April 7, 2025 • 38 mins
The snow-capped mountains of Italy during WW1. The benefits of switching sides in the middle of a war. Diplomacy in war.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
On a spectacular Monday.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Of course, it's Medal of Honor Monday, and coming up
this hour it's history.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We're about to do Medal of Honor Monday and celebrate
a legend, as we always do, and then we're done
with politics for at least an hour. I haven't decided
exactly how I'm going to handle this.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Whether it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
A part one, part two thing more or less, I
don't know, but I know that for an hour at least.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We're going back in time. We're gonna learn about history.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We're gonna walk away from politics in the stock market
and the tariffs and the left, and I'm done with
all of it. But before we get into history, we're
going to do what we always do on Monday at
this time, Medal of Honor Monday. All we do is
we take a citation and Medal of Honor citation and
we read it. Celebrate a hero, remember his name, remember
(01:14):
his deeds. I want to once again encourage you that
you can and probably should do this in your own life,
not like I do anything here. I'm not doing anything.
You can read citations with your family. If you're a teacher,
kids love it, love it. It's heroic, it's awesome. If you're
a coach, whatever, it's worth looking at. It's like it's
(01:38):
like reading a it's like reading a movie. It's what
it's like half the time. Yeah, good point, Chris Scout leader,
boy Scout leader.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Kids eat that stuff up. And yes, we take emails,
love hate, death threats. Ask doctor Jesse questions or Medal
of Honor citations you love or have some sort of
a relation to, like this one. Mister Kelly, A friend
just mentioned your to me. Your show Medal of Honor Monday?
Does your show cover just living Medal of Honor recipients?
(02:08):
My uncle, Colonel Roger Donlan was a Medal of Honor recipient.
He passed away in January twenty twenty fourth. Dang, just
last year. Maybe you already had a show on his story.
I think it's wonderful you have the show each week.
It's important the public is kept aware of the sacrifices
these men and all of our veterans have made for
our nation. He said, God bless and so without further
(02:31):
Ado Roger H. C. Donlan was born in Saggarty's which
is Ulster County, New York. And I'm not one hundred
percent sure I said Saggarty's Sagarty's right, so apologies to
his birthplace, but nevertheless that's where he was from. Hey.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his
life above and beyond the call of duty while defending
a US military installation against a fierce attack by hostile forces.
Captain Donman was serving as the commanding officer of the
US Army Special Forces Special Forces Detachment A seven to
(03:22):
two six at Camp Namdong when a reinforced viet Cong
battalion suddenly launched a full scale pre dawn attack on
the camp. During the violent battle that ensued, lasting five
hours and resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, Captain
Donman directed the defense operations in the midst of an
(03:43):
enemy barrage of mortar shells, falling grenades in extremely heavy gunfire.
Upon the initial onslaught, he swiftly marshaled his forces and
ordered the removal of the needed ammunition from a blazing building.
He then dashed through a hail of arms and exploding
hand grenades to abort a breach of the main gate.
(04:06):
En route to his position, he detected an enemy demolition
team of three in the proximity of the main gate
and quickly annihilated them. Although exposed to the intense grenade attack,
he then succeeded in reaching a sixty millimeter mortar position,
despite sustaining a severe stomach wound, as he was within
five yards of the gunpit. When he discovered that most
(04:29):
of the men in this gunpit were also wounded, he
completely disregarded his own injury, directed their withdrawal to a
location thirty meters away, and again risked his life by
remaining behind and covering the movement with the utmost effectiveness.
Noting that his team sergeant was unable to evacuate the gunpit,
(04:50):
he crawled toward him, and while dragging the fallen soldier
out of the gunpit, an enemy mortar exploded and inflicted
a wound in Captain Donlan's left sold left shoulder. How
Many about halfway done with this, by the way, although
suffering from multiple wounds, he carried the abandoned sixty millimeter
mortar to a new location thirty meters away, where he
(05:11):
found three wounded defenders. After administering first aid and encouragement
to these men, he left the weapon with them, headed
toward another position and which retrieved a fifty seven millimeter
recoilless rifle. Then, with great courage and coolness under fire,
he returned to the abandoned gunpit, evacuated ammunition for the
(05:33):
two weapons, and while crawling and dragging the urgently needed ammunition,
received a third wound in his leg by an enemy
hand grenade. Despite his critical physical condition, he again crawled
a hundred and seventy five meters that's two football fields
by the way to an eighty one millimeter mortar position
(05:54):
and directed firing operations which protected the seriously threatened east
sector of the camp. He then moved to an eastern
sixty milimeter mortar position, and, upon determining that the vicious
enemy assault had weakened, crawled back to the gunpit with
the sixty milimeter mortar set it up for defense, moved
(06:14):
from position to position around the beleaguered perimeter while hurling
hand grenades at the enemy and inspiring his men to
superhuman effort. Good grief this guy, and he bravely continued
to move around the perimeter. Or as he bravely continued
to move around the perimeter, a mortar shell exploded, wounding
him in the face and body. So, by the way,
(06:36):
for those keeping track, that's his shoulder, his stomach, his leg,
now his face and the rest of his body. As
the long daylight along the way to daylight brought the
defeat to the enemy forces and their retreat back to
the jungle, leaving behind fifty four of their dead, many
weapons in grenades. Captain Donman immediately reorganized his defenses and
(06:58):
administered first day to the wounded. His dynamic leadership, fortitude,
and valiant efforts inspired not only the American personnel, but
the friendly Vietnamese defenders as well, and resulted in the
successful defense of the camp. Captain Donland's extraordinary heroism at
the risk, above and beyond the call of duty are
(07:19):
in the highest traditions of the US Army and reflect
great credit upon himself and the armed forces of this country.
And I need to explain something you to you real
quick before we get on to the history, which is
actually not going to be Vietnam. We're going clear back
to World War One. Just the heads up. These camps,
these special Forces camps. These are Green Beret camps. You'll
(07:43):
hear a lot about them. And whenever you read a
story or a Medal of Honor citation about a Special
Forces camp of some kind, what they usually were was this.
They were more remote, not necessarily right next to some big,
well defended army camp. They were more remote. The Green
(08:03):
Berets were generally some of the only American troops in
these camps. Because what the Green Berets were doing is
really what the Green Berets bread and butter is. The
Green Berets bread and butter is they go into a country,
they organize and train the forces of that country that
(08:25):
are against what we consider to be the enemy in
that country. So in this case, the North Vietnamese, the
viet Cong, they had plenty of enemies inside Vietnam, guides
like the Montag Yards, which were like a warrior like
tribal people in Vietnam mountain, like really really cool people. Anyway,
the Green Berets, the Special Forces of Vietnam, they would
(08:46):
go in and in these camps they would bring in
the Montag yards, the yards will call them, that's what
they called them.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
They would bring in the yards. They would constantly be
training the yards, and then the yards oftentimes most of
the time with the Green Berets would go out and
do various operations wherever they may be operations. Sometimes it's
just observing. Sometimes it's a snatching.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Grab where you're kidnapping somebody and taking them in for interrogation.
