Death of the last Italian veteran of the Great War

[Romani]

I've found it only on today's newspaper, I copy the text from The Times, tomorrow is Armistice day, let's remember them.


From
October 30, 2008
Delfino Borroni: Italy’s last surviving veteran of the First World War

Italy’s oldest man and his country’s last surviving veteran of the First World War, Delfino Borroni served as a private in the Alpine campaigns against the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1917.

After Italy’s entry into the war on the Allied side against the Central Powers in the spring of 1915 this was a largely static war for the first two years as the Italians launched futile attacks against well prepared Austrian positions. But the years 1917 and 1918 brought momentous events as the Italians first sustained a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, and then gained their revenge with French and British help the following year at Vittorio Veneto, the battle that finally brought the Austro-Hungarian Empire to its knees.

Delfino Edmondo Borroni was born in the north of Italy in the village of Turago Bordone in Pavia province, south of Milan. A mechanic by trade, he was called up in January 1917 and posted to a regiment of Bersaglieri (the 6th Bersaglieri Bologna), Italy’s highly mobile sharpshooting infantry. He saw action in stalemate actions in the rocky terrain of Monte Pasubio, and later at Valsugana in the Trentino.

His unit was subsequently posted to the Julian Alps in Italy’s northeastern Venezia province. There in October 1917 the Italian 2nd Army under General Luigi Capello, already in a state of low morale verging on mutiny with its poor equipment and clothing in freezing conditions, was subjected to a surprise onslaught by 15 German and Austrian divisions under General Otto von Below, which broke through the Italian frontier on the River Isonzo.

As the Italian divisions reeled backwards towards the Piave under the Austro-German blows, Borroni was sent on a reconnaissance mission to try to ascertain the strength of the enemy’s forces. By that time the Italian retreat had become a rout and he quickly found himself isolated and surrounded. Wounded in the heel, he was captured and spent most of the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war, escaping only shortly before the end of hostilities when Austrian resistance collapsed in its turn at Vittorio Veneto in October and November 1918.

Borroni managed to return to his native village by Christmas 1918, and later became a tramway driver on the Milan-Magenta-Castano Primo line. As such he was was seriously wounded during the Second World War in an Allied air raid.

Borroni was appointed a Knight (Cavaliere) of the Order of Vittorio Veneto, which was instituted in 1968 “to express the grateful thanks of the nation” to those who had fought for at least six months in the First World War.

Delfino Borroni, Italian veteran of the First Wold War, was born on August 23, 1898. He died on October 26, 2008, aged 110


I add that with his death, only seven known veterans of the Great War remain in the world: 3 in Great Britain, 2 in Canada, 1 in Australia and 1 in USA

EDIT:

Borroni's death comes after the deaths earlier this year of the last German, Austrian, Turkish, French and female veterans of the Great War.

You can find more about them in this site:

The Old Coot: RIP: Delfino Borroni

[dpolglaze]

Sad news.

RIP Mr. Borroni.

Dan

[Kilian]

R.I.P. man