Italian soldier who unwittingly saved Hemingway's life during WW1 likely identified [x-post r/E
Jan 25, 2019 6:00:47 GMT
Post by hi224 on Jan 25, 2019 6:00:47 GMT
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ainl7o/italian_soldier_who_unwittingly_saved_ernest/
Italian soldier who unwittingly saved Ernest Hemingway's life identified after a century
Blown to bits by a mortar during the First World War, he unwittingly saved the life of a young Ernest Hemingway, but his identity has been a mystery for more than 100 years – until now.
Historians believe they have put a name to an Italian soldier who bore the brunt of the mortar explosion, in doing so saving the life of the man who would later give the world A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and other classics.
Hemingway was just 18 and serving as a Red Cross volunteer on the Austro-Italian front when he had his brush with death on a section of the battleground which ran along the Piave River in the Dolomites.
As he was handing out cigarettes and chocolate to Italian soldiers in the trenches, Austro-Hungarian forces lobbed a mortar which badly wounded the young American and killed outright an Italian soldier standing close to him.
James McGrath Morris, an American author who has written a book about Hemingway, and Marino Perissinotto, an Italian amateur historian, used a process of elimination to identify the Italian infantry soldier who was standing next to Hemingway when the mortar landed on July 8th, 1918.
Through analysis of military records they found that 18 Italian soldiers died in battle on the Austro-Italian front that night.
The historians then identified which units those soldiers were serving in and where the units were located.
That ruled out 15 of the men, who were on different parts of the front, away from the mortar attack.
Of the three remaining, two were serving with the 152nd regiment of infantry, which was deployed in support trenches about two miles behind the front line.
That left just one soldier who was in the vicinity of Hemingway when he was wounded – Fedele Temperini, a 26-year-old private from the 69th infantry regiment who came from Montalcino, a hill town in Tuscany.
It is he who can be credited for saving the life of a man who went onto become a war correspondent, bon viveur and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mr McGrath Morris, the author of The Ambulance Drivers – Hemingway, Dos Passos and a Friendship Made and Lost in War, said that he and Mr Perissinotto feel “very confident” they have found the man whose sacrifice inadvertently spared the life of one of the greats of 20th century literature.
The process of elimination they used was “sound”, he told The Telegraph from his home in New Mexico.
Of the three soldiers who died along the Piave River front, “only one was in the right place”.
Mr Perissinotto found further corroboration – a military report from an officer at a Red Cross aid station behind the front, operated by the tiny Republic of San Marino.
The officer noted that the first aid post had treated the first American wounded on the battlefront and that alongside him a soldier from the 69th infantry regiment had died.
“The only soldier from the 69th regiment who was killed that night was Fedele Temperini,” Mr Perissinotto, who lives just a few miles from the former front line, told The Telegraph.
Italian military records corroborate their research, listing Fedele Temperini as having died on July 8th 1918 “from wounds sustained in combat”.
“We might never have heard of Ernest Hemingway had it not been for an Italian soldier who was killed taking the brunt of the exploding mortar,” Mr McGrath Morris wrote in his 2017 book, before the infantryman was identified. The historians would like to see the soldier’s name inscribed on a memorial along the Piave River which marks the spot where Hemingway was wounded.
While recuperating from his injuries for six months, he met a young nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky.
His love affair with her provided material for A Farewell to Arms, a fictional account based on his experiences during the war, written in 1929.
The soldier who was killed next to him is not mentioned in the novel, nor does Hemingway seem to have made an effort to find out his name.
The author later wrote of the mortar attack: “When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you. Then when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you.”
Italy suffered more than 600,000 casualties along the Austrian front but eventually declared victory and was awarded large chunks of Austrian territory for its contribution to the Allied fight.
Italian soldier who unwittingly saved Ernest Hemingway's life identified after a century
Blown to bits by a mortar during the First World War, he unwittingly saved the life of a young Ernest Hemingway, but his identity has been a mystery for more than 100 years – until now.
Historians believe they have put a name to an Italian soldier who bore the brunt of the mortar explosion, in doing so saving the life of the man who would later give the world A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and other classics.
Hemingway was just 18 and serving as a Red Cross volunteer on the Austro-Italian front when he had his brush with death on a section of the battleground which ran along the Piave River in the Dolomites.
As he was handing out cigarettes and chocolate to Italian soldiers in the trenches, Austro-Hungarian forces lobbed a mortar which badly wounded the young American and killed outright an Italian soldier standing close to him.
James McGrath Morris, an American author who has written a book about Hemingway, and Marino Perissinotto, an Italian amateur historian, used a process of elimination to identify the Italian infantry soldier who was standing next to Hemingway when the mortar landed on July 8th, 1918.
Through analysis of military records they found that 18 Italian soldiers died in battle on the Austro-Italian front that night.
The historians then identified which units those soldiers were serving in and where the units were located.
That ruled out 15 of the men, who were on different parts of the front, away from the mortar attack.
Of the three remaining, two were serving with the 152nd regiment of infantry, which was deployed in support trenches about two miles behind the front line.
That left just one soldier who was in the vicinity of Hemingway when he was wounded – Fedele Temperini, a 26-year-old private from the 69th infantry regiment who came from Montalcino, a hill town in Tuscany.
It is he who can be credited for saving the life of a man who went onto become a war correspondent, bon viveur and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mr McGrath Morris, the author of The Ambulance Drivers – Hemingway, Dos Passos and a Friendship Made and Lost in War, said that he and Mr Perissinotto feel “very confident” they have found the man whose sacrifice inadvertently spared the life of one of the greats of 20th century literature.
The process of elimination they used was “sound”, he told The Telegraph from his home in New Mexico.
Of the three soldiers who died along the Piave River front, “only one was in the right place”.
Mr Perissinotto found further corroboration – a military report from an officer at a Red Cross aid station behind the front, operated by the tiny Republic of San Marino.
The officer noted that the first aid post had treated the first American wounded on the battlefront and that alongside him a soldier from the 69th infantry regiment had died.
“The only soldier from the 69th regiment who was killed that night was Fedele Temperini,” Mr Perissinotto, who lives just a few miles from the former front line, told The Telegraph.
Italian military records corroborate their research, listing Fedele Temperini as having died on July 8th 1918 “from wounds sustained in combat”.
“We might never have heard of Ernest Hemingway had it not been for an Italian soldier who was killed taking the brunt of the exploding mortar,” Mr McGrath Morris wrote in his 2017 book, before the infantryman was identified. The historians would like to see the soldier’s name inscribed on a memorial along the Piave River which marks the spot where Hemingway was wounded.
While recuperating from his injuries for six months, he met a young nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky.
His love affair with her provided material for A Farewell to Arms, a fictional account based on his experiences during the war, written in 1929.
The soldier who was killed next to him is not mentioned in the novel, nor does Hemingway seem to have made an effort to find out his name.
The author later wrote of the mortar attack: “When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you. Then when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you.”
Italy suffered more than 600,000 casualties along the Austrian front but eventually declared victory and was awarded large chunks of Austrian territory for its contribution to the Allied fight.