The 6th Alpini Regiment is a light Infantry regiment of the Italian Army, specializing in Mountain Combat. The Alpini are a mountain infantry corps of the Italian Army, that distinguished itself in combat during World War I (WWI) and World War II (WWII). Coat of Arms of the Italian Army Dardo IFV on exercise in Campo Teulada. ... The Alpini are a highly decorated elite infantry corps of the Italian Army. ... Country Italy Region Veneto Province Vicenza (VI) Mayor Gianpaolo Bizzotto Elevation 129 m Area 46 km² Population  - Total (as of 2001) 40,411  - Density 879/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Bassanesi Dialing code 0424 Postal code 36061 Frazioni Campese, Marchesane, Quartiere Prè, Rubbio, San Lazzaro, San Michele... Innichen (German) or San Candido (Italian) is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-South Tyrol, located about 120 km northeast of Trento and about 80 km northeast of Bolzano, on the border with Austria. ... South Tyrol (German Autonome Provinz Bozen-Südtirol, Italian Provincia autonoma di Bolzano-Alto Adige , Ladin Provinzia autonóma de Bulsan-Südtirol) is an autonomous province of Italy. ... Combatants Italy Austria-Hungary Commanders Luigi Cadorna Arz von Straussenberg Strength 300,000 + 1,600 guns 100,000 + 500 guns Casualties 23,000 - 30,000 (estimates vary) 9,000 The Battle of Mount Ortigara was fought from June 10 to June 25, 1917 between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Combatants Italy Austria-Hungary Commanders Luigi Cadorna Arz von Straussenberg Strength 300,000 + 1,600 guns 100,000 + 500 guns Casualties 23,000 - 30,000 (estimates vary) 9,000 The Battle of Mount Ortigara was fought from June 10 to June 25, 1917 between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Traditionally light infantry (or skirmishers) were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. ... British regiment A regiment is a military unit, consisting of a variable number of battalions - commanded by a colonel. ... Coat of Arms of the Italian Army Dardo IFV on exercise in Campo Teulada. ... Mountain warfare refers to warfare in the mountains. ... The Alpini are a highly decorated elite infantry corps of the Italian Army. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Formation

The 6th Alpini Regiment was formed on November 1st, 1882. It consisted of the three battalions: Val d'Orco, Val d'Aosta, Val Tagliamento, named after the valleys and localities from which their soldiers were recruited. In 1886 two new battalions were raised and the now five battalions were renamed, taking their new names from the location of their main logistic depot: Verona, Vicenza, Bassano, Pieve di Cadore and Gemona. The latter two battalions passed to the newly formed 7° Alpini Regiment on August 1st, 1887. In military terminology, a battalion consists of two to six companies typically commanded by a lieutenant colonel. ... Val dAosta is the name of two places: the Valle dAosta, a region in Italy the Val dAosta, the estate of George Troup (former governor of Georgia), named for the valley Valdosta, Georgia was in turn named for the estate. ... The Tagliamento River is a river in north-east Italy, flowing from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea at a point between Triest and Venice. ... Verona is a city and provincial capital in Veneto, Northern Italy. ... Vicenza is a city in northern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione. ... Country Italy Region Veneto Province Vicenza (VI) Mayor Gianpaolo Bizzotto Elevation 129 m Area 46 km² Population  - Total (as of 2001) 40,411  - Density 879/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Bassanesi Dialing code 0424 Postal code 36061 Frazioni Campese, Marchesane, Quartiere Prè, Rubbio, San Lazzaro, San Michele... Cadore, a town and contado (countship) of in the North Italian region of Friuli, is a barren and poor district, watered by the Piave torrent poured forth from the Carnic Alps, and is at no great distance from Tirol. ... Gemona del Friuli is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 90 km northwest of Trieste and about 25 km northwest of Udine. ...

