Supremo, General Luigi Cadorna (1850?1928). He directed eleven major battles with limited results. He is credited with the successful defense in the Trentino (1916), the capture of Gorizia (1916), and the victory at Baensezza (1917). Replaced by Gen. Armando Diaz after the Fall of Caporetto. Cadorna, a poor tactician, with a 19th Century mind set (a common trait of old school military leadership during the Great War), threw his army away in repeated suicidal frontal assaults. A brutal disciplinarian, he implemented the rule of strict military punishment, by resurrecting the ancient Roman Army's practice of 'Decimation', in which one man in ten was picked at random and shot to death as an example to others. In this way, 750 Italian soldiers were executed during WW1.
Very scarce signed autograph of Italian Commando Supremo, General Luigi Cadorna (1850-1928) dated 7/12/1912
Original press photo, dated May 31, 1913. Showing the Italian Military's first Bianchi Armored Automobile. American Press Ass'n.
Original press photo, dated 1918. Showing one of the Italian Army's first two tanks. Produced by Fiat
Rare Death/Prayer Card of Italy's greatest fighter Ace of World War One, Major Francesco Baracca.
WW1 Italian Collar Star insignia, removed from the bodies of a dead Italian Soldier, and a dead Officer, by Dr. James Inches, Detroit, MI, Health Commissioner, serving at the Italian Front, and later given to E.P. Yerkes, Esq., in 1920.
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