ITALY: When we first moved out of Rome to these northern Lazio parts, some 13 years ago, the only taxi service around the Lago di Bracciano was provided by the eccentric Enrico, a second World War veteran then in his 70s. For a variety of reasons, we got to know Enrico well and, in the course of night-time journeys around the lake, got to hear his lifestory.
Enrico had been conscripted into the Italian army and sent to the North African front in 1941, where he served as an officer's driver. As the Axis forces were driven back by the Allies in the 1942-1943 campaign, Enrico and his officer got caught up in the chaotic retreat.
Not only were they short of food, clothing and petrol supplies but there was also nowhere to run to since Allied forces were moving in on them from both East and West.
Inevitably, Enrico ended up as one of the more than 250,000 German and Italian troops who laid down their arms in May 1943 in a defeat generally believed crucial to the outcome of the second World War. He often recalled his sense of relief on the day of his surrender.
He, his officer and other Italian soldiers had found rare refuge in a desert cave. Early one morning, they were woken by someone shouting in at them in a strange Italian accent. "Come out, we won't shoot", an Italian-American soldier shouted at them, adding, "We've got cigarettes and food".
To cut a long story short, Enrico surrendered, was taken prisoner and eventually sent to a POW camp in the US where he prospered and thrived as the camp quartermaster, returning to his native Bracciano five years later in 1948 with the veritable king's ransom of $4,000. (Not surprisingly, Enrico could never say enough good things about the US).
I have been wondering what Enrico, who died some years back, would have made of last weekend's 60th anniversary ceremonies at the site of the famous El Alamein battle of October/November 1942. Addressing hundreds of El Alamein survivors (Australian, New Zealand, English, Italian, German, French e.t.c.), Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi recalled the fallen from both sides, highlighting their "courage and dedication".
What Enrico recalled, however, was the ad hoc nature of Italian preparations for a campaign in which Il Duce Benito Mussolini sent his ill-equipped, badly supplied and hopelessly outnumbered forces on a "mission impossible" alongside their Nazi-German allies. Not even the genius of Gen Erwin Rommel could do much about the fact that, at El Alamein, the Allied forces under the command of Gen Bernard Montgomery had approximately twice as many tanks and soldiers, not to mention superior petrol supplies. (The Allies had 196,000 soldiers and 1,030 tanks while the Axis had 105,000 soldiers and 490 largely inferior tanks).
What Enrico might not have known and what military historians (British, American and Italian) have recently come to recognise, however, is that many of those Italian forces who fell in the North African campaign had shown themselves to be courageous, innovative and skilful soldiers.
A generation brought up on the old joke about Italian tanks with five reverse gears and one forward was probably unaware of the fierce resistance put up at El Alamein by the crack paratrooper regiment, the "Folgore", which simply refused to surrender. Of 5,000 Folgore troops who fought, only 304 survived.
Or what about the last message sent from the divisional commander of the Italian Ariete artillery regiment at El Alamein? "We have three tanks left. I am counter-attacking".
Needless to add, the commander died leading his brave counter-attack.
In a recent publication, Alamein (published by John Murray), British historian Jon Latimer writes: "For too long, there has been a fatuous contempt for Italians arms in Anglophone countries, largely as a result of wartime propaganda. The truth is that Italian soldiers were tough and hardy, and on innumberable occasions they fought as bravely as any soldiers in the world. But the Italian record in adapting operational concepts to technology was almost uniformly disastrous."
Old Enrico would certainly have recognised the latter sentiments. Perhaps, too, he would be proud to know that his old army's reputation is well on the road to rehabilitation.