Customer Reviews

The Last Soldiers of the King: Life in Wartime Italy, 1943-1945

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"The Last Soldiers of the King" is a continuation of an Italian soldier's memoirs of World War II, which he first related in "Few Returned".

The first work, "Few Returned", was the author's reminiscences of fighting as a young lieutenant in the Italian Army side by side with the Germans against a common foe, the Soviets on the Eastern Front as the Germans and Italians retreated during December 1942 - January 1943. That work was suffused with philosophical musings about the state of man juxtaposed with the state of war, interspersed with misgivings about having Nazis as allies and recollections from his diary about this time in his life.

The second work, "The Last Soldiers of the King", provides additional insight into life as an Italian soldier in World War II after King Victor Emmanuel gave Mussolini his walking papers in July 1943 and, in effect, placed Mussolini under house arrest. (Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny subsequently famously rescued Mussolini and brought him to Germany.) When Italy capitulated to the Allies shortly thereafter the few German forces in Italy became occupation troops as the Germans invaded the northern portion of the country. In the meantime, the Italian Army had essentially disbanded, some joining the Nazis in the north and some fleeing to the south (along with the King, who had left no instructions for the defense of Rome upon his departure).

The new government formed a new army: the "Corpo Italiano di Liberazione" (Italian Liberation Army). Author Eugenio Corti, who had fled south with other Italian Army soldiers, became a member of artillery and anti-aircraft units in the Italian Liberation Army. He infuses his accounts of his experiences in this new army with his Christian faith and the sometimes nettlesome demands that faith put on him, e.g., he struggled, albeit successfully, against the sexual promiscuity, and prostitution, that were the hallmarks of the experiences of other soldiers.

He never seems to lose his faith in God, arguing that belief in God acts as a temporizing force on the conduct and nature of warfare. He also never seems to lose his patriotism or faith in Italy, despairing at the defeatism evident in many of his fellow soldiers and countrymen. (He discovers, much to his dismay, that many, if not most, Italians are not even aware that there are any regular Italian forces fighting the Germans after Italy surrenderd to the Allies in September 1943.)

As a Christian he believes that fascism in any form, including Nazism (which he argues was a misguided racial offshoot of socialism), and communism (which he especially decries as evil) are wrong. He also appears to be conflicted in his feelings toward Jews, on the one hand blaming them for Marxism (and hence communism) and on the other hand stating compassion for them as victims of World War II.

The book is an interesting look at the last two years of World War II in Italy, through the faith-based perspective of an Italian patriot and soldier.

I really enjoyed Corti's book about the Italian retreat from the Russian Front and I wanted to know more of what became of him after it.
Last Soldiers of the King, gave me more of the same and tied up loose ends for me.
Being interested in the history and actions of the Italian Army in WW2, this book sheds light on the Italian contribution to the Allies cause from 1943 on and the whole situation for Italy as a country at that time.
Like his first book, there is not a lot of combat depicted here, but what he does detail, shows the reader what it was like to fight in Italy.
Corti again, does a very good job of showing national differences in military and attitudes of the combatants.
He does play a fair hand to all involved and while the first book had many instances of the German disdain/mistreatmment of the Italians and the hard feelings of Italians towards the Germans, this book does show Cortis respect to the German soldier.
You also get a glimpse of the relationships between the British, Americans and Italians.
To me, the one drawback of this last book are the long passages related to religion.
Corti seems to be a very religious person and occasionally that comes through like a lecture in this book.
But through it all, you can feel what a long hard struggle the battle for Italy was and the post-war strife looming on the horizon.

"The Last Soldiers of the King" by E. Corti is a narrative about the author's experiences as an Italian soldier in the waning days of WWII.

Other reviewers have noted that the book is interesting, but (at least in their view) perhaps overdoes the religious material a bit.

I haven't read Corti's previous book, "Few Returned" about the Axis retreat from the Soviet Union after their humiliating and disastrous defeat on the Eastern Front, but I have read Corti's masterpiece, "The Red Horse". It was "The Red Horse" that inspired me to buy "The Last Soldiers..." and, in a balanced world, would have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In my opinion, "The Last Soldiers..." is primarily about the sharp distinction between the nominally Christian Brits et. al, Americans and Italians, and the atheist Germans and Soviets. That was certainly the main point of "The Red Horse" and, it seems to fit "The Last Soldiers..." as well. The historical narrative, which Corti does beautifully, is but background to the foreground of his incisive observations of the impact of Christianity on culture and perhaps especially on cultures at war. One could, in fact, make similar observations today and contrast the treatment of both innocents and combatants in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other (apparently less newsworthy) conflicts around the world.

This is not to say that "The Last Soldiers..." is a religious book. Far from it. It is a historical narrative. But religion was, in the eyes of the author, the primary cultural difference that influenced the horrific violations of human rights by the Germans and the Soviets and the rather more humane (if not perfect) treatment of civilians and prisoners by the Commonwealth, American, and Italian armies... despite the fact that the Germans and Italians were both Axis powers and the Russians were part of the Allied coalition.

I give it five stars, easily.

Unlike his proceeding book "Few Returned", which was about the struggle of the Italian Army to get out of the Donets Pocket after the Russian breakout around Stalingrad, this continuation is Conti's excuse for what happened to the Italians after the Armistice in 1943. Most of the book is taken up not by the plight of the soldiers, but at complaining about the way the Italian Army was seen by the Allies.

Parts of the Italian Army had been imprisoned by the Germans after the Armistice of Rome and Conti complains that they were treated like a defeated Army by the Allies. Uh. When you lose a war, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiations table, your defeated. Conti who was a twenty-three year old second lieutenant, was 'banished' from two different Army groups. During the time he writes about, it seems that all of the fighting was done by the Poles, with the British and Americans as back-up.

Conti spends half the book writing about 'Christian' Europe but considered the Allies to be half-Christian. That the Allies came to Europe (especially the Americans) and spent their fortune and youth to clean up the 'mess' the Fascists had made, doesn't seem to mean anything to Conti. He just complains about the Communists and Germans and how the Allies weren't doing enough to protect the Italian people.

Conti especially likes to go on about the 'peasants' and how they live a life at harmony with nature. But, it sounds so condescending in the translation, you wonder if something is missing. His paean to the Catholic Church (which was arm and arm with Mussolini) seems to come from a different time and place.

According to Conti, most Italians weren't fascists and had great respect for the traditions of the parts of Italy they grew up in. Everyone is referred to by their pre-reorgimento names and he is able to distinguish them by the way they look and act. We are introduced to poor salt-of-the earth priest who live lives of poverty. His stories of chastity towards the woman he meets and his 'angel' Margharina can get downright 'sappy'.

Personally, I found his comments about Jews who created 'Marxism' and "refusers" of Christ, reaping what they had sowed to be both 'stupid' and anti-semetic. He speaks about hearing from the Poles about the people who are being systematically rounded up and put in the "Lagers", but makes it sound like only "Christians" were rounded up. He mentions the millions killed by the Communist atheists (which they did) but never mentions directly those millions rounded up by the Germans (who are and were Christians).

He speaks lovingly of the Catholic Church and the Pope but never mentions the 'silence' from the Vatican when it came to the "Nuremburg" laws being enforced in Italy after the "Armistice". The Jews of Rome were rounded up within view of St.Peter's but not a word was ever printed in "L'Observatore Romano".

If the only thing you knew about WW2 in Italy was Conti's memories, you would think that the Italians were forced into war by a few 'hot heads' and that the rest of the country suffered because of this.

Zeb Kantrowitz