World War I

The 6th regiment saw its first action in the Italo-Turkish War 1911, fighting Ottoman forces in the Libyan desert.
During WWI the regiment consisted of 9 battalions and saw heavy fighting in the Alps against Austria’s Kaiserjäger and Germany’s Alpenkorps. The battalions of the 6th regiment in these days were (pre-war raised units in bold):
Combatants Italy Ottoman Empire Commanders Luigi Caneva Ismail Enver Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Strength 100,000 28,000 Casualties 3,380 dead 4,220 wounded 14,000 dead 5,370 wounded The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War (also known in Italy as guerra di Libia, the Libyan war, and in... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual monarchy (or: the k. ... Motto Gott mit Uns (German: God with us”) Anthem Heil dir im Siegerkranz (unofficial) Territory of the German Empire in 1914, prior to World War I Capital Berlin Language(s) Official: German Unofficial minority languages: Danish, French, Frisian, Polish, Sorbian Government Constitutional monarchy Emperor  - 1871–1888 William I  - 1888 Frederick...

• "Verona", "Vicenza", "Bassano", "Val d'Adige", "Val Leogra", "Val Brenta", "Monte Baldo", "Monte Berico", "Sette Comuni".

Interwar Period

On September 10th, 1935 the 2nd Alpini Division “Tridentina” was formed and composed of the 5th Alpini and 6th Alpini Regiments and the 2nd Mountain Artillery Regiment. In 1937 the battalions are reorganized and renamed: Vestone, Verona and Trento. The "Trento" battalion was placed under command of the newly formed 11th Alpini Regiment and participated in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. The 5th Alpini Regiment is a light Infantry regiment of the Italian Army, specializing in Mountain Combat. ... Vestone is a commune in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy. ... Verona is a city and provincial capital in Veneto, Northern Italy. ... Panorama of Trento. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

World War II

On June 21st, 1940 (one day before the French surrender) the “Tridentina” division began to advance with other Italian units into Southern France. The division was then sent to Albania, where it sustained heavy losses in the Italian attack on Greece. As the German Wehrmacht came to the aid of the beaten Italian armies in Albania in April 1941 through the invasion of Yugoslavia the “Tridentina” was sent repatriated for rest and refit. Combatants  France  United Kingdom  Canada  Czechoslovakia  Poland  Belgium  Netherlands  Luxembourg Germany Italy Commanders Maurice Gamelin, Maxime Weygand (French) Lord Gort (British Expeditionary Force) Leopold III (Belgian) H.G. Winkelman (Dutch) Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group A) Fedor von Bock (Army Group B) Wilhelm von Leeb (Army Group C) H.R... Combatants Italy Greece Commanders Sebastiano Visconti Prasca Ubaldo Soddu Ugo Cavallero Giovanni Messe Alexander Papagos Strength 529,000 men Under 300,000 men Casualties 13,755 dead, 50,874 wounded, 25,067 missing, 12,368 incapacitated by frostbites, ca. ... Wehrmacht   (armed forces, literally defence force(s)) was the name of the armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. ... “April War” redirects here. ...

In September 1942 the “Tridentina” under the command of General Luigi Reverberi was sent together with the Alpini divisions Julia and Cuneense and other Italian units to the Soviet Union to form the ARMIR (Armata Italiana in Russia or Italian Army in Russia) and fight alongside the Germans against the Red Army. The 6th regiment was augmented by the Val Chiese battalion before leaving Italy. Taking up positions along the Don river the Italian units covered part of the left flank of the German Sixth Army, which spearheaded the German summer offensive of 1942 into the city of Stalingrad. The Italian campaign in the Soviet Union started on 14 July 1941, when Benito Mussolini joined Operation Barbarossa by ordering the preparation of an Italian military contingent destined for the Eastern Front. ... Red Army flag The Workers and Peasants Red Army (Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия, Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya; RKKA or usually simply the Red Army) were the armed forces first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and that, in 1922, became the army of the Soviet Union. ... The term Don may refer to Donald, a Western name Don (honorific), a Spanish, Portuguese and Italian title, given as a mark of respect A crime boss Don, Nord, a commune of the Nord département in northern France Don (TN), a comune in the province of Trento, in northern... The Sixth Army was a German field army which saw action in World War I and World War II. It is perhaps best known for its involvement in the Battle of Stalingrad. ... Operation Blue(German: Fall Blau) was the German Wehrmachts codename for the 1942 summer offensive. ... Combatants Germany Italy Hungary Romania Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Maximilian von Weichs Friedrich Paulus # Erich von Manstein Hermann Hoth Italo Garibaldi Gusztav Jany Petre Dumitrescu Constantin Constantinescu Vasiliy Chuikov Aleksandr Vasilyevskiy Georgiy Zhukov Semyon Timoshenko Konstantin Rokossovsky Rodion Malinovsky Strength German Sixth Army German Fourth Panzer Army Romanian Third Army...

