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The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919
The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet, a million and half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. This is a great, tragic military history of a war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts that Mark Thompson, with great skill and empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2008
133 people are currently reading
2597 people want to read
About the author
Mark Thompson
6 books27 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Mark Thompson is an award winning British historian. He has written three books including The White War (2008), an account of the travesties of the Italian army on the Austrian front during World War I, which discussed restoring the Roman practice of decimation, the random execution of troops in order to enforce the discipline of the remaining troops. Forging War (1999) is an account of the media manipulation that took place during the Bosnian War. A Paper House (1992) describes the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Thompson has also edited, with Louis Mackay, Something in the Wind: Politics after Chernobyl (1998).
In 2009 he was the winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919.
Mark Thompson is an award winning British historian. He has written three books including The White War (2008), an account of the travesties of the Italian army on the Austrian front during World War I, which discussed restoring the Roman practice of decimation, the random execution of troops in order to enforce the discipline of the remaining troops. Forging War (1999) is an account of the media manipulation that took place during the Bosnian War. A Paper House (1992) describes the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Thompson has also edited, with Louis Mackay, Something in the Wind: Politics after Chernobyl (1998).
In 2009 he was the winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for The White War: Life & Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919.
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June 5, 2020
Italy did not enter World War I for any noble reasons: not for national honor nor justice, not even to honor treaty obligations – in fact, they broke their treaty with Germany and Austria to join the Allies. Italy entered the war purely for territorial gains, and joined the side which made them the best offer. They knew that they would be despised by both enemies and allies for their mercenary position, but were willing to do so to gain possessions around the Adriatic, and for future considerations in Africa if other European countries expanded their holdings there. The Italian people did not even want war, with the Church and two-thirds of the population against it. The nationalist press, however, was clamoring for a chance to reclaim lands which they held to have been historically Italian, and the country entered the war because the prime minister and foreign minister made secret agreements to join the Allies, which were then approved by a timid king and feckless parliament. With such a dubious start Italy committed itself to war, resulting in almost 400,00 dead and a million wounded.
Until the Battle of Caporetto resulted in his dismissal at the insistence of the British and French, the commander in chief was Field Marshall Luigi Cadorna. Judged solely by his military record Cadorna would be remembered as yet another mediocre Great War general. He was a slow learner, and, like so many others, was committed to the concept of frontal attack, which he thought was sure to succeed so long as it was pressed with élan. Italy entered the war in May 1915, and should have recognized the futility of frontal assault after the earlier slaughters on the the Eastern and Western fronts. Cadorno, however, saw these debacles as proof that frontal assaults would be successful if pressed with sufficient zeal.
He was not completely inept, however, and as the war progressed he demonstrated an ability to coordinate artillery and place reserves where they could support local breakthroughs. What he is most remembered for today is not his generalship but for the callous brutality with which he treated his soldiers.
Like Joffre he made a wholesale purge of senior officers after his first poorly planned offensives failed to produce the desired results, and like Joffre the purpose was to deflect blame from his own performance and onto the officers tasked with carrying out his impossible orders. Unlike Joffre he continued this for as long as he held command.
The government helped him create and sustain a cult of personality in which Italian citizens were told that he was the most brilliant general of the age, and in his letters he compared himself favorably to Napoleon. Laws were passed to make criticism of the war treasonous, and Cadorna canceled some leaves to prevent soldiers from telling people at home how badly, how incompetently, the war was being run. “The more thoughtful the criticism, the graver the consequences. Simple complaints about officers or rations could lead to six months or a year in prison. A 25-year-old private got four years for writing that newspaper stories about the valiant troops were full of lies.”
Mark Thompson, author of The White War, provides a good summary of how the situation spiraled out of control:
As one offensive after another sputtered out with appalling casualties Cadorna continued to believe that the fault lay with the soldiers themselves. “By blaming these results on the infantry’s lack of fighting spirit, among other factors, he twisted a consequence of his tactics into a cause of their failure.”
Readers familiar with World War I will have read the horrific histories of the great battles. Imagine the Passchendaele battlefield, a quagmire of mud and corpses, tilted upwards 45 degrees, and fought in freezing weather. Then imagine the battle being fought over and over as the twelve battles along the Isonzo Front succeeded one another. The Italian soldiers’ morale and resolve were fractured by the conditions and the casualties, but they nevertheless displayed magnificent courage going forward into the maelstrom again and again.
Against the Italians were the Austrians, whose armies were primarily engaged against the Russians and so could spare minimal troops for the fight against Italy. They created positions carved out of the rock and fought tenaciously and well. However, it was a war of attrition which they could not win. As time went by fewer and fewer soldiers were available, and the civilian economy and agricultural infrastructure collapsed. In the end they were starving and what was left of the armies began dissolving into their various nationalities.
The Austrian commander in chief was Field Marshall Franz Conrad, another poor performer, the kind of general who sent troops into the high mountains without winter clothing and with no means of supplying them; who lost 100,000 soldiers in the first weeks of the war fighting tiny Serbia, and then, two weeks later, was catastrophically defeated by the Russians in Gallacia, losing another 500,000 men and much of the army’s artillery and logistics train. Conrad was a poor planner, and like Italy’s Cadorna he always blamed subordinates for his defeats, but he was also an incurable romantic, willing to sacrifice everything, including his country, for glory and honor, and the married woman he desired.
This kind of behavior sounds absurd to modern readers, but it actually existed. Frederick Morton’s book Thunder At Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 does a good job recreating the zeitgeist of the final years of the Austrian empire, and describes Conrad repeatedly badgering the emperor to start wars that he knew the army was not prepared to fight.
The Battle of Caporetto came close to collapsing the entire Italian army, but by that point in the war neither the Germans nor the Austrians could spare enough troops to make it decisive. It was, nevertheless, a stunning, humiliating defeat for the Italians, and caught Cadorna completely unprepared. “The phrase ‘doing a Cadorna’ became British soldiers’ slang for coming unstuck, perpetrating an utter fuck-up and paying the price.” Anyone who has read Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms can recall the most vivid scene in that book, when the protagonist plunges into a river to escape after he realized the Italians were shooting their own retreating troops.
Erwin Rommel's actions at Caporetto, for which he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, are the stuff of legend. Combining boldness, tactical brilliance, and a poker-player’s ability to bluff when needed, “In little over two days, Rommel and his men...covered 18 kilometres of ridge, as the crow flies, involving nearly 3,000 metres of ascent, capturing 150 officers and 9,000 men at a cost of 6 dead and 30 wounded.”
In the end the Italians did not win so much as Austria lost, and the war dragged its bloody way to an end. The Italians got most of what they wanted in terms of territory, but not all of it, and because they did not get everything and more, at every opportunity they screamed that they had been betrayed by France and Britain. The conduct of the war discredited the country’s democratic institutions, and when Mussolini was able to recast the fighting as a heroic performance, the former soldiers saw him as giving meaning to their suffering and helped put him in power. Fascism came to Italy in 1922, and would lead to yet another disastrous war.
World War I’s Austro-Italian front is often seen as a sideshow to the main event, and there are few books which cover it. In this one Mark Thompson has done a fine job bringing the people and events to life, including the political and economic systems which supported the troops. For anyone who might be interested in this part of the war, Thompson’s book is a good place to start.
Until the Battle of Caporetto resulted in his dismissal at the insistence of the British and French, the commander in chief was Field Marshall Luigi Cadorna. Judged solely by his military record Cadorna would be remembered as yet another mediocre Great War general. He was a slow learner, and, like so many others, was committed to the concept of frontal attack, which he thought was sure to succeed so long as it was pressed with élan. Italy entered the war in May 1915, and should have recognized the futility of frontal assault after the earlier slaughters on the the Eastern and Western fronts. Cadorno, however, saw these debacles as proof that frontal assaults would be successful if pressed with sufficient zeal.
He was not completely inept, however, and as the war progressed he demonstrated an ability to coordinate artillery and place reserves where they could support local breakthroughs. What he is most remembered for today is not his generalship but for the callous brutality with which he treated his soldiers.
No other army routinely punished entire units by ‘decimation’, executing randomly selected men. Only the Italian government treated its captured soldiers as cowards or defectors, blocking the delivery of food and clothing from home. Over 100,000 of the 600,000 Italian prisoners of war died in captivity - a rate nine times worse than for Habsburg captives in Italy. Statistically, it was more dangerous for the infantry to be taken prisoner than to stay alive on the front line.
Like Joffre he made a wholesale purge of senior officers after his first poorly planned offensives failed to produce the desired results, and like Joffre the purpose was to deflect blame from his own performance and onto the officers tasked with carrying out his impossible orders. Unlike Joffre he continued this for as long as he held command.
What he did do was start a rolling purge of the officer corps that continued throughout his tenure; by October 1917, Cadorna had dismissed 217 generals, 255 colonels and 355 battalion commanders. This ungentlemanly harshness shocked the career officers, who became more frightened of being ‘torpedoed’ than of carrying out absurd orders or sacrificing their men’s lives pointlessly.
The government helped him create and sustain a cult of personality in which Italian citizens were told that he was the most brilliant general of the age, and in his letters he compared himself favorably to Napoleon. Laws were passed to make criticism of the war treasonous, and Cadorna canceled some leaves to prevent soldiers from telling people at home how badly, how incompetently, the war was being run. “The more thoughtful the criticism, the graver the consequences. Simple complaints about officers or rations could lead to six months or a year in prison. A 25-year-old private got four years for writing that newspaper stories about the valiant troops were full of lies.”
Mark Thompson, author of The White War, provides a good summary of how the situation spiraled out of control:
The Supreme Command’s conduct of the war from 1915 to 1917 was a classic example of what can go wrong without the scrutiny of a sceptical press. Servile journalists relayed the lies and misjudgements of the Supreme Command, which welcomed their reports as evidence of its wisdom. This closed loop encouraged the Command’s arrogance, hatred of criticism, brutal treatment of the troops, and a zero-sum attitude to its relations with government.
As one offensive after another sputtered out with appalling casualties Cadorna continued to believe that the fault lay with the soldiers themselves. “By blaming these results on the infantry’s lack of fighting spirit, among other factors, he twisted a consequence of his tactics into a cause of their failure.”
