Page 45 - La Grande Guerra dei Carabinieri

45
Zona di guerra, 11 giugno 1917. Gabriele d’Annunzio accompagna il
feretro del Capitano Vittorio Bellipanni, ferito mortalmente sulla li-
nea del fuoco.
“Gli eroi meno noti dei nostri campi di battaglia. Il Carabiniere”,
copertina della “Domenica del Corriere” di Achille Beltrame (1918).
War zone, 11 June 1917. Gabriele D’Annunzio accompanies the coffin
of Capitan Vittorio Bellipanni, mortally wounded on the line of fire.
“The lesser known heroes of our battle fields. The Carabinieri”, cov-
er of the newspaper “Domenica del Corriere” by Achille Beltrame
(1918).
On the opposite page: The heroic death of the Capitan Vittorio Belli-
panni” by Vittorio Pisani. During the 10 battle of the Isonzo River,
th
Bellipanni led an army unit without officers to the assault, when he
was mortally wounded.

In war zone
war zone

n war zones, besides performing policing activities in favour of
the populations, the Carabinieri were tasked with the imposi-
I tion of military bans, intelligence and counterintelligence ac-
tivities, protection of transit hubs and roads, control of the mil-
itary deployed far from the units they belonged to, escorting
the movements of military units, surveilling deposits of mate-
rials, anti-looting and anti-plunder activities, repression of the
trade of military material, supervision of workers and civilian
employees, monitoring of brothels and, in case their number
was limited, management of prisoners of war.
The Carabinieri on the front lines, tasked with assisting the com-
manders in maintaining discipline, did not avoid the bloodiest fights
alongside other soldiers. While bringing scattered soldiers back to the
fireline, sometimes they led the assaults as well, by fighting in place of
fallen senior officers or missing soldiers. Tens of Carabinieri serving as
messengers distinguished themselves in challenging enemy snipers in open
lands and often fought alongside the units they had reached.