Front cover of La Domenica del Corriere of August 22–29, 1915, an illustrated weekly supplement to Corriere della Sera, published in Milan, Italy. The front and back covers are full-page illustrations by the great Italian illustrator Achille Beltrame. The front cover is an illustration of contemporary trench warfare, with soldiers throwing both ball and stick grenades to turn back an enemy attack. The back cover is an illustration of Italian author, pilot, soldier, and self-promoter Gabriele d'Annunzio dropping streamers in the colors of the Italian flag and bearing patriotic massages over the city of Trieste, Austria-Hungary.
Guerra modernissima: i nostri lanciano granate a mano nelle trincee nemiche distanti pochi metri.Ultimate modern war: our hand grenades are thrown into enemy trenches a few meters away.(Disegno de A. Beltrame).
". . . He was drinking and seemed to be in good humour. He knew of the preparations that were being made for the next attack, and I told him of the arrangements made by our battalion commander.'I know,' he said; 'now it's my turn to go first over the top. One by one we all get killed.''This time we shall have artillery support,' I said, to cheer him up.'We shall have the enemy's artillery against us,' he retorted,' and there are barbed-wire entanglements everywhere. . . . There's no point at all in my studying the ground. What does it matter whether we attack to the right or the left? It's all the same to me whether I die in one place or another. Still, since it's the battalion commander's wish, come along.'"
Excerpt from an episode during the Asiago Offensive on July 16, 1916, from Emilio Lussu's account of his service on the Asiago front as part of the Sardinian Sassari Brigade. In preparation for an attack the next day, Lussu was ordered to take a Captain of the 9th Company along the front, to show him the Austro-Hungarian position. When Lussu takes the Captain to loophole number 14, the one with the best view of the enemy line, the two are told the loophole is closed because it is too dangerous to use: snipers have a fixed rifle trained on it. Drunk, fatalistic if not suicidal, the Captain pushes aside the stone and within seconds is shot in his face. Some of his men think he preferred 'a bullet through his head' to leading 'his men to the slaughter like a lot of cattle.'
Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lussu, pp. 106-107, copyright © 1939 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publisher: Knopf, publication date: 1939
1916-07-16, 1916, July, Lussu, Asiago Offensive, Italian army, Italian soldier, Italian trench
