4 Nicola Labanca, Caporetto. Storia e memoria di una disfatta (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2017), p. 108. 5 ‘Luigi Cadorna, luci di un comandante controverso’ and ‘Cadorna visto da generali, politici, giornalisti e storici del suo tempo’, special edition of the Rivista militare, 2017, pp. 2–14, 15–32. discounted any idea of an Austrian Strafexpedition in 1916 because it made no sense to him (though he later reacted with energy and effectiveness). At Caporetto, his command failures – inadequate reserves, the lack of rearward lines of defence, and a command headquarters that never had a grip on the battle – were the multipliers of misfortune when, in the words of the latest historian of the battle, ‘a couple of tactical episodes . . . led to the breaking of the front and transformed it into the cause of a rout’.4 The accusations made against Cadorna by the commission of enquiry into the causes of Caporetto were, Mondini concludes, ‘for the most part justified’ (p. 294). Summing up Cadorna’s life and career, Mondini sees ‘a typical exponent . . . of the culture, the ambitions and the obsessions of his generation’. Neither particularly clever nor particularly inept, he was a soldier in a continent ‘crowded’ with professional soldiers who all shared, more or less, ‘the same [professional] formation, the same defects and the same incapacity to understand modernity, with its technological novelties and its revolutions’ (pp. 311-2). This may not sound a particularly controversial conclusion – but in some ways it is. For one thing, it speaks to a particular conception of Italian military culture which not everyone will accept. For another, work is now being done to exonerate Cadorna from some of the more detailed charges of technical inadequacy and incapacity.5 Debate will undoubtedly continue. For the moment, though, and probably for some time to come, Mondini’s biography has supplanted everything that came before it. Will an astute publisher commission a translation so that English-speaking historians can measure Cadorna against Joffre, Haig, Nivelle, and other Great War luminaries? I very much hope so.

中文翻译：

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书评：第二次世界大战：第一次全球冲突是如何战斗并赢得胜利的维克多·戴维斯·汉森

4 Nicola Labanca，卡波雷托。Storia e memoria di una disfatta（博洛尼亚：Il Mulino，2017），p。108. 5 “Luigi Cadorna, luci di un comandante controverso”和“Cadorna visto da generali, politici, giornalisti e storici del suo tempo”，Rivista militare 特别版，2017 年，第 2-132 页，第 15 页 1916 年，他对奥地利 Strafexpedition 的任何想法都打了折扣，因为这对他来说毫无意义（尽管他后来以精力充沛和效率做出了反应）。在卡波雷托，他的指挥失败——预备役不足、缺乏后防线以及从未控制过战斗的指挥总部——是不幸的倍增，用最新的战斗历史学家的话来说，“几个战术情节。. . 导致前线破裂并将其转化为溃败的原因'。4 蒙迪尼总结说，卡波雷托事件调查委员会对卡多纳的指控“在很大程度上是合理的”（第 294 页）。总结卡多纳的生平和事业，蒙迪尼认为是“一个典型的指数”。. . 他这一代人的文化、抱负和痴迷”。他既不是特别聪明也不是特别无能，他是一个“拥挤”的大陆上的一名士兵，职业士兵或多或少都拥有“相同的[专业]阵型、相同的缺陷和相同的理解现代性的能力，以及其技术新奇事物及其革命”（第 311-2 页）。这听起来可能不是一个特别有争议的结论——但在某些方面确实如此。一方面，它讲述了一种并非所有人都能接受的意大利军事文化的特定概念。为别人，目前正在开展工作，以免除 Cadorna 的一些更详细的技术缺陷和无能力指控。5 争论无疑将继续。不过，就目前而言，可能在未来一段时间内，蒙迪尼的传记已经取代了之前的一切。精明的出版商是否会委托翻译，以便讲英语的历史学家可以将卡多纳与乔佛尔、黑格、尼维尔和其他大战杰出人物进行比较？我非常希望如此。黑格、尼维尔和其他伟大的战争名人？我非常希望如此。黑格、尼维尔和其他伟大的战争名人？我非常希望如此。