The Spanish Civil War
On his return from Abyssinia, Montanelli became foreign correspondent in Spain for the daily newspaper Il Messaggero, where he experienced the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco's troops. In this period he shared a room with Kim Philby, who, decades later, would reveal himself to the world as one of the greatest Soviet mole spies that ever existed. One day he disappeared. Years later Montanelli received a mysterious note saying: "Thanks for everything. Including your socks". It was Philby. After the capture of the city of Santander, Montanelli wrote that '(...) it had been a long military walk with only one enemy: the heat'. This judgement contrasted with the propaganda of the times that painted that 'battle' as a glorious bloodshed on the side of the Italian contingent. In fact the only casualty he noted, but never reported, by Montanelli was a single death in the Alpini regiment caused by a mule kick that threw the unfortunate trooper down into a dry river bed. For this article he was reimpatriated, tried and expelled from the Fascist party and from the 'journalist book'. When, in the trial, he was asked why he had written such an unpatriotic article, he replied: "Show me a single casualty of that battle: because a battle without casualties is not a real battle!" The trial ended with a full absolution.
Read more about this topic: Indro Montanelli
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