The poppy thread

[Alain Maréchal]

Good for you! The 4th November used to be a holiday here but then they abolished it, and now it's just 'Armed Forces Day'.

What is (or was) commemorated on November 4 in Italy?

Addendum: apologies for insufficient research: it had not occured to me that Italy's Armistice date was 4th not 11th. My knowledge of Italy's involvement in WWI was incomplete (and still is - to be rectified.)

[Radio64]

What is (or was) commemorated on November 4 in Italy?

Addendum: apologies for insufficient research: it had not occured to me that Italy's Armistice date was 4th not 11th. My knowledge of Italy's involvement in WWI was incomplete.

No problem! Yes it was the date of the signing of the armistice with the Austro-Hungarian empire...or what was left of it.

[vinteuil]

. My knowledge of Italy's involvement in WWI was incomplete (and still is - to be rectified.)

... I think most of us are terribly ignorant when it comes to Italy's involvement in the Great War, which included some really wretched suffering, equivalent to our Flanders.

Kipling wrote interestingly about it, tho' his writings are not as far as I know easily available in print.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_mountains_intro.htm

[jean]

When I lived in the Veneto you could not be unaware of the heriosm and terrible battles in the foothills of the Dolomites. Many of the paths we used to walk on and the viae ferratae were made by the Alpini when they were fighting there.

Here is the vast war memorial on the top of Monte Grrappa:

http://www.venetohills.com/immagini/...grappa_big.jpg

Gabriele D'Annunzio has a lot to answer for.

[jean]

.Kipling wrote interestingly about it, tho' his writings are not as far as I know easily available in print.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_mountains_intro.htm

I knew nothing about that!

There was a book that came out not long ago - I wish I could remember its title -I remember particularly reading in the reviews of the brutality of General Cadorna to his men.

[Edit: I think this is the book I'm thinking of - I must get hold of it before I forget it again.]

[vinteuil]

... here is a useful website for Italian battles in the Great War.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/if.htm

Rommel cut his teeth at Caporetto...
.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Caporetto

[jean]

A better review of Mark Thompson's The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/2171436/slippery-slopes/

[vinteuil]

A better review of Mark Thompson's The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/217...ippery-slopes/

... many thanks for this. As he says -

"Imagine ... the western front — its trenches, its barbed wire, its mud, its unburied corpses — then imagine that the ground is made of limestone tilted at 40 degrees, in summer a griddle, in winter a frozen slide. The Italians attacked uphill, striving for the Alpine watershed which the nationalists considered their natural frontier. The Austrians fired down at them from impregnable ridges, or hid in the caverns that make the Carso plateau into a three-dimensional labyrinth. Here, as in Flanders, hundreds of thousands of men died to gain or retain control of a few metres of land, but here each of those metres, measured horizontally, might involve climbing ten times the distance. Nature was as deadly as hostile fire: in one day 10,000 soldiers were killed by avalanches. Responding to these appalling conditions (which Italian officers, all schooled in Dante, routinely dubbed ‘infernal’), soldiers adopted weapons which were a diabolical combination of the modern and the primitive. Men were killed by poison gas and machine-gun fire, but they were also clubbed to death with studded maces, cut to pieces by wheels with spinning blades, or shattered by boulders fired from catapults or dropped over cliffs."

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29829581

[MrGongGong]

But playing a role doesn't imply a game so much as a drama.

Well, there definitely is a "script" that we are all supposed to be following :sadface:

[Flosshilde]

Nor did your post, but I suppose that was the point.

It was my point, & more to the point, MrGG's post had no connection at all with the thread, whereas bbm's did.

[Historian]

The Thompson book 'The White War' is really excellent, I think. It explains the lead up to Italy's entry into the Great War, the reasons for the failures up to the disaster of Caporetto and then the eventual victory. However, it then concludes with an examination of the legacy of the First World War which played a major part in the rise of Italian Fascism and Mussolini. Would recommend it to anyone interested.

As a foot-note my grandfather (whom I never met) was part of the British force sent to Italy in late 1917. It is quite possible that this saved his life, bearing in mind the heavy casualties of the last year of the war on the Western Front.

[MrGongGong]

It was my point, & more to the point, MrGG's post had no connection at all with the thread, whereas bbm's did.

I thought BB's was an entry for the "non sequitur of the day" competition

The fact that my grandfather was in the merchant navy in WW1 means what ?
Most of us have relatives who were involved in these events
it would be very odd if we didn't

[Historian]

Well, there definitely is a "script" that we are all supposed to be following :sadface:

I am not sure our views on the First World War would necessarily coincide, although that's mere supposition. However, if you are implying that everyone is expected to wear a poppy or risk being criticised as not supporting 'our boys' then I would agree with you that this is a little troubling. Surely 'freedom of speech' includes the freedom to wear a poppy, a white poppy or no poppy.

[MrGongGong]

Surely 'freedom of speech' includes the freedom to wear a poppy, a white poppy or no poppy.

Quite :ok: