In covering the countryside of France in the region where elements of the American Expeditionary Force took part in the Second Battle of the Marne on a corps level, I ran across two Italian military cemeteries. Certainly, the appearance of these cemeteries came as a surprise to me. The story of how the Italians got here and their battles do not show up in many histories of the war. So, here is a quick rundown of Italy in France.
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Ravelnik and Čelo are two open-air museums allowing visitors a chance to visit spaces where soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army defended the Bovec basin from invading Italian troops from the end of May 1915 until the end of October 1917. The two sites restored by locals and the Slovene government are different in what they offer as well as their original purpose with regard to their roles in holding off the Italians.
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Stuck away on the east side of multiple train tracks at the train station in Trieste is a small monument. It stands forlornly nest to a like sized monument dedicated to rail workers who died in World War 2. The monument in question reads: “In riccordo di cittadini del littoral Austriaco partiti da questi binary nell’agosta del 1914 per lontani cmapi di battaglia” – “In memory of citizens of the Austrian Littoral who left from these tracks in August 1914 for battlefields far away.” The sign is fixed on a large stone on which also is placed, a cap design for the Imperial and Royal – Kaiserliche und Königliche (K. und K.) – Infantry Regiment 97. The K. und K. Infantrie Regiment 97 entrained from here to the battlefields of Galicia from which many of the men, locals from Trieste and the surrounding region, would never return.
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World War One – La Grande Guerra in Italian – destroyed four of the great ruling houses of Europe. The House of Savoy was not one of them. That would take another war. The House of Savoy is one of the older families of Europe making it into the rarefied heights of ascendant nobility. Like most of these families, the family history is complicated by time and politics. That history becomes confused further by looking at maps of the feudal lands over the years as they waxed and waned with time. Little bits of color interspersed with each other, seemingly with no rhyme or reason at times. So much of history tied up in abstruse, rarefied, esoteric stories understood by only a few of the most dedicated students.
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Italy remembers World War One – la Grande Guerra – a bit differently than World War Two. First off, they were on the winning side in the first war. Second, a little over a hundred thousand more Italians died during the First than the Second – 651,000 to 689,000 compared to approximately 500,000. The vast cost of the First War in treasure and men along with THE thought by Italians as unfair results of their sacrifices at the treaty tables at the war’s end ended destabilizing the nation. Enter the Blackshirts and Benito Mussolini.
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Long-distance paths have acquired quite a following in the past few decades. In the US you have ways like the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail standing as the Big Three. There are plenty of other long-distance paths to spend days upon days on, as well, such as the Arizona Trail, the Green Mountain Trail, and on and on. Of course, the American examples pale in number when compared to the Old World.
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Three euros and one hundred thirty-one winding steps leads to the observation platform atop the base of the dome of La Basilica di Superga. Only so many people are allowed to climb up at one time. For the best of times, morning. Then, the sun illuminates the snow-clad peaks of the Alps to the west and north. The city of Torino – Turin – sits far below resting on the banks of the Po River. It is a magical scene, one allowing for reflection on the utter beauty, natural and urban. The Basilica also represents the tie between an adopted city and the family that adopted it, the House of Savoy.
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Monte San Michele. Welcome to one of the battlefields upon where so many Italians, as well as their opponents from Austria-Hungary, spilled blood during the 1915 to 1916. These campaigns fought in the harsh limestone hills just east off the Isonzo River. The extreme efforts of that long year and three months remembered by King Vittorio Emanuele III’s proclamation in 1922 of the hill’s inclusion as a zona sacra, a place of special memory to the Italian nation. At least three zone sacra in Italy relate to World War 1 – Pasubio and Monte Grappa are the other two. There might be more but those along with Monte San Michele are the big three.
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Rombon sits at the eastern end of the dolomitic Kanin massif. It is a serious mountain. The climb is relatively straightforward, but it entails 1,750 meters of elevation gain over 5 ½ to 7 hours of climbing. Once you are up there, you have all of that elevation to lose. There is no water nor alpine huts up here. The mountain rises to 2298 meters while Bovec, the normal starting point, sits at a mere 460 meters. For over two years, Italians and soldiers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire grappled with each other amidst the alpine splendor. The fighting conducted sporadically, but when fought, bitterly.
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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.
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