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Updated: June 18, 2025
In the trenches men fight with sticks. In the Pasubio battle the other day one of the Alpini silenced a machine gun by throwing stones. In the West African campaign we have employed troops armed with bows and arrows, and they have done very valuable work. But these are exceptional cases. The military use of the horse henceforth will be such an exceptional case.
He sang me also certain songs of the Alpini, in one of which they sing that in the Italian tricolour the green stands for the Alpini, the white for the snow on their mountains and the red for their blood. O these "fiamme verdi," who can talk and sing themselves into such transfigured ecstasies, as to turn, death and pain almost into easy glories!
It is a most picturesque business. Far up in the Roccolana Valley I found the Alpini outposts, backed by artillery which had been brought into the most wonderful positions. They have taken 8-inch guns where a tourist could hardly take his knapsack. Neither side can ever make serious progress, but there are continual duels, gun against gun, or Alpini against Jaeger.
The Alpini are in peace-time recruited entirely from the men who dwell in the Alps, though I believe that during the present war a certain number of men from the Apennines have also been included in Alpini Battalions. The Alpini are specially used for warfare in the mountains. They wear in their hats a single long feather.
The narrow strip of valley at the bottom of the chasm was a sort of no man's land, where forays, skirmishes, and all manner of desperate adventures took place nightly between patrols of Jaegers and Alpini.
Monte Cucco and Monte Vodice were taken in the offensive of May 1917, and here, as at Monte Nero, the Alpini performed feats of arms which, to soldiers accustomed to fighting on the flat, must seem all but incredible.
And away up north on Monte Nero, left behind when the rest of the Army retired, Alpini and Bersaglieri resisted for many days, and aeroplanes flew back and dropped food and ammunition from the skies for them. And when their ammunition was all shot away, that garrison came down into the plains, and a few survivors fought their way through with bombs and bayonets back to the Italian lines.
In many remote districts some of the peasants cannot speak Italian at all. The Alpini and the two Sardinian Brigades, Cagliari and Sassari, are exceptions to the rule mentioned above.
"Do you see that little black speck on the snow at the very top?" the officer asked me. I told him that I did. "That is one of our positions," he continued. "It is held by a lieutenant and thirty Alpini. I have just received word that, as the result of yesterday's snow-storm, our communications with them have been cut off.
Very fine men, they shoot quick and straight, and when an officer of Alpini tells us not to dally to admire the scenery, because we are within view of an Austrian post within easy range, we recall old days and make no difficulty about complying.
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