Along the old highway leading south into Trieste – State Highway 14 – just past where the ancient river of mystery, the Timavo, emerges to run its short course to the sea, stands a stone monument in memory to Maggiore Giovanni Randaccio who lost his life near here 28 May 1917. A short burst of machine-gun fire mortally wounded the young 32-year-old Italian. His death due to Austrian gunfire. Alas, a death also a result of his friendship with the self-proclaimed Vate of Italy, Gabriele D’Annunzio.
THE MAJOR
Randaccio was born in Torino in 1882. After matriculating the Military School of Modena, he graduated a Second Lieutenant within the 64th Regiment of the Cagliari Brigade. Promoted to Lieutenant in 1908, he took part in the Libyan campaign of the Italo-Turkish War of 1911. He gained a flight license in 1913 but chose to stay with the infantry.
At the onset of war in 1915, Randaccio, now a captain, served with the 63rd Regiment – still in the Cagliari Brigade. During the First Battle of the Isonzo in early July, he earned his first silver medal on Mont Sei Busi. During the Third Battle of the Isonzo – 21 October – he earned a second silver medal. His fight being on the heights of Polazzo near where the vast Italian ossuary of Redipuglia lies. Suffering a serious wound, Randaccio took time off to recover before returning to the front. He returned with the 77th Regiment of the Tuscan Brigade. He went on to win a third silver medal for his actions during the Eighth and Ninth Battles of the Isonzo with the conquest of both Veliki Hrib – Cerje – and Dosso Fajiti.
THE VATE
D’Annunzio was 54 at the time of the battle in which the young major lost his life. The Vate – a Latin term borrowed from ancient Celtic meaning bard, poet, prophet, soothsayer – spent much of World War One in an attempt to turn back Father Time. Before the war, he was among the most famous celebrities of Italy. He lived a life seen as liberating to some and shocking to others. Producing poetry, novels, theatrical drama while living a very hectic and public life, D’Annunzio remained in the spotlight of Italian society. His dalliances with mysticism, his legions of female lovers, a lifestyle forcing him to flee to France to avoid creditors all added to the creative power of his pen keeping the would-be Nietzschean Superman front and center.
REDEEMER
He took the next step from literary and socialite celebrity to national hero starting in 1915. D’Annunzio came out strongly for Italian intervention in the shattering war engulfing most of the rest of Europe. Living in Paris at the time of the war’s onset, he became a reporter for the Corriere della Sera, a big newspaper from Milano. His reports including calls for Italy to join in with the Entente in an effort to finish the idea of “redeeming” the areas of Italian-speakers still not included within the confines of Mother Italy – Trentino, Trieste, Gorizia, Dalmatia.
Seeing himself always as a man of action – “uomo d’azione” – D’Annunzio returned to Italy. He gave a speech on 4 May 1915 in Genoa at the monument of Quarto from where Giuseppe Garibaldi – another uomo d’azione – began his 1860 expedition from. D’Annunzio proved a master orator. This, a talent he would continue to weld within his grab bag of abilities to influence collective behavior.
“O blessed those who have more, for they will be able to give more … Blessed be those who, waiting and trusting, have not wasted their strength, but preserved it by means of a warrior’s discipline.Blessed be those who shunned sterile loves to keep their virginity for this first and last love of their life.Blessed be those who, having opposed the event (war), will accept in silence the supreme necessity and will want to be, not the last, but the first ones (to sacrifice themselves).Blessed be the youths who hunger and thirst for glory, for they will be sated.Blessed be the merciful ones, for they will cleanse a luminous blood and bind a shining grief.Blessed be the pure of heart, blessed be those who will return victorious, for they will see Rome’s new visage, Dante’s forehead crowned anew, Italy’s triumphant beauty.”
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO 4 MAY 1915
ON TO WAR
D’Annunzio went on from Genoa to Rome delivering speeches further pushing the idea of intervention while belittling the role of the neutralist prime minister Giovanni Giolitti the “old executioner labbrone”. His speeches stood forefront of the vocal minority calling for Italian entry into the war. Giolitti eventually was pushed out in favor of the former prime minister Antonio Salandra and his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino on 20 May. Four days later, Italy joined the war on the side of the Entente.
Even though a bit old to join in the war, ever a man of action, D’Annunzio convinced the military powers to allow him to pick and choose among various efforts during the war. Italian commander Luigi Cadorna recognized the propaganda value of D’Annunzio. He supported him throughout his time in command – as did his successor Armando Diaz. He authorized D’Annunzio to travel all over the front given the rank of Lieutenant of Lancieri di Novara. Similarly, he gained permission from the Naval Minister to join in maritime exploits as well.
