by Pete Ayrton
We were stuck there, immobile, unable to decide whether to advance farther or stay put, when there seemed to be some movement in the enemy trenches, off to our left. There were no trees in front of that part of the trench so what we were seeing couldn’t have been an optical illusion. Anyway, we realized that we were in a spot from where we could see into the enemy trench, right down the line. We couldn’t do that from any other point. I decided to stay there all night so we would be able to observe the enemy trench coming to life at the first light of dawn. Whether the little cannon fired or not didn’t matter anymore. What was essential was maintaining that unhoped-for observation point.
The bush and the rising terrain masked our presence and protected us so well that I decided to connect them directly to our line and make them into a permanent, hidden observation point. I sent the corporal back and had him bring back a sergeant in the pioneers, whom I instructed on how to do the work. In just a few hours, a communications passage had been dug between our trench and the bush. The noise of the work was covered by the noise of the shots going off up and down our line. The passageway wasn’t deep, but it was possible for a man to crawl through it, and stay covered, even during the day. The dirt from the digging was carried back into the trench, and there were no visible signs of the excavation. Small, freshly cut tree branches and bushes completed the disguise.
Hunched behind the bush, the corporal and I lay in wait all through the night without managing to make out any signs of life in the enemy trench. But dawn made our wait worthwhile. First came the vague movement of some shadows in the passageways, then, inside the trench, some soldiers appeared carrying pots. This had to be the coffee detail. The soldiers passed by, one or two at a time, without bending their heads, sure as they were that they couldn’t be seen, that the trenches and the lateral crossways protected them from observation and from possible raking gunfire from our line. I’d never seen anything like it before. The Austrians were right there, up close, almost at arm’s length, calm and unawares, like so many passersby on a city sidewalk. A strange feeling came over me. Not wanting to talk, I squeezed the arm of the corporal, who was on my right, to communicate my amazement to him. He, too, was intent and surprised, and I could feel the trembling that came over him from holding his breath for so long. An unknown life was suddenly showing itself to our eyes. Those indomitable trenches, against which we had launched so many futile attacks, had nevertheless ended up seeming inanimate, like dismal empty structures, uninhabited by living beings, a refuge for mysterious and terrible ghosts. Now they were showing themselves to us, in their actual lived life. The enemy, the enemy, the Austrians, the Austrians!… There is the enemy and there are the Austrians. Men and soldiers like us, made like us, in uniform like us, who were now moving, talking, making themselves coffee, exactly as, at the same time, our comrades were doing behind us. Strange. Nothing like that had ever crossed my mind. Now they were making themselves coffee. Bizarre! So why shouldn’t they be making themselves coffee? Why in the world did it seem so extraordinary to me that they should make themselves coffee? And, around ten or eleven, they would have their rations, exactly like us. Did I think perhaps that the enemy could live without drinking and eating? Of course not. So what was the reason for my surprise?
They were so close to us that we could count them, one by one. In the trench, between two crossways, there was a little round space where somebody, every now and again, stopped for a minute. You could tell they were talking, but the sound of their voices didn’t reach us. That space must have been in front of a shelter that was bigger than the others, because there was more movement around it. The movement stopped when an officer arrived. You could tell he was an officer from the way he was dressed. He had shoes and gaiters made of yellow leather and his uniform looked brand new. Probably he had just arrived a few days ago, maybe fresh out of a military academy. He was very young and his blond hair made him look even younger. He couldn’t have been any more than seventeen. Upon his arrival, the soldiers all scattered and there was nobody left in the round space but him. The coffee distribution was about to begin. All I could see was the officer.
I had been in the war since it began. Fighting in a war for years means acquiring the habits and the mind-set of war. This big-game hunting of men by men was not much different from the other big-game hunting. I did not see a man there. All I saw was the enemy. After so much waiting, so many patrols, so much lost sleep, he was coming out into the open. The hunt had gone well. Mechanically, without a thought, without any conscious intent to do so, but just like that, just from instinct, I grabbed the corporal’s rifle. He gave it up to me and I took it. If we had been on the ground, as on the other nights, flat on our bellies behind the bush, I probably would have fired immediately, without wasting a second. But I was on my knees in the newly dug ditch, and the bush was in front of me like a shield in a shooting gallery. It was as though I were on a shooting range and I had all the time I wanted to take aim. I planted my elbows firmly on the ground and started to aim.
