[(Mussolini's Death March: Eyewitness Accounts of Italian Soldiers on the Eastern Front)] [Author: Nuto Revelli] published on (May, 2013) Hardcover – 30 May 2013

It is a sad fact that in the English-language literature on World War II there is very little on the Italian Army, despite the fact that the Italians were one of the major participants in the war and fought on many fronts. Typically, when they appear it is only as hapless adjuncts to Rommel's Afrika Korps. Books like Mario Cervi's Hollow Legions (which examines the Italian Army in Greece) are extremely few and far between.One of the most fascinating and, in a sense, tragic campaigns of the Italian Army in World War II was its participation on the Eastern Front from 1941-1943. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Mussolini hastened to send an expeditionary force (essentially a corps-sized force, dubbed CSIR). Later, he expanded it with more units (after which it was dubbed The Italian Army in Russia, or ARMIR). Finally, he sent the Alpini Corps, three of Italy's elite mountain divisions, to the Eastern Front. Originally intended for the Caucasus, they ended up on the steppes of Russia in August 1941 along with the rest of the ARMIR, just as the Germans were beginning the battle for Stalingrad. For several months, the Italians held a line on the Don River while the German 6th Army to the south fought for Stalingrad. In November 1942, the Soviet Stalingrad counteroffensive smashed the two Romanian armies flanking the 6th Army and encircled that force, causing a disaster of epic proportions for the Axis.In December 1942, while the Germans were still trying to rescue the Stalingrad garrison, the Soviets struck again, this time against the ARMIR (also known as the Italian 8th Army). After much hard fighting, the Soviets broke through the Italian lines and encircled part of the Italian 8th Army. Not long after, they broke through the Hungarian 2nd Army to the north of the Italian line (held by the Alpini Corps) and created a large, loose pocket of Italians, Hungarians, Germans, and Romanians.The Italians, unlike the Germans at Stalingrad, tried to break out in December 1942 (for the southern forces) and January 1943 (for the Alpini Corps), beginning one of the most tragic episodes in Italian military history. Surrounded, with few weapons (most heavy weapons had to be abandoned for lack of fuel), little food or supplies, and in the most brutal winter weather imaginable, many tens of thousands of Italians (and assorted other Axis forces caught up with them) attempted to reach the safety of German lines (such as they were). Severe frostbite became the norm. This was the "Chosin" for the Italian Army. Soviet obstacles had to be taken or bypassed, or men were doomed. Often, merely to sleep or to rest was to doom one to death or capture (which turned out to be nearly as deadly).For the Alpini, the retreat was especially frustrating, as they had not themselves been broken through. Their Italian neighbors to the south and the Hungarians to the north had collapsed, putting the Alpini Corps in an untenable position. One Alpini division, the Julia Division, had been redeployed on the flank, after the Soviet breakthrough to the South, and was badly mangled. Its remnants joined the other two divisions, the Tridentina and the Cuneense Divisions after the order to retreat was given in mid-January. The Tridentina led the breakout attempt, and was involved in most of the hard fighting to clear a way for the rest of the retreating forces. It suffered severe casualties for this but in the end was actually the only division caught in the pocket to make it out still in fighting order.The Cuneense, the rearward unit in the column, was not so lucky. It suffered the most from the Soviet forces following them, from air attacks, from raiding Soviet armored units, and from partisans. Much of the division soon became disorganized and unable to fight. Eventually, a wrong turn doomed the division, leading it into a trap; the division was broken into pieces and died on the steppe. Very few people from the Cuneense escaped; most were killed or captured, and many of those captured died soon after.I apologize for this lengthy description, but most English-speaking readers will be unaware of any of these details and it is important in order to contextualize this book. Prior to this book, there has been virtually nothing printed in English on this subject--an amazing and sad fact. There's not a single history in English of the Italian Army in the Soviet Union, much less its defeat on the Don. There are three books in English (prior to this one) that readers can (and should) obtain. Two of them are translated Italian memoirs. Eugenio Corti's Few Returned is the memoir of an Italian junior officer who served in the Torino Division. Mario Rigoni Stern's The Sergeant in the Snow is the memoir of an enlisted man who fought with the Alpini Tridentina Division. Then there is Hope Hamilton's Sacrifice on the Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942-1943, which concentrates on retreat and subsequent experiences of the Alpini. Hamilton, not a military historian, nevertheless deserves credit for attempting that book. All three are worth getting.So too is this book, Nuto Revelli's Mussolini's Death March: Eyewitness Accounts of the Italian Soldiers on the Eastern Front, published by University Press of Kansas. This is not a new book; it was published half a century ago in Italy and has only now been translated into English. That's half a century too late, but kudos at least to the University Press of Kansas, and let's hope they decide to translate more of the considerable Italian-language literature on the war into English. John Penuel was the translator and editor and did a good job.Revelli's book consists of 40-odd interviews with veterans of the Italians' disaster on the Don. Overwhelmingly, they are interviews with survivors from the Cuneense Division, so their accounts reflect the particularly disastrous history of that division's end. The book is divided into three sections. The first, smallest section consists of miscellaneous non-Cuneense interviews. The second, largest section consists of interviews with Cuneense soldiers who were captured by the Soviets. The bulk of all of these interviews then consists of accounts of Soviet captivity (which lasted until 1946 or 1947, depending on the individual). The final section consists of interviews with Cuneense soldiers who "safely" made it out of the pocket.The book is utterly fascinating to read. First, it gives accounts of the experiences