But in these camps, what this guy was doing, Donlin,
he probably was not dealing with a bunch of Green Berets.
I just wanted to clarify that because when you say
special Forces automatically, people will assume that Don Thean was
there and he had one hundred Green Berets at his command,
(09:35):
and that's why they were.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
No no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Now I don't know the exact number because I don't
know this specific story that well, he might have had
eight of them, ten of them, maybe not even that,
depending on the size of the camp.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
It's not like he had Tip of the Spear guys.
Lots of these guys.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, they were trained by Green Berets, but they were
Vietnamese that we had trained up. That's why he's running
around having to encourage you. Everybody, Hey, let me get
this on you. Hey you shoot there, Hey, you do this,
and that they're working with lesser forces. I'll put it
to you that way, lesser forces. All right, now, I
(10:15):
have we've argued before, we've debated before. You email me
and debate it with me, and I love that. That's fine.
I'm not I don't know everything. What was the worst
place to be in the history of combat? What was it?
And everyone has a great argument for it was that
the war in the Pacific, a crusader army stuck out
(10:38):
in the desert without water?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
There's all kinds of debate. I will tell you, having
finished my research for the story we're about to tell.
I know I've made my choice. I've found it. Let's
talk about it. Next.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Get the Cure for Rhinos. Week days with The Jesse
Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It is The Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. We
just finished up Medal of Honor Monday. Remember, if you
miss any part of the show, you can download the
whole thing on iHeart, Spotify, iTunes. We will hopefully get
back to some news next hour. No, I'll try to
get back to the news next hour. But I want
(11:24):
you to imagine something. I want you to imagine. You're
a young man and you grew up on the family
farm in Salerno, Italy. Okay, Salerno. I don't expect you
to know where that is. It's southern Italy. You know,
(11:45):
Italy's shaped like a boot. Everyone knows that it's more
towards the lower end of it. It's south of Rome,
south of Naples. And it's warm. You grew up, like
I said, in the fields, and all you know is
the warmth. In fact, in the winter time it's seventy seven,
(12:05):
seventy eight. Sometimes it gets pretty chilly at night, those sixties,
sixty three, sixty four. And this is not only how
you've lived your life, it's how your father lived. This
is the only life you've ever known. You're twenty years old.
But your country is young, and you know that we'll
(12:27):
get to that in a little bit. And your country
is trying to figure out its borders. And you hear
about this big war that has started, and you're wondering
should you join, do not join? Not really sure, you're afraid,
but you want to see more than just the farm.
But you hesitate a little bit. Wait, let's see how
(12:50):
things shake out. But one day, a government man comes
to your family farm with your name on a piece
of paper and says, hey, you're joining. Congratulations, You've just
been conscripted into the Italian Army. You're excited, you're scared.
Your mom's crying. Your father shakes your hand, and you
find yourself on a train heading up north and it's
(13:15):
beautiful hills, mountains, but it is getting cold. Finally, you
find yourself in a valley. There's a river in front
of you, it's freezing. The valley's beautiful, and in front
of you is a mountain range and you're told that
(13:37):
you have to go up that mountain and remove the
men who are entrenched on top of the mountain, and
they have machine guns pointing down at you. The mountain
is covered with snow. You've actually never seen snow in
your life. It's the first time for you. They start
giving you clothing to try to make you warmer, but
(13:58):
your nose is still cold. It it hurts when you
breathe in. You and all your newfound army buddies, you
start up the slopes and your friends start dying in
the worst possible ways. The very first day it just
missed you. You heard what sounded like thunder coming from
the top of the mountain. You looked up in time
(14:21):
to see an avalanche sweep away one hundred men from
your unit gone off the mountain, right off a cliff cliff.
You went to sleep that night thinking about their screams.
The next morning you wake up and your toes are black.
Then then the next morning you hear a shout, a warning,
(14:44):
and you look up to see a gigantic steel ball
rolling down the mountain side towards your unit, where it
explodes and fifty of your friends, their body parts are
blown all over you. You are in the worst in
my opinion, you are officially in the worst battle conditions
(15:10):
ever fought. This is the Italian Campaign. It's known as
the Italian Campaign of World War One, and I have
never read or consumed anything like it in my life.
When I mentioned going into the break that it was
(15:31):
going to be the worst battlefield conditions ever, Jewish producer
Chris said, World War one, the trenches of World War one,
no question, Western Front world War One, and I myself
have said the same thing. Okay, so picture this. Trenches
of World War One are what trenches on each side.
You got that, the artillery, the misery, the rats, the disease,
(15:54):
the gas, to everything that comes with World War One,
the horrible no man's land. So picture that in your mind,
Western Front, World War One. Okay, your trench there, trench,
barbed wire, no man's land, gas, misery, death, all you
got all that? Okay, all right, I'll give you that.
Now you're in your trench. You're picturing their trench, Chris, Okay,
(16:15):
let's cover their trench with snow. Let's make their trench
about three thousand feet above your trench. And now do
you think maybe that would be worse? The Italian campaign
of World War One combines all the worst parts of
the Western Front and somehow makes them worse. It adds
(16:37):
in freezing cold, it adds in rock shrapnel, which we're
going to get to. It's gonna be a huge part
of this ice caves, you're losing limbs. Men throw themselves
off of cliffs and shoot themselves in the head to
stop being there anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
It is the.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Only place in World War One that I have found
where there are multiple account ounce, not one or two, sporadic,
multiple accounts of the armies refusing to shoot at each
other because it's so bad and so many men are dying.
You feel heartbreak for the other side, the men you're
slaughtering on that side. The Italian Campaign of World War One.
(17:16):
Let's begin and discuss what it was and how it
came to be. Let's do some background on it. Do
you enjoy history? By the way, I love it. I
eat it up. I did it all weekend long. I
was just reading reading stuff. You know, Hillsdale College makes
it so you don't have to read about some of
this stuff. Hillsdale College will just teach you. Hillsdale College,
(17:40):
that incredible university, the one we all want our kids
to get into. They're offering more than forty courses for free.
Did you know that they're online. They're for everybody, old,
young men, women, families, single. Instead of scrolling through the
channels looking at the social media app one it because
(18:00):
there's no cost. Why don't you try one course from
Hillsdale and see what you think You could take Constitution
one oh one. If you don't want to do that
kind of thing, you could do Roman Republic. Maybe you're
into literature. C. S. Lewis The works of C. S. Lewis.
Hillsdale has all these classes at no costs for you.
(18:22):
Hillsdale dot ed u slash Jesse is where you go
to enroll. Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse. We'll be back,
Jesse Keilly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday.
Of course, it's been an incredible Monday. We did a
(18:44):
bunch of talking the first hour about culture, war stuff.
We did Medal of Honor Monday. Now we are into history.
We're talking about the Italian Front of World War One.
