Born Cagliari, Sardinia in 1890. Served as N.C.O. in First World War. Founded Sardinian Action Party in post-war period. Parliamentary Deputy, 1921-29. Joined Aventine secessionists following the Matteotti assassination, and was later arrested by the Fascists. Escaped confinement, and from 1929 spent period of exile in Paris where he was a founder member of "Giustizia e Libert…."
Lussu's two main works were both published abroad in the 30's, to be reissued in Italy in the 1960's. Lussu was a member of the assembly that drafted the new Italian constitution, and has served as a Senator for the Socialist Party.
Main works:
A Year on the High Plateau (1965)
(Un anno sull'altipiano)
The March on Rome (1965)
(Marcia su Roma e Dintorni)
A Conversation among Officers:
The conversation concerns a mutiny in the ranks against the conditions of the War.
Ottolenghi: My squad was in order, or almost. Just one imbecile wanted to go outside with a machine gun and fire into the air. I told him: one move and I'll shoot. A machine gun? If the machine guns are going out, they'd better all go. If my machine gun section wants to demonstrate, let it demon- strate as a body, officers, N.C.O.'s, corporals, privates, everybody! In that case, I'd join the mutiny, too. And one of these days, I think it's going to come. They're right, a thousand times right, but the timing was off. To mutiny at night, unarmed, is madness!
Avellini: And you're as mad as a hatter.
Ottolenghi: If you mutiny, you've got to do it right, by day and armed, to make the most of the situation, and make sure you don't miss anyone. Not one junior officer.
Commander of the 12th Company: A great plan! What about the others?
Ottolenghi: What others? I'm sure you wouldn't mutiny alongside our superiors.
Commander of the 12th: If that's the way you think about it, why don't you resign as an officer?
Ottolenghi: Because I'd still have to do my service, and I'd rather go through the war as an officer, than as a private.
(His fellow officers ask Ottolenghi if he has taken the loyalty oath, always to follow orders, never to disobey, or foment dissent etc.? Avellini asks him how, as a man of honor, he could have sworn to do this, knowing he was lying. Ottolenghi counters by saying that the oath is a formality. In time of war those who resist the draft are first tried by military tribunal, then sent up the line in any case. Thus the oath is no more than a `legitimate defence" of one's own interests. The conversation turns back to revolt.)
Commander of the 11th Company: Who are you going to use these arms against?
Ottolenghi: Against the whole chain of command.
Commander of the 11th: And then? What do you want to be? Commander-in-Chief?
Ottolenghi: Onwards, up the scale. Always forward, in step, with discipline. Forward, that is, in a special sense, because our real enemies aren't in the other trenches over there. Forward means right about turn, and then forward.
A 2nd Lieutenant: In other words, backwards.
Ottolenghi: Of course, forward forever, as far as Rome. Enemy Headquarters.
Commander of the 11th: Then what?
Ottolenghi: You think it's nothing?
A 2nd Lieutenant: What a pilgrimage.
Ottolenghi: Then? The Government will be handed over to the people.
Commander of the 10th: If you get the Army to march on Rome, do you think the Germans and Austrians will stay in their trenches/ Or do you think that out of kindness to our people's government, the Germans will go back to Berlin, the Austrians to Vienna, and the Hungarians to Budapest?
Ottolenghi: I'm not interested in what the others will do. For me it's enough to know what I want.
(A fellow officer argues that if Ottolenghi had his way, the inevitable result would be a German victory, and a foreign occupation of Italy (the very thing the 19th century Risorgimento has fought to eliminate), and a return to black reaction. Otto- lenghi admits this is not what he wants: but wearily reminds his brother officers that the war they are now fighting is a pointless massacre, in which the very reasons for entering it have been buried and forgotten. The arguments that follow are based on the thesis that in well defined circumstances the instincts of self-preservation and personal safety must take second place to collective priorities.)
Commander of the 10th: (cont'd) You must admit, you have to defend the moral basis of your ideas, even at the risk of your life. The arguments of exhaustion and horror aren't enough to condemn a war. The soldiers mutinied tonight. Are they right or wrong? A bit of each I'd say. The majority only see the immediate relief. But what if their behavior came to be considered as normal conduct in an army?
Ottolenghi: Their revolt is legitimate, because the war has become this intolerable slaughter we see, because of the incompetence of our leaders.
Commander of the 11th: That's true.
Commander of the 12th: Ottolenghi's right there.
Avellini: Even I can't deny it.
Ottolenghi: See! Even you are forced to admit it.
Commander of the 10th: We got into this war with military and political leaders who were unprepared. But this isn't a reason to make us throw down our arms.
Ottolenghi: You'd think our generals had been sent by the enemy to destroy us.
Group of 2nd Lieutenants: It's true.
Ottolenghi: And round them a band of speculators, protected by Rome, are making a killing off us. Remember the other day when they delivered the new shoes to the Battalion? What great shoes! One the soles, in the tricolor, they'd printed, "Long Live Italy!" After one day in the mud we saw the soles were cardboard, varnished to look like leather!
Group of 2nd lieutenants: That's true.
Commander of the 12th: I'm afraid so.
Ottolenghi: The shoes are a trifle. But the real crime is they've varnished our whole lives. They've stamped Father- land on our hearts, and have driven us to the slaughter like sheep.
(The door to the mess opens and two majors, Frangipane (who has seen as much action as the author on the front() and Melchiorri (a professional who has just arrived in the mountains, but has seen active service in N. Africa) enter, with the news that Melchiorri has proposed to the Divisional Commander that ten men per company be shot for taking part in the short-lived mutiny.)
Ottolenghi proposes: I am for the execution of the Divisional Commander.
(A Year on the High Plateau) (Chapter 25)
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