White War

The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet, a million and half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. This is a great, tragic military history of a war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts that Mark Thompson, with great skill and empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.

ISBN 0571223338   Pages 464 ISBN13 9780571223336 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 770 Publisher Faber and Faber   Published in London Imprint Faber and Faber   Height (mm) 241 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 161 Publication date 04 Sep 2008   Spine width (mm) 40 DEWEY 940.4145   Academic level General, Professional / Scholarly, Tertiary education DEWEY edition DC22

		List of Illustrations
		List of Maps
Introduction		'Italians! Go back!'		1
1		A Mania for Expansion		7
2		'We Two Alone'		18
3		Free Spirits		39
4		Cadorna's Clenched Fist		52
5		The Solemn Hour Strikes		61
6		A Gift from Heaven		76
7		Walls of Iron, Clouds of Fire		87
8		Trento and Trieste!		95
9		From Position to Attrition		106
10		The Dreaming Barbarian		114
11		Walking Shapes of Mud		114
12		Year Zero		136
13		A Necessary Holocaust?		148
14		The Return Blow		159
15		Victory's Peak		169
16		Starlight from Violence		178
17		Whiteness		193
18		Forging Victory		207
19		Not Dying for the Fatherland		217
20		The Gospel of Energy		226
21		Into a Cauldron		240
22		Mystical Sadism		261
23		Another Second of Life		277
24		The Traitor of Carzano		284
25		Caporetto: The Flashing Sword of Vengeance		294
26		Resurrection		328
		More...

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