AERIAL PROVOCATEUR
D’Annunzio is best known for his aviation exploits. His first flight had been with Glenn Curtiss in 1909. He served in the backseat of many two-seat biplane bombing forays during the war. Sometimes, he dropped leaflets of his own composition and sometimes bombs with more lethal immediacy. His first flight was in a naval seaplane launching leaflets over Trieste with his young friend and pilot Giuseppe Miraglia.
Soon, he was in the air over Trento, the second city cried by Irredentists “Trieste e Trento!”. Then he was back on the Carso participating in bombing raids against Monte San Michele during the Third Battle of the Isonzo.
BUMP IN THE ROAD
He hoped to venture over Zadar in Dalmatia next to further the ideals of irredentism but following another flight towards Trieste, the plane crashed following carburetor troubles. D’Annunzio was thrown against the plane’s machine gun mount. The impact caused him to lose his right eye. D’Annunzio complained privately of pain and visual disturbances but still flew again the next day over Trieste with no problems. However, in the next days, visual and eye discomfort worsened, and the diagnosis was a retinal detachment.
Bedridden – January until late summer – for quite some time, with the help of his daughter, he wrote on strips of paper a series of sensations and memories which he later welded into the novel Notturno in 1921. The novel includes a large section devoted to Miraglia who had died in a test flight 21 December 1915. Buried on the Venetian cemetery island of San Michele, D’Annunzio wrote the epigraph written on his gravestone, “Here the mortal body of Lieutenant Giuseppe Miraglia melts – who had Icaro the soul and fate – his immortal wings nevertheless sail the sky of the homeland above the liberated sea.”
MAN OF ACTION RETURNS
D’Annuzio was back in the skies on 13 September 1916, patch over his damaged eye. The plane took part in an aerial bombardment of Poreč. But the following year found him in the trenches of the Third Army posted as a liaison officer in the 45th Division. Here, D’Annunzio first met up with Giovanni Randaccio. Randaccio was now the commander of the Second Battalion of the 77th Regiment from the Tuscan Brigade.
The two participated in the Eighth and Ninth Battles of the Isonzo as the brigade spearheaded the conquest of Veliki hrib – Cerje, in Slovene – or Quota 343 (1 November 1916) followed by Dosso Faijti further to the east – Quota 434 (3 November 1916). As a result of their actions, Randaccio earned a third silver medal for bravery and a promotion to major. D’Annunzio gained a second silver medal for bravery, as well as a promotion to captain. Working together closely during the fighting, D’Annunzio helping to reconnoiter and generally keep spirits up among the soldiers and Randaccio commanding, the two became close friends. It was after this battle D’Annunzio gave the brigade their nickname of the Lupi di Toscana – Wolves of Tuscany –
“Sicchè il nemico sbigottito So the astonished enemy
ne chiamò Lupi called them Wolves
gli implacabili fanti!” the relentless infantrymen!
THE WOLVES MOVE SOUTH
A couple months later found the 77th Regiment in action further south at the mouth of the ancient mystery river of the Timavo. The Timavo is a continuation of the Reka River which begins on the slopes of Snežnik north of Rijeka near the Slovene-Croatia border. It runs 54 kilometers until disappearing into a hole in Škocjan Caves, one of the largest known underground canyon-cave systems in the world – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the netry into the caves, the Reka runs 34 kilometers underground surfacing as the Timavo River. The Timavo flows another 2 kilometers before running into the Adriatic. Nearby the springs of the Timavo stand today a reconstructed Church of San Giovanni in Tuba. The church was restored in 1949 along the lines of the 16th century construction.
THE VATE HAS A PLAN
D’Annunzio and Randaccio came up with a plan to attack Quota 28 – Bràtina – on the south side of the Timavo delta. From the top of the little hill, a plain lead further south to the mostly ruined Duino Castle. The plan seems to have been forwarded to Third Army commander the Duke of Aosta. One source relates D’Annunzio having an interview with the Duke and his Chief of Staff General Augusto Vanzo where D’Annunzio advocated pushing the offensive effort past Quota 28 to Duino Castle. There, the men would raise a large Italian tricolored flag. The flag was to be visible to the residents of Trieste some 10 kilometers to the southeast.
