ITALY'S SUPREME HERO

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2663, 7 January 1916, Page 7

ITALY'S SUPREME HERO

"A STUDENT OF DEATH." . There is in Italy no exact equivalent of the Victoria Cross, no single supreme decoration for acts of courage. Tho "Medaglia af Valore Militare" (medal for military valour)' is divided into several classes. Nevertheless the first class of these, the medal of which is in gold, is so rarely granted that it carries with it an extraordinary jjrestige. ... It has now been conferred for the first time m the course of the present war upon' Second Lieutenant Decio Raggi, of the 11th Infantry of ' the tine, who was a doctor in civil life,' It can only, alas! be laid upon his tomb, for the courage' which won him the medal won him at the same time a soldier's death. _ He died on Podgora, on that rough hill opposite Gorizia which is generally termed Podgora, but it in reality named Calvario (Calvary), on whose summit were three crosses, to reach which he time and again let! his men on, with all a- martyr's, foreknowledge of his' end. It was while he was leading them to the assault of an Austrian trench that he, was shot down on the brink of it. He had reached it, after miraculously passing lines of . wire, some ten yards in advance of his soldiers. The soldiers behind him hesitated a moment. It was then that he jumped on to the broad parapet of tha trench, and, making no effort .to use any ■ weapon,_ irrevocably sacrificed .his life by standing there, a point-hlank mark to a line of enemies, and—as ho had hoped—with a wild cry of "Forward! Romagna!" in the moment before he died drawing the conquering impetus out of his men. This action was the culminating one of several such on the slopes of Calvario in the desperate fighting of July. On every occasion he had gone before his troops, magnetising them, drawing them on, and offering his own life as a light payment for tho result. So regular and methodical were these valiant forward rushes of his that it may almost be said of him that he studied for death. He left the following memorable testament:— . • { "Whilo the venerated Majesty of Victor Emmanuel 'III," he wrote, "with fatherly regard purposes to unite all our race in one family behind their natural frontiers, I from G'apriva on this second day of July, 1915, declare t.n my dear ones these my last wishes. "0 youth of Italy! envy my happy lot. In the holy name of God and in the hope of a better life, for the greatness and unity and honour of our country. for the liberty and independence of my oppressed brethren, in the sacrtd name of Italy, in tho love and through the love iof all that is Italian, I die blessed.

"Neither toils, nor dangers, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor long watching, nor privation have ever shaken my faith in our just national aspirations or m.y love for down-trodden Italians, or my hate for t»e old and new tyrants, our oppressors. "Do you then who hold me dear not abandon _ yourselves to ufjehss regrets, but cultivate such love for me as my soul will still maintain for you. I beg forgiveness from those I have done ill too, as I forgive any who have done ill to mo. ..." Decio Bagfti was,, as has been stated,. a, doctor by profession, but he had been called to the Arm; as a reserve officer and a combatant! He was born iu 1884 at Savignano, near Forli, and was buried, as ho wished, in the little graveyard near his home, near by which flows the . stream of the Bubicaii, fittingly close to ono who so readily took his own eternal decision.