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had been given the job of containing any Russian threat from across the river, they also served as a buffer between the Hungarians and the Rumanian Third Army, which was to hold the territory from Serafimovich to Kletskaya deep in the steppe. Thc German High Command had inserted the Italians between the other two armies to avoid conflict between ancient enemies, who might forget the Russians and go at each other's throats.
    That rivalry was hardly an auspicious omen. It underlined the Germans' desperate manpower situation, for the three satellite armies had been brought together in a haphazard manner. The Hungarian and Rumanian forces were staffed mostly by political officers who were unschooled in warfare. Both armies were riddled by corruption and inefficiency. The lowly soldier had it worst of all. Poorly led and poorly fed, he endured outrageous privations. Officers whipped enlisted men on the merest whim. When action got dangerous, many officers simply went home. One private wrote his family that even his priest had deserted in a moment of crisis. Worse, they were equipped with antiquated weapons: antitank guns were almost nonexistent; rifles were of World War I vintage.
     
     
    Many similar conditions prevailed in the Italian Army. Dragooned into service far from their homeland, wary of the bond between Hitler's Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Fascist state, the troopers grumbled unhappily as they marched through shattered Russian towns and villages. These men had not come on any crusade for lebensraum ("space for living"); they moved toward the Don because Benito Mussolini bargained for Hitler's favor with the bodies of his soldiers.
    The Italians had sent their best units into the Soviet Union. Proud military names such as the Julia, Bersaglieri, Cosseria, Torino, Alpini, graced the shoulder patches of troops struggling through the enervating heat. Their fathers had fought along the Piave and Isonzo rivers against the Austrians during World War I, and Ernest Hemingway immortalized their battles in A Farewell to Arms.
    Some of the Italian soldiers questioned the reasons they were fighting for the Nazi cause. At a railroad siding in Warsaw, twentyone- year-old Lt. Veniero Marsan had seen its harsh realities for the first time. From a train window, he watched a long line of civilians passing by. Apathetic, forlorn, each wore the yellow Star of David. Then Marsan saw the cruel-faced guards with guns, cocked and ready to fire. A chill rippled along his spine and, long after his train had rocked on into Russia, he brooded about what he had witnessed.
     
     
    For other Italians, the expedition into the steppe had different connotations. Crack Alpini soldiers guided mules along and kept their mountain-climbing gear under canvas. The nearest mountains were in the Caucasus, far to the south, and Hitler had decided to conquer them without the Italians. Shaking their heads in amazement, the elite Alpini trudged along the flat plains wondering why they were in Russia at all.
    But twenty-seven-year-old Lt. Felice Bracci was delighted with the great adventure. He had always wanted to explore the steppe country of Russia, to gaze on its timeless beauty. A recent university graduate, Bracci joined the Young Fascist League and went from there directly into Mussolini's army.
    In his first battles in Albania, he was wounded and decorated for defending an outpost. When offered the choice of going to Libya or Russia, the decision was difficult to make: he wanted desperately to see the pyramids. Finally choosing the steppe, he now led a company of men eastward to the Don.
     
     
    Dr. Cristoforo Capone did not share Bracci's cultural interests, but that mattered little. He, too, was pleased to be part of the Russian expedition. The seventh of nine children, he was the "rogue" in his family. Constantly good humored, he delighted everyone who met him. In his division, the Torino, the prankster, was easily the most popular man among soldiers