The exchange is one of the most poignant episodes from the famous Italian war memoir "Un anno sull'Altipiano" by Emilio Lussu ("A Year on the High Plateau" in English). You can read the full book in Italian here.
One of the high points of the book is a suicidal charge over no man's land in which the author takes part. It culminates with this excerpt (p. 98), which I tried to translate:
The battalion was to attack on a front of 250-300 meters. But the depression of the ground had involuntarily pushed us, as we advanced, towards the same strip of land in front of the trenches, only about fifty meters wide. The machine guns could no longer hit us, but we offered the standing shooters a compact target. The remnants of the battalion were all piled up there. Against us they shot at point-blank range.
Suddenly, the Austrians stopped shooting. I saw those in front of us, with their eyes wide open and with an expression of terror almost as if they, and not us, were under fire. One of them, who was without a rifle, cried out in Italian:
- Enough! Enough!
- Enough! - repeated the others, from the trench parapets. The one with no weapon seemed to me to be a chaplain. - Enough! Brave soldiers. Don't let yourselves be slaughtered like that.
We stopped for a moment. We didn't shoot, they didn't shoot. (...)
This episode was depicted (although with different dialogues and outcome) in the movie 'Uomini Contro' (1970), somewhat based on the book. You can see the specific scene here.
I saw it years ago and young me was very moved by it, but most of what I've since learned about WW1 goes against the picture the book and the movie depict, so I became doubtful.
Important note: I realise it's very hard to prove that some specific episode didn't happen. I didn't have space in the title to frame my question differently, but I would like to clarify what I meant.
I'm mostly curious to know if, when looking at the context of this literary work and what we know of the Italian front, is it plausible that episodes like this really happened. Or if, on the contrary, it's likely to be an embellishment on the part of an author with a clear anti-war agenda. I would be very glad to learn if it actually happened if that is possible, but I'm not necessarily looking for an absolute answer.
Edit: added a little more to the excerpt with the help of the DeepL translator.
It's worth noting that Lussu was not at the time of the Great War (and likely never was) a pacifist. He had been a rather fervent democratic interventionist (as were called at the time those who favored the Italian intervention with the Entente, but didn't come from a nationalist or expansionist front) and had been called immediately in May 1915 (he was 25 and it's likely he would not have been called any sooner had he volunteered). He belonged to a generation of young officers who believed, with ups and downs, that war may be just, and fought by a lot of decent people, but that those running it were shit.
And this side of things is the one which you see most in his novel. Now, it's a novel - but Lussu himself (despite writing some twenty years later) insists that he is relying on his memories of the front. To clarify this, Lussu isn't arguing that this was a regular occurrance, but that it was extraordinary to him as well, and that it appeared extraordinary to him in the context of an assault he was taking part in.
Of course we can take a negative point of view, and assume the event to be exaggerated, or outright fabricated, or that the author imagined those words, among the noise and confusion - there are after all vastly different records of battle events. At the same time, there is no reason to regard this specific exchange as implausible.
To clarify, most of our records of things happening on the front come from military courts and letters intercepted by censorship (a way which often leads back to court). From these we have evidence of episodes of "fraternization" - especially instances of: soldiers not shooting to a visible enemy, soldiers talking with the enemy, soldiers exchanging goods with the enemy, officers not reprimanding soldiers doing the aforementioned. Those things happened and in fact weren't uncommon at all. During WW1 of the 5,200,000 Italians that served in the Army, 571,000 died, 451,645 were declared invalid, 57,000 died as prisoners of war while some 60,000 were misplaced – either dying unaccounted or not returning to their previous domicile.
Through the same years 400,000 cases were sent to court for violations committed while under service terms [this is not including the 470,000 men who did not answer the call to arms – 370,000 being Italian living in foreign countries – who did not serve in the military and therefore did not fall under military jurisdiction]. This gives a total of around 6% for the enlisted men that were subjected to some inquiry by the military justice – 350,000 cases were settled before the amnesty of September 2^nd 1919 (around 210,000 were found guilty and 140,000 not guilty); 50,000 were still open at the time. As historian Alberto Monticone noted,
6% of indicted in an Army is a symptom of a severe internal fracture and leads to believe that either indiscipline and rebellion were widespread or that some sort of divide, of inability to build a mutual understanding had developed between the commands and a portion of the troops.
Here is a breakdown of the most common charges.
a – Exempt per Decreto Luogotenenziale of Dec. 10^th 1917 that allowed safe return to the ranks to those who had gone missing after Caporetto, as long as they showed up before New Year's Eve. Note that desertion covers also those who came back late from license, since a practice was often opened if they could not prove immediately their good faith.
The following numbers are those of the men found guilty, per year (July to June).
| year | desertion | indiscipline | self mutilation | surrender |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 – 16 | 10,272 | 4,600 | 1,094 | 1,800 |
| 16 – 17 | 27,817 | 6,900 | 3,118 | 2,300 |
| 17 – 18 | 55,034 | 10,000 | 2,136^b | 1,100 |
| until Nov. 18 | 8,562 | 3,000 | 272 | 100 |
b – It is evident that the amount of general violations in the Army rose with war fatigue – being often the result of failed promises of “one last offensive” or “soon to be provided, better treatment, food, accommodation”. The drop in self mutilation followed the deliberation (19^th of October 1916) to keep those who were found guilty under military supervision [since September 1917, those suspect of self harm were kept apart from regular wounded, in “self mutilators” hospitals], which also meant that their sentence was to be served on the front line, as soon as their injuries allowed it. So that only those who had inflicted themselves permanently disabling injuries would avoid service.
Finally a breakdown of the sentences terms [sentences up to seven years were suspended to allow return to the front; above seven years military law required five years scale graduation, i.e. 10-15-20 and so on].
c – Most of the death sentences were not carried off , because they hit those who had deliberately left the ranks and surrendered.
As you can see, the Italian Army considered likely that 4,000 men had deliberately crossed to the enemy, and in fact the authorities were concerned enough with the threat of desertion (which, according to Prime Minister V.E. Orlando had returned to "terrifying proportions" in the spring and summer of 1918) to employ punitive measures against prisoners not in the clear and their families.
May I add a question here? I read that in ww1 Italians did not want to fight and that they were forced by their own officers at gunpoint to go into charges. I read that many Italian soldiers were executed in trenches for disobeying an order. Can someone confirm? That would explain in part this particular episode.