Theatres of War Where Carcanos Served
It is interesting and historically worthwhile to gain a mental overview of
all the theatres of war where Carcanos served, from the eternal ice of the
High Alps to the deserts of the Sahara, and from the Arctic Circle
(Finland) to the heart of Africa (Sudan, Abyssiania, Kenia). The following
list is certainly incomplete:
- 1898: not the first theatre of war, but the famous first combat use
was the hunger revolt / uprising in Milano, where Italian army
contingents under the command of General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris quashed
the hapless demonstrants / rioters, killing over 100 civilians.
- 1900/1901: China. Allegedly a few Carcanos were used by Italian
troops during the Boxer Uprising (e.g. in the defence of the
besieged cathedral of Peking); I suppose that the Vetterli-Bertoldo
and Vetterli-Ferraciu rifles were more common with the mainstay
expedition corps.
- 1911: Italian-Turkish War (against the Ottoman Empire),
conquest of
Libya and the Dodecanese islands
- 1915-1918: The Great War (aka WW I):
- Alpine Front (against Austria-Hungary and Germany),
- Sahara (Senussi insurrection, German and Turkish agents)
- Western Front (Italian contingents)
- Macedonia
- Palestine (Italian expedition contingent)
- 1914-1920: Albanian Occupation
- 1917-1920: Russian Civil War, with Italian Inter-allied contingents
- 1919-1921: Occupation of Southern Turkey (Antalya and Konya), Allied/Greek-Turkish War.
- 1919-1920: D'Annunzio's campaign and occupation of Fiume
- April 1921: Upper Silesia, with Italian Inter-allied peacekeeping contingents (in the 3rd Polish insurrection)
- 1935-1936: Abyssinian War
- 1937-1939: Spanish Civil War
- 1939: Second Albanian Occupation (brief fighting, 2 days)
- 1939-1940 Finnish-Russian "Winter War" (on the Finnish Side)
- 28 May - 1 June 1940: Campaign of Crete (Italian landing in the East of the island)
- 20-25 June 1940: Italian-French War of 5 days (Alpine front)
- 1940-1943: Northern African War (Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Fezzan & Ghadames, Egypt, Tunisia)
- 1940-1941: Balcan War (against Greece, Yugoslavia, Great Britain)
- 1940-1941: East African War (Sudan, Kenia, Abyssinia, Somalia, Somaliland)
- 1941-1943: Russian Front (Italian expedition corps)
- 1941-1945: Balcan partisan war, on both sides
- 1943-1945: Italian Front, on both sides
- 1944-1945: Germany, with the German Volkssturm (people's militia) on all fronts