Fritz Weber
Tappe della Disfatta

I just returned from Passo Vezzena, after a snowshoeing excursion under the snow, passing by Forte Verle, Vezzena and seeing in the distance the Verena from where the conflict for Italy began. More than 90 years have passed and despite the meters of white snow fallen, you can still glimpse the immense scars of grenades and howitzers of 280 and 305 mm that bombarded this sacred place. What I want to describe to you, however, is not a history book, a mass of dates and places, a precise and reliable reconstruction of what happened explaining why it ended as we all know.

The "Stages of Defeat" by Austrian artillery lieutenant Fritz Weber is much more. It is the description of war from the inside, not from the study of a modern-day historian who, through newspapers and testimonies, reconstructs the conflict in a continuum. The diary is wonderful because it narrates the brutalities of the epic clash with such strong and moving passion that despite the work, I literally devoured the total 350 pages in just a week.

In the eyes of people, Italians are "easy-going," not very patriotic and cunning. It reminds me of the film "La Grande Guerra" by Monicelli where Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman portray this stereotype until the unexpected ending. Well, the description of the enemy (obviously Italy) given to us by Weber (one of the few survivors who fought in Trentino, on the Carso, participated in the punitive expedition and the failed offensive on the Piave with consequent defeat) is very different. Frustration for the tenacity of the opposing soldiers, admiration for the heroic acts shown and impotence in the face of their decision never to give up, even in the most desperate situations. One can discuss the equipment and military tactics of the generals (why insist on the Isonzo and not try to occupy Trentino immediately???), but one of the salient points of Weber's book is that the Italians fought with what they had as best they couldn't have.

The calm before the storm; this is the surreal and tranquil situation at the beginning of the war. It's only a matter of time. Everyone knows it in the spring of '15. When the bombings begin, the reader enters the fort teeming with frightened, mortally wounded people, but determined to survive at any cost. Sleepless nights spent loading, reloading, and shooting without rest at the adversary's batteries. Dry throats and burning red eyes, no sleep for days and when rest is taken, it's with one eye because the offensive can come at any moment. And when there’s a pause, what's been destroyed is fortified. 1 and a half years in a fort, always on the defensive, with one command: resist and don’t give in! Weber makes us understand the situation by presenting us with the madness that dwells among the weakest, the grimaces of pure terror at every explosion of a war device. The need to drink rum to attempt an escape from reality, the will to fight, the total fury with the consequent animal thirst for the enemy's blood. Here are the wounds of an inhumane conflict.

And then winter comes, and then you go up to 2200 meters to fight against freezing, massive avalanches, and enemies stationed just 200 meters away for the conquest of a mountain's summit: the Pasubio and its historic teeth. Or the Cimone. Both torn apart by the explosion of tons of Austrian explosives hidden in a web of tunnels built with liters of sweat and hard work. 16 meters of dissolved rock and above, on the summit, there were men unaware of what awaited them. In Weber's writing, there’s no exultation or rhetoric for these "victories"; it’s simply a matter of survival, and the only thing the author is certain of is that never before in history have the limits of endurance been reached.

It is said that time can work miracles, but how can it make us accustomed to all this? A war with ancient methods, but fought with terribly modern weapons. The warfare of the forts seems like paradise compared to the Karstic hell of the Isonzo and Hermada where the enemy, Italy, with Cadorna, wanted to break through with all its remaining force. Thousands of wounded and dead. The trench becomes a nightmare, and the eleventh battle narrated gives us goosebumps. People who feel sick at the mere thought of having to advance knowing the precise machine guns are there awaiting their flesh. Horribly beautiful photographs are the night laments of wounded enemies at night, the mass graves of previous battles torn apart by new bombs, and the faces described to us of those dying of fear and not believing that all this could be true. People on leave commit suicide the day before returning to the front. A chilling story, it leaves us breathless just reading it.

The climax. The punitive expedition that nearly broke Italy's reins is presented to us as a euphoric and enthusiastic ride. After months and months of defensive warfare, with the help of the Germans, their terrifying gas, and the new method of fighting; (no longer on the peaks but in the valley) it pushes the Austrians forward by 100 km. Immense spaces open up and it hardly seems real. It seems it is indeed the end for the enemy. Dreams and hopes, however, shatter on the banks of the Piave. The beginning of the end. The heroic defense by the Italians. No passage! Night after night, molten metal rains from the sky. Mobile bridges are destroyed and rebuilt. Telephone lines are cut and restored with acts of incredible courage crossing the river. They die in hundreds of thousands, and the Empire gradually collapses. It’s moving how this tragic moment is described, in which the different ethnicities, which at the beginning of the conflict were a single block, crumble, causing the army to become a mass of peoples awaiting the end. In the faces of the soldiers, the advancing defeat is evident. It arrives suddenly, furious, and without pause—the retreat. The hunger, the malaria, the inability to stop until the inglorious return home, pursued by the enemy. Nothing to celebrate, in general indifference when, exhausted, they reach Austria.

The book I am currently holding tightly in my hand is full of notes and phrases I felt compelled to highlight. There are indeed too many moments in which the author of the book succeeds in transmitting to the reader the horror of war, heroism, patriotism, fear, madness, and pain at its most pure state. A stunning book, written in simple phrases: sharp shards of memories that we must not forget.