it is believed that between 1600 AD and 1700 AD well over 70,000 Frenchmen died in duels, many of them mortally wounded by a Rapier. From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris whose De lo schermo overo scienza d’arme of 1606 exerted great influence not only in Italy but also in Germany. Fabris was followed by Italian masters such as Nicoletto Giganti (1606), Ridolfo Capo Ferro (1610), Francesco Alfieri (1640), Francesco Antonio Marcelli (1686) and Bondi' di Mazo (1696). The Napoleonic Wars Napoleon, being himself of Italian origin, added Northern Italy to his domains and was crowned King of Italy using the Iron Crown of Lombardy, a very symbolic gesture since the Bonaparte family had distant Lombard origins. When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, he took with him a 50,000-strong Italian contingent. The Italian troops were instrumental in the French victory at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets and were praised by Napoleon. It was during these times that the art of "Scherma da Terreno" (field fencing) was developed, using as weapons swords and sabres. The sabre, in particular, was developed in a dueling art with the school of Sciabola da terreno. World Wars World War I During World War I the Italian army created a unit of assault troops called Arditi whose task was to storm German and Austrian Trenches. The main weapon of these soldiers was the dagger and 18,000 arditi were trained and sent to the front. Arditi units won numerous engagements against Austrian and German troops in the final year of World War I, armed with daggers which proved very effective in the confined space of a trench, where rifles were too long to be used in close combat. General Rommel wrote about the exploits of the Arditi in the very last page of his book "Infanterie greif an" (Infantry attacks). The successful attack on Col Moschin was a perfect example of Arditi tactics. World War II The second battle of El-Alamein pitted the Italian paratroopers of the 185 Airborne Division Folgore with no tanks and only a few antitank guns (whose shells failed to penetrate the armor of British tanks) against one British armored division equipped with 400 heavy tanks. During the first assault 70 British tanks were destroyed by the folgore soldiers, using almost exclusively improvised sticky charges as their anti-tank weapons