I Did Not Know This About Mussolini

[Spock]

To give the Devils their due.

I suspect that most here know about Hitler's long WW1 service in the trenches.

But my current read is "Isonzo" on the Italian/Austrian front in WW1 and I did not know that Mussolini saw hard service in the WW1 Isonzo battles. Not sure how long he was there yet-I am on the 3rd of 11 battles-but he has already seen some tough stuff.

[Weyoun]

Yes, you would be impressed by that.

[Spock]

Yes, you would be impressed by that.

Read into it what you will.

Another tidbit that I did not know was that steel helmets were just becoming a thing, so casualties were much heavier under shellfire than otherwise would have been the case.

And given the terrain-flying rock splinters were just as deadly as the shrapnel from the shell.

Another tidbit is that (up to where I am so far-the 3rd Battle) all the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Armies-fought well and hard against the Italians-even those that were less than reliable against the Russians (ie the Czechs).

[tlynn78]

Yes, you would be impressed by that.

Read into it what you will.

Another tidbit that I did not know was that steel helmets were just becoming a thing, so casualties were much heavier under shellfire than otherwise would have been the case.

And given the terrain-flying rock splinters were just as deadly as the shrapnel from the shell.

Another tidbit is that (up to where I am so far-the 3rd Battle) all the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Armies-fought well and hard against the Italians-even those that were less than reliable against the Russians (ie the Czechs).

More of those super scary FACTS, Spock.

[Spock]

Yes, you would be impressed by that.

Read into it what you will.

Another tidbit that I did not know was that steel helmets were just becoming a thing, so casualties were much heavier under shellfire than otherwise would have been the case.

And given the terrain-flying rock splinters were just as deadly as the shrapnel from the shell.

Another tidbit is that (up to where I am so far-the 3rd Battle) all the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Armies-fought well and hard against the Italians-even those that were less than reliable against the Russians (ie the Czechs).

More of those super scary FACTS, Spock.

Another one.

The Italian commander brought back the Roman punishment of decimation and when units failed, they would be lined up and every tenth man would be executed.

There were few good places to serve in WW1, but as I read-I am thinking that being an Italian infantryman on the Isonzo would have to be the worst of all. Holy crap-it sucked for them.

Re-Mussolini

We live in a time when Hitler (especially) and Mussolini are just cartoon supervillains totally removed from the context of their times.

Learning that Mussolini caught typhus because he was on the Isonzo front with the rest of his generation makes him human and puts his life in context.

Mussolini update.

After fighting in the 3rd Battle, he caught Typhus and missed the 4th Battle because he was recuperating.

Prior to that, he had been offered a desk job-but turned it down because "He had come to the Isonzo to fight."

He also wanted to become an officer, but the Italian TPTB put the kibosh on that because of his radical past.

[silverscreenselect]

Learning that Mussolini caught typhus because he was on the Isonzo front with the rest of his generation makes him human and puts his life in context.

And Hitler was wounded in World War I as well. I guess that puts his life in context too.

The Italian commander brought back the Roman punishment of decimation and when units failed, they would be lined up and every tenth man would be executed.

If Mussolini had adopted this same form of punishment, the Italian army would have run out of soldiers and bullets before the end of 1941.

[Bob Juch]

You'll be able to fight in the battles of Isonzo in a couple of months: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo/

[ne1410s]

So Spock is saying there were good people on both sides…

[BackInTex]

So Spock is saying there were good people on both sides…

Not even close. More like even evil people are on the good side sometime. Or maybe evil people weren’t always evil. But not even close to what you said.

[Spock]

Hit another horror of the Isonzo Front.

In addition to your basic WW1 trench warfare horrors, now we have avalanches.

Hundreds of men on both sides died from avalanches in the winter of 1915-1916.

It should go without saying that I am not defending or honoring Mussolini or whatever, but apparently we are children here and I have to say that I do not consider Mussolini to be a good guy and he was a horrible WW2 leader.

Having said that-I am fascinated by these glimpses of a Mussolini that I have never seen before-For the children here-It is called learning something.

Mussolini Update.

He rejoined the troops in the mountain snows in February, 2016.

As the book says
>>>"The educated journalist felt a strong bond with the soldiers in his unit, most of them uneducated peasants."

Maybe everybody else here knew it, but I simply never knew that Mussolini had a bond with the peasantry that was forged in blood and battle. Maybe that partially explains why he was able to remain in power so long.

Once again, for the children, it is called learning something. It doesn't mean that I think Mussolini was a good guy.

[Spock]

The Italian military leadership in WW1 had to be the worst of all countries in that war (and that is obviously saying something) and they treated their soldiers like absolute dog crap.

In the 11 Isonzo battles-they really never progressed beyond using human wave tactics against the Austrian fortifications-to gain a 100 feet or so.

Oddly enough, maybe the most heart-breaking part is that in at least 2 of the battles when they had the Austrians on the ropes and a major breakthrough was in the offing-they wimped out and consolidated their gains and lost the chance.

After hundreds of thousands of casualties to achieve a breakthrough-they threw away the opportunities that were bought in blood.

>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mussolini update.

Things took an odd and a bad turn (but not bad enough).

He was away from the front for a lot of 1916, because of training and leave and when he returned the other enlisted men in his unit hated him because they blamed him for the war.

I don't know enough about Mussolini's early life to know if that was a specific hatred because of something he had done-or if they just hated educated men as a general rule.

Anyway, he was severely injured in a trench mortar explosion (their own) that killed several men and wounded many others. This ended his war. He probably should have died as other men in the unit hated him so much that they didn't want to help save him.

Anyway, being injured most likely saved his life as he missed out on the next big Isonzo battles. I am not sure of the timeline when he was injured.