Alpine Fighters

SARDINIAN BRIGADE--Emillo Lussu--Knopf ($2.50).

Unfortunately for the Italians, their best-known World War novel is Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms. These studiously underwritten reminiscences of an Italian ex-army officer (now in exile) show that not every Italian campaign had its Caporetto. Sardinian Brigade does not discredit the bravery of Italian fighters; it only shows that Italian fighting and opera bouffe were often closely related.

Emilio Lussu (Road to Exile) describes a year's Alpine campaign (1916-17). He describes two mutinies, devotes little space to actual fighting, writes mainly of personalities, is most effective on the salty subject of his fellow officers. General Piccolomini, lecturing to his staff on Coordination of Intellects, proved by irrefutable logic that a semicircular excavation on a nearby mound was a machine-gun emplacement. An adjutant major ventured to suggest that the general was wrong. "Oh. What is it, then?" sneered the general. "It's a latrine, sir."

General Leone got the bright idea of dressing a raiding party in suits of armor--"They admit of the most daring exploits in broad daylight," beamed the general, confiding that the Austrians had spent enormous sums trying to steal the patent on them. Eighteen volunteers, looking like medieval knights, heaved themselves over the parapet, clanked toward the enemy. The general turned to the colonel and said gravely, "The Romans owed their victories to their cuirasses." Two Austrian machine guns punctuated his remark. As he peered over the parapet, the last of the 18 armored Italians toppled over like tin cans.

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