The Austrian officer lit a cigarette. Now he was smoking. That cigarette suddenly created a relationship between us. As soon as I saw his puff of smoke I felt the need to smoke. That desire of mine reminded me that I had some cigarettes too. In an instant, my act of taking aim, which had been automatic, became deliberate. I became aware that I was aiming, and that I was aiming at someone. My index finger, pressing on the trigger, eased off. I was thinking. I had been forced to think.
Sure, I was consciously fighting in the war and I justified that morally and politically. My conscience as a man and as a citizen was not in conflict with my duty as a soldier. The war, for me, was a dire necessity, terrible surely, but one whose demands I obeyed, as one of life’s many thankless but inevitable necessities. So I was fighting in the war and I had soldiers under my command. Morally, then, I was fighting twice. I had already taken part in a lot of battles. That I should shoot at an enemy officer was, therefore, in the logic of things. Even more than that, I demanded of my soldiers that they stay alert on their watch and that they shoot accurately if the enemy came into their sights. Why wouldn’t I, now, shoot at that officer? It was my duty to shoot. I felt it was my duty. If I didn’t feel it was my duty, it would be monstrous for me to continue fighting in the war and to make others do so as well. No, there was no doubt; it was my duty to shoot.
And yet I wasn’t shooting. My thoughts worked themselves out calmly. I wasn’t at all nervous. The previous night, before leaving the trench, I had slept four or five hours; I felt fine. Behind that bush, down in the ditch, I was not threatened by any danger. I couldn’t have been more relaxed in a room in my own house, in my hometown.
Maybe it was that complete calm that drove off my war-fighting spirit. In front of me was an officer, young, unconscious of the looming danger. I couldn’t miss. I could have taken a thousand shots at that distance without missing even one. All I had to do was pull the trigger and he would collapse to the ground. This certainty that his life depended on my will made me hesitant. I had a man in front of me. A man!
A man!
I could make out his eyes and the features of his face. The early morning light was getting brighter and the sun was peeking out from behind the mountain tops. To shoot like this, from a few steps away, at a man… like shooting a wild boar!
I started thinking that maybe I wasn’t going to shoot. I thought: Leading a hundred men, or a thousand, in an assault against another hundred, or another thousand, is one thing. Taking a man, separating him from the rest of the men, and then saying, ‘There, stand still, I’m going to shoot you, I’m going to kill you,’ is another. It’s a totally different thing. Fighting a war is one thing, killing a man is something else. To kill a man, like that, is to murder a man.
I’m not sure up until what point my thoughts proceeded logically. What’s certain is that I had lowered the rifle and I wasn’t shooting. Within me two consciousnesses had formed, two individualities, one hostile to the other. I
said to myself, ‘Hey! You’re not going to be the one to kill a man like this!’
Even I, who lived through those moments, would not be able now to give an accurate description of that psychological process. There’s a jump there that, today, I can’t see clearly anymore. And I still ask myself how, having reached that conclusion, I could have thought to have someone else do what I myself didn’t feel I could do in good conscience. I had the rifle on the ground, sticking under the bush. The corporal was pressing up against my side. I handed him the butt of the rifle and said to him, barely whispering, ‘You know… like this… one man alone… I can’t shoot. You, do you want to?’
The corporal took the rifle butt in hand and responded, ‘Me neither.’
We made our way back to the trench on all fours. The coffee had already been distributed and we poured some for ourselves, too.
That night, just after sundown, the relief battalion replaced us.
Emilio Lussu was born in 1890 in the province of Cagliari in Sardinia. After Italy’s entry into the war, he was sent to the Asiago plateau to combat the Austrian spring offensive. He captures the insanity of the campaign in A Soldier on the Southern Front (aka Sardinian Brigade). Mutiny, treason, decimation, wire-cutters that don’t cut – all is grist to Lussu’s startling mill. A founder of the Partito Sardo d’Azione, Lussu opposed the rise of fascism and, in 1926, he shot dead in self-defence a fascist squadristi. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on the island of Lipari, from which he escaped… to fight in the Spanish Civil War. In the Second World War, Lussu collaborated with the British Special Operations Executive, hoping to get their support for an anti-fascist uprising in Sardinia; support that did not get Foreign Office approval. A leader of the successful Sardinian resistance against the Germans, Lussu founded the left-wing Partito d’Azione in 1943. He died in Rome in 1975. A Soldier on the Southern Front was made into the film, Many Wars Ago (Uomini contro), by Francesco Rosi in 1970: it stars the wonderful Gian Maria Volonté.
CARLO EMILIO GADDA
THE BATTLE OF THE ISONZO
from Journals of War & Prison
translated by Cristina Viti
DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF THE ISONZO and of my capture, gathered here pro memoria, in case of any accusations. (Scrupulously factual narration for personal use). – I’ve no ink.