of Italian soldiers (overwhelmingly enlisted men; only a couple of officers are interviews), who simply don't have a voice in the English literature of World War II. Second, though by its nature the book is repetitive (as many of the Cuneense soldiers experienced the same things), the repetition itself serves as a sort of fact-checking that many memoirs cannot benefit from. If one person, long after the fact, says that he experienced a certain thing, it may or may not be true. If many different people, interviewed separately, report experiencing that same thing, one can be more certain that it actually occurred. Third, the interviews give the reader an understanding of the extremely harrowing nature of their experiences on the Don and show how much misery there was. Fourth, the interviews (or more than half of them, anyway), give valuable insight into the experiences of being a prisoner of the Soviets.Several things will stand out. The first is how uneducated these young men were. Because Revelli asks them about their education, we learn that the vast majority of these soldiers--in an elite division, no less--had at most a 4th or 5th grade education. Another thing that stands out is the low morale that the soldiers of this elite division had by 1942. Many of them had already had miserable experiences in France in 1940 or Albania in 1940-41 and had no desire to go to the Soviet Union. Then, when they were diverted from the Caucasus (which had mountains, for which they were trained and equipped) to the flat steppes of the Don, their morale plummet even more.One experience that almost all of them remarked upon was passing through Poland and seeing how badly the Germans mistreated Jews (and also Poles). The German treatment of Jews working at the railway station was something that clearly caught the attention of the young Italian soldiers (who would have no idea that virtually all of those Jews would very soon be exterminated). In general, the Italians had low opinions of the Germans, though a higher opinion of their fighting abilities. Another experience that was frequently remarked upon was their generally good relations with the Soviet people.Several aspects of the retreat also really stand out. The first is that these soldiers engaged in very little actual fighting. Much of this is due to situational reasons. The Cuneense, unlike the Tridentina, was not in the vanguard of the column, so it had less experience with conventional combat during the retreat. Then, too, it eventually began to disintegrate. And by their very nature, the survivors giving the interviews were in a sense pre-selected to not have been involved in heavy fighting. Because the majority of the interviews are from people who were captured by the Soviets, they were more likely to have been captured early on, or to have been separated from the main column and captured, or to have been involved in other situations leading to their capture that would not have entailed combat.The second aspect of the retreat which stands out and which impressed me the most, was how much Soviet citizens helped the Italians, both before and after their capture. This was quite surprising to me. Almost all of the survivors had nice things to say about the citizens and could provide examples of them giving food, shelter, or other assistance to the desperate Italians, sometimes even at great risk to themselves. In some cases, the citizens sheltered Italians for days, weeks, or even months (including one commissar!). The citizens did not treat the Germans the same way (nor did Soviet soldiers).The portions of the interviews that deal with Soviet captivity are also fascinating. The first thing that stands out is how deadly captivity was at first. Almost all of the Italian soldiers who were captured were captured in very poor condition to begin with, suffering at least from severe frostbite and also from other conditions ranging from wounds to dysentery to, eventually deadly typhus. The result was a very high death rate. The high death rate continued as the Soviets collected them into makeshift camps, then shipped them (in bad conditions) in trains to camps in Siberia or Central Asia (or, very rarely, elsewhere). The death rate continued to be high in the camps at first, especially as some of them were located in unhealthy locations (some had to be evacuated and shut down because the death rate was so high). Thus, the Italian prisoners suffered a very high death rate, but this was greatly concentrated at the beginning of their experience in captivity.The second thing that stands out is the Soviet treatment. The most dangerous period of treatment was right after capture and depended greatly on circumstances. Italians captured by partisans tended to be in more danger than those captured by soldiers, for example. Italian officers or those thought to be fascists had more of a chance of being shot outright. After that, however, treatment was typically much better--though human nature seems to dictate that brutality will exist in all captors. For people who are knowledgeable about German (or, for that matter, Japanese) treatment of prisoners--whether Jews, Soviet soldiers, foreign slave labor, or others, the accounts in this book will provide a fascinating series of contrasts and comparisons. The thing that struck me the most about Soviet captivity as opposed to German or Japanese captivity was how much the Soviets actually tried to provide medical care for the prisoners. This was a serious difference, both in the amount and nature of care. Soviet doctors, many of them women, were responsible for the survival of many of the interviewees. Moreover, again unlike the Germans and Japanese, there was no attempt to work prisoners to death and people who required medical attention were given more food, not less (typically).The prisoners were made to work and, while the work was hard, it was typically equivalent to the work that civilians living in the area would also be doing; i.e., the work was not intended to be punishing (or to kill people), it was simply meant to be work. People who would work were often given extra rations.There were many other fascinating things about the captivity, but this review has already gone long enough; discover them yourselves by purchasing this book. It should be read by anybody interested in World War II.It would be nice to think that this book will be only the first of a series of translations of the copious Italian war literature, but let's be realistic. This is a rare item and will probably remain so. Because of this, it is all the more important that you read it.