That kind of history. Don't worry, you didn't miss much already,
just the little story to start off with. Now, let's
do some background before we get to the worst battlefield
(19:06):
conditions in the history of warfare World War One. You know,
one side had Britain France. Yes, eventually that's the side
we joined. By the way. One side was Britain in France,
and you got all that in Russia. Russia was part
of that too for a while. We'll get to that
in a little bit. And the other side was mainly
(19:27):
Germany and Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire Turkey. I
don't want to dismiss them. Actually, the Ottoman Empire Turkey,
but it was mainly Germany and Austria Hungary. But for
our purposes we're only going to focus on Austria, Hungary
and the Italians. Now, one thing we must understand here
(19:49):
is the newness. How new so many European nations are.
We don't think about it in that way. Most America
would tell you, well, America is young, especially compared to Europe.
We're about to have our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
next year. That's a young place. We're not old like
(20:11):
Europe is. America is much older than Italy. America is
much older than Germany I'm talking about I'm talking about
as a unified nation. I know about Rome and things
like that, but Italy. Focus on that for a moment.
Italy after the Roman Empire and after its collapse, and
(20:35):
Italy had been so many different countries in different little
city states, warring with each other, killing each other for
the longest time. Remember I told you we went to
Italy at Christmas time? What are the places? We were
up close to Florence, Italy, And one of the places
(20:55):
we ate at was this tiny little mountaintop hilt, tiny
little hill top fort. The guy our tour guide had said, oh,
you gotta eat there. It was the place I too do.
What was it forty four people lived there something crazy
like that. It wasn't many. A miniscule amount of people
live there. It's a tiny little fort. The walls are
still there, and you could eat in this restaurant, and
(21:17):
then they have a couple of little gift shops, but
people's laundry it's hanging out on clothes lines. It's just
a wee little mountaintop village, but obviously very old. And
we started talking to the tour guy about it, and
he was explaining that it was it was there as
a lookout in a fighting fortress for the wars between
Florence and Rome. Italy was divided forever. It was only
(21:40):
in the eighteen sixties. Eighteen sixties Italy came together and
formed one unified country. Germany they're not really going to
feature in this story, but Germany was very similar. Germany
was eighteen seventies. Yes, I know Prussia and all the
(22:01):
different areas, but as far as a unified country, Germany
was new, a new place. But we'll go down to
Italy because that's the purpose of our story here Italy
was new and being one unified country was a new
thing for them. And we don't realize how blessed we
are as a country because of how we started versus
(22:26):
some of these other countries. Okay, so Italy finally unified,
It finally became Italy, But what are united around? America
had something to unite around. We wanted to be free
from the British. We wanted a free country. We wanted
there were unifying principles around it. Italy had been at
(22:46):
war with each other for so long. A picture picture
this picture. Texas is at war with Nebraska, who's at
war with New York, Who's at war with Virginia, who's
at war with South Carolina? And they fight this war
for two hundred years and then we wake up one
day after two hundred years of fighting, and hey, by
(23:07):
the way, you guys are a country now.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Sound good?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Well wait, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Okay? So Italy was adjusting. Part of the adjustment was
what kind of government do the people want? What kind
of government do the people who decide what kind of
government they want? What kind of government do they want?
And what are your borders? How do you decide on
a nation's borders. How do you decide well. Countries when
(23:36):
they're forming and after they're formed, they want as much
choice territory as humanly possible. You want to make sure
you have as many natural resources as you can, as
much waterfront as you can, and you want to make
sure strategically you can defend your country. You want defend
(24:00):
CIBOL borders. Not everything is defensible. So our story is
going to take place in the north north northern part
of Italy. If you want to look at it on
a map. You know I love looking at maps. We
are going to be in the northeastern portion of Italy.
With me the northeastern portion of Italy. Now, if you're
(24:22):
looking at a map, you may notice the northeastern portion
of Italy is looks a little mountainey. In fact, things
have changed. It's because it is Those are the Alps
you see. And Italy as it formed, it wanted it
wanted its territory to extend into the Alps, because you
(24:47):
want mountainous territory, because there's nothing easier to defend than
mountainous territory. Even if you have the benefit of plains,
it's hard to get people out of mountainous territory. Why
do you think we had so many struggles in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
How can that be?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We have all these planes and bombs and fancy things,
but they're in the freaking mountains. Even with modern modern everything,
modern artillery and flight and bombs and things like that,
when someone is dug into the mountains, it's hard to
get them out. You know, people talk about prepping for
(25:26):
a disaster today in the modern era.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
How do you prep? What do you do?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Where do you go? Hey, what's your look? I don't
know what your plans are. I'll tell you this for
a fact, depending on the scenario, I'm getting to the mountains.
If I can get to the mountains, whether it's the Rockies,
the Appalachians, wherever it is. If you can get to
the mountains, if you have a place in the mountains,
(25:52):
you're just safer than you are anywhere else. Period. End
of story. All right, Setting that aside, Italy wants that
Northeast turned part, but they don't have it as we speak.
They don't have it as it pertains to this story. Why,
because there is this empire that is crumbling, one you
(26:12):
don't even know about anymore, because it's gone called the
Austria Hungarian Empire Austria Hungary. I know it's weird because
it's two countries now, but it was known as one
thing back then. Austria Hungary. Austria Hungary was large, it
had a royal family, and it was very much an empire,
(26:35):
a fading empire though fading, crumbling. They'd been an empire
for a long time, gobbling up this, gobbling up that.
But they were long past their primes, as all empires are.
And Austria Hungary the northern neighbor of Italy. They held
these alps at the time in Italy wanted it. Now,
(26:59):
World War One kicks off, Who's Italy going to join?
And this is where it gets a little dicey in
Italian history. I say dicey, I mean kind of dirty,
to be honest with you. Italy had a signed agreement
that they were part of Germany Austria Hungary, that they
(27:20):
were as part of that alliance.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
They were supposed to be on the side.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Of Germany and Austria Hungary. But Italy was a very,
very very divided place. That's part of why I brought
up how young they were politically. They were very divided, which.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Direction do we go left? Right? Middo.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I don't legislature, I don't understand it. And the divisions
at the highest levels of the Italian government were so
pronounced that it caused all kinds of fighting and everything else.
And Italy decides maybe there's maybe there's an advantage if
we're not part of the Austria Hungary thing. We'll continue
(27:59):
on with our story in a moment. Before we do that,
let me talk to you about protecting yourself. Do you
see that story about the UPS guy Not a real
UPS guy, a fake one, got himself a fake uniform,
armed felon, goes around kicking indoors. We love to think
(28:22):
that when we're in home, in our homes, in the
grocery store, the gas station at the mall, that since
we're local or something like that, we're safe. You're not.
There are bad people everywhere. It doesn't mean you hide
in a locked room your whole life. You can't do that.