11. The night between the 11th & 12th I spent on a camp bed in my sleeping-bag, brought to me by private Giudici, in the hayloft of the shack-orderly room in Košec. By my side, sleeping on the floor, was private Sassella Stefano, still not fully recovered. On the evening of the 21st, I had a haircut & a shave (barber Bricalli Gelindo from Val Malenco), washed my feet in hot water prepared by Sassella & changed into fresh underwear. I also sorted out my luggage: my case I filled with underwear, woollens etc. to take with me, leaving my beloved books, my ordnance maps & a few clothes in the large case. This I left in the hayloft of the Košec shack – but then learnt that Donadoni had put it in the cellar of same. (Large case with ordnance maps in Košec; won’t say any more about it). My precious journal, relating all my hopes & passion in Turin & on the Carso (small notebook bound in black leather with Notes written in gold on the cover) & my rail pass, as well as the last letters, I took with me in a small wooden case.
All the letters received on the Carso were left in the large case at Košec. So on the night between the 21st & 22nd of October 1917, having eaten well for the last time, I slept happily – everything sorted, everything paid for. My good soldier Sassella by my side, and inside me the happiness of finally heading for the front line, in full trust.
12. The 22nd of October 1917 was a cloudy day that later cleared up. We bid farewell to our colleagues of the 469th & to Favia del Core, who was going on leave. The mules were loaded up with our machine guns, some crates of ammo, the rucksacks of some soldiers who were dead tired (which left us no other choice), officers’ luggage & orderly room crates. The 790th (Captain Boggia) filed out ahead, followed by the 470th. We set off, as I recall, around 9 am. The 470th company left part of the ammo, officers’ luggage & orderly room supplies back in Košec with Capt. Donadoni. The rucksacks that could not be loaded onto the mules were left in the troop shack with Capt. Coderoni, to be fetched on the next day. Setting up of the baggage train in Drezenca in the place mentioned.
So we started out at 9 am for Krasji Vhr: the 470th with me & Cola (Cerrato Aldo already there), plus the 790th. Our marching orders said we were going to carry out works, & that was what we believed.
Written from fresh memory, in the concentration camp, between 13.00 & 16.00 on November 7th 1917. Rastatt, 7th November 1917. I give full assurance of the accuracy of dates & facts.
23. Meanwhile our company too was stricken by a grievous fact. Before Raineri left, around 11, De Candido, the Cadore gunsmith from the 3rd (a blond from the ’95 contingent, freebooterish but good-natured & brave), and private Archetti Francesco from Siliano (an island on Lake Iseo) came bolting into the tunnel, shortly after I’d left the 3rd Section & as I was conferring with Cola about the connection to be established with the 2nd. Standing outside the cave, I yelled: ‘What’s with this running, you idiots!’ in indignation, thinking they were running for shelter under the bombing. But the poor souls were shaken by the death of their comrade Zuppini Fedele (3rd Section). We questioned them. On both their coats, especially near the hem & on the back, large blood stains & a spurt of white matter that we immediately recognized as brains.
They reported that they were standing in the gun commander’s shack, Sergeant Gandola handing out tobacco (which had come with the coffee), when a grenade went off clean before their faces, striking down private Zuppini & wounding Gandola. Both the news & the look of those two shook the other soldiers & grieved us officers. Having experienced Magnaboschi & the Carso, I wasn’t that upset. Gandola arrived, his face wounded in several places by small splinters & bleeding heavily – nothing serious though. After the blast the good sergeant had counted all present & jumped back into the trench to check no one else was missing. He reported that no other men had died. I had already said, let’s go & see if there are any wounded. Having learnt there were none, I waited for the fire to grow a bit less violent & then with De Candido Cesare, Baccoli (a bricklayer from Brescia), Bertoldi (a gunsmith from the Veneto) & another man with a stretcher we went out under the fire to recover the body. I believe no other Italian soldier will have been so quickly & caringly brought back by his officer & his comrades.
Stone after stone we reached the shack: the corpse was lying prone, completely beheaded, his neck hanging from the edge of the fill terrace where he was stretched out. The shack only had a few small holes in the roof, the ruberoid torn in places. I judged it to have been a small calibre grenade, a 47 or 65; the fact that all present had seen the flash of the blast & the blowing away of the dead man’s head excluded the possibility of it being a simple spool. The grenade had smashed with full force into the head of the poor soldier. We lifted the corpse, blood & brains dripping down the wall. The palate & teeth, with some wisps of beard & the lower jaw, were connected to the severed neck by a filament of labial mucosa. We took the corpse to Cola’s cave. In the presence of the quartermaster & the Comp. Commander, I took his money & belongings, a few futile things (pipe, cards received, pocket mirror & comb) & handed them to quartermaster Dell’Orto Luigi who made a list of them. The money came to 10.30 lira & was taken by Cola to be sent to the family. The corpse was left on the stretcher, just outside the cave, under a blanket, and was to be buried in the night as soon as the fire died out. Circumstances would not allow us to see to this work of mercy.
