r/wwi • u/Repulsive_Leg_4273 • 2d ago
Benito Mussolini as a Bersagliere in WW1
When World War I started, Mussolini, like many Italian nationalists, volunteered to fight. He was turned down because of his radical Socialism and told to wait for his reserve call up. He was called up on 31 August and reported for duty with his old unit, the Bersaglieri. After a two-week refresher course he was sent to Isonzo front where he took part in the Second Battle of the Isonzo, September 1915. His unit also took part in the Third Battle of the Isonzo, October 1915. His military exploits ended in February 1917 when he was wounded accidentally by the explosion of a mortar bomb in his trench. He was left with at least 40 shards of metal in his body and had to be evacuated from the front.\)
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u/HowToPronounceGewehr 2d ago
He was turned down because he dodged the draft in 1902 and was a socialist politician. When he came back in 1904 with an amnesty, and served with the 10th Bersaglieri in Verona to amend his missed draft.
When he managed to get recalled in december 1915, he ended up in the 33th battalion of the11th regiment.
Its war diary, despite being a propaganda piece where he's the hero, it's mostly about boredom, trench life, alienation and places he visited. He saw some action mostly on the Carso, near Doberdoʻ, in November 1916-february 1917 and almost always in a second-ish line. He either eas reinforcing trenvhes or commanding his mortar squad.
And he wasn't wounded by a mortar bomb but by his mortar exploding, next to him during a shooting excercise.
He indeed got dozens of shrapnels, but none big enough to cause any serious wounds (ofc in his journal he talks about a "desperate fight with death by my side", about being "not moveable because of the gravity of his wounds" but that's part of the myth and he was basically healed in couple months.