Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> This is the story of an elite unit trained and prepared for mountain warfare which instead found itself deployed across the endless steppes of Russia where it was forced to fight outside its element. When German forces advanced to Stalingrad in 1942 their long-extended flanks were held mainly by their allies-the Italians Romanians and Hungarians. But as history tells us these flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counteroffensive which commenced that November dooming the Germans to their first catastrophe of the war. However the historical record also makes clear that one Axis-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 227000 soldiers of the Italian Eighth Army were deployed on a 270- kilometer 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. In November 1942 the first of three Russian offensives encircled German Sixth Army in Stalingrad. In December Russian forces smashed through Italian infantry divisions on the lines to the southeast of the Alpine Corps. Although units of one alpine division fought valiantly to protect the remaining two divisions to their north enemy forces rapidly encircled the entire corps necessitating their withdrawal from the Don front in January 1943. 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 free through both Russian encirclement and “General Winter” to rejoin the rest of the front. Although one Alpine division was destoyed in its entirety two others were able to emerge from the Russian encirclement with combat survivors. In this all-sides battle across the snowy steppe thousands were killed and more were captured By the summer of 1946 only 10000 survivors returned to Italy from Russian POW camps. (SP)