Achille papa

Bust of Achille Papa

Achille Papa (born February 23, 1863 in Desenzano del Garda , Italy ; † October 5, 1917 on the plateau of Bainsizza-Heiligengeist, Austria-Hungary ) was an Italian general in the First World War .

Life

Achille Papa came from a middle-class family. His father Antonio was a general merchant and owned a small shop in Desenzano on Lake Garda . The marriage with Teresina Girardini resulted in a total of nine children, with Achille only two more reaching adulthood. Achille first attended the technical school in Brescia and then the Candelero boarding school in Turin , where he prepared for the entrance exam for the military academy in Modena .

In 1880 he was accepted into the military academy, which he graduated two years later. With the rank of lieutenant he was then posted to the 47th Infantry Regiment. In 1895, the father, who had meanwhile been promoted to captain , married , who in the meantime had changed units several times and had worked for the Alpini and as a general staff officer.

In the spring of 1915, shortly before the First World War, he passed the officer's examination to become a colonel and was given command of the 81st Infantry Regiment on April 1, 1915. He maintained extensive correspondence with his wife during the First World War, which was first published in the 1930s.

First World War

At the beginning of May 1915, Papa and his regiment received orders to march towards Veneto . When the war broke out , he and his unit were in the Val di Zoldo in the Dolomites, about 6 km from the border with Austria-Hungary . His regiment was the 17th Infantry Division in the IX. Subordinated to the Army Corps, which belonged to the 4th Army and the command of General Luigi Nava . From mid-June 1915 to the end of November 1915, Papa and his unit stood in the upper Val Cordevole in the Livinallongo area and took part in the attacks on the Hexenstein and Col di Lana as part of the First Dolomite Offensive . Except for minor gains in land, Papa occupied Andraz Castle below the Falzarego Pass , but not a decisive success. In his opinion, the failures were due to the insufficient knowledge of the terrain that the higher Italian command posts possessed. He himself always personally inspected the attack area or convinced himself of the strength of his own defensive positions. But he also took care of the well-being of his subordinates and took care of the sufficient supply of winter clothing and firewood at an early stage. He considered the tactics of frontal attack propagated by the Italian chief of staff, Cadorna , without regard to losses, to be wrong. In his correspondence with his wife, for example, he criticized the Italian attacks on the Col di Lana carried out in this style under the command of Peppino Garibaldi . For him, protecting his own people was fundamental to building a basis of trust between superiors and subordinates. At an early stage, Papa implemented trench warfare methods that only became common practice in the Italian army during the First World War, in which, for example, he only occupied his own trenches with the most necessary people in order to avoid unnecessary losses in the event of fire attacks by enemy artillery.

At the end of November 1915 he was placed under command of the Liguria Brigade (157th and 158th Infantry Regiment), which was in position on the upper reaches of the Isonzo on the western foothills of the Krn between Tolmein and Karfreit . He spent the winter of 1915/16 with his brigade building positions on the Isonzo. As the local commander of Karfreit, he also took care of civil affairs, the place inhabited by the elderly and children, and set up a day-care center with a school with the help of donations. In March 1916 he was promoted to general. With the beginning of spring, the fighting on the front increased again. During the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo , he commanded his troops standing on Marzil near Tolmein.

On May 21, 1916, General Papa and his brigade received marching orders for the front on the plateau of the seven municipalities , where the Austro-Hungarian army threatened to break through into the Venetian lowlands during the spring offensive that had started a few days earlier . At the beginning of June he occupied the front section between Monte Zovetto and Magnaboschi south of Asiago near Cesuna with the Liguria Brigade . Here, between June 15 and 16, 1916, he fought off the last Austro-Hungarian breakthrough attempt presented by the 1st Army Corps under the command of General Karl von Kirchbach on Lauterbach as part of the spring offensive with heavy losses. For this act Papa was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Savoy .

