Today In History

Our beloved German friends retreated with trucks, tanks etc and left us alones. Lots of german soldiers laughed when they passed with trucks near our soldiers. Folgore division fought alone vs 3 British divisions [44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division, 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, 7th Armoured Division] and the 1st Free French Brigade (credit: Wikipedia).
After the battle Churchill said:"We really must bow in front of the rest of those who have been the lions of the Folgore Division".
BBC:"The last survivors of Folgore have been gathered without forces in the desert, none of them surrendered, no one left his weapon".


Folgore today (credit: Wikipedia)

28/10/1922: March on Rome
2 days later, Benito Mussolini became Italian prime minister.

November 4th, 1918: with the Armistice of Villa Giusti Austria-Hungary surrends to Italy.
For this reason, November 4th in Italy is the "National Unity Day" and "Armed Forces Day".

With over a million deaths that's the least this country could do. World War I casualties

November 11th, 1918: Armistice of Compiègne . End of WWI.

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November 30, 1939



After the failure of negotiations on Soviet Union request to establish a new border in order, they say, to protect the city of Leningrad from a nazi invasion, the Red Army invades Finland. This is the beginning of the Winter War .



The Russians will pay dearly for their conquest, relatively modest, of the Karelian Isthmus. Their casualties will be huge and, even worse, the image of the country and the Red Army will suffer terribly. Indeed, many historians and protagonists of this conflict say that the poor performance of the Red Army convinced Hitler to launch the Operation Barbarossa.


" A win at such a price is actually a moral defeat. Our people never knew we had suffered this defeat, because we have never told him the truth. We all, starting with Stalin, have felt in this victory a defeat. And it was dangerous because it strengthened our enemies the belief that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay. In summary, our lamentable conduct of the campaign in Finland encouraged Hitler to launch his blitzkrieg, its operation Barbarossa. "