Table Of ContentThe
Last
Soldiers
of the
King
(cid:2)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS
COLUMBIA AND LONDON
The
Last
Soldiers
of the
King
Wartime Italy, –
Eugenio Corti
Translated by Manuela Arundel
Foreword by Carlo D’Este
Copyright © by
The Curators of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Corti, Eugenio, –
[Ultimi sodati del re. English]
‒
The last soldiers of the King : wartime Italy, / Eugenio Corti ; translated by
Manuela Arundel ; foreword by Carlo D’Este.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
---
ISBN (alk. paper)
‒
. Corti, Eugenio, – . . World War, —Personal narratives, Italian.
‒
. World War, —Campaigns—Italy. . Italy. Esercito. Corpo italiano di
‒
liberazione—History. . World War, —Regimental histories—Italy.
‒
. Italy—History—Allied occupation, . I. Title.
D .I .C A
.(cid:2)(cid:2)
—dc
ø
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Publication of this book has been assisted by a generous contribution
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Contents
Foreword by Carlo D’Este vii
Part One
June . The Corpo Italiano di Liberazionein Abruzzi; entrance into
Chieti.
Part Two
Flashback. The armistice of September , , in Nettuno, and the
dissolution of the army; wanderings in Lazio, Abruzzi, and Molise;
the passing of the British-German front; ‘reorganization camps’ in
Puglia; the Corpo di Liberazioneis formed.
Part Three
Summer of . The advance of the Corpocontinues in Abruzzi; the
advance in the Marches; the liberation of Macerata, and the battles
of Filottrano and the Musone; at rest in the rear zone.
Part Four
Fall and winter of –. The Corpo di Liberazionegoes south for
British reequipment; Rome , the ruins of Cassino, and Naples
; the winter in Beneventano.
Part Five
Spring of . On the front again at the ‘Gothic Line’; the battle for
Bologna and the end of the war; Milan after the liberation; the garri-
son at the Tridentine border.
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Foreword
Carlo D’Este
WITH THE PUBLICATION of Few Returned (University of Mis-
souri Press, ), Eugenio Corti, one of Italy’s most distinguished postwar
writers, was first introduced to American readers through his poignant ac-
count of his experiences as an Italian soldier on the Russian Front in the
winter of – . As a young twenty-one-year-old lieutenant of artillery
Corti was one of the , men of the Italian Eighth Army sent to Rus-
sia by Mussolini ostensibly to fight alongside his German ally, but in real-
ity to be in a position to gain a measure of the plunder from an Axis-
occupied Soviet Union. On the River Don the Italian force of , of
which Corti was a member was surrounded by the Red Army and faced an-
nihilation.
Few Returnedrecounted the appalling experience of these Italian soldiers
during their breakout from encirclement and a forced retreat from Russia.
Their near annihilation by the Red Army during the dreadful winter of
– was an experience reminiscent of the conditions encountered
during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in . Corti was one of only an
estimated , soldiers out of the force of , to survive the ordeal of
the retreat from the Don. Untold thousands were killed, and of the ,
to , Italian soldiers of the expeditionary force captured by the Red
Army, only , were later repatriated. Mussolini’s dreams of empire were
shattered and his ill-fated Eighth Army had simply ceased to exist.
By the summer of the Allies had driven Axis forces from North
Africa and with the July invasion of the island of Sicily were poised to bring
the war to mainland Italy. With the backing of senior officers of the Italian
Army, King Victor Emmanuel III acted in July to remove Mussolini from
power, then placed him under house arrest in a resort in the mountains of
the Abruzzi, where he remained until September when he was rescued at
Hitler’s orders by SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny.
The joyous celebrations after the fall of Mussolini were short-lived as
vii
Italy soon became a battleground that would be fought over for the next
twenty months, leaving most of the country devastated.
The disastrous war to which Mussolini had so willingly committed his
nation in had come full cycle. A new Italian government headed by
Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio informed Hitler that Mussolini had re-
signed voluntarily and pledged Italy would honor its commitment to Ger-
many as an ally, even as it negotiated Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The
announcement of Italy’s capitulation in early September was greeted
with unbridled fury by Hitler, who condemned it as a betrayal and swore
revenge. Henceforth Germany would treat its onetime ally as the enemy.
What had once been an uneasy partnership had turned into a state of war.
In rapid order a series of harsh reprisals were carried out. Italian Jews were
rounded up and deported to Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz, thou-
sands of Italians were taken as hostages and murdered, and a reign of ter-
ror was initiated not only throughout German-occupied Italy but also in
other occupied states in the Mediterranean. Although conditions in the
north were somewhat better, southern Italy was plunged into starvation
and deprivation every bit as brutal as that of the nations conquered by Ger-
many.
The surrender left the Italian Army virtually leaderless, and it all but dis-
integrated in the chaotic period that followed. What is less well known is
that while some elements of the Italian Army remained loyal to fascism and
continued to fight alongside their German ally, others switched sides and
aligned themselves with the Allies after the British invaded southern Italy
and the U.S. Fifth Army landed at Salerno on September , . Those
who did so were subject to immediate execution if captured by the venge-
ful Germans. As British historian Richard Lamb points out, “Hitler ordered
that all Italian troops fighting against the Germans were to be treated as
francs-tireursand shot as they surrendered, in order to minimize Italian mil-
itary co-operation with the Allies; his generals obeyed these criminal or-
ders.”1 Some of the very worst atrocities were perpetrated against Italian
soldiers captured in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the islands of the Aegean.
An estimated six hundred thousand Italian soldiers were deported in cattle
wagons to Hitler’s slave labor camps in Germany where they became fod-
der for the German war machine.
After his escape from Russia in , Eugenio Corti remained in the Ital-
ian Army and was one of those who switched sides, joining the fight along-
. Richard Lamb, War in Italy, –(New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), .
viii
side the British in the Abruzzi. The Last Soldiers of the King is Corti’s ac-
count of his experiences during the remainder of the war.
The war in Italy was the longest military campaign fought by the Allies.
From the time of the first landings in September , the war in Italy
lasted days as the Allies fought some of the bitterest battles of World
War II from Calabria to the foothills of the Alps. The cost in human mis-
ery was staggering. Allied casualties totaled , , including , killed.
German losses in Italy have never been fully affirmed but are cited as
, (including more than , dead and more than , miss-
ing, most of whom have never been accounted for). The number of dead
and homeless Italians can only be guessed.
The Last Soldiers of the Kingis one soldier’s deeply personal account that
depicts the war from the perspective of the average Italian soldier. As was
the case in Few Returned,this book focuses not on high-level strategy or the
wars of the generals, but what life was like at the sharp end of battle, and
during those times when men fought boredom as well as the enemy and at-
tempted to make sense of the chaos of war.
Corti’s book is more than yet another war memoir; it is the story of life
in wartime Italy, as reflected in his descriptions of a proud people forced to
endure death, poverty, and the virtual destruction of their nation during
the most oppressive period of Italian history.
ix
Description:In the sequel to the highly acclaimed Few Returned, Eugenio Corti, one of Italy’s most distinguished postwar writers, continues his poignant account of his experiences as an Italian soldier in the Second World War. In the earlier book, Corti, a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant of artillery, recou
