Is anybody out there (maybe Beppo?) who can advise on any useful links in order to research Italian front 1918 between Piave River and Tagliamento River?=with special interest on Lavenza River front 1-3 November 1918.
Any war maps/accounts from this area?

Egbert

I hope that other "Baker Pals" know more about the specific battle that you wish to find out about. I certainly don't. However, here is a link to something about Italy in WW1:

http://www.worldwar1.com/itafront/index.htm

If you don't find what you need there go to that sites 'links' section.

I have always found that there has been little available in English on anything that I have needed to find out about. You try and find out exact details about the Italian troops who fought in Siberia as part of the Allied Intervention in Russia!

However, with Italian as his mother tongue, I hope that your friend has more luck.

Egbert my friend Francis McKay has 2 books in the BE series, Asiago & Touring the Italian Front, should be something there tho I don't have it with me. We are going again this fall.

Beppo and Paul: thanx for your advices. Will go to Rome Ministery of Defense in a week and inquire for the foglio stuff (as recommended earlier by Beppo in another thread). I try to help my Italian colleague as much as possible in order to get more clues about his Granddad.
We got already the following results from "Grandma":
1. He was severly wounded by an Austrian infanterist 1 day before armistice at Motta di Livenza (Sorry for the earlier typo error: the river is called "Livenza")
2. The other battle he supposed to be with was at "Monfalcone"
3. He was a memeber of Bersaglieri 18th Rgt.
My colleague told me this morning: when he was a little boy he asked his Granddad how it was in the heat of a battle, he meant at the culmination of a battle when everything is chaotic and surreal around. He remembered the answer: we attacked with bajonet at rifle, shot only 2-3 times with the rifle, and the rest: we took the frifle barrel in our hands and swung the rifle around our heads and try to hit somebody in the intermingled crowds...

Egbert.
A good book by Pen & Sword Books Ltd is "The British Army in Italy 1917-1918" by John & Eileen Wilks, apart from the British involved it also has quite a lot about the Italian and Austrian forces, plus maps etc.
If of use the ISBN number is 0 85052 608 6, hope this is of help.
David.

Thanks crispy!
As I said, I will fly this Saturday to Europe. My colleague and me will visit the Italian Ministry of Defense and pull out some stuff. Today we telephoned the POC inside Rome ministry and the Col. promised us lots of results. So if anybody with Italian roots wants to research his family in the future, I might be able to present the correct Tel no, email- address, name etc from the actual Rome POC. Let's wait and see!

Egbert

Very interesting. Maybe you could also find out the exact rules about who is allowed to request information? Is it strictly "next-of-kin" or a relative or anyone who asks?

Beppo

The Wilks book is informative but is dry dry dry. For the Italian experience in English try Sardinian Brigade, a classic little known to most. It is a novel but author was there.

We called the MoD Colonel yesterday: my buddy has to proof "next-of-kin" status, only than he receives Granddads info!!!!!!!

Egbert

Thank you for that information. This was also the case when we claimed the papers of my family who were WW1 Italian soldiers.

Because that was more than 10 years ago I had hoped that the rules had relaxed in the meanwhile. I have large numbers of WW1 Italian identity lockets and WW2 Italian identity discs that I had hoped to research!

If you can get hold of it (I loaned a copy from the British Library), try Norman Gladden's 'Across the Piave'. I have not seen it in print in any catalogue but bookfinder.com may have something.