Readers familiar with World War I will have read the horrific histories of the great battles. Imagine the Passchendaele battlefield, a quagmire of mud and corpses, tilted upwards 45 degrees, and fought in freezing weather. Then imagine the battle being fought over and over as the twelve battles along the Isonzo Front succeeded one another. The Italian soldiers’ morale and resolve were fractured by the conditions and the casualties, but they nevertheless displayed magnificent courage going forward into the maelstrom again and again.
Against the Italians were the Austrians, whose armies were primarily engaged against the Russians and so could spare minimal troops for the fight against Italy. They created positions carved out of the rock and fought tenaciously and well. However, it was a war of attrition which they could not win. As time went by fewer and fewer soldiers were available, and the civilian economy and agricultural infrastructure collapsed. In the end they were starving and what was left of the armies began dissolving into their various nationalities.
The Austrian commander in chief was Field Marshall Franz Conrad, another poor performer, the kind of general who sent troops into the high mountains without winter clothing and with no means of supplying them; who lost 100,000 soldiers in the first weeks of the war fighting tiny Serbia, and then, two weeks later, was catastrophically defeated by the Russians in Gallacia, losing another 500,000 men and much of the army’s artillery and logistics train. Conrad was a poor planner, and like Italy’s Cadorna he always blamed subordinates for his defeats, but he was also an incurable romantic, willing to sacrifice everything, including his country, for glory and honor, and the married woman he desired.
Rationally convinced that Austria was doomed, but unconsciously bent on engineering a conflagration that would let him smash the chains separating him from the woman he loved - what could be more Viennese, more human, banal and apocalyptic?
This kind of behavior sounds absurd to modern readers, but it actually existed. Frederick Morton’s book Thunder At Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 does a good job recreating the zeitgeist of the final years of the Austrian empire, and describes Conrad repeatedly badgering the emperor to start wars that he knew the army was not prepared to fight.
The Battle of Caporetto came close to collapsing the entire Italian army, but by that point in the war neither the Germans nor the Austrians could spare enough troops to make it decisive. It was, nevertheless, a stunning, humiliating defeat for the Italians, and caught Cadorna completely unprepared. “The phrase ‘doing a Cadorna’ became British soldiers’ slang for coming unstuck, perpetrating an utter fuck-up and paying the price.” Anyone who has read Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms can recall the most vivid scene in that book, when the protagonist plunges into a river to escape after he realized the Italians were shooting their own retreating troops.
Erwin Rommel's actions at Caporetto, for which he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, are the stuff of legend. Combining boldness, tactical brilliance, and a poker-player’s ability to bluff when needed, “In little over two days, Rommel and his men...covered 18 kilometres of ridge, as the crow flies, involving nearly 3,000 metres of ascent, capturing 150 officers and 9,000 men at a cost of 6 dead and 30 wounded.”
In the end the Italians did not win so much as Austria lost, and the war dragged its bloody way to an end. The Italians got most of what they wanted in terms of territory, but not all of it, and because they did not get everything and more, at every opportunity they screamed that they had been betrayed by France and Britain. The conduct of the war discredited the country’s democratic institutions, and when Mussolini was able to recast the fighting as a heroic performance, the former soldiers saw him as giving meaning to their suffering and helped put him in power. Fascism came to Italy in 1922, and would lead to yet another disastrous war.
World War I’s Austro-Italian front is often seen as a sideshow to the main event, and there are few books which cover it. In this one Mark Thompson has done a fine job bringing the people and events to life, including the political and economic systems which supported the troops. For anyone who might be interested in this part of the war, Thompson’s book is a good place to start.
March 10, 2023
“Even if they took all of Bainsizza and Monte San Gabriele, there were plenty of mountains beyond for the Austrians. I had seen them. On the Carso they were going forward but there were marshes and swamps down by the sea. Napoleon would have whipped the Austrians on the plains. He never would have fought them in the mountains. He would have let them come down and whipped them around Verona. Still nobody was whipping anyone. Perhaps wars weren’t won anymore. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another hundred years’ war.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
The Italian front in the first world war does not feature prominently in most discussions of the war. nonetheless, it remains one of the most pivotal and endlessly fascinating theaters of the great war. This book is a thorough look at the engagements between Austria-Hungary and Italy in the karst plateau of Goritz, The plains of Venento and the snowy mountains of Trentino and Südtirol-Alto Adige.
However, it goes beyond the battles and delves into the diplomatic intricacies, cultural impacts and internal politics of the war. For Italy it was the war that completed the unification of the country while it was a major factor in bringing down the dual monarchy of The Austro-Hungarian Empire, in existence since 1867. Having said that, its legacy remains highly contentious in Italy today as it was during the war.
Unlike the other major belligerents of the first world war, Italy did not enter the war in the summer of 1914. It took an expansionist movement (chiefly irredentismo italiano) to get Italy to abandon the Triple Alliance and instead sign the secret Treaty of London with The Entente on April 26, 1915. This led to Italy declaring war on Austria a month later (Italy wouldn't declare war on The Ottomans and the Germans until August 23, 1915 and August 28, 1916, respectively). As such it makes logical sense to begin the book with how the expansionists shaped Italy’s war aims and public opinion. The first chapters are dedicated indeed towards the pre-war months in the Italian public and elite psyche. Italy’s intervention in the war was not popularly reinforced to say the least. As Thompson explains;
‘’Most people’s neutralism was spontaneous and passive. Anti-war feeling was strongest amongst peasant farmers, for whom war was a calamity like famine or plague. Even for middle-class Italians, who provided most of the pro-war passion, strong feelings about Trento and Trieste were the exception. In most places, only the intellectuals were pro-war; business leaders were not’’
But, what of the period after the war itself commenced? Well, it was by all accounts brutal. If the western front was a yardstick for how war tactics were evolving in 1915, it could be said the dynamics favored defensive rather than offensive strategies. This placed the Italians in a massive disadvantage from the off, with the Austrians entrenched in well fortified positions in The Carso and the Julian Alps. The Italians were organized in four armies under the much despised and ultimately ineffective General Luigi Cadorna. The Italians outnumbered the muliti-ethnic Austro-Hungarian forces, who were simultaneously pre-occupied on the eastern front with Russia (later on with Romania as well). However, they had more guns than the Italians (at the start of the war anyway). More than that, as Paul Von Hindenburg put it;
‘’The Austrians fought the Russians with their head but attacked the Italians with their whole soul’’
It can be argued that the twelve battles of the Isonzo were the definitive battles of the war. The book gives recognition of this by dedicating a good portion of pages to it. The first battle of the Isonzo began on June 23, 1915 and the twelfth and last battle of the Isonzo (also known as The Battle of Caporetto) ended on November 19, 1917. Austrian war aims for the Italian front, as articulated by Chief of Military Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, was to delay Italy's march for Vienna and maintain control of The Tyrol. The river Isonzo (Soča in Slovenian) is flanked by mountains on either side and is prone to frequent flooding. This made the battles around the river a strategic nightmare. The casualties on both sides were enormous (Half of the entire Italian casualties during the war were at The Isonzo front).
![[Austro-Hungarian Soldiers posing with the Škoda made 420mm caliber Howitzer (Covered with a canvas wrap in the picture), circa August, 1916]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1654937919i/33042749._SX540_.jpg)
A harrowing fact of the war on the Italian side seems to be the degree of discontent amongst soldiers with the officer Corps. Cadorna’s insistence on frontal attacks with little artillery support, at a time when creeping barrages were becoming standard in the western front, could give a glimpse of the dissatisfaction. Soldiers were dying for very little gains of land, thus quikly rising the Italian casualty numbers. This discontent is well immortalized by a vivid scene in Emilio Lassu's excellent historical novel, A Soldier on the Southern Front: The Classic Italian Memoir of World War I as follows;
‘’ General Leone, alone on his mule, was climbing up a rocky slope between 2nd Battalion and the machine-gun unit. As the mule was moving along the edge of a steep drop, it stumbled and the general fell to the ground. The mule, unperturbed, kept walking along the edge of the cliff. The general was dangling over the precipice. He might fall off at any moment.There were a lot of soldiers about but nobody moved. Some of them winked at each other, smiling. A soldier rushed out from the machine-gun unit and threw himself down on the ground in time to save him. Without losing his composure, the general mounted his mule and went on his way. When the comrades from the machine-gun units reached the soldier who saved the general, I witnessed a savage assault. They pummeled him with punches. He was powerless to defend himself. They yelled ‘ Save the general! Admit that you were paid by the Austrians!’. The beating went on for too long. He had a black eye and a cheek covered with blood. He had lost his helmet’’
Lassu served in the Sardinian Sassari Brigade that first experienced combat at the first battle of Isonzo (about 80 miles from where Hemingway would get wounded). The Italian Alpini and the Tyrolese militia had to endure temperatures plummeting to minus 40 degrees celsius, at 3500 meters above sea levels, in the Dolomite peaks, with only greatcoats and scarves. A 25 year old Erwin Rommel, commanding the Württemberg Mountain Battalion in Caporetto, would write in Infantry Attacks about how the geography and the clime of the Isonzo front made standard military practices very difficult. All told, after the concluding Battle of Vittorio Veneto, there were 531,000 Italian military deaths to 156,000 on the Austrian side. There were another 500,000 civilian losses. This is on top of the wounded and the sick and the Hundreds-of-thousands of POW deaths in prisoner camps.
I thought Thomson did a great job in delivering a wonderful book on the Italian Front. One slight complaint I perhaps have with the book is the placement of the Third war of Italian Independence in the appendix rather than at the beginning of the book. I believe It would have given a great context for the rest of the book had it been the starting point of the discussions.
September 6, 2011
On the hardcover version of Mark Thompson’s The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, there’s a remarkable picture of tiny soldiers jumping out of their snow packed trenches. In front of them is the steep side of a mountain. Talk about the Mountains of Madness! But that’s pretty much the Italian front in World War 1. Overall Thompson does a fine job with this criminally overlooked part of the war, providing a good shapshot of Italian politics, military tactics, and the various historical personalities involved. At its best The White War is a cultural history of the war in Italy (and you can clearly see the roots of the coming Fascist state). It’s also a superb resource for Hemingway junkies seeking background for Farewell to Arms. I couldn’t help but think that a shorter version of the book would of made an excellent appendix to Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory.
