SERRAMAZZONI MAY 11, 2008 - MAY 11, 2013
CARABINIERE CARLO BARTOLONI BRONZE MEDAL FOR MILITARY VALOR
Serramazzoni, a town in that Apennine mountain range that throughout the ages has given the Arma Benemerita so many young, honest, willing men, animated by a deep feeling of loyalty to the Homeland, without pausing to examine the political orientation of the momentary rulers.
Sometimes I wonder: what is it that turns young volunteer recruits, into heroes ?
Will it be the Alamars with stars on them ?
Will it be the “mottos” of the Weapon :
<During the centuries faithful. ed usi obbedir tacendo e tacendo morir ?>
As a boy I listened to the stories of my father, a mountain man originally from Granaglione, who enlisted during the 1915/1918 war in a mountain artillery unit.
And so I learned how much self-sacrifice the Carabinieri, (referred to as “Soldiers of the Law ”) , deployed along with the artillerymen on the banks of the Piave River, showed in preventing the Austrian divisions from sweeping across the Po-Venetian plain.
But even much earlier, at Pastrengo, on April 30, 1848, with a charge of three squadrons, under the command of Mag. Alessandro Negri of Sanfront, the Carabinieri proved they were there by saving King Charles Albert from falling prisoner to the Austrians.
And in 1942, young Carabiniere Carlo Bartoloni, obeying orders without questioning them, was commanded to escort a military train carrying prisoners to the territory called Balcania ( Slovenia , former Yugoslavia).
True to the delivery he received, he tried everything possible to comply with it, but during the night of June 28, 1942, near the Ljubljana railway station, the train was attacked by an enemy unit.
There was a violent firefight and Carabiniere Carlo Bartoloni distinguished himself by repelling the assailants, chasing them to the edge of a nearby forest.
Although wounded in one hand and thus unable to make further use of his musket, with pistol and hand grenades he opened fire at the enemy until a machine-gun burst stopped him for good.
An act of heroism , paid for with His young life.
I do not know if I can consider that the Fatherland was generous to him by not awarding him the decoration that in my judgment he would have deserved.
Unfortunately, in the 'immediate postwar period there were great interests of political alignment with the neighboring country.
I suspect that then in Italy everything was quickly downplayed: beginning with the only partial truth about the foibe, to the thwarted and shameful reception of the Giuliani-Dalmatian refugees of the Italian-speaking ethnic group at the Bologna train station, who were prevented by some railwaymen from drawing water from the drinking fountains, to the downplaying of the acts of heroism of those who had served the Fatherland, either in military uniform or with the civil commitment of Italian civil servants and/or state employees, in Yugoslav territory.
Instead, the Carabinieri of all ranks, no longer in active service (who always remain Carabinieri), did well to name the Section of the ANC of Serramazzoni, after “Carabiniere Carlo Bartoloni, Bronze Medal for Military Valor in the field , in memory.”
Officers and serving members of the Armed Forces also wanted to attend and honor the ceremony, which was attended by the population of various neighboring municipalities.
I took the liberty of remembering Carabiniere Carlo Bartoloni, both because of the friendship that binds my family, to the Bartoloni family for no less than four generations, and because our Carabiniere's father, in 1944 during World War II, with a timely intervention saved the lives of both my brother (a Railway Police officer) and a cousin of mine, during a Nazi roundup in Gaggio Montano, and because I too am the father of a Carabiniere.
In the memory is the history, even the sad history, of the people of our mountains and that must not fall into oblivion, but must be remembered to the youth of today , BECAUSE THE PATRIA CONTINUES TO CALL ITSELF ITALY.
Giancarlo Macciantelli
Meritorious Member of the National Carabinieri Association - (Card No. 0158/1803 dd.12/6/2001 Rome)