It may have been, as the Italian Commander-in-Chief, General Luigi Cadorna, believed, that the social frailty of his army required punishments for infractions of duty of a severity not known in the German army or the BEF: summary execution and the choosing of victims by lot.70 Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the British or Germans would have stood for such “normal persuasion” and it is a tribute to Italy’s sorely tried and dumbly uncomplaining peasant infantrymen that they did.
