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The Harvard Ambulance
Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos and the Italian Front
T
by Paolo Pozzato
he US participation in First World War on the Italian front has been, on historical research and even more on the collective perception, a singular and contradictory case. On the one hand, the presence of a fighter force, such as 332th Infantry Regiment, Ohio Division, under the command of Colonel William J. Wallace, was defined and downsized to the point to consider it little more than a ‘flag’ operation. The General Croce, the Army Corps Commander, from which the above Regiment depended on, was practically ordered to keep it strictly away from the fighting; it was feared that even small losses, suffered by its units, would have burdened, at least in terms of public opinion and international press, to the point to let only US forces «decide the conflict», in spite of the low number of them. The resounding echo that the Allied press had given to the French victory on Mount Tomba, at the end of 1917, represented a lesson that the Italian command, beginning with the highest Command down to the lowest levels, had largely assimilated. It was not a coincidence that one of the criticisms made to Diaz, in the aftermath of the ultimate success, is to have allowed the constitution of two armies, led by French and English respectively, which would have eclipsed, the real dimensions of the contribution and the Italian victory. The American soldiers were then used, even on the final offensive, mainly in long marches that had the aim to deceive the enemy observers, deployed on the extent of American troops on the front. The deception also succeeded because the Austrian Intelligence continued to overestimate, until the collapse, the number of US soldiers who were on the right bank of the Piave river1. However, from 3 to 4 November also the 332nd had its baptism of fire on the Italian war theater, engaging a last fight with the Austro-Hungarian troops, deployed at the destroyed wooden bridge over the Tagliamento, Casarsa del1 Stabs-Hauptmann Constantin Schneider, Die Kriegserinnerungen 1914-1919, Eingeleitet, kommentiert und herausgegeben von Oskar Dohle, Böhlau Verlag, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2003, p. 567 where Austrian officials speake about USA «Divisions», trained by Italian behind Piave’s line.