World War II's war on the Eastern Front between Germany and the Soviet Union was a war of previously unimaginable destruction and violence. Thrust into this maelstrom of death were several Italian Alpine ("Alpini") divisions--troops trained for fighting in mountainous terrain. Made up of thousands of ordinary Italians, many of whom were barely educated and lacked any motivation to fight, the Alpini were placed in static defenses along the River Don instead of fighting in the Caucasus Mountains as originally planned. Poorly equipped, poorly trained and with poor morale, these troops were quickly, and in most cases, easily overrun by Soviet troops during the reduction of the Stalingrad pocket. Those who were captured were then subjected to terrible hardships as they entered Soviet captivity, resulting in the deaths of around 75% of the Italian prisoners. When the war ended and the Italian prisoners were repatriated back to Italy, they found a country which didn't seem to care about them and barely helped them at all.The author, Nuto Revelli, served in the Alpini on the Eastern Front and was one of the fortunate few who made it back to Italy safely. Based on interviews with over 40 former Alpino soldiers, the book is broken into two parts. The first part contains the stories of those who were captured by the Soviets and went into captivity. Many of the stories tend to sound similar as the interviewees were often from similar regions in Italy and served in the same unit. Freezing cold, terrible hunger, horrible infestations of vermin and bouts of deadly diseases became the norm for those who entered Soviet captivity. However, compared to their German allies, their treatment was as a whole much less severe. The Soviets, especially the regular citizens, treated the Italians with much more kindness and certainly less of the boiling hatred reserved for the Germans. Almost every story mentions the kindness of ordinary peasants helping out with food, shelter or some other form of aid.The second part of the book is filled with stories/interviews of Alpino who fought in Russia, but managed to escape captivity and return to Italy. Unfortunately for many of them, further hardships were in store as Italy surrendered to the Allies and Germany took over control of the country. Several of the interviewees ended up as prisoners of the Germans, while others became partisans against the Germans.Overall, this is a very interesting book on the Italian experience in Russia, as well as having bits on the fighting with France and Greece. There's not much actual combat, and the individual stories vary in length from a few to several pages in length. While the stories are mostly filled with the horrible experiences these men went through, there are a few which go against the norm and prove that strange things really do happen in wartime.

Horrible to imagine what these poor troops went through on the eastern front.The writing was a little jumpy and erratic and hard to understand at times but the story was understood.

For history buffs. Interesting read.

It's not the best translation, but there are so few English translations of the iconic Piemontese author's works available, I didn't mind.