It means you carry a burn a pistol launcher on
you at all times. I have so many of these
things I can't even count them. I have bought one
(28:45):
for every person in my life. They are non lethal
so they're legal in all fifty states. You don't even
need a permit, you don't need a background check. If
someone accidentally shoots themselves with it, it's not the end
of the world. You're just going to be in a
whole lot of pain for a while. It shoots tear
gas or pepperballs, or it'll save your life, man, it'll
stop a very very bad man and save the life
(29:07):
of a person you love the most. Don't let someone
you love be hurt and regret not having gotten them
one you want a nice discount by Rna Berna dot
com slash Jesse Berna dot com slash Jesse We'll be back,
(29:27):
what Chris, We can make jokes.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It's fine, we get that right.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
The Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It is The Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday and
Incredible Monday. In case you're just now joining us, we're
in the middle of history. We're talking about the Italian War,
the World War One portion that took place in the
Alps northern Italy. Remember if you if you want to
email the show, you can Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com.
(29:54):
Back to our story, World War One breaks out France,
Britain they're at warworth Germany, Austria Hungary, and yes, Russia
is part of all this on the side of France
and Britain. Italy, Yes they have an agreement with Germany
and Austria Hungary, but they're kind of thinking about Renigan
on the whole thing. And the reason they're thinking about
(30:15):
Reniggan on the whole thing is Austria Hungary. They've grabbed
those wonderful alps on the northern part of Italy. I'll
just say that so you know where it is. And
Austria Hungry's hungry is not interested in giving them back
because they want them the same reasons. The Italian one
of them. The Italians want one of them. They're wonderful
(30:36):
for defense. It's like mountains are like the greatest wall
you could ever build. Of course, they want to keep
the mountains well. Italy they decide instead of being instead
of being part of this alliance with Germany and Austria Hungary,
they kind of consider themselves more of a free agent
(30:56):
if you will. Hey, I'm open for business. And this
is the point where diplomacy can help decide wars. We
dudes don't ever like to think of it that way.
Because dudes like wars to be bombs and bullets and
things like that. But diplomacy is a huge, huge part
(31:16):
of warfare now and always was. Italy wanted those Alps,
or at least a much better deal than they currently had. Now,
I need to explain what was currently going on before
I go into where we're going. I'm talking about currently
going on in that region. In that region, it's not
as if everybody was ethnically Italian or Austrian or something
(31:41):
like that. Italy itself, as I mentioned, was very divided,
different dialects all. I mean from the north. If you're
in the far northern part of Italy at this time
and you talk to somebody from the far south, you
may not even really understand each other and you're both
speaking Italian. That's how different, the different the different ethnic
(32:03):
ethnic history of the whole place was. I guess I'll
put it that way ethnicities. But even that's not necessarily fair.
You understand what I mean. It's a different place. Austria
Hungary is the exact same thing. In the northern part
of Italy. There's a border. They know where the border is,
but there's all kinds of trade and commerce going on
because these two countries are not at war with each
(32:25):
other in this area. One part of this border was
a barbed wire fence across a field. You just if
you were trading goods and services and they did, you'd
be back and forth. And maybe you're in Italy technically,
but maybe your loyalty is more with Austria because you're
dealing with those people and vice versa. Maybe you're technically
(32:45):
part of Austria, but you're mainly dealing with the Italian
village that's a mile away. So it's a mess. It's
not clear, it's not defined. And again Italy is new, new,
very very new at this point in time, about fifty
sixty years old. At this point in times. New Italy
decides they're a free agent. Germany. Germany goes to Austria Hungary.
(33:09):
Germany was constantly frustrated with Austria Hungary. I should point out,
Germany goes to Austria Hungary and they said, hey, uh,
you really need to give something up to the Italians,
the Italians. We want them on our side. We don't
want to have to deal with the Italians because that
(33:29):
creates a third front in the war. Pause on everything
we'll come back to this third front. Let's talk about
the other two just as a basic because a lot
of people don't know. There are two fronts at this
time in World War One. There is the Western Front.
Germany invaded France, France dug in. There are now trenches
(33:51):
on both sides. That's the Western Front, and Britain's involved them.
Just simplifying this, So that's the Western Front. There's an
Eastern Front, Russia, the Russians. Everyone was worried about the
Russians getting in. They tried to talk the Russians out
adjoining the war, but the Russians joined in the war,
and Russians decided they were going to attack Germany and
(34:13):
Austria Hungary. So Germany had to send troops, Austria Hungary
had to send troops to the Eastern Front to fight
the Russians off. So now Germany, Austra Hungary, the Central Powers.
That's why they call them that, they're stuck there in
the middle.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
They're the peanut butter. Russia's the bread, Britain, France is
the bread. They're already sandwiched on two sides, two fronts.
That's already one more front than you want what they
absolutely positively do not want is a third front on
the bottom, a third front from the south. And Germany
knows this. Germany knows how overstretched it is. Germany starts
(34:52):
going to Austria Hungary and saying, please give them something.
Italy wants.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They want some territory, they want this mountain range here,
they want that, they want, they want control of this. Okay,
I know you don't want to, but we can't have
Italy joining the side of the Allies. Please give them something.
But Austria Hungry suffered at this point in time from
something we all suffer from from time to time.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Pride.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Pride is one of those deadly sins, isn't it. In sales,
in our.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
V sales, which, as you know, I used to do.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
We used to talk all the time about pride costing
people deals. I'm not dealing with them. I'm not calling
him back. Look, I did it. I was guilty of
it cost myself money. Pride is a killer, man. It
kills nations too. Austria Hungary the way they saw it
was this, we are Austria Hungary. We are this powerful empire,
(35:55):
which they weren't really anymore. But we are this powerful empire.
We're fighting this huge war against the biggest nations on
Earth at the time, the most powerful countries on Earth.
We're not fighting this huge war to give up territory.
We're Austria hungry. We're not giving up any territory. We're
fighting this to reclaim our former glory and to gain territory.
(36:18):
And they certainly weren't in the mood to give up
the lush mountain fortresses on their southern border. And they
definitely weren't in the mood to give up those lush
mountain fortresses to a new country they didn't feel very
fond of. In fact, Remember, racial prejudice is not new.
(36:42):
It's the essence of man. Everyone's guilty of it. They
thought Italians were lower and I'm not just talking about heightwise,
which of course they are. They really thought Italians were
of a lower species. All people thought that way back then.
So we got a problem. All right, Maybe I'll do
a couple more segments on this before we get back
to the new. Before I do that, I want to
talk to you about pure talk. I want to talk
(37:03):
to you about America.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Baby.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I love it, I love the I love when companies
are unapologetically pro America that I really, I really nerd
out on it. And I told you my little tale
earlier about yelling at the restaurant for not having anybody
who speaks English. I know I'm just mean, but it
(37:27):
really does bother me. I love when I get a
hold of somebody at pure Talk. They have Americans. Puretalk
hires Americans based right here in America. You don't need
Verizon AT and T or T Mobile. Switch to pure Talk.
You get the exact same service. You'll pay less, and
you deal with an American company. Dial pound two five
(37:51):
zero and say Jesse Kelly, Tonight is the night to
switch Pound two five zero. Say Jesse Kelly, We'll be back.
