Photograph of four First World War Italian soldiers. The one on the far right wears a monocle.
". . . the regime did not crush all disobedience. Violent misbehavior by troops going to and from the front became so widespread in summer 1917 — firing on carabinieri in the railway stations, shooting out of the windows, hurling stones and bottles — that the men's rifles had to be taken away for the duration of the journeys. And this was at the apex of Cadorna's terror."
Mutinous behavior and incidents were not confined to the French and post-revolutionary Russian armies in the spring and summer of 1917, but affected the Italian army as well. The proportions of disciplined and executed soldiers was much higher in the Italian than the British and French armies, and summary execution after random selection of representatives of a rebellious unit was more common. Nor could Italian soldiers appeal to civilian authorities. It is hard not to conclude that Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna was both brutal and incompetent, as were many of his generals.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 275, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
1917-07-05, 1917, July, mutiny, Italian mutinies, Cadorna, Luigi Cadorna, Italian soldiers
