Arditi (from the Italian verb ardire, 'to dare', and translates as "The Daring [Ones]") was the name adopted by a Royal Italian Army elite special force of World War I. They and the opposing German Stormtroopers were the first modern shock troops, and they have been called "the most feared corps by opposing armies". [2][3][4]

The Italian front (Italian: Fronte italiano; German: Südwestfront) was one of the main theatres of war of World War I. It involved a series of military engagements along the border between the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary from 1915 to 1918.

The brigade had suffered the highest loss rate of all Italian infantry brigades in the war: 2,164 dead, and 12,858 wounded and missing in action; a death rate of 13.8% of all men that had served in the brigade during the war.

The massive frontal assaults, the anonymous soldier, faceless death—against this backdrop, the mountain war in Italy was a battle of small units, of individuals.

The most important decimation was that of 17 July 1917 of the 6 th Company of the 142 nd regiment of the Catanzaro brigade. There was an immediate execution by firing squad of sixteen soldiers – of the brigade that had rebelled during the night – about whom there were only clues.

Individual-level data of more than 62,000 soldiers born between 1874 and 1899 in north-eastern Italy was used. Almost 10% of these soldiers died in the war. A data set was constructed by linking two different sources, the call-up registers and the Roll of Honour of the fallen Italian soldiers of WWI.

Italian deaths due to illness in German camps were 5.46 per cent of total prisoners, exceeded only by Serbian victims (5.81 per cent) and weighing in just above the Russians (4.61 per cent) and well ahead of the Americans (0.73 per cent), Belgians (1.9 per cent), British (2.08 per cent) and French (2.41 per cent) (Procacci 1993, chapter 3).

In October and November 1917 a joint Austro-German attack at Caporetto inflicted a massive defeat on Italy, but the Central Powers were unable to capitalise on their victory and Italy recovered well. As Austria-Hungary disintegrated at home, Italy emerged victorious after the final battle of Vittorio Veneto.

For Italy, the mass death of soldiers in the First World War was a completely unprecedented experience. An enormous amount of time and effort were expended to cope with it. Assorted microcosms of commemoration had already formed during the war at all levels of society.

During World War I, both Britain and France sent military forces to Italy in October 1917. Following the Battle of Caporetto (24 October to 19 November 1917), the Italian Front collapsed. In order to ensure this did not lead to Italy withdrawing from the war the allies organised forces to reinforce the Italians. [1] .