This is definitely a five stars plus book. Author Thompson has done a magnificant job of portraying the Italians at war, both from the point of view of the Savoy generalship and the common conscript in the trenches.

That Italy went to war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire at all was a tragedy. There was nothing to gain and nothing was gained. The only positive outcome for Italy was a general feeling of Italian unity that the Piedmontese monarchy had been unable to achieve due to the opposition of the Pope and the Catholic Church to a united Italy (the popes since the unification wanted to restore the Papal States as their temporal kingdom (See David Kertzer: "Prisoner of the Vatican".)

Much was made of the Italian right to Trieste and South Tyrol as Italy sought to expand their state to its "natural" borders. That was hardly worth the casualties and Italy could not achieve its ends until Britain, France and the US brought Germany to its knees.

The author develops the main political and military characters brilliantly: General Luigi Cadorna, the ineffective commander in chief, General Luigi Capello, his supposedly sharp edge of the sword, and nationalist agitators like Gabriele D'Annunzio. But the absolute best chapter of the book was Sixteen; Straight From Violence. Ungaretti's poetry brought me to tears, yet truly set the remainder of the text into proper context.

Italy's capacity to make war would have been comical if it weren't so tragic. Yet the pathway to Fascism was apparent as were Italy's pretensions to greatness that were shattered for all time in World War II. Unfortunately Italy did not learn its lesson on the Isonzo River. Italians were brave and cowardly, stoic and fearful, resigned to their deaths yet deserted when they went on leave. The morale of the conscript was never far above poor, and many times the military police set up machine guns behind the trenches to shoot soldiers in the rear if they refused to advance. What a way to fight a war.

Italy's forces moved from stalemate to stalemate until the Germans lent Austria a helping hand and crushed the Italians at Caporettoin late October of 1917. But then they pulled out and left Austria to fend for itself while they sought a decision on the Western Front. As that failed, Italy was able to recover and push back the enfeebled Austrians. It was like two fighters reeling to stay upright in the 15th round and hardly able to land another punch. There was no glory here to be won, and the Italian generalship was unimaginative at best, criminal at worst.

This book is incredibly well-written, and although long and replete with tragedy over and over again, I found myself not able to put it down. The author sweeps the reader up in the tragedy, and in passing produces an awesome anti-war tome. Hollywood should make a movie from this.

I recommend this book to all historians and readers interested in World War I. This entire theater is usually overlooked in spite of Hemingway's works, yet casualties were suffered on a par with the Somme. This front always deserved a full historical treatment, and this work has finally provided it. There is much to learn here, and we are all the better for it.

Great book. All I ever knew about the Italian front of WWI was this: the Italians lost a lot of men at the Isonzo river, then got beat at Caporetto. Well, this book filled in, in great detail, a true tragedy of World War I (as if there weren't enough of them!). How Italy got into the war, the mess they made of it, the incompetence of their leaders, and even the sorry aftermath of the war. It's all here in great detail.

Just one thing, if you're looking for a detailed operational military history, you know, where each division moved each week, well, this isn't a book about that. It's not a David Glantz book. But if you're willing to read the entire story of the Italian-Austrian front of wwI, please read this book.