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
On a spectacular Monday.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Of course, it's Medal of Honor Monday, and coming up
this hour it's history.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We're about to do Medal of Honor Monday and celebrate
a legend, as we always do, and then we're done
with politics for at least an hour. I haven't decided
exactly how I'm going to handle this.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Whether it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
A part one, part two thing more or less, I
don't know, but I know that for an hour at least.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We're going back in time. We're gonna learn about history.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We're gonna walk away from politics in the stock market
and the tariffs and the left, and I'm done with
all of it. But before we get into history, we're
going to do what we always do on Monday at
this time, Medal of Honor Monday. All we do is
we take a citation and Medal of Honor citation and
we read it. Celebrate a hero, remember his name, remember
(01:14):
his deeds. I want to once again encourage you that
you can and probably should do this in your own life,
not like I do anything here. I'm not doing anything.
You can read citations with your family. If you're a teacher,
kids love it, love it. It's heroic, it's awesome. If you're
a coach, whatever, it's worth looking at. It's like it's
(01:38):
like reading a it's like reading a movie. It's what
it's like half the time. Yeah, good point, Chris Scout leader,
boy Scout leader.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Kids eat that stuff up. And yes, we take emails,
love hate, death threats. Ask doctor Jesse questions or Medal
of Honor citations you love or have some sort of
a relation to, like this one. Mister Kelly, A friend
just mentioned your to me. Your show Medal of Honor Monday?
Does your show cover just living Medal of Honor recipients?
(02:08):
My uncle, Colonel Roger Donlan was a Medal of Honor recipient.
He passed away in January twenty twenty fourth. Dang, just
last year. Maybe you already had a show on his story.
I think it's wonderful you have the show each week.
It's important the public is kept aware of the sacrifices
these men and all of our veterans have made for
our nation. He said, God bless and so without further
(02:31):
Ado Roger H. C. Donlan was born in Saggarty's which
is Ulster County, New York. And I'm not one hundred
percent sure I said Saggarty's Sagarty's right, so apologies to
his birthplace, but nevertheless that's where he was from. Hey.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Honoring those who went above and beyond. It's Medal of
Honor Monday.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his
life above and beyond the call of duty while defending
a US military installation against a fierce attack by hostile forces.
Captain Donman was serving as the commanding officer of the
US Army Special Forces Special Forces Detachment A seven to
(03:22):
two six at Camp Namdong when a reinforced viet Cong
battalion suddenly launched a full scale pre dawn attack on
the camp. During the violent battle that ensued, lasting five
hours and resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, Captain
Donman directed the defense operations in the midst of an
(03:43):
enemy barrage of mortar shells, falling grenades in extremely heavy gunfire.
Upon the initial onslaught, he swiftly marshaled his forces and
ordered the removal of the needed ammunition from a blazing building.
He then dashed through a hail of arms and exploding
hand grenades to abort a breach of the main gate.
(04:06):
En route to his position, he detected an enemy demolition
team of three in the proximity of the main gate
and quickly annihilated them. Although exposed to the intense grenade attack,
he then succeeded in reaching a sixty millimeter mortar position,
despite sustaining a severe stomach wound, as he was within
five yards of the gunpit. When he discovered that most
(04:29):
of the men in this gunpit were also wounded, he
completely disregarded his own injury, directed their withdrawal to a
location thirty meters away, and again risked his life by
remaining behind and covering the movement with the utmost effectiveness.
Noting that his team sergeant was unable to evacuate the gunpit,
(04:50):
he crawled toward him, and while dragging the fallen soldier
out of the gunpit, an enemy mortar exploded and inflicted
a wound in Captain Donlan's left sold left shoulder. How
Many about halfway done with this, by the way, although
suffering from multiple wounds, he carried the abandoned sixty millimeter
mortar to a new location thirty meters away, where he
(05:11):
found three wounded defenders. After administering first aid and encouragement
to these men, he left the weapon with them, headed
toward another position and which retrieved a fifty seven millimeter
recoilless rifle. Then, with great courage and coolness under fire,
he returned to the abandoned gunpit, evacuated ammunition for the
(05:33):
two weapons, and while crawling and dragging the urgently needed ammunition,
received a third wound in his leg by an enemy
hand grenade. Despite his critical physical condition, he again crawled
a hundred and seventy five meters that's two football fields
by the way to an eighty one millimeter mortar position
(05:54):
and directed firing operations which protected the seriously threatened east
sector of the camp. He then moved to an eastern
sixty milimeter mortar position, and, upon determining that the vicious
enemy assault had weakened, crawled back to the gunpit with
the sixty milimeter mortar set it up for defense, moved
(06:14):
from position to position around the beleaguered perimeter while hurling
hand grenades at the enemy and inspiring his men to
superhuman effort. Good grief this guy, and he bravely continued
to move around the perimeter. Or as he bravely continued
to move around the perimeter, a mortar shell exploded, wounding
him in the face and body. So, by the way,
(06:36):
for those keeping track, that's his shoulder, his stomach, his leg,
now his face and the rest of his body. As
the long daylight along the way to daylight brought the
defeat to the enemy forces and their retreat back to
the jungle, leaving behind fifty four of their dead, many
weapons in grenades. Captain Donman immediately reorganized his defenses and
(06:58):
administered first day to the wounded. His dynamic leadership, fortitude,
and valiant efforts inspired not only the American personnel, but
the friendly Vietnamese defenders as well, and resulted in the
successful defense of the camp. Captain Donland's extraordinary heroism at
the risk, above and beyond the call of duty are
(07:19):
in the highest traditions of the US Army and reflect
great credit upon himself and the armed forces of this country.
And I need to explain something you to you real
quick before we get on to the history, which is
actually not going to be Vietnam. We're going clear back
to World War One. Just the heads up. These camps,
these special Forces camps. These are Green Beret camps. You'll
(07:43):
hear a lot about them. And whenever you read a
story or a Medal of Honor citation about a Special
Forces camp of some kind, what they usually were was this.
They were more remote, not necessarily right next to some big,
well defended army camp. They were more remote. The Green
(08:03):
Berets were generally some of the only American troops in
these camps. Because what the Green Berets were doing is
really what the Green Berets bread and butter is. The
Green Berets bread and butter is they go into a country,
they organize and train the forces of that country that
(08:25):
are against what we consider to be the enemy in
that country. So in this case, the North Vietnamese, the
viet Cong, they had plenty of enemies inside Vietnam, guides
like the Montag Yards, which were like a warrior like
tribal people in Vietnam mountain, like really really cool people. Anyway,
the Green Berets, the Special Forces of Vietnam, they would
(08:46):
go in and in these camps they would bring in
the Montag yards, the yards will call them, that's what
they called them.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
They would bring in the yards. They would constantly be
training the yards, and then the yards oftentimes most of
the time with the Green Berets would go out and
do various operations wherever they may be operations. Sometimes it's
just observing. Sometimes it's a snatching.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Grab where you're kidnapping somebody and taking them in for interrogation.