After a short break from the front, on July 3, 1916, he received marching orders for the section of the front on Monte Pasubio . A day before, a massive attack by the Austro-Hungarian 10th Mountain Brigade under Colonel Brigadier Karl Korzer and the 1st Kaiserjäger Regiment had been repulsed with the last of their forces. Papa then occupied with his unit the central frontal area from the Lora rocks in the southwest via the Cima Palon, the main summit of the Pasubio, the Italian plate to the Corno di Pasubio in the northeast. As in the Dolomites and the Isonzo, he first had the positions expanded and then took care of the logistics with the construction of cable cars and water pipes. The lively construction activity he initiated on the Pasubio also included the construction of a network of paths and the construction of cavernous shelters and tunnels. The large connecting tunnel under the main summit of the Pasubio, started in January 1917, was named after him. On his initiative, a barrack town called El Milan was built on the south-eastern slopes, from the ruins of which the Rifugio Achille Papa emerged in the post-war period . Papa stood on the Pasubio almost without interruption for 12 months, during which time he was given section command at the beginning of 1917 and in April 1917 command of the 44th Infantry Division, which he took over from his predecessor General Andrea Graziani . For his participation in the defensive battles in July 1916 and for conquering the Cosmagnon Mulde in October of the same year on the Pasubio, he was awarded the Silver Medal of Bravery . It was said that he knew every stone on the Pasubio.

In August 1917, the 44th Infantry Division under the command of General Papa was posted to the Isonzo Front as a reserve for the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. He accepted this decision with displeasure, as the task on the Pasubio had grown dear to his heart. On the way to the Isonzo he made another stop in Treviso with his wife and three children. When he arrived at the new section of the front, his division was initially under the 3rd Army under the command of the Duke of Aosta , until it was finally assigned to the 2nd Army under General Luigi Capello . In mid-September 1917 he and his unit were again at the front on the plateau of Bainsizza-Heiligengeist south-east of Gorizia . On September 18, he ordered a successful attack on Kote 800, which was occupied after repeated attacks and counter-attacks. The height, later referred to as Kote Papa and now known in Italian as Monte Gomila, formed the easternmost corner of the Italian front line on the Isonzo. Papa had it expanded accordingly after the occupation and convinced himself of the progress of the work. On the morning of October 5, 1917, he was gunned down by an Austro-Hungarian sniper during one of these inspection rounds. He succumbed a little later despite a hastily carried out emergency operation at a nearby auxiliary station . While still on his deathbed, he was presented with a second silver medal for bravery for conquering Kote 800. Posthumously he was awarded the Golden Medal for Bravery.

His bones are in the ossuary of Oslavia , a district of Gorizia (Gorizia).

Honors

Monument to General Papa in Desenzano del Garda

In his birthplace Desenzano, a monument is dedicated to him on the promenade, which was inaugurated in 1937. It was designed by the architect Giancarlo Maroni . The eagle at the top of the monument was a gift from Gabriele D'Annunzio and the bronze bust with the general's likeness is the work of the sculptor Timo Bortolotti .

In addition to the refuge on the Pasubio, the 31st tunnel of the Strada delle 52 gallery is also dedicated to him. 1921 was a destroyer of Cantore class that is later than torpedo boat was reclassified, named after him. After the armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, the Achille Papa was used by the German Navy as a convoy under the designation SG 20 and sunk by the Germans at the end of April 1945.

literature

• Col cuore e con la spada. Lettere del Generale Achille Papa , Rassegna il Fante, Milano 1937.
• Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa , Liberedizioni, Brescia 2014 ISBN 978-88-95787-98-5 .
• Vittorio Martinelli: Achille Papa - Medaglia d'Oro. Un generale bresciano nella Grande Guerra. Sasso di Stria - Monte Nero - Altipiano d'Asiago - Pasubio - Bainsizza , Zanetti, Montichiari 1989.
• Austrian Federal Ministry for the Army, War Archives (Ed.): Austria-Hungary's Last War. Volume 4 The war year 1916. First part , Verlag der Militärwissenschaftlichen Mitteilungen, Vienna 1933.
• Viktor Schemfil: The Pasubio Fights 1916–1918. Exact history of the struggle for one of the most important pillars of the Tyrolean defense front, Teutsch, Bregenz 1937.

Web links

Commons : Achille Papa  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa p. 13
2. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa p. 14
3. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa p. 19
4. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 22–24
5. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 28–37
6. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 44–60
7. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 61–65
8. ^ Austrian Federal Ministry for the Army, War Archives (ed.): Austria-Hungary's Last War. Volume 4 The war year 1916. First part, pp. 344–347
9. ↑ Viktor Schemfil: The Pasubio Fights 1916-1918. The exact history of the struggle for one of the most important pillars of the Tyrolean defense front, pp. 29–42
10. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 69–90
11. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa pp. 91–120
12. ↑ Edoardo Campostrini: Lo chiamavano papà. Biografia militare e familiare del generale Achille Papa p. 146
13. ↑ Data on the torpedo boat Achille Papa (Italian) accessed on September 12, 2018