After successfully encircling the German Sixth army in Stalingrad the Red Army’s attention turned to the Italian units along the Don. On January 14th, 1943 the Soviet offensive Operation Little Saturn began and the three Alpini division found themselves quickly encircled by the rapidly advancing armoured Soviet Forces. After 12 days of heavy fighting the Julia and Cuneense divisions were completely annihilated. The remnants of the Tridentina were able to break the Soviet encirclement in the epic and desperate Battle of Nikolajewka on January 26, 1943 allowing the 4250 survivors (out of 15000 troops deployed) to reach German lines. The Italian campaign in the Soviet Union started on 14 July 1941, when Benito Mussolini joined Operation Barbarossa by ordering the preparation of an Italian military contingent destined for the Eastern Front. ...

The few survivors of the 6th Regiment were repatriated and after the signing of the Italian armistice with the Allies on September 8th, 1943 the regiment was dissolved on September 10th, 1943 in the Italian village of Fortezza. The Armistice with Italy is an armistice that occurred on September 8, 1943, during World War II. It was signed by Italy and the Allied armed forces, who were occupying the southern half of the country at the time. ... Franzensfeste (German) or Fortezza (Italian) is a small town in Northern Italy, located in South Tyrol. ...

The Cold War

After World War 2 the 6th Alpini regiment was reformed on April 16th, 1946 in the city of Merano with the battalions "Edolo", "Bolzano" and "Trento" and became the sole Alpini regiment of the reformed Alpini Brigade Tridentina. In 1951 the reformed "Bassano" battalion returned to the 6th Alpini and on January 1st, 1953 it ceded the "Edolo" battalion to the reformed 5th Alpini Regiment. On September 30th, 1975 the regiment was disbanded and its battalions came under direct command of the Tridentina Brigade. The regimental colours and traditions were given to the care of the "Bassano" battalion. Merano (Italian: Merano; German: Meran; Ladin: Meran; Latin: Merona; Note that many of the regions Italian languages/dialects use Meran), is a city in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region of Italy. ...

Today

On January 15th, 1993 the 6th Alpini Regiment was reformed and the "Bassano" became its single battalion. Today the 6th Regiment consists of the “Bassano” battalion, the regimental command and a logistic support company. The regiment is based in San Candido in the province of Bolzano and directly subordinated to the Alpine Troops Command (COMALP). It functions as a NATO-wide high altitude warfare training centre and administers the Training Areas in the valley of Pusteria. Innichen (German) or San Candido (Italian) is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-South Tyrol, located about 120 km northeast of Trento and about 80 km northeast of Bolzano, on the border with Austria. ... South Tyrol (German Autonome Provinz Bozen-Südtirol, Italian Provincia autonoma di Bolzano-Alto Adige , Ladin Provinzia autonóma de Bulsan-Südtirol) is an autonomous province of Italy. ... Mountain warfare refers to warfare in the mountains. ...

See also

• Italian Army
• COMALP

Coat of Arms of the Italian Army Dardo IFV on exercise in Campo Teulada. ...

External Links

Official Homepage