Today, in 1943, the Alpini Broke the Encirclement In Russia - Nikolajevka

[Ovidio]

After a horrendous retreat with temperatures between -25 and -42°C, completely on foot and fighting a series of desperate battles to break out of the Russian encirclement, on January 26th, 1943, the column, lead by the Tridentina division of the Italian Alpini Corps, found itself blocked, once again, by two Russian divisions outside of the small town of Nikolajevka.
The Tridentina, supported by 4 German tank destroyers, immediately attacked and entered the town, also reaching the railway embankment, which served as a wonderful defensive position for the Russian infantry.
The fight continued for several hours, until the Tridentina, which started the attack already bled white by the previous ordeal (the Julia, Miracle Division, was almost completely destroyed defending on unprepared positions the southern flank of the Alpine Corps from the 17th of December to the 17th of January, fighting off daily attacks by armoured and infantry corps with rifles and mountain howitzers and was thus not able to support. The Cuneense was equally bled during the first part of the withdrawal, when they opened the path for the others) started to falter. At that point, thousands of unarmed, injured and desperate Alpini, who were watching the fight from the surrounding higher terrain, started to run downhill in utter desperation, strafed by machine gun fire and hit by mortars, but with the only goal of breaching the ring holding them up.
At unimaginable cost in lives and suffering, they overwhelmed the Russian defences and freed themselves.
The fighting part of the withdrawal was over. Not the marching in the snow and freezing temperatures, which lasted a couple more weeks. The Alpini could get back to the Axis lines undefeated, but they were less than 15% of those who started the retreat.
With them came thousands of Italian, Romanian, German and Hungarian soldiers, who just followed them because they were the only organised and disciplined units still present and willing to fight in the whole area.
Reading about them in one of the most wonderful books I've ever read, 100.000 Frozen Canteens (100.000 gavette di ghiaccio), from Giulio Bedeschi is what made me decide that I wanted to be an Alpino. I was 12.
Today is a day of pride and sorrow for those unbelievable guys, who went to war armed like in WWI and with equipment for mountain warfare and had to fight on never ending plains against tanks and the Russian winter.
And made it!
When they came back to Italy, they were hidden from the population and treated in a shameful way, because they were the symbol of an enormous defeat which could not be told, even if they were undefeated themselves.
I pray for them and thank them for their example.
And am so proud that I could become an Officer of that wonderful Corp!

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[Daan Kemp]

Stupendous courage to outlast the Russian winter and assaults. And those left could return to Italy. It is a soldier's lot not be recognised for what they achieved but what the politicians wanted to achieve.