Artiplast Ansaldo SVA-5 model box and kit. The cover illustration is of two Ansaldo S.V.A.s from the Venetian La Serenissima squadron flown in the August 9, 1918 Flight over Vienna led by Gabriele D'Annunzio.
Ansaldo SVA-5ArtiplastRalli
"In the meanwhile, the picturesque, impulsive Major Gabriele D'Annunzio had directed an aeroplane raid upon Vienna on August 9, 1918 . . . In this beau geste, which blossomed into something of a legend, eight Italian planes—one machine dropped out because of engine trouble—scattered thousands of pamphlets reading, in D'Annunzio's gaudy prose, 'People of Vienna . . . the whole world has turned against you. . . . To continue the war is suicide for you. . . . A decisive victory is like bread from the Ukraine; one dies while waiting for it.' The Viennese were reminded that annihilating bombs, instead of leaflets, might have been unloosed. Under pain of drastic penalties if they neglected to do so, citizens were ordered to turn over the pamphlets to public authorities; the aerial visitation aggravated the unbearable war weariness along the 'blue' Danube."
Gabriele D'Annunzio was a major Italian writer who had strongly advocated for Italy's entry into the war. He had previously dropped streamers in the colors of the Italian flag and bearing patriotic massages over Trieste, Austria-Hungary, a city with a large ethnic Italian population. He commanded the Ansaldo SVA-5s of the Venetian La Serenissima Squadron in the Flight over Vienna, a round trip of over 1,200 km. In his Letters, Anglo-American writer Henry James refers to D'Annunzio as 'that particular rotten little skunk' while admiring one of his recent poems. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed between Russia and the Central Powers in March, 1918 was expected to free up grain from Ukraine. The initial phrase, 'in the meanwhile', is a reference to the devastation visited upon the German army on the previous day in the Battle of Amiens.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, page 720, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
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