Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking
a visual contradiction that I think just perfectly
captures the weirdness of military history. Oh,
it really does. Right. So I want you to picture
a modern, chaotic battlefield. We're talking...
drone swarms, digital comms, armored infantry
fighting vehicles just churning up the mud. A
completely 21st century combat zone. Exactly.
And right in the middle of that high -tech chaos,
I want you to imagine a soldier standing there
wearing a two -foot -tall, bare -skin cap that
looks like it was, I don't know. stolen from
a Napoleonic museum. It is such a jarring image
when you actually see it. I mean, you expect
them to be holding a musket, but instead they're
holding a suppressed assault rifle or, you know,
they're manning a modern anti -tank launcher.
We are talking about the Granatieri di Sardegna.
The Grenadiers of Sardinia. And I want to be
really clear right off the bat based on the sources
we're looking at today. This isn't just a ceremonial
unit. Right. Because I know when people see the
fancy uniforms, they immediately think palace
guard. They think tourist attraction. Yeah. Right.
Like the guards at Buckingham Palace. But these
guys are a fully mechanized infantry brigade.
They really are. They have tanks. They have heavy
weapons, armored personnel carriers. And yet
they also serve as the personal ceremonial guard
for the president of Italy. It's this fascinating
mix of, you know, don't mess with me and look
how impeccable my dress uniform is. That duality
is really their defining feature. I mean, they
are the oldest regiment in the Italian army.
They have a continuous lineage going all the
way back to 1659. Which is wild. It is. But they
are also a NATO -ready combat unit. And managing
those two identities, being a living museum piece
and, well, a modern combat force, is incredibly
difficult. So before we get into the actual combat
record, we have to clear up the name. Yeah. Because
I know this trips people up when they first hear
about them. The Sardinia part. Yeah, the Grenadiers
of Sardinia. When I was looking into the recruitment
stats in our sources. These guys aren't all from
the island of Sardinia. No, not at all. In fact,
most of them are from the mainland. So is this
just like false advertising? It does sound like
a geographic misnomer today, but it's actually
a political title. You have to remember that
Italy as a unified country is a relatively new
invention, historically speaking. Right, late
19th century. Exactly. So before unification,
the powerhouse state in that region was the Kingdom
of Sardinia. Right, which was ruled by the House
of Savoy. But their capital wasn't actually on
the island, right? No, it was in Turin, up in
Piedmont. It's kind of like how the kingdom of
Prussia wasn't just about the specific region
of Prussia. It was the political entity that
eventually formed Germany. That is the perfect
analogy. The House of Savoy controlled the island
of Sardinia. So they took the title Kings of
Sardinia to, you know, elevate their status.
And these grenadiers were the king's own personal
troops. So the name refers to the kingdom, the
state, not the island itself. As we'll see later,
there is a very specific historical link to the
island that pops up. There is, yeah. So our mission
for this deep dive is to figure out how this
unit traces a line from guarding a duke in the
17th century to fighting off the Austrian Empire,
surviving the absolute betrayal and chaos of
World War II, and then somehow ending up as beast
keepers in Lebanon today. It's a massive journey.
It really is. Yeah. And I want to focus on the
why. Why does a modern army keep a unit like
this around? Is it just pure nostalgia, or does
that centuries -old history actually make them
better in a fight? Well, to answer that, you
really have to look at the order of precedence.
Okay, this is the ranking system, right? Yeah.
Like, who marches first in a parade? Correct.
In the Italian army, the Granatieri di Sardegna
are number one, period. They are the senior regiment
of the infantry. If the whole army is on parade,
they are at the very front. Which sounds like
a great honor. But in military terms, being first
usually has a, well, a darker implication. It
absolutely does. Being first in precedence historically
meant you were first in the line of battle. First
to fight, first to die. Exactly. And that identity
starts way back in 1659. The Duke of Savoy, Charles
Emmanuel II, he decides he can't rely on feudal
levies anymore. He needs professionals. Right.
So he creates the Regiment of the Guards. These
are his personal bodyguards. They are the elite
of the elite from day one. But the real consolidation
of the unit happens later, right? In 1831. Yes.
King Charles Albert does this massive military
reorganization. He takes that old Regiment of
the Guards and he merges it with another unit
called the Regiment of Sardinia. And that second
unit actually was based on the island, wasn't
it? It was. During the years, the royals were
in exile there, hiding out from Napoleon. Okay,
so that's where the Sardinia part of the DNA
really gets baked in. It's a merger of the mainland
palace guard and the island exile guard. Exactly.