So why only 3 stars? Well, truth be told, I found The White War a slog to read. I don’t know what it is about World War 1 books, but it always seems to result in a numbing list of stupid assaults ordered by stupid generals against hills with numbers. (Not too long back I had a similar reading experience involving the battle for the Somme.) The landscape (or in this case, mountain ranges) soon becomes a battered pudding of earth and flesh, with multiple layers. No wonder this generation felt so lost. My distracted reading aside, one of the best chapters in the book is devoted to Italian war poets, and left me wanting Thompson to expand this chapter into longer study. The poems – or excerpts, are that good. Anyone who has read, and admired, the World War 1 poets (who are largely represented as English), should read this chapter.
So why only 3 stars? Well, truth be told, I found The White War a slog to read. I don’t know what it is about World War 1 books, but it always seems to result in a numbing list of stupid assaults ordered by stupid generals against hills with numbers. (Not too long back I had a similar reading experience involving the battle for the Somme.) The landscape (or in this case, mountain ranges) soon becomes a battered pudding of earth and flesh, with multiple layers. No wonder this generation felt so lost. My distracted reading aside, one of the best chapters in the book is devoted to Italian war poets, and left me wanting Thompson to expand this chapter into longer study. The poems – or excerpts, are that good. Anyone who has read, and admired, the World War 1 poets (who are largely represented as English), should read this chapter.
April 3, 2023
The Last War of Unification.
Why did Italy fight in the First World War? Why did she join Britain and France and not her allies the Central Powers? Why did she come out of the war almost considered not to be a victorious nation? Mark
Thompson answers these questions and gives wonderful narrative of the Southern Front of WWI. A part of the war that we some of us are probably embark we know little about.
The Southern Front of WWI is a similar story we’ve heard before about the conflict. One of a nation’s tragedy, unimaginable death, destruction and unnecessary waste. In this bloody theatre, the Italians lost 689,000 men, the Austro-Hungarians around 400,000. All in mostly horrific conditions on the top of the alps, in the snow and freezing conditions. You’ve heard of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele; this is the story of Tolmein, Sabotino and Podgora.
Thompson does a great job with grabbing the readers attention into the story. He writes with great authority and sympathy for his subject matter and paints is on a backdrop of the Kingdom of Italy at the time. In order to understand why Italy joined the war in 1915 we must first learn about the history of the newly formed nation. Italy at the time had just rapidly industrialised under the leader Giovanni Giolitti. It was a new and confident kingdom concerned with nationalism and driving a concept that Italians should be united under one flag. But Italy was divided between the socialists and the conservatives, more fractured than other states before the war. The irredentists though, thought the unification was not complete with the Habsburg areas of Tyrol, Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and Dalmatia containing 650,000 Italian speakers.
Italy although in a defensive alliance with the Habsburg monarchy prior to the war, was anything but friendly with its neighbour. The clash of territories being the prime mover. When fighting broke out in 1914, Italy was able to weave out of supporting Germany and her ally as it was those powers how had invaded other states. When France triumphed on the Marne in 1914, many Italian leaders, under pressure to choose a side (both France and Austria-Hungry wanted Italian land) thought France and Britain would win. Many took to the streets to demonstrate their passion for war including young socialist Benito Mussolini. Prime minister Antonio Salandra put huge pressure on King Victor Emmanuel III to enter, stating that failure would invoke revolution. Salandra’s plan, like many intellectuals and politicians was to seize the ‘final’ provinces.
What followed was a huge tragedy for the country. This was a war for gain for Italy, unlike others who could claim they were fighting for freedom or principle, in the beginning. The Italian army was woefully ill prepared and had not defeated an outside force for hundreds of years. Their commander Luigi Cardona believed in the decima punishment and regularly pushed officers to have poor performing units execute some of their own men. The Habsburg armies were well entrenched on the mountainside, so with less men were able to hold off the attacking Italians. Three long years followed.
Time was not on the Central Powers side who were slowly worn down. In the end Austria-Hungry did not have the industrial power to keep up producing shells and equipment. After the Caporetto offensive failed, with the Italian army learning to absorb an attack before launching a counter attack, the old empire was done. Vittorio Orlando managed to successfully achieve most of the sought after territories in Versailles and the quest for unification seemed to be complete. This is not so, the lure of more became too addictive and so under Mussolini the decline of the nation began.
Thompson is a great writer and this is an excellent book on the First World War. It is regularly mentioned in top tens on the conflict and it is hard to argue with that. It has the political context, the humane depth and the military narrative all excellently combined to provide the benchmark for the fighting in this part of the war. I will look forward to reading this again.
Why did Italy fight in the First World War? Why did she join Britain and France and not her allies the Central Powers? Why did she come out of the war almost considered not to be a victorious nation? Mark
Thompson answers these questions and gives wonderful narrative of the Southern Front of WWI. A part of the war that we some of us are probably embark we know little about.
The Southern Front of WWI is a similar story we’ve heard before about the conflict. One of a nation’s tragedy, unimaginable death, destruction and unnecessary waste. In this bloody theatre, the Italians lost 689,000 men, the Austro-Hungarians around 400,000. All in mostly horrific conditions on the top of the alps, in the snow and freezing conditions. You’ve heard of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele; this is the story of Tolmein, Sabotino and Podgora.
Thompson does a great job with grabbing the readers attention into the story. He writes with great authority and sympathy for his subject matter and paints is on a backdrop of the Kingdom of Italy at the time. In order to understand why Italy joined the war in 1915 we must first learn about the history of the newly formed nation. Italy at the time had just rapidly industrialised under the leader Giovanni Giolitti. It was a new and confident kingdom concerned with nationalism and driving a concept that Italians should be united under one flag. But Italy was divided between the socialists and the conservatives, more fractured than other states before the war. The irredentists though, thought the unification was not complete with the Habsburg areas of Tyrol, Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and Dalmatia containing 650,000 Italian speakers.
Italy although in a defensive alliance with the Habsburg monarchy prior to the war, was anything but friendly with its neighbour. The clash of territories being the prime mover. When fighting broke out in 1914, Italy was able to weave out of supporting Germany and her ally as it was those powers how had invaded other states. When France triumphed on the Marne in 1914, many Italian leaders, under pressure to choose a side (both France and Austria-Hungry wanted Italian land) thought France and Britain would win. Many took to the streets to demonstrate their passion for war including young socialist Benito Mussolini. Prime minister Antonio Salandra put huge pressure on King Victor Emmanuel III to enter, stating that failure would invoke revolution. Salandra’s plan, like many intellectuals and politicians was to seize the ‘final’ provinces.
What followed was a huge tragedy for the country. This was a war for gain for Italy, unlike others who could claim they were fighting for freedom or principle, in the beginning. The Italian army was woefully ill prepared and had not defeated an outside force for hundreds of years. Their commander Luigi Cardona believed in the decima punishment and regularly pushed officers to have poor performing units execute some of their own men. The Habsburg armies were well entrenched on the mountainside, so with less men were able to hold off the attacking Italians. Three long years followed.
Time was not on the Central Powers side who were slowly worn down. In the end Austria-Hungry did not have the industrial power to keep up producing shells and equipment. After the Caporetto offensive failed, with the Italian army learning to absorb an attack before launching a counter attack, the old empire was done. Vittorio Orlando managed to successfully achieve most of the sought after territories in Versailles and the quest for unification seemed to be complete. This is not so, the lure of more became too addictive and so under Mussolini the decline of the nation began.
Thompson is a great writer and this is an excellent book on the First World War. It is regularly mentioned in top tens on the conflict and it is hard to argue with that. It has the political context, the humane depth and the military narrative all excellently combined to provide the benchmark for the fighting in this part of the war. I will look forward to reading this again.
January 10, 2014
The Guerra Bianca/White War is the term used to refer to the fighting on the Italian Alps during the First World War, on the Eastern Front, engaging mostly Italy and Austria.
In this very legible account of the White War, the strategy and conduct of war, the political situation in climate in both Italy and the Austrian-Hungarian empire and above all the status of the Italian soldiers at the front (and their shockingly incompetent Chief of Staff) are woven into perceptive analyses of how Italian culture and climate fed off the war and in turn fed it back.
In this respect chapter 20 (of the 28 in the book) is particularly interesting, as it discusses the connections between war and cultural currents, especially Futurism, and how it prepared the ground for the flourishing of Fascism.
This is not a piece of scholarly work in the sense that, in the author's words, it is
The references are very detailed, and it will be, at least for me, a treasure trove of material on the great war.
The book contains interesting photos from the time, but more can be found here.
Narration often is not linear, especially at the beginning, but it relies on a relatively limited set of facts (e.g. who was allied to whom) and it is broadly self contained (it really only focus on the Eastern front), so that even those less familiar with WWI will be able to navigate it without trouble.
A recommended read, especially in this Centenary year 2014.
In this very legible account of the White War, the strategy and conduct of war, the political situation in climate in both Italy and the Austrian-Hungarian empire and above all the status of the Italian soldiers at the front (and their shockingly incompetent Chief of Staff) are woven into perceptive analyses of how Italian culture and climate fed off the war and in turn fed it back.
In this respect chapter 20 (of the 28 in the book) is particularly interesting, as it discusses the connections between war and cultural currents, especially Futurism, and how it prepared the ground for the flourishing of Fascism.
This is not a piece of scholarly work in the sense that, in the author's words, it is
a narrative history, not based on methodical research into primary sources. Rather, it draws on original work by generations of scholars and writers.
The references are very detailed, and it will be, at least for me, a treasure trove of material on the great war.
The book contains interesting photos from the time, but more can be found here.
Narration often is not linear, especially at the beginning, but it relies on a relatively limited set of facts (e.g. who was allied to whom) and it is broadly self contained (it really only focus on the Eastern front), so that even those less familiar with WWI will be able to navigate it without trouble.
A recommended read, especially in this Centenary year 2014.
February 7, 2023
I don't know if the story of Italy and WW I ahs been told before, I doubt if it has been told any better then this excellent book by Mr. Thompson. It is good for a whole new area of WW I to be brought out - and honestly the sufferings of Italian soldiers under the uncaring management of their officers is something that needs to be read to be believed. Can not praise or recommend this book enough.
