Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Great War and Italy, 12 Nov 2008
I fully agree with what the other reviewers have said about this book, which is a marvellous overview of the Italian front during 1915-18. Not only a military history - though it is that, of course, but also a political and cultural history. And not only of the Italian experience, even though that is the main focus, but also of "the other side", the multi-national Habsburg empire. The outnumbered Austrian army (with bosnians and croats strongly represented here) fought well on the Italian front, in contrast with other theatres.
The author gives a balanced, beautifully written, exciting and very moving account of this not-so-known part of the Great War: how Italy tumbled into it 1915, the desperate and futile fighting along the Isonzo, the debacle of Caporetto, the recovery and the peace settlement eventually leading to the establishment of fascism. The author is very much inside his material, and the book has a very strong sense both of time and of place. At times it reminded me of Alistair Horne or John Keegan. Strongly recommended, and not only to military history buffs!
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating history of a forgotten front, 10 Oct 2008
For those of you who have read Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, you would be aware that the a war was fought on the Italian Front during the Great War. However, because so much is written about the Western Front, Gallipoli and even the Eastern Front, it is easy to forget this part of the war. Thompson, however, has brought together a book which seeks to redress this balance - and in my opinion it does so beautifully.
Unlike many dry history books, Thompson paints a picture of suffering, confusion and unbelievable bravery from a front which claimed millions of lives over the course of the War. Many of us know how the advent of technology brought about countless deaths on the Western Front, but countless more were lost on the Italian front due to the adherence to out of date tactics and ideas, and a futile attempt to gain land towards which many of the soliders fighting felt very little.
The book doesn't just provide names and dates. It also explores the politics, poetry and society which emerged out of the fray. It is easy to read, well researched and engaging without alienating the reader in any way. For a comprehensive understanding of an under represented period of history, you couldn't do much better.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
spade, one, entrenching for the use of, 15 Jan 2009
Can anyone else remember the story of the drummer boy? His company was engulfed by an avalanche below a mountain pass, deliberately set off by enemy artillery. Only the little drummer survived, far below. Over days he drummed, ever more faintly, until...
Until I read this book, this touching tale was about the total of my knowledge of the Austrian / Italian front in WW1. Since Thompson does not recount it, I reluctantly conclude that the tale is too sentimental to be true.
Thompson retells everything else, from the Italian perspective. And there are plenty of myths to go round. Italy cynically exploited a geographical (not ethnic, not linguistic) irridentism to push its territorial claims, and auctioned itself to the highest bidder, the allies. Thompson is very good on the creeps charlatans and grotesques that fuelled the nationalistic fervour.
The mountain warfare (which initially piqued my interest) was regarded as a strategic sideshow by both sides. (indeed it seems that the whole italian campaign was so regarded in Vienna.) Instead, hostilities concentrated on the Isonzo on the way to Trieste. Here the war played out in a similar futile series of massacres as the western front. The difference was that close beneath the soil lay solid rock, making entrenchment nigh impossible until the arrival of rock drills. Still, the machine gun reigned supreme as a defensive tool and the casualty rate was as bad or worse as any other theatre.
With grim irony, Generalissimo Cardorna's obtuse tactics on the Isonzo so weakened his army that in the last stages of the war Austria scored a decisive victory and the Italian front collapsed. Austria was by this time too weak to exploit the victory, and armisitice followed the German collapse in the west. Italy got Trieste, but not Istria and not Albania. It also got a national sob story, a sense of burning self-righteousness, a demographic catastrophe, and fascism.
The Austrian imperial archives are now published on line, it seems. A pity that Thompson could not make more use of them, because the balance of the story is over weighted to the Italian perspective. This quibble aside, I doubt I shall read a better history book this year. Buy it.
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