REVIEWSrnTo Hell and Backrnby Wayne AllensworthrnFew Returned: Twenty-EightrnDays on the Russian Front,rnWinter 1942-1943rnby Eugenio CortirnTranslated by Peter Edward LetyrnColumbia: University ofrnMissouri Press;rn251 pp., $19.95rn”W: 11 no one tell me what shernsings? Perhaps the plaintivernnumbers flow / For old, unhappyrnfar-off things. And Battles long ago.”rnWordsworth, perhaps, was prompted byrnrecollections of an age before warfarernmeant the mechanized destruction ofrnall in its path. Yet war, to paraphrase anrnAmerican precursor of Zhukov andrnGuderian, has always been hell. At Agincourt,rnthe French knights were mowedrndown by the massed projectiles of thernEnglish bowmen. Then, as the mountedrnknights in headlong flight crashed intornthe oncoming wave of their own menat-rnarms at the rear, the heavily armoredrnFVench, piled on one another in heapsrntaller than a man, were slaughtered byrncrushing blows from hammer and sword.rnThe English troops literally wadedrnthrough a sea of blood. Many of thernFrenchmen who had pleaded for quarterrnwere butchered on the spot, and the Englishrneven incinerated some of thernFrench wounded who had taken refugernin cottages not far from the battle. Thernremaining prisoners were held for ransom.rnIt is significant that Henry V, whornordered the slaughter of the prisoners,rnwas forced to employ archers—men whornstood outside the medieval system ofrnchivalry—to do a deed that placed at riskrnthe king’s honor as a Chrishan monarch.rnChivalry (however imperfectly obsen’ed),rnbuttressed by the Christian faith,rnserved to restrain the dogs of war in thernhme before ideology had eroded Christianityrnand technological progress madernwhat John Keegan called the “movingrnbattlefield” a reality. From Agincourt wernmoved to the Somme, Kursk, and, ultimately,rnto mass terror and Hiroshima. Inrnthe modern era, warfare means entirernpopulations engaged in a dehumanizingrnclash of opposed barbarians.rnEugenio Corti’s moving memoir is arnchronicle of a fateful retreat become arnpanicked rout in the frozen wastes of thernRussian front at Stalingrad. Corti usesrnhis considerable literary’ talents—this, hisrnfirst book, was originally published inrnpostwar Italy, before the author becamernan accomplished novelist and essayist—rnto convey to the reader the experience ofrna sensitive man who has seen his fellowsrndegraded below the image of God andrnwho has himself felt the elemental urgernof the beast in his breast. Derived fromrnnotes Corti made at the time, the bookrnreveals the thoughts and emotions of onernof these atoms of suffering humanity. InrnCorti’s account, the battlefield —itsrnstorm of steel sweeping over and levelingrnwhole cities and villages, reducing therndead and the living to beings “that hadrnlost all human form” and every sign ofrnhumanity —amounts to a preview ofrnHell, of man cut off completely fromrnGod and “set increasingly against Him.”rnIn this manmade hell, the mechanicalrninhumanity of the Germans, who dispassionatelyrnrape, loot, and murder, and thernsurvivalist savagery of the Russians, whornshow no mercy even to their own, arernjuxtaposed with the moral failure of thernItalians, who abandoned their woundedrncomrades to die on the interminablernsteppe, “obedient by now to a single animalrninstinct: self preservation.” As arnwounded man begs for help, Corti confessesrnhis own failure to resist the ferocityrnof cruel circumstance: “Within me,” hernwrote, “a coldness was forming no lessrnmerciless than the cold surrounding me.rnMy eyes followed the poor yoimg wretchrnas he limped away again; in my soul I feltrna useless torment.” Russian, German,rnand Italian become indistinguishablernfrom one another: “Near the end of thernvillage were numerous dead Russians.rnOne was wearing an Italian great coat.”rnGerman, Italian, and Russian are unitedrnin Corti’s narrative by the icy flames ofrnthe battlefield: “Little by little, I was beginningrnto feel that I was no longer a distinctrnunit, with my own identity—no, Irnwas . . . a minute part of endless humanrnpain and sorrow.”rnUltimately Corti’s passage throughrnhell is a baptism, convincing him of thern”possibility of salvation.” As Corti reveals,rnthe love of God that inspires thernsimplest act of kindness by men reaches,rnas Dostoyevsky contended in his parablernof the onion in The Brothers Karamazov,rneven to the depths of Hell. So many, tornparaphrase the great Russian novelist,rneven as they have sinned, gave an onionrnand redeemed a fallen nature. The Russianrnpeasants with “their compassion forrnany suffering being,” the hardened Italianrnveteran who refuses to abandon arnwounded comrade, Corti’s friend Zanottirnwho, despite “his youth rebellingrnagainst the prospect of death,” volunteersrnfor a deadly assignment, taking the placernof an exhausted countryman — all, likernthe snow “which seemed to be forcing itselfrn. . . to push back” against the seeminglyrn”impenetrable darkness” of thernhellish vault of the battlefield, resistedrnthe night. In this way, Corti came to believe,rn”God reclaims the suffering ofrnmen, and above all that of innocentrnmen—crucified as Christ was crucified.”rnTheir suffering was “in no way wasted.”rnIn Corti’s war, the mechanized horrorsrnof battle and the conflict’s epic scalerncame to represent for the then 21-yearoldrnartillery officer the whole of humanrnexperience: of Eden (prewar Italy) and ofrnthe Fall, of the possibility of atonementrnand redemption, and of grace throughrnthe self-sacrifice of innocents. Cortirnhimself was saved—by God through hisrnmother’s prayers, as he came to believern—for a purpose. “I offer thesernpages,” he writes in the book’s dedication,rn”through mv mother’s hands, to thernMadonna of my people, the Madonna ofrnthe Wood. May they be above all arnprayer for those who shared those daysrnwith me, who fought and suffered withrnme, who hoped so desperately with me,rnand in the end remained lifeless on therninterminable roads of the steppe.” As anrnact of atonement then, before God andrnhis fallen comrades—and, especially, forrnthose who refused to become denizens ofrnthe modern hell —Corti offers this powerfulrntestament.rnWayne Allensworth writes from Purcel-rnIville, Virginia. His book, The RussianrnQuestion: Nationalism, Modernization,rnand Post-Communist Russia, will bernpublished this summer by Rowman &rnLittlefield.rnMAY 1998/37rnrnrn