32. Our souls were in a state of anguished doubt, gradually giving way to the horrible certainty of imprisonment. Towards the mountains, over the river, the whistles of German officers ordering their men to advance could clearly be heard. A few more gunshots, a few brief machine gun bursts, directed I think against someone attempting to escape. We were on this side of an impassable river, with
no bridges: having broken through in Plezzo & Tolmino, the Germans had regrouped over the river: they were in Caporetto: they were in Drezenca already, having come down from the Mzrli. We were exhausted in body & spirit, downcast, starving. But worst of all was the impossibility to cross the Isonzo. So Cola & I thought it useless by now to keep any hopes alive: that would have been childish. De Candido got out waving a white cloth as Raineri & I wasted the weapons of my section, taking out & scattering away breeches, firing pins & other pieces. The grief, the humiliation, the weeping inside the soul at this act which was by now inevitable. The officer who in Turin had done his best to provide the army with an excellent, fully functional unit, who had the consolation of having succeeded in that effort, now forced to throw his weapons away like that, to leave them there in the shrubs! The remaining arms supply of the 3rd Section was likewise wasted. By wasting our weapons, we carried out a final duty – though the quantity of cannons, of material, of machine guns, supplies, ammo etc. left intact was such that our act was of no use whatsoever. I also threw my revolver away, & all dropped their guns there & then; after which, in orderly single file (Cola after De Candido, then all the other soldiers & lastly I at the back), we walked down through the scrub towards the footbridge: no one left there: a desert all around: everyone had already taken the inevitable step. Below the footbridge the brutal spate of the Isonzo licked away at a heap of rifles, Fiat machine guns, belts & other stuff left behind in the rout. On the other side the German guard was watching us as we walked across, checking we had no weapons. Other armed guards were keeping watch over some prisoners rounded up in the field above, the field where we regrouped at 13.20 on October 25. We crossed the footbridge one at a time, the first ones holding on to the metal cable on the left which served as a handrail. All crossed slowly, with great caution, so as not to slip into the river: the arced shape of the bridge forced me to sit down as my hobnailed boots were slipping on the wooden plank. About halfway across I stood up & carried on upright. I crossed over with a frown on my face: numbed & lost in thought more than anything else. Among the herd huddled in front of the German guards were some who did not hide their relief at having escaped the danger. I looked at the 1st guard, who had nothing remarkable about him: upright, serious, almost frowning. In the field, on a stone, a tin of meat that some prisoner had offered a German to ingratiate himself with him; as soon as this German turned round, I lifted the tin clean away & gobbled it with much hunger & a satanic joy. It was 13.20, 25 October 1917; the German guards all armed & with bayonets; in the field we regrouped & called the roll for the last time. Then Cola & I were ordered to start off with our attendants towards Caporetto, leaving our soldiers behind. With tears in my eyes & in my heart I took my leave, shaking hands with each of them. And slowly I set off with Cola; behind us Sassella, my dear & faithful orderly, & De Candido, picked there & then by Cola as an attendant because he spoke good German. Sassella was carrying my sack, De Candido had Cola’s. I was looking around, still tempted to break for the mountains; but another German troop arrived just then from the road to Caporetto. First a hideous non-com, a cross between cop & assassin, spread out his troop on the edge of the field where we were standing & port-armed his 10 or so soldiers, dead tired & back-broken with their sacks. One looked shattered & begged for a little rest: red in the face, his neck swollen with heat, he was addressing his sergeant like Christ would his torturers. The sergeant, screaming, imposed obedience: he was shaking a stick & had a revolver. Then the troop climbed up the same way as the rest of them had: the mountain must be teeming with them. After the patrol, other soldiers climbed up with their officers. They were looking at us with curiosity but, at that time, none met us with any evil acts or words. All of them wore combat helmets, wide as straw hats, with no bolt, of a special shape. One second lieutenant, bent, gaunt & bespectacled like a Jewish merchant, asked Cola in German if there were many troops up ahead. After Cola (translated by De Candido) had replied that he didn’t know, he saluted & cleared off, whistling for his men to follow.