But in these camps, what this guy was doing, Donlin,
he probably was not dealing with a bunch of Green Berets.
I just wanted to clarify that because when you say
special Forces automatically, people will assume that Don Thean was
there and he had one hundred Green Berets at his command,
(09:35):
and that's why they were.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
No no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Now I don't know the exact number because I don't
know this specific story that well, he might have had
eight of them, ten of them, maybe not even that,
depending on the size of the camp.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
It's not like he had Tip of the Spear guys.
Lots of these guys.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, they were trained by Green Berets, but they were
Vietnamese that we had trained up. That's why he's running
around having to encourage you. Everybody, Hey, let me get
this on you. Hey you shoot there, Hey, you do this,
and that they're working with lesser forces. I'll put it
to you that way, lesser forces. All right, now, I
(10:15):
have we've argued before, we've debated before. You email me
and debate it with me, and I love that. That's fine.
I'm not I don't know everything. What was the worst
place to be in the history of combat? What was it?
And everyone has a great argument for it was that
the war in the Pacific, a crusader army stuck out
(10:38):
in the desert without water?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
There's all kinds of debate. I will tell you, having
finished my research for the story we're about to tell.
I know I've made my choice. I've found it. Let's
talk about it. Next.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Get the Cure for Rhinos. Week days with The Jesse
Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It is The Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday. We
just finished up Medal of Honor Monday. Remember, if you
miss any part of the show, you can download the
whole thing on iHeart, Spotify, iTunes. We will hopefully get
back to some news next hour. No, I'll try to
get back to the news next hour. But I want
(11:24):
you to imagine something. I want you to imagine. You're
a young man and you grew up on the family
farm in Salerno, Italy. Okay, Salerno. I don't expect you
to know where that is. It's southern Italy. You know,
(11:45):
Italy's shaped like a boot. Everyone knows that it's more
towards the lower end of it. It's south of Rome,
south of Naples. And it's warm. You grew up, like
I said, in the fields, and all you know is
the warmth. In fact, in the winter time it's seventy seven,
(12:05):
seventy eight. Sometimes it gets pretty chilly at night, those sixties,
sixty three, sixty four. And this is not only how
you've lived your life, it's how your father lived. This
is the only life you've ever known. You're twenty years old.
But your country is young, and you know that we'll
(12:27):
get to that in a little bit. And your country
is trying to figure out its borders. And you hear
about this big war that has started, and you're wondering
should you join, do not join? Not really sure, you're afraid,
but you want to see more than just the farm.
But you hesitate a little bit. Wait, let's see how
(12:50):
things shake out. But one day, a government man comes
to your family farm with your name on a piece
of paper and says, hey, you're joining. Congratulations, You've just
been conscripted into the Italian Army. You're excited, you're scared.
Your mom's crying. Your father shakes your hand, and you
find yourself on a train heading up north and it's
(13:15):
beautiful hills, mountains, but it is getting cold. Finally, you
find yourself in a valley. There's a river in front
of you, it's freezing. The valley's beautiful, and in front
of you is a mountain range and you're told that
(13:37):
you have to go up that mountain and remove the
men who are entrenched on top of the mountain, and
they have machine guns pointing down at you. The mountain
is covered with snow. You've actually never seen snow in
your life. It's the first time for you. They start
giving you clothing to try to make you warmer, but
(13:58):
your nose is still cold. It it hurts when you
breathe in. You and all your newfound army buddies, you
start up the slopes and your friends start dying in
the worst possible ways. The very first day it just
missed you. You heard what sounded like thunder coming from
the top of the mountain. You looked up in time
(14:21):
to see an avalanche sweep away one hundred men from
your unit gone off the mountain, right off a cliff cliff.
You went to sleep that night thinking about their screams.
The next morning you wake up and your toes are black.
Then then the next morning you hear a shout, a warning,
(14:44):
and you look up to see a gigantic steel ball
rolling down the mountain side towards your unit, where it
explodes and fifty of your friends, their body parts are
blown all over you. You are in the worst in
my opinion, you are officially in the worst battle conditions
(15:10):
ever fought. This is the Italian Campaign. It's known as
the Italian Campaign of World War One, and I have
never read or consumed anything like it in my life.
When I mentioned going into the break that it was
(15:31):
going to be the worst battlefield conditions ever, Jewish producer
Chris said, World War one, the trenches of World War one,
no question, Western Front world War One, and I myself
have said the same thing. Okay, so picture this. Trenches
of World War One are what trenches on each side.
You got that, the artillery, the misery, the rats, the disease,
(15:54):
the gas, to everything that comes with World War One,
the horrible no man's land. So picture that in your mind,
Western Front, World War One. Okay, your trench there, trench,
barbed wire, no man's land, gas, misery, death, all you
got all that? Okay, all right, I'll give you that.
Now you're in your trench. You're picturing their trench, Chris, Okay,
(16:15):
let's cover their trench with snow. Let's make their trench
about three thousand feet above your trench. And now do
you think maybe that would be worse? The Italian campaign
of World War One combines all the worst parts of
the Western Front and somehow makes them worse. It adds
(16:37):
in freezing cold, it adds in rock shrapnel, which we're
going to get to. It's gonna be a huge part
of this ice caves, you're losing limbs. Men throw themselves
off of cliffs and shoot themselves in the head to
stop being there anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
It is the.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Only place in World War One that I have found
where there are multiple account ounce, not one or two, sporadic,
multiple accounts of the armies refusing to shoot at each
other because it's so bad and so many men are dying.
You feel heartbreak for the other side, the men you're
slaughtering on that side. The Italian Campaign of World War One.
(17:16):
Let's begin and discuss what it was and how it
came to be. Let's do some background on it. Do
you enjoy history? By the way, I love it. I
eat it up. I did it all weekend long. I
was just reading reading stuff. You know, Hillsdale College makes
it so you don't have to read about some of
this stuff. Hillsdale College will just teach you. Hillsdale College,
(17:40):
that incredible university, the one we all want our kids
to get into. They're offering more than forty courses for free.
Did you know that they're online. They're for everybody, old,
young men, women, families, single. Instead of scrolling through the
channels looking at the social media app one it because
(18:00):
there's no cost. Why don't you try one course from
Hillsdale and see what you think You could take Constitution
one oh one. If you don't want to do that
kind of thing, you could do Roman Republic. Maybe you're
into literature. C. S. Lewis The works of C. S. Lewis.
Hillsdale has all these classes at no costs for you.
(18:22):
Hillsdale dot ed u slash Jesse is where you go
to enroll. Hillsdale dot edu slash Jesse. We'll be back,
Jesse Keilly. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday.
Of course, it's been an incredible Monday. We did a
(18:44):
bunch of talking the first hour about culture, war stuff.
We did Medal of Honor Monday. Now we are into history.
We're talking about the Italian Front of World War One.
