Enrico Toti

Monument in the garden of Villa Borghese, Rome

Enrico Toti (born August 20, 1882 in Rome , † August 6, 1916 in Monfalcone ) was an Italian soldier and irredentist .

Life

After finishing school, Toti went to Regia Marina at the age of 14 and served on various warships. After his brother Ernesto died in 1904, Toti left the Navy to support his parents. As a stoker on the railroad, he lost his left leg after a serious accident on March 2, 1908.

In 1911 he began a bicycle tour through Europe with a prosthesis , which took him to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Poland and Austria. Another bike tour took him to Sudan .

In 1915 he volunteered for military service. After his application had been rejected several times, he had a uniform made at his own expense and drove to the front, where he was picked up by Carabinieri . Astonished officers tolerated his auxiliary activities in rearward areas. At his urging, he became a soldier on April 16, 1916 with the 3rd Bersaglieri Regiment (3rd Battalion). In the months that followed, he always fought in the front lines with crutch and rifle.

On August 6, 1916, he was fatally hit in an attack near Monfalcone . Before he died, he threw his crutch at the enemy positions. He was posthumously awarded the Medaglia d'oro al valor militare .

At the front, Enrico Toti became a legend, especially among the Bersaglieri . After the war, streets and squares were named after him, and a memorial was erected in Rome and in Gorizia (Gorizia). The Italian Navy named a submarine and, in the 1960s, a class of submarines after it.

Web links

Commons : Enrico Toti - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Toti, Enrico
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian soldier
DATE OF BIRTH	August 20, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rome
DATE OF DEATH	August 6, 1916
Place of death	Monfalcone