February 12, 2019
This book was an interesting subject for me since I’ve read many books on the Western Front but never one on the Italian one. I had a basic idea of it from general histories of the war (plus a bit of Hemingway) but this was for the most part uncharted territory for me. As such I found the topic fascinating. Italy had most of the same horrors as the Western Front (a cause no one could explain, costly assaults that achieved nothing, numbing trench warfare, callous generals...) but placed in a more extreme environment. The Italians started the war to “rescue” land occupied by Italians happier under Habsburg rule, did nothing but attack the same place (there were no fewer than twelve battles of Isonzo), failed to equip their men with wirecutters or entrenching tools but expected results anyway, and carried out a reign of terror with summary executions of people selected by lot or for as little a cause as saluting improperly. It’s like Flanders on steroids. And the trenches ran up the Alps with the Italian forces on the wrong side, making this a surprisingly beautiful war as well.
One thing I did not expect (though perhaps I should have) is the presence of fascists already all over Italy. I suppose I’d always assumed Italy was a lot like Germany, a number of hypernationalistic and racist elements present but not put together in the right order or with the right level of fanatacism. But it took Germany over a decade to descend to the level of beasts while in Italy it sprung up right away, and this despite the fact that they’d been on the winning side. The explanation for this is inescapable, but it had never occurred to me because Italy’s not a focus in most WW1 books: Italy was already full of fascists before the war. All that they lacked was a man to organize them into a single party.
Speaking of, D’Annunzio is one of the most revolting human beings I’ve ever heard of. His cries for war positively revel in slaughter. The man had an unhealthy lust for blood and serious psychological issues.
Frankly, I lost most of my sympathy for Italy the second I realized that this man was a national hero and beloved poet. And other poets are just as bad. Check out this one by Corrado Govini called War!
All Italians weren’t like that of course, but these works were popular and clearly represented a radical statement of beliefs nonetheless within the normal spectrum of thought. In essence, the Italians were ahead of the curve. They were fighting their war for explicitly racial and imperialistic ends. The right to rule over all land ever held by their race sounds a hell of a lot like the Italian and German motives in the sequel.
On top of that is the ruling powers, and frankly Italy was better off under the fascists. At least they focused their energies on making life miserable for people outside Italy. Pre-fascist Italians had to deal with constant defeats, assaults on Austrian fortifications with no trench-digging tools of their own, endless frontal charges up the same set of unforgiving mountains, poor supplies and resources, winters with 2-8 meters of snow regularly and avalanches, and incompetent and unfeeling generals who explained nothing, didn’t believe in relief, regarded POWs as deserters, executed deserters or quaverers with machine guns, and chose men at random for execution to strike terror into the heart of the survivors. All-in-all they make the Habsburgs look competent and lovable.
It’s no wonder the Italian masses turned to fascism given what the Republic did to them. Alone among the belligerents the Italians refused to send supplies to their POWs, feeling that they deserved to suffer for betraying their race by not fighting to the death. They believed summary executions were the best motivation for sagging morale. Lack of enthusiasm was enough to get you shot. Failure to remove a pipe before saluting a commanding officer could get you shot. Spilling your soup could get you shot. It reads like a bad joke. And they regularly placed their machine guns behind the trenches, manned by MPs so that anyone falling back could be shot en masse. High casualties were a matter of pride. It meant you deserved the victory you’d undoubtedly achieve. And somehow the army never felt the need to provide any justification or purpose for their cause. Imagine hearing angry voices exult you and your sacrifice after years of serving men who were at best indifferent and at worst malicious.
All this is fascinating and I can recommend the book for that reason. That said, it does have its flaws. I had very little understanding about what, exactly, was going on in these battles. The book is mainly interested in being a social history and covers the campaigns in a rather vague and anecdotal manner. There was something off about the social history chapters too. I found them somewhat alienating and detached. You don’t really get a feel for what it was like on one of these campaigns. Instead you just get a litany of suffering. That was undoubtedly a key element in this war, but it all felt a little too detached.
One thing I did not expect (though perhaps I should have) is the presence of fascists already all over Italy. I suppose I’d always assumed Italy was a lot like Germany, a number of hypernationalistic and racist elements present but not put together in the right order or with the right level of fanatacism. But it took Germany over a decade to descend to the level of beasts while in Italy it sprung up right away, and this despite the fact that they’d been on the winning side. The explanation for this is inescapable, but it had never occurred to me because Italy’s not a focus in most WW1 books: Italy was already full of fascists before the war. All that they lacked was a man to organize them into a single party.
Speaking of, D’Annunzio is one of the most revolting human beings I’ve ever heard of. His cries for war positively revel in slaughter. The man had an unhealthy lust for blood and serious psychological issues.
Companions, can it be true? We are fighting with arms, we are waging war, the blood is spurting from the veins of Italy! We are the last to join this struggle and already the first are meeting with glory ... The slaughter begins, the destruction begins. One of our people has died at sea, another on land. All these people, who yesterday thronged in the streets and squares, boldly demanding war, are full of veins, full of blood; and that blood begins to flow ... We have no other value but that of our blood to be shed.
Frankly, I lost most of my sympathy for Italy the second I realized that this man was a national hero and beloved poet. And other poets are just as bad. Check out this one by Corrado Govini called War!
Burn, burn,
set fire to this world until it becomes a sun.
Devastate, smash, destroy,
Go forth, go forth, oh lovely human flail,
be plague, earthquake and hurricane.
Make a red spring
of blood and martyrdom
bloom from this old earth,
and life be like a flame.
Long live war!
All Italians weren’t like that of course, but these works were popular and clearly represented a radical statement of beliefs nonetheless within the normal spectrum of thought. In essence, the Italians were ahead of the curve. They were fighting their war for explicitly racial and imperialistic ends. The right to rule over all land ever held by their race sounds a hell of a lot like the Italian and German motives in the sequel.
On top of that is the ruling powers, and frankly Italy was better off under the fascists. At least they focused their energies on making life miserable for people outside Italy. Pre-fascist Italians had to deal with constant defeats, assaults on Austrian fortifications with no trench-digging tools of their own, endless frontal charges up the same set of unforgiving mountains, poor supplies and resources, winters with 2-8 meters of snow regularly and avalanches, and incompetent and unfeeling generals who explained nothing, didn’t believe in relief, regarded POWs as deserters, executed deserters or quaverers with machine guns, and chose men at random for execution to strike terror into the heart of the survivors. All-in-all they make the Habsburgs look competent and lovable.
It’s no wonder the Italian masses turned to fascism given what the Republic did to them. Alone among the belligerents the Italians refused to send supplies to their POWs, feeling that they deserved to suffer for betraying their race by not fighting to the death. They believed summary executions were the best motivation for sagging morale. Lack of enthusiasm was enough to get you shot. Failure to remove a pipe before saluting a commanding officer could get you shot. Spilling your soup could get you shot. It reads like a bad joke. And they regularly placed their machine guns behind the trenches, manned by MPs so that anyone falling back could be shot en masse. High casualties were a matter of pride. It meant you deserved the victory you’d undoubtedly achieve. And somehow the army never felt the need to provide any justification or purpose for their cause. Imagine hearing angry voices exult you and your sacrifice after years of serving men who were at best indifferent and at worst malicious.
All this is fascinating and I can recommend the book for that reason. That said, it does have its flaws. I had very little understanding about what, exactly, was going on in these battles. The book is mainly interested in being a social history and covers the campaigns in a rather vague and anecdotal manner. There was something off about the social history chapters too. I found them somewhat alienating and detached. You don’t really get a feel for what it was like on one of these campaigns. Instead you just get a litany of suffering. That was undoubtedly a key element in this war, but it all felt a little too detached.
July 22, 2021
A comprehensive look at the theater not only strategically and tactically but also politically and culturally. So much here. Eye opening. Every chapter begins with an aphorism from a military master(Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Napoleon, etc.), a sure prognosticator of its violation in the coming pages.
A case study in how not to go to war. So much political intrigue. The Italians were aligned with Austria Hungary by treaty but were not treated with respect so they changed sides to get the territory they claimed to be rightfully theirs. This movement was irredentism. Two thirds of the Italian parliament and people did not want to go to war. Europe went to war in August 1914 but Italy didn’t until May 1915 and they still were not ready. So a small minority manipulated circumstances to claim glory for Italy. The irredentists were secular and anti-Catholic. Their treatment of civilians to include internment was counterproductive.
Cardona was in charge of the Army. He was politically savvy and delusional in his belief of the offense. He made Haig look brilliant and compassionate. Men were just fodder for him. He continually outnumbered the enemy in men and artillery but would pause at the brink of victory. He reminded me a lot of McClellan. In the American Civil War there were two battles at Bull Run. Along the Isonzo River there were twelve over the course of three years! Of course it was the fighting spirit of the Italian infantry that always failed. Never Cardona’s decision making. He repeatedly blew opportunities. Finally he was sacked after Caporetto and replaced by Diaz who knew how to lead. British and French divisions had to be deployed to Italy after Caporetto.
Cardona was not only delusional but cruel. He was basically the first Duce. The army censored the troops’ mail. He employed the policy of decimation, killing every tenth man as a means of preserving discipline. Italians who were captured did not receive money for their care from the Italian government. 100,000 Italian soldiers died as prisoners of war due to disease, starvation, or hypothermia. Arrogant, arbitrary, cruel. Who would want to fight in this Army? Presaged the Fascism that was in the future for Italy. Utter depravity in the Italian Army.
It took me five weeks to read this and it was worth it. I learned of movements like vitalism and futurism which helped shape fascism. The Italian war poet who was revered as much as Dante- Giuseppe Ungaretti- I’d never heard of him. Also a great memoir of life on the front by Emilio Lussu. Just an eye opening adventure.
A case study in how not to go to war. So much political intrigue. The Italians were aligned with Austria Hungary by treaty but were not treated with respect so they changed sides to get the territory they claimed to be rightfully theirs. This movement was irredentism. Two thirds of the Italian parliament and people did not want to go to war. Europe went to war in August 1914 but Italy didn’t until May 1915 and they still were not ready. So a small minority manipulated circumstances to claim glory for Italy. The irredentists were secular and anti-Catholic. Their treatment of civilians to include internment was counterproductive.
