One Year on the High Plateau (original title: Un anno sull'Altipiano) is a historical novel by Emilio Lussu: set on the Asiago plateau, it is one of the major works of Italian literature on the First World War. The novel was written between 1936 and 1937 and tells, for the first time in Italian literature, the irrationality and senselessness of war, hierarchy and exasperated military discipline in use at the time. For a long time considered a faithful chronicle of the events dating back to the period spent by Lussu as an officer of the Sassari Brigade, it has subsequently been the subject of a substantial historiographic criticism, which has strongly reduced the value of the chronicle of real events, leading it to the role of historical novel.
Origins
Before the outbreak of the Great War, Emilio Lussu was a university student and was an active interventionist in the period preceding the declaration of hostilities. He enlisted as a volunteer together with Giuseppe Tommasi, and with the latter was destined to serve as a second lieutenant in the Sassari Brigade, a unit composed almost exclusively of Sardinians. In the ranks of this unit, Lussu became one of the most valiant and well-known officers, so much so that he earned the appreciation of his superiors and deserved during the conflict four decorations for valor in recognition of the innumerable daring actions carried out and of the influence exercised over the men under his command.
After the war, Lussu founded with Camillo Bellieni the Partito Sardo d'Azione, opposing the progressive takeover of power by the fascists. Having failed an attempt at negotiation and convergence between the shareholders and the Fascists, of which he himself was a protagonist, Lussu sided with increasingly antagonistic positions, participating in the Aventine Secession after the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti. The firm hostility towards Fascism led him, when all opposition parties were suppressed, to be sentenced to five years in prison to be served on the island of Lipari.
Escaped from captivity, he repaired abroad, later joining Giustizia e Libertà. In the years of exile he developed a different consciousness towards his military experience and in general on the value of the Great War, connecting it with the advent of Fascism. In the period of exile he gave body to his reflections writing first March on Rome and its whereabouts (Marcia su Roma e dintorni), and then Un anno sull'Altipiano. This last work, therefore, was written in a context and in conditions of mind very different from those that had characterized the pre-war period and the actions during the conflict. The narration reflects the changed conditions of the author, going to reread in a negative key his entire war experience, and reporting in fictional form both episodes that really happened, and events that are not reflected in historical reality.
Story
Hidden under unit numbers and fictitious names, the novel recounts events that can be traced back to the period spent by the Sassari Brigade on the Altipiano dei Sette Comuni between June 1916 and July 1917. In fact, under the conventional names of the 399th and 400th Infantry Regiments - ordinals not present in the list of the Regiments of the Regio Esercito - are hidden the 151st and 152nd Infantry Regiments of the brigade.
At the end of May 1916 the unit, that was fighting on Carso, was rapidly relocated on the Asiago High Plateau, where the Austro-Hungarian offensive labeled as Strafexpedition was ongoing. After its arrival on the new warfront, the Sassari fought between Monte Fior and Monte Zebio, behaving valiantly and in fact helping to stop the Austro-Hungarian invasion attempt. After spending the winter in the trenches, in June 1917 the Sassari participated in the Battle of Mount Ortigara, attacking on the Mount Zebio. The story ends before the Eleventh Battle of Isonzo and the following Battle of Caporetto.
In Lussu's narrative, the salient aspects of life in the trenches are reported, describing the suffering of men in combat, the atmosphere of fear before an assault and during the bombardment of enemy artillery, the enormous losses to conquer a few meters of land and enemy trenches that were almost regularly lost after a short time.