The White War
Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919
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The brutal and tragic story of the First World War’s oft-overlooked Italian Front
“A fascinating, indeed brilliant, portrait of a society immolated by its own delusions.” —Max Hastings, New York Review of Books
Named a Book of the Year by Economist • Sunday Times • Sunday Telegraph • Observer • New Statesman • Evening Standard • Scotsman • Irish Times • Guardian • Times Literary Supplement
In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire, hoping to seize its “lost” territories of Trieste and Tyrol. The result was one of the most hopeless and senseless wars of modern times. Nearly 700,000 Italians and perhaps half as many Austro-Hungarian troops were killed, plunging Italy into chaos and, eventually, fascism.
With great skill and pathos, Mark Thompson tells the story of the nationalist frenzy that preceded the conflict, the haunting landscapes and political intrigues that surrounded it, and the outsize personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers who were drawn into the hear of chaos. A work of epic scale, The White War reveals the remarkable untold story of the First World War’s Italian Front.
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Independent scholar Thompson (Forging War) is familiar with a burgeoning Italian literature on the Great War's military aspects. He utilizes that material to construct and convey, better than any English-language account, the essence of three years of desperate struggle for the Isonzo River sector in northeastern Italy. Thompson distinguishes elegantly among the 12 battles for this nearly impassable ground, although the book is best understood as an extended essay on the causes, nature and purpose of Italy's involvement. Thompson presents Italy's war as a test of the vitalist spirit (best expressed in futurism) to demonstrate that the country was more than a middle-class illusion. In consequence, Thompson shows, strategic, diplomatic and political vacuums were too often filled with leaders' rhetoric and mythology. Too many generals, like Luigi Cadorna and Luigi Capello, were case studies in arrogant incompetence. In that environment, the less ordinary soldiers knew about causes and purposes, the better. When they failed in their mission, the draconian responses included summary execution. Prisoners of war were treated as cowards. The war, says Thompson, stands as Italy's first "collective national experience" and illustrates the poisonous nature of European nationalism. Photos, maps.