Cardona was in charge of the Army. He was politically savvy and delusional in his belief of the offense. He made Haig look brilliant and compassionate. Men were just fodder for him. He continually outnumbered the enemy in men and artillery but would pause at the brink of victory. He reminded me a lot of McClellan. In the American Civil War there were two battles at Bull Run. Along the Isonzo River there were twelve over the course of three years! Of course it was the fighting spirit of the Italian infantry that always failed. Never Cardona’s decision making. He repeatedly blew opportunities. Finally he was sacked after Caporetto and replaced by Diaz who knew how to lead. British and French divisions had to be deployed to Italy after Caporetto.
Cardona was not only delusional but cruel. He was basically the first Duce. The army censored the troops’ mail. He employed the policy of decimation, killing every tenth man as a means of preserving discipline. Italians who were captured did not receive money for their care from the Italian government. 100,000 Italian soldiers died as prisoners of war due to disease, starvation, or hypothermia. Arrogant, arbitrary, cruel. Who would want to fight in this Army? Presaged the Fascism that was in the future for Italy. Utter depravity in the Italian Army.
It took me five weeks to read this and it was worth it. I learned of movements like vitalism and futurism which helped shape fascism. The Italian war poet who was revered as much as Dante- Giuseppe Ungaretti- I’d never heard of him. Also a great memoir of life on the front by Emilio Lussu. Just an eye opening adventure.
March 6, 2019
Ever wonder why northern Italy is German?
"White War" strikes a nice balance between a straightforward military history and the more nuanced political/cultural aspects. The Italian/Habsburg front was the lamer part of World War I, in some respects. An analogy might be, this front was to the Great War what "Attack of the Clones" was to "The Empire Strikes Back", that is, a pathetic shadow of an inimitable event.
However, despite that, Thompson pulls a fast one and makes it actually interesting! Italy, betraying her Central Power allies, waged a stupid and badly-ran war from the Trentino to the environs of Trieste in an attempt to expand her borders into areas that honestly had little-to-nothing to do with Italy. The Austro-Hungarians, masters of the same insipid imperialism, tried to defend their crumbling interests in the face of rising ethno-nationalisms. A clusterfuck, politically, all around, the front was essentially used as a diversionary tactic by the Allies and Central Powers. The Italian forces, commanded by the astonishingly inept Cadorna, managed to fuck up left and right to a point where the Austrian forces were nearly able to pee down into Venice.
The war aside, the best bits here are cultural and political. Thompson does a fine job digging into Italian irredentism and the proto-fascist nationalism, embodied in the idiotic d'Annunzio and the always hilarious Futurists, as well as Italy's laughable claims to large swathes of southern Europe.
"White War" strikes a nice balance between a straightforward military history and the more nuanced political/cultural aspects. The Italian/Habsburg front was the lamer part of World War I, in some respects. An analogy might be, this front was to the Great War what "Attack of the Clones" was to "The Empire Strikes Back", that is, a pathetic shadow of an inimitable event.
However, despite that, Thompson pulls a fast one and makes it actually interesting! Italy, betraying her Central Power allies, waged a stupid and badly-ran war from the Trentino to the environs of Trieste in an attempt to expand her borders into areas that honestly had little-to-nothing to do with Italy. The Austro-Hungarians, masters of the same insipid imperialism, tried to defend their crumbling interests in the face of rising ethno-nationalisms. A clusterfuck, politically, all around, the front was essentially used as a diversionary tactic by the Allies and Central Powers. The Italian forces, commanded by the astonishingly inept Cadorna, managed to fuck up left and right to a point where the Austrian forces were nearly able to pee down into Venice.
The war aside, the best bits here are cultural and political. Thompson does a fine job digging into Italian irredentism and the proto-fascist nationalism, embodied in the idiotic d'Annunzio and the always hilarious Futurists, as well as Italy's laughable claims to large swathes of southern Europe.
October 6, 2021
I had problems with this, but so did the author, I think. My problems mostly related to the fact that the Italians in charge were names unfamiliar to me. It took some time for me to mostly recognize them. I say mostly, because I think I never did quite figure them all out and their status in the government. Also, the included maps were somewhat blurry on my old Kindle and they didn't display an area of Italy with which I was familiar. A Google search put things right for me. Finally, this is textbook nonfiction rather than creative nonfiction. I suppose that fits the material presented, but I would have appreciated a more narrative style.
Ok, enough of *my* problems. I don't know why the author seemed to have such problems. The text is poorly organized for one thing. It opens with the unification of Italy in 1866 for background. I was glad of this for it gave me some perspective. Italy had actually been a country for fewer than 50 years when WWI broke out. So why oh why did the author choose the Appendix in which to give more detail and clarity regarding the 1866 unification? Italy entered the war against Austria-Hungary *because* of the agreements post-unification, information which, in my opinion, was more valuable at the beginning rather than the end.
As if the 1866 at both the beginning and the end weren't enough disorganization, the individual chapters themselves mostly failed in linearality. Oh, yes, one chapter follows neatly from the previous, that I'll give him. But within each the chapter time was scattered. It might start in 1916, but 'oh wait a minute, I need to tell you that which I forgot to say about 1915'. Sometimes the author would actually come out and say, "but more about that in a later chapter." This disjointedness made for hard reading.
Complaints aside, I learned things, which was the object of my reading this title. My consult to Google about maps had me notice that Italy is more than a boot with Sicily at its toe. Ignoring the boot, Italy looks more like a stalk of cauliflower or broccoli. No, the author didn't say that, it's just my observation. The war takes place up in the head of the cauliflower. This area was (and still is?) multi-ethnic. The Italians wanted to recover that which they thought lost in 1866. This was the reason for joining the Allies and making war against Austria-Hungary and Germany with whom they had had an alliance pre-war. Italy had an ax to grind and the war on the western front gave them an excuse. Of course, the Allies were happy that Austria-Hungary would have to prosecute a war on multiple fronts.
This was the only title I had come across that deals with this aspect of WWI. Thompson, almost in passing, mentions other titles and authors I now want to explore. For this alone, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919 was worth the time sink. The more I learn and explore about this war is valuable to me. Unfortunately, this title is worth just 3-stars, and I might even be being slightly generous at that.
Ok, enough of *my* problems. I don't know why the author seemed to have such problems. The text is poorly organized for one thing. It opens with the unification of Italy in 1866 for background. I was glad of this for it gave me some perspective. Italy had actually been a country for fewer than 50 years when WWI broke out. So why oh why did the author choose the Appendix in which to give more detail and clarity regarding the 1866 unification? Italy entered the war against Austria-Hungary *because* of the agreements post-unification, information which, in my opinion, was more valuable at the beginning rather than the end.
As if the 1866 at both the beginning and the end weren't enough disorganization, the individual chapters themselves mostly failed in linearality. Oh, yes, one chapter follows neatly from the previous, that I'll give him. But within each the chapter time was scattered. It might start in 1916, but 'oh wait a minute, I need to tell you that which I forgot to say about 1915'. Sometimes the author would actually come out and say, "but more about that in a later chapter." This disjointedness made for hard reading.
Complaints aside, I learned things, which was the object of my reading this title. My consult to Google about maps had me notice that Italy is more than a boot with Sicily at its toe. Ignoring the boot, Italy looks more like a stalk of cauliflower or broccoli. No, the author didn't say that, it's just my observation. The war takes place up in the head of the cauliflower. This area was (and still is?) multi-ethnic. The Italians wanted to recover that which they thought lost in 1866. This was the reason for joining the Allies and making war against Austria-Hungary and Germany with whom they had had an alliance pre-war. Italy had an ax to grind and the war on the western front gave them an excuse. Of course, the Allies were happy that Austria-Hungary would have to prosecute a war on multiple fronts.
This was the only title I had come across that deals with this aspect of WWI. Thompson, almost in passing, mentions other titles and authors I now want to explore. For this alone, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919 was worth the time sink. The more I learn and explore about this war is valuable to me. Unfortunately, this title is worth just 3-stars, and I might even be being slightly generous at that.
September 15, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up. This wasn’t quite the book I was expecting. I picked it up because I was interested in the Austrian side of World War I, especially in regions like the Dolomites, but the book is really about Italy, the antecedents (nationalism, the Risorgimento) of its war of aggression against Austria-Hungary, its colossal mismanagement of the war, and the war’s legacy for Italy and Italians. There are sections, especially those concerned with specific campaigns, that give good treatment to both sides, but I’d say it’s roughly 80% about Italy.
All that said, it’s a very good book, and a very helpful one, with wide-ranging coverage not only of the politico-military side of the war from high-level diplomacy right down to the muck of the trenches, but also of the plight of civilians in the war zone, the stature of the war as the subject of artists and poets, the treatment of prisoners, the role of regional differences among Italian conscripts, and more. Perhaps the most astonishing chapter concerns the truly draconian regime of courts martial and summary execution in the Italian military.
Among the best histories of WWI I’ve read, especially considering it covers one of the less studied fronts, at least in the English-speaking world.
Recommended.
All that said, it’s a very good book, and a very helpful one, with wide-ranging coverage not only of the politico-military side of the war from high-level diplomacy right down to the muck of the trenches, but also of the plight of civilians in the war zone, the stature of the war as the subject of artists and poets, the treatment of prisoners, the role of regional differences among Italian conscripts, and more. Perhaps the most astonishing chapter concerns the truly draconian regime of courts martial and summary execution in the Italian military.
Among the best histories of WWI I’ve read, especially considering it covers one of the less studied fronts, at least in the English-speaking world.
Recommended.
May 12, 2012
This is a horrible book. Not horrible because it's poorly written or badly researched. Rather, it is the sort of book that makes one want to gouge one's eyes out, or tear out one's hair in frustration.
WW1 on the Italian front is almost the ultimate definition of insanity, on levels seldom seen previously, or even after. A command that was a joke, conditions more abominable than almost any others in all the immense war theatre.
Especially interesting to me were the parts inquiring into the culture of Italy and Europe of the time, the military doctrine and mindset, and the reasons people had behind going to war.
WW1 on the Italian front is almost the ultimate definition of insanity, on levels seldom seen previously, or even after. A command that was a joke, conditions more abominable than almost any others in all the immense war theatre.