That kind of history. Don't worry, you didn't miss much already,
just the little story to start off with. Now, let's
do some background before we get to the worst battlefield
(19:06):
conditions in the history of warfare World War One. You know,
one side had Britain France. Yes, eventually that's the side
we joined. By the way. One side was Britain in France,
and you got all that in Russia. Russia was part
of that too for a while. We'll get to that
in a little bit. And the other side was mainly
(19:27):
Germany and Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire Turkey. I
don't want to dismiss them. Actually, the Ottoman Empire Turkey,
but it was mainly Germany and Austria Hungary. But for
our purposes we're only going to focus on Austria, Hungary
and the Italians. Now, one thing we must understand here
(19:49):
is the newness. How new so many European nations are.
We don't think about it in that way. Most America
would tell you, well, America is young, especially compared to Europe.
We're about to have our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
next year. That's a young place. We're not old like
(20:11):
Europe is. America is much older than Italy. America is
much older than Germany I'm talking about I'm talking about
as a unified nation. I know about Rome and things
like that, but Italy. Focus on that for a moment.
Italy after the Roman Empire and after its collapse, and
(20:35):
Italy had been so many different countries in different little
city states, warring with each other, killing each other for
the longest time. Remember I told you we went to
Italy at Christmas time? What are the places? We were
up close to Florence, Italy, And one of the places
(20:55):
we ate at was this tiny little mountaintop hilt, tiny
little hill top fort. The guy our tour guide had said, oh,
you gotta eat there. It was the place I too do.
What was it forty four people lived there something crazy
like that. It wasn't many. A miniscule amount of people
live there. It's a tiny little fort. The walls are
still there, and you could eat in this restaurant, and
(21:17):
then they have a couple of little gift shops, but
people's laundry it's hanging out on clothes lines. It's just
a wee little mountaintop village, but obviously very old. And
we started talking to the tour guy about it, and
he was explaining that it was it was there as
a lookout in a fighting fortress for the wars between
Florence and Rome. Italy was divided forever. It was only
(21:40):
in the eighteen sixties. Eighteen sixties Italy came together and
formed one unified country. Germany they're not really going to
feature in this story, but Germany was very similar. Germany
was eighteen seventies. Yes, I know Prussia and all the
(22:01):
different areas, but as far as a unified country, Germany
was new, a new place. But we'll go down to
Italy because that's the purpose of our story here Italy
was new and being one unified country was a new
thing for them. And we don't realize how blessed we
are as a country because of how we started versus
(22:26):
some of these other countries. Okay, so Italy finally unified,
It finally became Italy, But what are united around? America
had something to unite around. We wanted to be free
from the British. We wanted a free country. We wanted
there were unifying principles around it. Italy had been at
(22:46):
war with each other for so long. A picture picture
this picture. Texas is at war with Nebraska, who's at
war with New York, Who's at war with Virginia, who's
at war with South Carolina? And they fight this war
for two hundred years and then we wake up one
day after two hundred years of fighting, and hey, by
(23:07):
the way, you guys are a country now.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Sound good?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Well wait, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Okay? So Italy was adjusting. Part of the adjustment was
what kind of government do the people want? What kind
of government do the people who decide what kind of
government they want? What kind of government do they want?
And what are your borders? How do you decide on
a nation's borders. How do you decide well. Countries when
(23:36):
they're forming and after they're formed, they want as much
choice territory as humanly possible. You want to make sure
you have as many natural resources as you can, as
much waterfront as you can, and you want to make
sure strategically you can defend your country. You want defend
(24:00):
CIBOL borders. Not everything is defensible. So our story is
going to take place in the north north northern part
of Italy. If you want to look at it on
a map. You know I love looking at maps. We
are going to be in the northeastern portion of Italy.
With me the northeastern portion of Italy. Now, if you're
(24:22):
looking at a map, you may notice the northeastern portion
of Italy is looks a little mountainey. In fact, things
have changed. It's because it is Those are the Alps
you see. And Italy as it formed, it wanted it
wanted its territory to extend into the Alps, because you
(24:47):
want mountainous territory, because there's nothing easier to defend than
mountainous territory. Even if you have the benefit of plains,
it's hard to get people out of mountainous territory. Why
do you think we had so many struggles in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
How can that be?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We have all these planes and bombs and fancy things,
but they're in the freaking mountains. Even with modern modern everything,
modern artillery and flight and bombs and things like that,
when someone is dug into the mountains, it's hard to
get them out. You know, people talk about prepping for
(25:26):
a disaster today in the modern era.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
How do you prep? What do you do?
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Where do you go? Hey, what's your look? I don't
know what your plans are. I'll tell you this for
a fact, depending on the scenario, I'm getting to the mountains.
If I can get to the mountains, whether it's the Rockies,
the Appalachians, wherever it is. If you can get to
the mountains, if you have a place in the mountains,
(25:52):
you're just safer than you are anywhere else. Period. End
of story. All right, Setting that aside, Italy wants that
Northeast turned part, but they don't have it as we speak.
They don't have it as it pertains to this story. Why,
because there is this empire that is crumbling, one you
(26:12):
don't even know about anymore, because it's gone called the
Austria Hungarian Empire Austria Hungary. I know it's weird because
it's two countries now, but it was known as one
thing back then. Austria Hungary. Austria Hungary was large, it
had a royal family, and it was very much an empire,
(26:35):
a fading empire though fading, crumbling. They'd been an empire
for a long time, gobbling up this, gobbling up that.
But they were long past their primes, as all empires are.
And Austria Hungary the northern neighbor of Italy. They held
these alps at the time in Italy wanted it. Now,
(26:59):
World War One kicks off, Who's Italy going to join?
And this is where it gets a little dicey in
Italian history. I say dicey, I mean kind of dirty,
to be honest with you. Italy had a signed agreement
that they were part of Germany Austria Hungary, that they
(27:20):
were as part of that alliance.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
They were supposed to be on the side.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Of Germany and Austria Hungary. But Italy was a very,
very very divided place. That's part of why I brought
up how young they were politically. They were very divided, which.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Direction do we go left? Right? Middo.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I don't legislature, I don't understand it. And the divisions
at the highest levels of the Italian government were so
pronounced that it caused all kinds of fighting and everything else.
And Italy decides maybe there's maybe there's an advantage if
we're not part of the Austria Hungary thing. We'll continue
(27:59):
on with our story in a moment. Before we do that,
let me talk to you about protecting yourself. Do you
see that story about the UPS guy Not a real
UPS guy, a fake one, got himself a fake uniform,
armed felon, goes around kicking indoors. We love to think
(28:22):
that when we're in home, in our homes, in the
grocery store, the gas station at the mall, that since
we're local or something like that, we're safe. You're not.
There are bad people everywhere. It doesn't mean you hide
in a locked room your whole life. You can't do that.
