When Germany’s Sixth Army advanced to Stalingrad in 1942, its
long-extended flanks were mainly held by its allied armies―the
Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians. But as history tells us, these
flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counter-offensive
which commenced that November, dooming the Germans to their first
catastrophe of the war. However, the historical record also makes
clear that one allied unit held out to the very end, fighting to
stem the tide―the Italian Alpine Corps. As a result of Mussolini’s
disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany, by the fall of 1942, 227,000
soldiers of the Italian Eighth Army were deployed on a 270km front
along the Don River to protect the left flank of German troops
intent on capturing Stalingrad. Sixty thousand of these were
alpini, elite Italian mountain troops. When the Don front collapsed
under Soviet hammerblows, it was the Alpine Corps that continued to
hold out until it was completely isolated, and which then tried to
fight its way out through both Russian encirclement and “General
Winter,” to rejoin the rest of the Axis front. Only one of the
three alpine divisions was able to emerge from the Russian
encirclement with survivors. In the all-sides battle across the
snowy steppe, thousands were killed and wounded, and even more were
captured. By the summer of 1946, 10,000 survivors returned to Italy
from Russian POW camps. This tragic story is complex and
unsettling, but most of all it is a human story. Mussolini sent
thousands of poorly equipped soldiers to a country far from their
homeland, on a mission to wage war with an unclear mandate against
a people who were not their enemies. Raw courage and endurance
blend with human suffering, desperation and altruism in the epic
saga of this withdrawal from the Don lines, including the demise of
thousands and survival of the few. Hope Hamilton, fluent in Italian
and having spent many years in Italy, has drawn on many interviews
with survivors, as well as massive research, in order to provide
this first full English-language account of one of World War II’s
legendary stands against great odds.