He combines them into the Grenadiers Brigade
Guardie, and this is where that burden of command
comes in. How so? Well, by making them the senior
unit, he wasn't just giving them fancy hats,
which they got in 1834, by the way, those iconic
bearskins. He was effectively saying to them,
you are the anchor. If the line breaks, you are
the anchor. ones who have to hold it no matter
what and that leads us perfectly To 1848, the
first Italian War of Independence, we have the
Battle of Goria. Yes. This is where their famous
motto comes from. And I love this story in the
sources because it's not this grand moment of
triumph. It's actually a moment of absolute panic.
It was a very near run thing. The Piedmontese
army was wavering. The Austrians were pushing
incredibly hard. And the king is right there
on the field. King Charles Albert is there and
he sees the situation deteriorating fast. He
realizes that if the center of his line collapses,
the war is basically over. So what does he do?
He looks around for his grenadiers and he screams,
To me, the guards. Yeah. It wasn't a ceremonial
shout for a parade. It was a desperate tactical
order. Get to my position and save the king.
And they did. They rallied around him. They stopped
the Austrian advance. And they completely turned
the tide of the battle. And that phrase just
became their motto. It encapsulates their whole
ethos. When the situation is at its absolute
worst, the grenadiers are the ones you call.
Precisely. So that sets the stage for World War
I. Because by 1915, warfare has changed completely.
Drastically. We aren't talking about bright uniforms
and guys lining up with muskets anymore. We're
talking about industrial slaughter. Trenches.
Machine guns. Heavy artillery. And this is exactly
where that guard identity has to evolve. In the
19th century, their job was to protect the king's
physical body. But in World War I, they had to
protect the nation's body. Because the king isn't
standing on the front line anymore. Right. But
the grenadiers were. Let's talk about Mount Senjio.
May 1916. Because reading the accounts of this
battle in our materials, it's frankly terrifying.
It is one of the most brutal engagements of the
war. This was part of the Austrian Streff expedition,
the punitive expedition. But what was the strategic
goal there? The Austrians wanted to just knock
Italy out of the war entirely. They launched
a massive offensive on the Asiago Plateau, and
the geography here is crucial to understand.
Yeah, paint a picture for us. Well, it's a mountainous
region. If the Austrians broke through those
mountain passes, they would spill right out onto
the flat Venetian plains. And if they get to
the plains, they are literally behind the main
Italian army that's fighting on the Isonzo River.
Exactly. It would be a massive encirclement maneuver.
It's basically game over for Italy. Wow. And
the unit standing right on the cliff edge, literally
on the edge of the mountain, was the Granatieri.
They were the very last line of defense on Mount
Zangio. The details of this fight are gruesome.
They weren't just outnumbered. They were completely
out of ammo. I read about this thing called the
Grenadier's Leap. Yes. Can you explain what that
was? Because when I read it, it sounded like
mythology, but it's apparently right there in
the official after action reports. It's not a
myth at all. It was pure desperation. The fighting
was hand to hand on these incredibly narrow mountain
paths with, you know, thousand foot drops on
either side. Just a nightmare scenario. And when
the grenadiers ran out of bullets and they ran
out of grenades, they used their bayonets, then
they used rocks, and eventually they used their
own bodies. Literally throwing themselves at
the enemy. There are documented accounts of grenadiers
grabbing Austrian soldiers and just throwing
themselves off the cliffs, taking the enemy down
with them so they couldn't advance. That is a
level of commitment that goes way beyond just
following orders. That is an existential kind
of fight. It really is. They held that position
for weeks against over... and the numbers from
the sources are just staggering. What were the
casualties like? The brigade deployed with roughly
6 ,000 men. By the time the battle ended in early
June, they had suffered nearly 4 ,500 casualties.
Good Lord, that's 75%. That effectively destroys
a unit. It does, but they bought time. Because
they didn't break... The Italian reserve army
had enough time to mobilize and stop the Austrians
from reaching the plains. So they sacrificed
the unit to save the entire army. Yes, both regiments
were awarded the gold medal of military valor,
but the cost was an entire generation of those
soldiers. It really drives home that point about
precedence. Being number one means you stay until
you are wiped out. That's the burden. Now, let's
fast forward 20 -something years to World War
II, and this is a completely different kind of
nightmare for them. It is. In World War I, the
enemy was clear. It was the Austrians across
the trench. In World War II, specifically in
September 1943, the enemy was, well, everyone.
