The Italian Artillery

Book covers technical aspects of the artillery pieces used by Italian Army during WWI. Covers: Modern and WWI guns of Italian origin, German or war booty guns, Self-propelled guns, Artillery Tractors. Technical details and scale plans of every described piece.

This book covers all classes and types of small arms, from pistols to heavy machine guns, known to have been used by the Italian partisans during WWII. It provides a brief history of the origin and development of the partisan movement in Italy following the 8 September 1943 armistice between Italy and the Allies and subsequent occupation of the northern portion of the country by Germany. There are many relevant examples of correspondence between partisan units relating to acquisition, distribution, use, maintenance, and problems encountered with the various types of small arms available. The majority of the pages of this book are dedicated to a complete, thorough, and extensive coverage of each individual type of weapon known to have been used by the partisans, including specifications, supported by current as well as vintage photographs showing the weapons in use by the partisans.

After the first volume on Italian cannons, in this second part we will treat and complete the study and analysis of the artillery pieces inherited from the First World War, both of national production and sources of war prey (typically Austro-Hungarian) following the victory in 1915-18. The criterion used will still be that of the growing calibre, i.e. from light pieces onwards. With the third volume, which will complete our work on Italian artillery from the first fifty years of the twentieth century, we will mainly deal with the more modern types of artillery, conceived from the second half of the 1930s. From this volume we will also expressly discuss the bombards in use in those years, while tractors will be distributed in various ways throughout the three volumes in preferably chronological order.

A major new account of the role and performance of the Italian army in the First World War. Setting military events in a broad context, Gooch explores pre-war Italian military culture, and reveals how an army with a reputation for failure fought a challenging war in appalling conditions - and won.

In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire. Nearly 750,000 Italian troops were killed in savage, hopeless fighting on the stony hills north of Trieste and in the snows of the Dolomites. To maintain discipline, General Luigi Cadorna restored the Roman practice of decimation, executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled. With elegance and pathos, historian Mark Thompson relates the saga of the Italian front, the nationalist frenzy and political intrigues that preceded the conflict, and the towering personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers drawn into the heart of the chaos. A work of epic scale, The White War does full justice to the brutal and heart-wrenching war that inspired Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.

As the reader will discover for himself, I have no pretensions to pose as a Military Expert. This book is the result of a few hasty impressions gathered over a period which, with all its minor inconveniences and little daily worries, I look back upon as among the happiest and best filled of a somewhat varied career. I have not yielded to the temptation to be interesting at the expense of veracity; to that fact the indulgent reader will, I trust, attribute many of the dull pages. If in the latter half of the book I have laid particular stress on the operations leading up to and culminating in the capture of Gorizia, I hope I may be forgiven, as I had the good luck to be the only foreign correspondent on the spot at these scenes of History-making. In my dedication I have paid a humble tribute to the many kindnesses I received at the hands of the Military Authorities, from His Excellency General Cadorna downwards. I can only repeat it here...