It means you carry a burn a pistol launcher on
you at all times. I have so many of these
things I can't even count them. I have bought one
(28:45):
for every person in my life. They are non lethal
so they're legal in all fifty states. You don't even
need a permit, you don't need a background check. If
someone accidentally shoots themselves with it, it's not the end
of the world. You're just going to be in a
whole lot of pain for a while. It shoots tear
gas or pepperballs, or it'll save your life, man, it'll
stop a very very bad man and save the life
(29:07):
of a person you love the most. Don't let someone
you love be hurt and regret not having gotten them
one you want a nice discount by Rna Berna dot
com slash Jesse Berna dot com slash Jesse We'll be back,
(29:27):
what Chris, We can make jokes.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It's fine, we get that right.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
The Jesse Kelly Show.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
It is The Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday and
Incredible Monday. In case you're just now joining us, we're
in the middle of history. We're talking about the Italian War,
the World War One portion that took place in the
Alps northern Italy. Remember if you if you want to
email the show, you can Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com.
(29:54):
Back to our story, World War One breaks out France,
Britain they're at warworth Germany, Austria Hungary, and yes, Russia
is part of all this on the side of France
and Britain. Italy, Yes they have an agreement with Germany
and Austria Hungary, but they're kind of thinking about Renigan
on the whole thing. And the reason they're thinking about
(30:15):
Reniggan on the whole thing is Austria Hungary. They've grabbed
those wonderful alps on the northern part of Italy. I'll
just say that so you know where it is. And
Austria Hungry's hungry is not interested in giving them back
because they want them the same reasons. The Italian one
of them. The Italians want one of them. They're wonderful
(30:36):
for defense. It's like mountains are like the greatest wall
you could ever build. Of course, they want to keep
the mountains well. Italy they decide instead of being instead
of being part of this alliance with Germany and Austria Hungary,
they kind of consider themselves more of a free agent
(30:56):
if you will. Hey, I'm open for business. And this
is the point where diplomacy can help decide wars. We
dudes don't ever like to think of it that way.
Because dudes like wars to be bombs and bullets and
things like that. But diplomacy is a huge, huge part
(31:16):
of warfare now and always was. Italy wanted those Alps,
or at least a much better deal than they currently had. Now,
I need to explain what was currently going on before
I go into where we're going. I'm talking about currently
going on in that region. In that region, it's not
as if everybody was ethnically Italian or Austrian or something
(31:41):
like that. Italy itself, as I mentioned, was very divided,
different dialects all. I mean from the north. If you're
in the far northern part of Italy at this time
and you talk to somebody from the far south, you
may not even really understand each other and you're both
speaking Italian. That's how different, the different the different ethnic
(32:03):
ethnic history of the whole place was. I guess I'll
put it that way ethnicities. But even that's not necessarily fair.
You understand what I mean. It's a different place. Austria
Hungary is the exact same thing. In the northern part
of Italy. There's a border. They know where the border is,
but there's all kinds of trade and commerce going on
because these two countries are not at war with each
(32:25):
other in this area. One part of this border was
a barbed wire fence across a field. You just if
you were trading goods and services and they did, you'd
be back and forth. And maybe you're in Italy technically,
but maybe your loyalty is more with Austria because you're
dealing with those people and vice versa. Maybe you're technically
(32:45):
part of Austria, but you're mainly dealing with the Italian
village that's a mile away. So it's a mess. It's
not clear, it's not defined. And again Italy is new, new,
very very new at this point in time, about fifty
sixty years old. At this point in times. New Italy
decides they're a free agent. Germany. Germany goes to Austria Hungary.
(33:09):
Germany was constantly frustrated with Austria Hungary. I should point out,
Germany goes to Austria Hungary and they said, hey, uh,
you really need to give something up to the Italians,
the Italians. We want them on our side. We don't
want to have to deal with the Italians because that
(33:29):
creates a third front in the war. Pause on everything
we'll come back to this third front. Let's talk about
the other two just as a basic because a lot
of people don't know. There are two fronts at this
time in World War One. There is the Western Front.
Germany invaded France, France dug in. There are now trenches
(33:51):
on both sides. That's the Western Front, and Britain's involved them.
Just simplifying this, So that's the Western Front. There's an
Eastern Front, Russia, the Russians. Everyone was worried about the
Russians getting in. They tried to talk the Russians out
adjoining the war, but the Russians joined in the war,
and Russians decided they were going to attack Germany and
(34:13):
Austria Hungary. So Germany had to send troops, Austria Hungary
had to send troops to the Eastern Front to fight
the Russians off. So now Germany, Austra Hungary, the Central Powers.
That's why they call them that, they're stuck there in
the middle.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
They're the peanut butter. Russia's the bread, Britain, France is
the bread. They're already sandwiched on two sides, two fronts.
That's already one more front than you want what they
absolutely positively do not want is a third front on
the bottom, a third front from the south. And Germany
knows this. Germany knows how overstretched it is. Germany starts
(34:52):
going to Austria Hungary and saying, please give them something.
Italy wants.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
They want some territory, they want this mountain range here,
they want that, they want, they want control of this. Okay,
I know you don't want to, but we can't have
Italy joining the side of the Allies. Please give them something.
But Austria Hungry suffered at this point in time from
something we all suffer from from time to time.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Pride.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Pride is one of those deadly sins, isn't it. In sales,
in our.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
V sales, which, as you know, I used to do.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
We used to talk all the time about pride costing
people deals. I'm not dealing with them. I'm not calling
him back. Look, I did it. I was guilty of
it cost myself money. Pride is a killer, man. It
kills nations too. Austria Hungary the way they saw it
was this, we are Austria Hungary. We are this powerful empire,
(35:55):
which they weren't really anymore. But we are this powerful empire.
We're fighting this huge war against the biggest nations on
Earth at the time, the most powerful countries on Earth.
We're not fighting this huge war to give up territory.
We're Austria hungry. We're not giving up any territory. We're
fighting this to reclaim our former glory and to gain territory.
(36:18):
And they certainly weren't in the mood to give up
the lush mountain fortresses on their southern border. And they
definitely weren't in the mood to give up those lush
mountain fortresses to a new country they didn't feel very
fond of. In fact, Remember, racial prejudice is not new.
(36:42):
It's the essence of man. Everyone's guilty of it. They
thought Italians were lower and I'm not just talking about heightwise,
which of course they are. They really thought Italians were
of a lower species. All people thought that way back then.
So we got a problem. All right, Maybe I'll do
a couple more segments on this before we get back
to the new. Before I do that, I want to
talk to you about pure talk. I want to talk
(37:03):
to you about America.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Baby.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I love it, I love the I love when companies
are unapologetically pro America that I really, I really nerd
out on it. And I told you my little tale
earlier about yelling at the restaurant for not having anybody
who speaks English. I know I'm just mean, but it
(37:27):
really does bother me. I love when I get a
hold of somebody at pure Talk. They have Americans. Puretalk
hires Americans based right here in America. You don't need
Verizon AT and T or T Mobile. Switch to pure Talk.
You get the exact same service. You'll pay less, and
you deal with an American company. Dial pound two five
(37:51):
zero and say Jesse Kelly, Tonight is the night to
switch Pound two five zero. Say Jesse Kelly, We'll be back.
Host
Jesse Kelly
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