Right. The armistice of Casabay. Italy surrenders
to the Allies. But the Germans, who were their
allies literally five minutes ago, immediately
launch Operation Axis. To occupy Italy and disarm
the Italian army. And the Italian chain of command
just completely evaporates. It was total chaos.
Generals were fleeing. Orders weren't coming
through at all. But the Granatieres were stationed
in Rome. And their job, historically, was to
defend the capital. So while the king and the
high commander are busy running away to the south
to save themselves, the Granatiers stay. They
stayed and they f***ed. This leads to the Battle
of Porto San Paolo. And what strikes me here
is that this wasn't just a traditional military
engagement. It turned into a popular uprising
almost instantly. That's the key difference.
They were fighting German panzer grenadiers and
paratroopers. Yeah. Heavily armed elite units.
Right. The grenadiers fought this brutal fighting
retreat. through the suburbs of Rome, falling
back to the ancient gate of Porto San Paolo.
And as they were fighting, civilians started
running out of their houses. And we aren't talking
about just random bystanders either. We're talking
about the future political leadership of Italy.
It's an incredible convergence of history. You
had Sandra Pertini, who would go on to become
the president of Italy in the 1980s, fighting
with a rifle right alongside the soldiers. You
had Luigi Longo, a major communist leader. You
had high school students. The grenadiers were
just handing out weapons from their armories
to anyone who could hold one. Just think about
the symbolism of that for a second. The king's
guards, the ultimate symbol of the old monarchy
handing rifles to communists and Republicans
to fight a common enemy. It really is the birth
of the Italian resistance right there in the
street. Militarily, though, they couldn't hold
out, right? No, they lost. The Germans had tanks.
The Grenadiers didn't have anywhere near enough
heavy anti -tank weapons to stop them. They were
overrun by the evening of September 10th. And
they took heavy losses again. Over 500 dead.
But that moment broke the psychological hold
of the fascism and monarchy alliance. The Grenadiers
sided with the people, not just the state apparatus.
There's also this incredible side story from
the sources during this exact same time that
I think it's overlooked. The Granacheri weren't
just in Rome. There were three battalions deployed
in Corsica. Yes, they were serving as occupation
troops on the island. And when the armistice
happens, they are in an even worse spot than
the guys in Rome. They are on an island completely
cut off. With German units all around them. But
they refuse to surrender. The German commander
on Corsica demanded their surrender, assuming
they would just fold like so many other units
did and all the confusion. And what did the grenadier
commander say? He basically said, come and get
us. And then they did something amazing. They
joined forces with the local French partisans,
the very people they had been occupying just...
Days before. That is wild. They teamed up with
them and the Free French Forces, and they fought
a brutal campaign to kick the Germans completely
off the island. It just shows that their esprit
de corps works even when the king has fled and
the capital has fallen. They didn't need orders
from Rome to know what to do. That's the true
value of that deep institutional history. When
the chain of command breaks, the culture of the
regiment takes over. They knew who they were,
so they knew how to act. So the war eventually
ends. The monarchy is abolished. Italy becomes
a republic. But the Grenadiers survive all of
that. They do. They transition from being the
Royal Guard to the Presidential Guard. But they
also have to modernize for the Cold War. And
this brings us to the mechanized part of their
name today. And this was a pretty painful transition
for them. In the Cold War, they needed to be
able to stop a potential Soviet tank column.
So you can't just march in straight lines with
rifles anymore. You need armored personnel carriers.
You need tanks. But there's a logistical problem
here that I found really funny in the source
material, but it must have been practically impossible
to deal with. The height requirement. Oh, yes.
The height requirement. Historically, to be a
grenadier, you had to be huge. The requirement
was a minimum of 195 centimeters. It's about
six foot five. Which is great for a parade. It
looks super intimidating. But, uh... Have you
ever tried to fit a 6 '5 man into the back of
a cramped armored vehicle? It is an absolute
nightmare. Armored vehicles are designed for
the average human and usually a fairly compact
one at that. It's like trying to fold an NBA
team into a Honda Civic. Basically, yeah. Yeah.
The Grenadiers use the Dardo infantry fighting
vehicle now. And before that, they used the M113.
