Baldrick62
03-10-2012, 13:34
Submit a Book ReviewBook Title:
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 Author:
Mark Thompson ISBN:
978-0-571-22334-3 Category:
History Format:
Paperback Summary:
'The Italian Front in the First World War is one of Europe's untold catastrophes. In May 1915, Italy attacked the Habsburg Empire, hoping to seize its 'lost' territories of Trieste and Tyrol. The result was a particularly cruel and avoidable modern war; nearly three-quarters of a million Italians were killed as their country sank into the chaos that eventually produced fascism. Italy's liberal institutions did not recover for a quarter of a century - and some would say they never recovered. With great skill and pathos, Mark Thompson gives the definitive account of this tragedy, as well as exploring how its legacy is still being felt in Italy today.'
So reads the valedictory on the back of this 455pp book which was recommended to me by an Italian Army colleague as the most up-to-date account (2008) on a theatre which, until a holiday around Lake Garda and a walk up into the mountains to explore some of the WWI battlefields, I had only the sketchiest of understanding.
Mark Thompson does an admirable job of sweeping up the full scope of war in the Italian theatre, from the Grand Strategic level (including the post-Armistice actions in Dalmatia and the Adriatic) to the experiences of individual combatants on a battlefield far more climatically challenging than the Western Front. I had always been appalled at the thought of the 12th Battle of the Isonzo (surely after the second or third you'd realise there was a need to revisit the overall operational design), but was truly shocked at the attitudes of the Italian government regarding its soldiers; the withholding of aid to Italian prisoners because they were 'traitors', and more alarmingly the reintroduction of the Roman practice of decimation by a democracy in the 20th Century 'pour encourager les outre'! A well-written and absolutely fascinating book for anyone with an interest in southern European geo-politics in the last hundred years, and a vivid account of WWI in that part of the world.
36980
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 Author:
Mark Thompson ISBN:
978-0-571-22334-3 Category:
History Format:
Paperback Summary:
'The Italian Front in the First World War is one of Europe's untold catastrophes. In May 1915, Italy attacked the Habsburg Empire, hoping to seize its 'lost' territories of Trieste and Tyrol. The result was a particularly cruel and avoidable modern war; nearly three-quarters of a million Italians were killed as their country sank into the chaos that eventually produced fascism. Italy's liberal institutions did not recover for a quarter of a century - and some would say they never recovered. With great skill and pathos, Mark Thompson gives the definitive account of this tragedy, as well as exploring how its legacy is still being felt in Italy today.'
So reads the valedictory on the back of this 455pp book which was recommended to me by an Italian Army colleague as the most up-to-date account (2008) on a theatre which, until a holiday around Lake Garda and a walk up into the mountains to explore some of the WWI battlefields, I had only the sketchiest of understanding.
Mark Thompson does an admirable job of sweeping up the full scope of war in the Italian theatre, from the Grand Strategic level (including the post-Armistice actions in Dalmatia and the Adriatic) to the experiences of individual combatants on a battlefield far more climatically challenging than the Western Front. I had always been appalled at the thought of the 12th Battle of the Isonzo (surely after the second or third you'd realise there was a need to revisit the overall operational design), but was truly shocked at the attitudes of the Italian government regarding its soldiers; the withholding of aid to Italian prisoners because they were 'traitors', and more alarmingly the reintroduction of the Roman practice of decimation by a democracy in the 20th Century 'pour encourager les outre'! A well-written and absolutely fascinating book for anyone with an interest in southern European geo-politics in the last hundred years, and a vivid account of WWI in that part of the world.
36980