ITALY'S MORALE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24492, 28 December 1940, Page 8

ITALY'S MORALE

GREAT WAR MEMORIES AUCKLAND MAN'S OPINION .WORTH OF ALPINI REGIMENTS "The Alpini, Italy's mountain regiments, were, and still are, a good fighting force, but no man is a good fighter unless the morale is there," said Mr Arthur E. Moore of Auckland, in an interview, giving first-hand opinions of the fighting qualities of the Italian Army. Mr Moore, who, with the rank of lieutenant was attached to the Italian Army for three years in the Great War as representative of the British Red Cross Society, saw service on all the Italian fronts, and was with their army during the ignominious Caporetto retreat in 1917. Refusing to be taken prisoner, whole regiments of the Alpini, whose fighting qualities were as good as any soldiers in the world, fought to the end in the 1917 retreat. Seventy-five per cent of the Italian people were for the British before this war. and therefore they could not now fight wholeheartedly against the British. Other Italians threw down their arms in the 1917 incident, said Mr Moore, and the British, in order to put stamina into the retreating men, decided to march their division forward to a railhead. It was unnecessary strategically to march the British forward, but it had the effect of giving the Italians more morale. Italians ,' from Northern Italy were a hardy race, more of the mountain type and infinitely superior to the gross, over-eating type from Naples, Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy' The personnel of the Italian Navv was made up almost entirely of Southern Italians, and it was definitely not much good. The Royal Air Force was bombing Southern Italy, where the morale was weak. At the time of the Caporetto disaster there were French divisions in Italy, but the King of Italy made a trip to Rome with a special request that a division of British troops should stay in Italy to strengthen the morale of the Italian soldiers. The division stayed there, and it had its effect . Mr Moore, who received an Italian decoration, is confident that many Italian people are still pro-British, and that that would be a factor in lessen'ing the Italian morale.