Especially interesting to me were the parts inquiring into the culture of Italy and Europe of the time, the military doctrine and mindset, and the reasons people had behind going to war.
February 1, 2021
This book could have been a lot better.
There are no end of books on the Western Front and this is the first one I've read on the Italian front. The main things you learn are that the Italian high command was stunningly incompetent. Their troops were appallingly equipped, callously treated and suffered from a brutal, not to say murderous disciplinary code.
Structurally, the chapters are odd, with some devoted to the war, but a lot concerning things very much at a tangent. There are chapters on poets and other extraneous subjects, but not a lot is devoted to logistics, war industry or the actual movement of armies. Also, there weren't many maps and the ones that are included were disappointing.
Frustratingly the prose doesn't go into a lot of detail when it comes to the campaigns and individual battles. It feels more anecdotal then carefully analysed history. This book is better than no book on the subject, but it leaves a lot out that you would wish to know.
There are no end of books on the Western Front and this is the first one I've read on the Italian front. The main things you learn are that the Italian high command was stunningly incompetent. Their troops were appallingly equipped, callously treated and suffered from a brutal, not to say murderous disciplinary code.
Structurally, the chapters are odd, with some devoted to the war, but a lot concerning things very much at a tangent. There are chapters on poets and other extraneous subjects, but not a lot is devoted to logistics, war industry or the actual movement of armies. Also, there weren't many maps and the ones that are included were disappointing.
Frustratingly the prose doesn't go into a lot of detail when it comes to the campaigns and individual battles. It feels more anecdotal then carefully analysed history. This book is better than no book on the subject, but it leaves a lot out that you would wish to know.
November 2, 2018
The Italian front is certainly the most neglected by the historians parts of the First World War. This void comes to cover the writer by presenting us all the time history that has evolved there. It starts with the data on which the decision to join the allied camp was based, with decades of territorial claims being the main cause. It then passes through all the great battles, with the thousands of victims, that ended up with no result, reaching the Italians' near defeat, eventually ending in the victory that was due to the collapse of the western front. Of particular interest is the extensive reference to the Italian philosophy of this war, which became the raw material for the creation of fascism. A very interesting book through which the reader can be informed about every aspect of this story. My only objection is that the author does not quite show us the Austrian and German side and that I think is a major omission. Otherwise, however, I was pleased with what I read.
Το ιταλικό μέτωπο είναι σίγουρα το πιο παραμελημένο από τους ι��τορικούς κομμάτι του πρώτου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου. Αυτό το κενό έρχεται να το καλύψει ο συγγραφέας παρουσιάζοντας μας όλο το χρονικό της ιστορίας που εξελίχθηκε εκεί. Ξεκινάει από τα δεδομένα πάνω στα οποία βασίστηκε η απόφαση για την ένταξη στο συμμαχικό στρατόπεδο, με τις εδαφικές διεκδικήσεις δεκαετιών να είναι η κύρια αιτία. Στη συνέχεια περνάει φτάνει σε όλες τις μεγάλες μάχες, με τα χιλιάδες θύματα, που δεν κατέληξαν πουθενά, φτάνοντας την παραλίγο μεγάλη ήττα των Ιταλών, καταλήγοντας τελικά στη νίκη που οφειλόταν στην κατάρρευση του δυτικ��ύ μετώπου. Ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον έχει η εκτεταμένη αναφορά στη φιλοσοφία των Ιταλών για αυτόν το πόλεμο που έγινε η πρώτη ύλη για τη δημιουργία του φασισμού. Ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο μέσα από το οποίο ο αναγνώστης μπορεί να ενημερωθεί για κάθε πτυχή αυτής της ιστορίας. Η μόνη ένσταση που έχω είναι ότι ο συγγραφέας δεν μας δείχνει αρκετά την πλευρά των Αυστριακών και των Γερμανών και αυτό νομίζω ότι είναι μία σημαντική παράλειψη. Κατά τα άλλα, όμως, έμεινα ικανοποιημένος από αυτά που διάβασα.
Το ιταλικό μέτωπο είναι σίγουρα το πιο παραμελημένο από τους ι��τορικούς κομμάτι του πρώτου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου. Αυτό το κενό έρχεται να το καλύψει ο συγγραφέας παρουσιάζοντας μας όλο το χρονικό της ιστορίας που εξελίχθηκε εκεί. Ξεκινάει από τα δεδομένα πάνω στα οποία βασίστηκε η απόφαση για την ένταξη στο συμμαχικό στρατόπεδο, με τις εδαφικές διεκδικήσεις δεκαετιών να είναι η κύρια αιτία. Στη συνέχεια περνάει φτάνει σε όλες τις μεγάλες μάχες, με τα χιλιάδες θύματα, που δεν κατέληξαν πουθενά, φτάνοντας την παραλίγο μεγάλη ήττα των Ιταλών, καταλήγοντας τελικά στη νίκη που οφειλόταν στην κατάρρευση του δυτικ��ύ μετώπου. Ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον έχει η εκτεταμένη αναφορά στη φιλοσοφία των Ιταλών για αυτόν το πόλεμο που έγινε η πρώτη ύλη για τη δημιουργία του φασισμού. Ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο μέσα από το οποίο ο αναγνώστης μπορεί να ενημερωθεί για κάθε πτυχή αυτής της ιστορίας. Η μόνη ένσταση που έχω είναι ότι ο συγγραφέας δεν μας δείχνει αρκετά την πλευρά των Αυστριακών και των Γερμανών και αυτό νομίζω ότι είναι μία σημαντική παράλειψη. Κατά τα άλλα, όμως, έμεινα ικανοποιημένος από αυτά που διάβασα.
March 31, 2018
This is a very engaging survey of an aspect of the first world war that has neglected by historians in the last half century. What emerges is a narrative describing an utterly unnecessary war waged with the grossest incompetence and knavery by Italy. When the war started, Italy was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but a coterie of politicians and jingoists maneuvered a weak government into turning on Austria in an effort to take some territory and cities that had some Italian population.
This area principally centered around Trieste, but to take Trieste the territory north, mostly a mountainous region also had to be taken. Starting in 1915, the Italians launched at least ten major offensives which gained very little at very great cost. The White War mainly presents the Italian side of this campaign, and offers interesting insights into the effect of a corrupt press, and an army whose generals showed more brutality toward their own troops than the they did to the enemy.
The last campaign of the war was a huge defeat for Italy and is usually known by the area where the Austrians, with a lot of help from German troops, broke through the Italian defenses: Caporetto. Thompson includes some observations that Ernest Hemingway offered in A Farewell to Arms. I have to say that my appreciation for what Hemingway wrote in the early chapters of that novel were much enhanced by this history of that battle and all the pointless and futile carnage that preceded it.
This area principally centered around Trieste, but to take Trieste the territory north, mostly a mountainous region also had to be taken. Starting in 1915, the Italians launched at least ten major offensives which gained very little at very great cost. The White War mainly presents the Italian side of this campaign, and offers interesting insights into the effect of a corrupt press, and an army whose generals showed more brutality toward their own troops than the they did to the enemy.
The last campaign of the war was a huge defeat for Italy and is usually known by the area where the Austrians, with a lot of help from German troops, broke through the Italian defenses: Caporetto. Thompson includes some observations that Ernest Hemingway offered in A Farewell to Arms. I have to say that my appreciation for what Hemingway wrote in the early chapters of that novel were much enhanced by this history of that battle and all the pointless and futile carnage that preceded it.
June 8, 2012
Military history isn’t just about battle plans, maps, troop movements, logistics and the like, but they are essential elements if the overall picture of events is to be understood, particularly when the author is covering the activities on an entire front over a 4 year period. Sadly, in my view this book largely ignores these aspects in favour of lurid details and odd side-bar chapters.
So, there’s no detail on why Italian mobilisation was so slow (potentially crucial, since as Thompson tells us, the Austrians were particularly weak on the Italian frontier when war was declared), how industry responded to the demands of being on a war footing, or some understanding of army organisation and how it developed during the war. Instead there are chapters on Scipio Slataper (who?), war poetry and the impact of the Futurists manifesto on Italian strategic military planning. War poetry is a perfectly reasonable topic, but why not integrate the observations into the main narrative rather than shoe-horning a chapter of literary criticism in.
The authors’ interests really seem to lie outside the military details of the Italian WWI experience and had this book been titled ‘Italian nationalism 1915-1919 – its socio-political impact on the Italian front’, then I might have given it 3 stars. But, with a title like that, I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place!
So, there’s no detail on why Italian mobilisation was so slow (potentially crucial, since as Thompson tells us, the Austrians were particularly weak on the Italian frontier when war was declared), how industry responded to the demands of being on a war footing, or some understanding of army organisation and how it developed during the war. Instead there are chapters on Scipio Slataper (who?), war poetry and the impact of the Futurists manifesto on Italian strategic military planning. War poetry is a perfectly reasonable topic, but why not integrate the observations into the main narrative rather than shoe-horning a chapter of literary criticism in.
The authors’ interests really seem to lie outside the military details of the Italian WWI experience and had this book been titled ‘Italian nationalism 1915-1919 – its socio-political impact on the Italian front’, then I might have given it 3 stars. But, with a title like that, I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place!
July 25, 2011
Excellent! A most interesting and well-written book, on a subject about which I knew very little , the campaign between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire in World War I. Thanks to Mr Thompson I am now much better informed on this aspect of the war, during which most of the extremely bloody and fairly pointless fighting took place in difficult mountainous terrain (the Dolomites and the Isonzo valley, the latter of which must rate with the Somme, Verdun and Ypres as one of the great killing grounds of the early 20th century ). Comprehensive without being overlong and succinct without oversimplifying the subject.
February 15, 2012
This is WWI military and diplomatic history. Specifically its about Italy's battle with the Austro-Hungarians in the Alps and the plain north of the Adriatic.
Italy was not completely unified when the war arrived. It was the only one of the Allies in the war for purely territorial gain. The war was a disaster for the country. They consistently lost in the battlefield, but managed to "win the peace". This contributed to them being the first nation to lapse into fascism.
I liked that is wasn't purely military history. It delves into the political aspects of the conflict as well. I particularly liked the author describing the front then and now.
