(ANSA) - ROME - 136,000 soldiers, many of them sick and wounded (11,651), a cavalry of more than 13,000 men and 10,000 horses, nearly 23,000 Austrian soldiers - prisoners of the Serbian Army - as well as 22,000 tons of food, fodder, medicines and other materials and 50 pieces of artillery Serbian boarded and transported safely by the Italian Navy.

It was the end of 1915, when the Serbian Army had to withdraw in the middle of winter, through the mountains of Albania. Arrived on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, the rescue of an entire army was almost exclusive task of Italy's Navy. This enterprise, which involved 170 ships, is told in the volume '' The Serbian Army - A forgotten history '', published by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the beginning of the events marking the centenary of War World One. This volume, presented today in Rome, is a new edition of a book written by Paolo Giordani, entitled ''For the Serbian Army - 1917'', to which a translation into Serbian, edited by Mila Mihajlovi, has been added. An almost unknown story, which involved the Italian Navy and which represented ''a true humanitarian mission ahead of its time'', admiral Luigi Binelli Mantelli, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled. ''A piece of history, which is the first real Italian humanitarian mission - Italian defense minister Roberta Pinotti underlined - run by the military with the task to bring stability and peace'' and that laid the foundation stone for the friendship between Italy and Serbia. ''We express our gratitude for Italy, which lost almost 100% of his men in order to rescue almost 100% of the Serbian army'', Serbian Defence Minister Nebojsa Rodic remarked. ''Even today - the minister added - your soldiers are appreciated for what they are doing for Kosovo and Metohija''. (ANSA).