And the troop compartments are incredibly cramped.
I can only imagine. There are actual stories
of Grenadiers having to essentially do yoga just
to get into their firing positions inside the
vehicle. So did they eventually? lower the height
requirement? They had to, but not entirely because
of the vehicles. In 2004, Italy ended the draft.
Ah, okay. When you have mandatory conscription,
you can scan the entire population of 18 -year
-old men and just cherry pick the absolute tallest
one. Right, you have a massive pool to choose
from. But when you go to an all -volunteer force,
you just can't be that picky anymore. So they
lowered the requirement to 190 centimeters, which
is about 6 '3". Still giants compared to your
average infantryman. Oh, yes. And this creates
a really unique training challenge for them today.
Most units just train for combat. But the grenadiers
have to split their time. Right. The dual identity.
Exactly. They have to master the Dardo fighting
vehicle, the anti -tank tactics, complex urban
warfare drills. And then they have to spend hours
perfecting their ceremonial drill for the president.
It's a double workload. You have to be a tier
one parade marcher and a tier one combat soldier.
And they really have deployed to real combat
zones. They were in Kosovo with KFOR. They're
heavily involved in the Uniful Mission in Lebanon.
And Iraq and Afghanistan, too. Right. And when
they are down there on deployment, they aren't
wearing the bearskins. They are in full tactical
gear patrolling the blue line. But I imagine
that discipline carries over. Absolutely. The
precision you need to execute a flawless parade
drill is the exact same mindset you need for
maintaining a complex armored vehicle or clearing
a hostile room. Okay, I want to wrap up with
one specific story from our sources that I think
really answers that nostalgia question I posed
at the beginning. Oh, I know which one you're
going to bring up. It involves a duke from the
1700s and a very, very old bank account. This
is the story of Don Albergo Genovese, the Duke
of San Pietro. We have to go way back to 1776.
Okay. His father had actually founded the Sardinia
Regiment. And Don Alberto wanted to ensure that
the regiment was taken care of long term, so
he donated 120 ,000 scudo to them. Which is an
absolute fortune in 18th century money. A massive
fortune. He set up a trust. The interest from
that money was to be used for the regimental
band and, more importantly, to financially support
the widows of fallen soldiers. But there's a
condition. There's always a catch with these
things. The catch was that the regiment had to
celebrate a mass in his memory on the anniversary
of his death. Every single year, forever. Forever.
And this was 1776. That's 250 years ago. Yes.
Do they actually still do it? They do. Every
year on February 18th, the mechanized brigade
Granateri di Sardegna holds a solemn mass for
Don Alberto Genovese. That is incredible. They
wear the 18th century uniforms the band plays.
They have honored that legal contract through
world wars, through revolutions, the fall of
the monarchy, and the rise of the republic. That
is just mind -blowing to me. It's not just tradition
like a secret handshake or a song. It's a real
testament to institutional continuity. Exactly.
It tells the soul. Wow. And that brings us to
the big takeaway here. Because you look at modern
warfare. An era of drones, cyber warfare, AI
targeting. And it's so easy to look at the bearskin
hats and the height requirements and think, this
is silly, this is just cosplay. But that would
be a huge mistake. Because what we see with the
Granitieri, from the cliffs of Mount Sinjio to
the streets of Rome, is that the software of
a unit matters more than the hardware. The culture.
Right. That esprit de corps, that deep -seated
belief that we are the guards, we do not run,
is what keeps a unit fighting. when a regular
unit might just break and retreat. Technology
changes. The uniform changes. But the willingness
to stand on a cliff edge and hold the line, that
is cultural. And you only build that culture
through these centuries of unbroken tradition.
So the next time you see a photo of the Italian
president and there's a giant in a fur hat standing
behind him, don't just see a ceremonial prop.
See the lineage of the men who jumped off cliffs
to save an army. And remember that under that
bearskin, there is a highly trained modern soldier
ready to do it all over again. Before we go,
I want to leave you with a thought to mull over.
If that ancient esprit de corps is so effective
at keeping soldiers in the fight, how do we build
that kind of resilience in the brand new domains
of warfare? Like how do you build the culture
of the grenadiers for a unit of drone operators
sitting in a bunker thousands of miles from the
front line? does tradition still matter when
the combat is entirely digital that's a fascinating
question something to think about thanks for
joining us on this deep dive we'll see you on
the next one