Re: Giro d'Italia 2016
Posted: 20 May 2016, 11:07
Thank you Torsten.
So Cividale was at some point awarded the Medal of Military Valour in silver; the next question is when and why? Looking at a map of Italian military operations in World War 1, one finds that Cividale was strategically important, south west of Caporetto, during the battles on or around the Isonzo and Piave rivers (it was on this front that Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel won the Pour le Mérite (between 25 and 27 October 1917, with a force of just 150 men he captured 81 guns and 9,000 men (including 150 officers), for the loss of just 6 dead and 30 wounded). One can well imagine that Cividale was to Italian soldiers the first place one could gain some respite from the front, much as Poperinghe was to soldiers fighting around Ypres.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Italian_Front_1915-1917.jpg
So Cividale was at some point awarded the Medal of Military Valour in silver; the next question is when and why? Looking at a map of Italian military operations in World War 1, one finds that Cividale was strategically important, south west of Caporetto, during the battles on or around the Isonzo and Piave rivers (it was on this front that Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel won the Pour le Mérite (between 25 and 27 October 1917, with a force of just 150 men he captured 81 guns and 9,000 men (including 150 officers), for the loss of just 6 dead and 30 wounded). One can well imagine that Cividale was to Italian soldiers the first place one could gain some respite from the front, much as Poperinghe was to soldiers fighting around Ypres.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Italian_Front_1915-1917.jpg