Italy's Last World War One Veteran Dies at 110
 

Italy's Last World War One Veteran Dies at 110


Email this Story

Jan 25, 7:54 AM (ET)


ROME (Reuters) - Italy lost its last veteran from World War One this week when Carlo Orelli, popularly known as "the last infantryman," died at the age of 110, the government said Tuesday.

Orelli fought as a foot-soldier in the trenches around Trieste which is now part of north-eastern Italy.

As Italy's oldest survivor of the 1914-1918 war, he was a minor celebrity and a book based on his wartime diaries was published last year.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi paid tribute to a soldier he said was "living and precious testimony to the sacrifice of the boys who fought ... to make our country great, free and united." Italy joined the war in May 1915 on the side of Britain, France and Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary with which it had been allied until earlier that year in the so-called Triple Alliance.