Italy was not completely unified when the war arrived. It was the only one of the Allies in the war for purely territorial gain. The war was a disaster for the country. They consistently lost in the battlefield, but managed to "win the peace". This contributed to them being the first nation to lapse into fascism.
I liked that is wasn't purely military history. It delves into the political aspects of the conflict as well. I particularly liked the author describing the front then and now.
June 30, 2015
What a great book! It explains in great detail what the fighting was like on the Italian front. I have found only a few books about this facet of the Great War, and this is right there at the top.
July 7, 2020
Buy, Borrow, Bust: Bust.
Starts strong with good prose and direction but quickly loses itself by getting bogged down in unwelcomed details. Entire chapters and sections devoted to various poets were enough to break the rhythm and distract from the central purpose of the book.
I would also have liked to hear more about other fronts and life as a front line soldier more.
Starts strong with good prose and direction but quickly loses itself by getting bogged down in unwelcomed details. Entire chapters and sections devoted to various poets were enough to break the rhythm and distract from the central purpose of the book.
I would also have liked to hear more about other fronts and life as a front line soldier more.
November 6, 2024
Me l'he llegit amb molta calma, però m'ha semblat fascinant i molt molt ben escrit!
October 1, 2013
Il bello (?) è che ci stupiamo ancora oggi quando ascoltiamo telegiornali, inchieste, talk show e rimaniamo sbalorditi, disgustati, inebetiti da quel che vediamo o sentiamo. Forse, a stupirci, è il nostro stupore: è come se un meccanismo inconscio ci ricordasse d'improvviso come siamo noi, cosa sono le nostre elite, come è nato e s'è sviluppato questo paese. Ciò che è sempre stato e sempre perdura.
La grande guerra fu il più gigantesco e spaventoso massacro della storia dell'umanità; le grandi potenze la scatenarono per ragioni puramente utilitariste e tutte la desideravano. Nessuno di coloro che nel '14 era sceso in campo aveva tuttavia messo in conto l'evoluzione tecnologica degli armamenti, che impantanò quasi subito gli eserciti nelle trincee con costi umani terrificanti.
Per questo la leggerezza e l'ignoranza con cui le elite italiane imposero l'intervento un anno dopo, pur avendo visto cos'era diventata la guerra sui fronti europei, ne fanno dei criminali e degli idioti ancora più grandi. Poi fu un gigantesco massacro che durò 3 anni, costò più di 600.000 morti e venne eseguito, persistendo, sempre con i medesimi, fallimentari metodi, con un'organizzazione ridicola, con una brutalità e un disinteresse verso il soldato semplice indescrivibile. Chiariamo, non è che i Neville, gli Haig, i Conrad o i Falkenhayn fossero molto più umani o geniali di Cadorna, ma senza dubbio quest'ultimo, come gran parte del corpo ufficiali italiano, fu il peggiore fra i peggiori. Così come imparagonabile fu l'inettitudine politica dei dirigenti italiani rispetto agli omologhi stranieri, totalmente incapaci di trattenere il delirio dittatoriale del Comando militare e incapaci di far fruttare a dovere, pacificando il paese, la vittoria. Il fascismo nacque lì.
Purtroppo lo stato italiano è un progetto nato difettoso, abortito. Ma poi i difetti hanno perdurato, si sono ingigantiti. Non ci riesce di ripararli, di correggerne almeno una parte. Non credo ci riuscirà mai. Così come i nostri bisnonni si lasciarono condurre , nel terrore, al massacro, così noi oggi non riusciamo a imporre la nostra voce. Noi, che siamo nati nel benessere e abbiamo avuto la possibilità di ottenere la conoscenza, e che nonostante tutto siamo di gran lunga peggiori di loro. 690.000 morti. Se provaste a leggerne i nomi al ritmo di uno al secondo, impieghereste 8 giorni interi. Non credo occorra dire altro.
Il libro ha numerosi pregi: è scritto molto bene, estremamente scorrevole e, giustamente, non si sofferma troppo sugli aspetti squisitamente militari mentre pone l'attenzione sulla situazione psicologica e fisica dei soldati, sulle trame politiche, sulle incredibili incompetenze e sugli infiniti errori del Comando. Il fatto che sia un inglese a scrivere aiuta a scansare miti nazionalisti duri a morire.
Qui però sta anche l'unico punto debole. Il punto di vista dell'autore, per larga parte oggettivo, non riesce a rimanere tale in alcuni punti focali del libro, rendendo evidente come l'autore abbia tratto spunto per molti aspetti dalla storiografia anglosassone (che ebbe tutte le ragioni per ridimensionare l'impatto italiano sulla guerra): una clamorosa enafatizzazione del contributo inglese alla battaglia di Vittorio Veneto o alla difesa del Piave (che ci fu, ma ben più marginale) così come un resconto esasperato delle pessime condizioni dell'esercito austriaco. Per non parlare di molti aspetti del fronte occidentale, sulle ragioni dell'intervento anglo-francese, sulle reali possibilità di scelta dell'Italia al momento dell'entrata in guerra nonché sulle condizioni dell'armistizio imposte alla Germania, su cui s'è preferito soprassedere.
A parte questo, nel complesso il libro è molto interessante e, comunque, storicamente inappuntabile. Così, nella maggior parte dei casi, andarono le cose. Niente di glorioso o eroico. Solo nausea e disgusto verso le elite e enorme pietà verso i soldati.
April 4, 2016
" The White War" by Mark Thompson is an interesting and compassionate history of Italy's involvement in World War I.
The title " The White War refers to the operational area of the war, then the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary which traverses limestone and granite mountains. Those mountains gleamed as a bright white wall in the fierce summer sun, so bright that it hurt soldiers eyes , and in the frigid winter snows of 30 inch snowfalls, accentuated the sub-zero temperatures.
In these centennial years of The Great War, there are many new histories and documentaries about the terrible cost in human life of the conflict,most of it focusing on the struggle in France and Belgium. The war on Italy's border with the Austria- Hungary Empire was viewed even then as somewhat of a sideshow, useful mainly as locking down as many Austrian divisions away from fighting the allies elsewhere.
. The author writes of the twelve battles on the Isonzo River, each as costly and as futile as any on the Western Front. As in France or Flanders, the description of the heroic efforts of troops on both sides, of men wasted , sacrificed for the blind stubbornness of generals and the " honor" of politicians makes for compelling reading. The Italians paid a severe price for their war of national redemption. The Italian army was unprepared for combat, as it was poorly equipped and trained. The ranks were treated in-humanely, with little regard for troop hygiene, medical care and morale. The author is not shy in demonstrating that the politIcal and military leaders considered most troops as dumb beasts who had to be whipped forward into combat, and if they hesitated, punished severely. The Italian army executed many times more soldiers for military crimes than any other nation. Being a day AWOL meant execution.
Mr. Thompson notes that along with combat casualties of nearly 700,000 men dead and 700,000 more severely wounded or disabled, there were an estimated 600,000 civilian casualties from all causes. For as Hemingway wrote, "[The war] was the most colossal, murderous and mismanaged butchery."
Another result was the rise of Fascism , directly a result of widespread disgust at political and military incompetence and venality. Yet, out of the horrifying cost in lives grew a sense that Italy had finally become a united nation, refined by fire and ready to take it place at the forefront of nations.
"The White War" should interest any armchair historian with even a passing interest in the Great War and its political moral and human costs. Mr. Thompson writes fluidly and clearly about the causes and objectives of the war, and by quoting the words of those who fought, the human cost.
Note: there are some maps, but only a few and the maps in the front of the book are quite dark and poorly defined. More maps detailing the various battles, showing landmarks, movement and objectives would have been helpful. The lack of them was a minus. Still, very worth reading.
The title " The White War refers to the operational area of the war, then the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary which traverses limestone and granite mountains. Those mountains gleamed as a bright white wall in the fierce summer sun, so bright that it hurt soldiers eyes , and in the frigid winter snows of 30 inch snowfalls, accentuated the sub-zero temperatures.
In these centennial years of The Great War, there are many new histories and documentaries about the terrible cost in human life of the conflict,most of it focusing on the struggle in France and Belgium. The war on Italy's border with the Austria- Hungary Empire was viewed even then as somewhat of a sideshow, useful mainly as locking down as many Austrian divisions away from fighting the allies elsewhere.
. The author writes of the twelve battles on the Isonzo River, each as costly and as futile as any on the Western Front. As in France or Flanders, the description of the heroic efforts of troops on both sides, of men wasted , sacrificed for the blind stubbornness of generals and the " honor" of politicians makes for compelling reading. The Italians paid a severe price for their war of national redemption. The Italian army was unprepared for combat, as it was poorly equipped and trained. The ranks were treated in-humanely, with little regard for troop hygiene, medical care and morale. The author is not shy in demonstrating that the politIcal and military leaders considered most troops as dumb beasts who had to be whipped forward into combat, and if they hesitated, punished severely. The Italian army executed many times more soldiers for military crimes than any other nation. Being a day AWOL meant execution.
Mr. Thompson notes that along with combat casualties of nearly 700,000 men dead and 700,000 more severely wounded or disabled, there were an estimated 600,000 civilian casualties from all causes. For as Hemingway wrote, "[The war] was the most colossal, murderous and mismanaged butchery."
Another result was the rise of Fascism , directly a result of widespread disgust at political and military incompetence and venality. Yet, out of the horrifying cost in lives grew a sense that Italy had finally become a united nation, refined by fire and ready to take it place at the forefront of nations.
"The White War" should interest any armchair historian with even a passing interest in the Great War and its political moral and human costs. Mr. Thompson writes fluidly and clearly about the causes and objectives of the war, and by quoting the words of those who fought, the human cost.
Note: there are some maps, but only a few and the maps in the front of the book are quite dark and poorly defined. More maps detailing the various battles, showing landmarks, movement and objectives would have been helpful. The lack of them was a minus. Still, very worth reading.
March 15, 2015
Boys, big and small: this is a book for you. If you are into things like battles, dispositions of armies and batallions, conquering mountintops, political intrigue big and small, arrogant generals, arms and armour and occasional personal reminiscence of a slaughter, well, this one will make you happy.
The book is well researched and rather good written. Its not splendid, and for some reason it does not spark like for instant "The guns of august" does. But hey, "Guns" are a masterpeace, this is a solidly written story of a terrible tragedy.