PROBLEMS
The line commanders were not as confident in success as the Vate. The attack was under Randaccio’s direct command. Attacking units comprised of the First, Second and Third Battalions of the 77th Regiment along with the First Battalion of the 148th Regiment. The leaders tasked with the assault faced a stiff challenge. First, they had to cross the Timavo, not a big river, but deep enough not to be able to wade across. As it turned out, the men crossed on a small, improvised gangplank bridge sitting on floating oil drums. When the men walked the bridge, the planks sank into the water up to their knees. The crossing was completely open to enemy artillery fire. During the action, the bridge was destroyed making retreat very difficult.
Second, D’Annunzio seemed to not properly reconnoiter the area. The Austrian position atop Quota 28 was only a forward line. There were other Austrian trenches set on the plateau to overcome before a flag could be unfurled atop Duino Castle.
ATTACK ACROSS THE TIMAVO
View over the battlefields of the Carso – Randaccio’s attack is lower right corner.
Map generated by WW1 Frontline from their Facebook page.
The attack went forward on the night of 27- 28 May with men from the 1st of the 77th Regiment and 1st of the 149th Regiment going across the little floating walkway. Attacking the forward Austrian trenches, they were successful in gaining the high point. However, they did not have enough strength to push forward from there.
Randaccio’s men went into action without artillery support nor was there any attempt to interdict Austrian reserves coming onto the scene from Duino. With the bridge knocked out by Austrian fire, those men on the south side of the Timavo were then on their own facing a concerted counterattack from the 4th Schützen Battalion, a volunteer unit from Maribor. Some 800 prisoners counted up by the day’s end, men isolated and out of ammunition.
Randaccio, still on the north bank of the Timavo, received a mortal blast from a machine-gun trying to get his men back across the river. D’Annunzio is reported by one author to have ordered Italian artillery to fire upon men of the 149th Regiment who he saw as giving up on his offensive too easily, leaving his “Wolves” in the lurch.
A HERO IS BORN
The young major’s head laid on the Italian flag planned for the castle by D’Annunzio before being removed to a field hospital in Monfalcone. He died in the hospital not long afterwards. Randaccio lie first in the graveyard of the field hospital and later removed to the Cemetery of Heroes in Aquileia. In both cases, he received a funeral oration offered up by D’Annunzio. In the oration, D’Annunzio said the dying man begged the Vate for his poison capsule which he knew the poet always carried with him in battle. Three times Randaccio begged for it to take away the pain and three times D’Annunzio refused. “It was necessary for him to suffer so that his life could become sublime in the immortality of death.”
D’Annunzio also swore to the dying major that Quota 28 had fallen to the Italians in order to make Randaccio a “victor”. A winner dying in battle was “beautiful”. “I bent over his lips, O companions. And, in a breath that passes my soul like a dazzling beauty, more passionate than any cry, he said, Long live Italy! Such was the death of the victorious.” His oration impressed the Duke of Aosta so much he distributed the speech throughout the Third Army as an example of true heroism.
The only one who really benefited from the fiasco on the Timavo was D’Annunzio. As a propagandist, Randaccio served him as a perfect hero. The myth of the hero became legend. D’Annunzio later used the flag upon which Randaccio’s head laid to serve further propagandistic purposes when he strode into Fiume after the war to declare his Republic of Carinola.
AFTER BATTLE
Two more battles along the Isonzo would follow. The Italians moved no further forward in this area of the front. Following the disastrous defeat at the end of October 1917, the Third Army – “undefeated” – was forced to retreat over 100 miles to the west. The retreat proved to be short-lived, though, as Austria-Hungary finally fell apart in the fall of 1918. Austria’s Littoral province – including the Timavo and the city of Trieste – became Italian.
Giovanni Randaccio was awarded the gold medal for bravery in this, his final effort. D’Annunzio gained another silver medal for his part. A monument to Randaccio was erected just after the war. Originally, it stood placed alongside the Timavo where the young man fell mortally wounded. That monument later moved next to the State Highway. Erected today next to where the wolves’ statue and memorial stands in memory of the men of the Tuscan Brigade.
D’Annunzio played a major role in setting the stage for Mussolini. He served as a role model in stagecraft with Roman salutes, Italian war cry’s, soldiers in blackshirts, messianic oratory and the ability to mold public opinion through various modes. He lies buried at his home – now the museum Il Vittoriale degli Italiani (The Shrine of the Italian People’s Victories) – in Gardone Riviera on Lake Garda. In keeping with his status as Vate of Italy, the complex is a national monument.