Its main quality is its subject: it covers a lesser known battlefield of Europe. Away from Somme, Passchendaele, Verdun, Pripyat marshes there was Isonzo (Soca) and another places where people died fighting for (almost) nothing. Spurred by belligerent nationalism and led and governed by incredible stupidity, brutality, self indulgence and arrogance of their officers (Mr. Cadorna for instance, but there were others too) they died under inhuman circumstances on a terrain actually not fit for simple human existence, much less for fighting a war.
One becomes a pacifist by reading it.
So, it is nice to have a reference book now on this subject indeed. It describes pretty consistently the politics preceding and during the conflict (nice work on Italian nationalsm and much more relevant italian internal political quagmire ...). Battles are described chronologically and I presume correctly.
But, to really comprehend the horror of it one should have firsthand knowledge of the terrain, really. If you haven't ever seen the Carso (Kras) you can not imagine what was it like. Mud and trenches can be visualised. But how on Earth does one dig a trench in a stone ? Or haul a howitzer on hands 1300m up ond the rock ?
Most astonishing is: why actually ?
I would advise to grab a good map of the region too because, at least in mine edition (paperback, Faber) the maps were scarce. And the battles were numerous and the movements of units frequent. So, if you really want to get a picture of the events you should follow it on the map.
To summarize: nice, comprehensive book on less known war. Densely packed and as such reads slowly especially if you need to consult the map. And you do, frequently.
Finally, my own personal minor "grudge": as a Croat I would like to see more names written as they are written today. I mean even then, Pola was Pula, Sebenico was Sibenik and Zara was Zadar.
The book is well researched and rather good written. Its not splendid, and for some reason it does not spark like for instant "The guns of august" does. But hey, "Guns" are a masterpeace, this is a solidly written story of a terrible tragedy.
Its main quality is its subject: it covers a lesser known battlefield of Europe. Away from Somme, Passchendaele, Verdun, Pripyat marshes there was Isonzo (Soca) and another places where people died fighting for (almost) nothing. Spurred by belligerent nationalism and led and governed by incredible stupidity, brutality, self indulgence and arrogance of their officers (Mr. Cadorna for instance, but there were others too) they died under inhuman circumstances on a terrain actually not fit for simple human existence, much less for fighting a war.
One becomes a pacifist by reading it.
So, it is nice to have a reference book now on this subject indeed. It describes pretty consistently the politics preceding and during the conflict (nice work on Italian nationalsm and much more relevant italian internal political quagmire ...). Battles are described chronologically and I presume correctly.
But, to really comprehend the horror of it one should have firsthand knowledge of the terrain, really. If you haven't ever seen the Carso (Kras) you can not imagine what was it like. Mud and trenches can be visualised. But how on Earth does one dig a trench in a stone ? Or haul a howitzer on hands 1300m up ond the rock ?
Most astonishing is: why actually ?
I would advise to grab a good map of the region too because, at least in mine edition (paperback, Faber) the maps were scarce. And the battles were numerous and the movements of units frequent. So, if you really want to get a picture of the events you should follow it on the map.
To summarize: nice, comprehensive book on less known war. Densely packed and as such reads slowly especially if you need to consult the map. And you do, frequently.
Finally, my own personal minor "grudge": as a Croat I would like to see more names written as they are written today. I mean even then, Pola was Pula, Sebenico was Sibenik and Zara was Zadar.
March 29, 2012
Fascinating read of a severely undercovered front of World War I - the Italian Front. Thompson examines the brutal conditions associated with fighting in the Dolomite Mountains as well as the ineptness and harsh conditions within the Italian Army. The Italians, for all intents and purposes, treated their own prisoners of war as little more than dirt after being freed or repatriated.
In addition, he provides a great deal of cultural context on how the Italian people - united a mere 35 years prior to the start of World War I - viewed the war and how they wrote about the war, especially from a proto-Fascist perspective. Thompson also examines the haplessness associated with the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Army that the Italians first faced...and the introduction of German troops who almost managed to capture Venice before reaching their culminating point.
Thompson provides an excellent tome for those interested in this forgotten front, but it is not the tactical or operational details that make this a fascinating read. Instead, the view of Italian nationalism and it's desire to expand - which he covers during the post-War period where the Italian government wanted to establish colonies on the far side of the Adriatic i - is what makes this book most interesting.
A must read for an understanding of Italian war aims in World War One, as well as the cultural context surrounding the desire for a unified Italy and how the war attempted to galvanize the society. The pages on how Southern Italian troops were introduced into mountainous terrain with little acclimatization is worthwhile in of itself.
In addition, he provides a great deal of cultural context on how the Italian people - united a mere 35 years prior to the start of World War I - viewed the war and how they wrote about the war, especially from a proto-Fascist perspective. Thompson also examines the haplessness associated with the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Army that the Italians first faced...and the introduction of German troops who almost managed to capture Venice before reaching their culminating point.
Thompson provides an excellent tome for those interested in this forgotten front, but it is not the tactical or operational details that make this a fascinating read. Instead, the view of Italian nationalism and it's desire to expand - which he covers during the post-War period where the Italian government wanted to establish colonies on the far side of the Adriatic i - is what makes this book most interesting.
A must read for an understanding of Italian war aims in World War One, as well as the cultural context surrounding the desire for a unified Italy and how the war attempted to galvanize the society. The pages on how Southern Italian troops were introduced into mountainous terrain with little acclimatization is worthwhile in of itself.
January 24, 2019
A magisterial account, well-researched, of Italy's part in World War I. Prose is succinct and readable, with plenty of first-person accounts. Much of it is from the Italian side and highlights the carnage, squalor and human suffering of that war, and also illuminates how the campaign would lead to the rise of Fascism by 1922.
The campaign itself was a stupidly-chosen war; Italy had sat out the start of war in 1914 but would attack, on the Allied side, in May 1915, in hope of expanding its territory. The book spares little in showing how the Italian soldiers, ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-treated, went into pointless battle after battle (e.g., the First through Eleventh Battles of the Isonzo). The central figure of the book is their commander-in-chief, Luigi Cadorna, an incompetent and vicious leader (he would execute numerous Italian soldiers, often by a choose-by-lot method known as decimation). It explains why Italians would eagerly surrender by thousands after the debacle at Caporetto. We see vignettes from Ernest Hemingway (the famous retreat sequence from "A Farewell to Arms") and from Lt. Erwin Rommel, who, to his surprise, found himself on his Italian prisoners' shoulders, carried as a hero -- or, now we see, as their rescuer.
As an example of "folly of war" it's an excellent work, and perhaps a good remembrance of those needless dead.
The campaign itself was a stupidly-chosen war; Italy had sat out the start of war in 1914 but would attack, on the Allied side, in May 1915, in hope of expanding its territory. The book spares little in showing how the Italian soldiers, ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-treated, went into pointless battle after battle (e.g., the First through Eleventh Battles of the Isonzo). The central figure of the book is their commander-in-chief, Luigi Cadorna, an incompetent and vicious leader (he would execute numerous Italian soldiers, often by a choose-by-lot method known as decimation). It explains why Italians would eagerly surrender by thousands after the debacle at Caporetto. We see vignettes from Ernest Hemingway (the famous retreat sequence from "A Farewell to Arms") and from Lt. Erwin Rommel, who, to his surprise, found himself on his Italian prisoners' shoulders, carried as a hero -- or, now we see, as their rescuer.
As an example of "folly of war" it's an excellent work, and perhaps a good remembrance of those needless dead.
February 15, 2017
Military and political history, March 24, 2016
This review is from: The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 (Kindle Edition)
This is a well written and interesting account of the Italian front in World War One, an obscure subject to most Americans. The author brings home the hardships of life and combat on this front which were appalling. Also appalling was the quality of the national leadership and command on both sides, with that of the Italians being far the worse. The Italians performed so poorly in World War One that when Churchill, facing WW2, was told that to fight Germany was to also fight the Italians he said words to the effect that it was only fair, the British had them last time.
The military and political situations are well described but with a little left wing bias. The Italian disasters leading to the rise of Mussolini and the fascists are a part of the story of WW2 as well as WW1.
The story of Erwin Rommel's exploits on this front are placed in the larger context of the war, making his receipt of the Blue Max more understandable. All in all, an enjoyable and informative read.
This review is from: The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 (Kindle Edition)
This is a well written and interesting account of the Italian front in World War One, an obscure subject to most Americans. The author brings home the hardships of life and combat on this front which were appalling. Also appalling was the quality of the national leadership and command on both sides, with that of the Italians being far the worse. The Italians performed so poorly in World War One that when Churchill, facing WW2, was told that to fight Germany was to also fight the Italians he said words to the effect that it was only fair, the British had them last time.
The military and political situations are well described but with a little left wing bias. The Italian disasters leading to the rise of Mussolini and the fascists are a part of the story of WW2 as well as WW1.
The story of Erwin Rommel's exploits on this front are placed in the larger context of the war, making his receipt of the Blue Max more understandable. All in all, an enjoyable and informative read.
May 13, 2016
Great read. I had gone to Salzburg on vacation and was fascinated seeing a few rooms dedicated to uniforms, medals and paintings of the Austria-Italy war. At the time I had always envisioned it as a forgotten part of WW I but this book helped vividly put that in greater perspective. And more than most history books I've read - it helped explain how great nations/empires stumble into war, the futility of the enterprise and the incredible human misery that comes out of it. Thoroughly well-researched and allowed for fast paced reading.
April 5, 2014
A fantastic, readable history of the Italian Front in WWI. Normally our knowledge of that war is limited to the Western and Eastern fronts and the trenches of Gallipoli, as these are the fronts most commonly documented. My knowledge of the Italian front was limited to reading Hemingway, so this book was a horrific revelation about the reality and bloodshed which occurred.
The book is thoroughly researched and well written.
The book is thoroughly researched and well written.
May 13, 2022
Disappointing. The author couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to write a history of the war between Italy and Austria, or an analysis of Italian struggles in forming a coherent national identity. The issues are interrelated, and any history of the First World War in Italy should include such discussion. However the author is ham fisted in his approach and falls short on both counts. It’s a shame because this tragic and under appreciated but of history deserves a proper telling.
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