Montanelli began his journalistic career by writing for the fascist newspaper Il Selvaggio (" The Savage "), then directed by Mino Maccari, and in 1932 for the Universale, a magazine published only once fortnightly and which offered no pay.

But it was in 1934, in Paris that Montanelli began to write for the crime pages of the daily newspaper Paris Soir, then as foreign correspondent in Norway ( where he fished for cod for a bit ), and later in Canada ( where he ended up working in a farm in Alberta!

Montanelli began to correspond for this newspaper from Estonia and Albania ( during the Italian annexation of this country ).

When Hitler was told that the only person in casual clothes was Italian, he jumped out of the tank and eyeing Montanelli like a madman, began a ten minute hysterical speech followed by military salute and exit.

In Finland Montanelli began writing articles about the Lapps and the reindeer, although this was not for long as Molotov had made requests on the Finnish government for the annexation of part of the Finnish land to the Soviet Union.

His career in journalism began when, aged 27, he joined the Milan daily newspaper Il Giornale, headed by Italian journalist Indro Montanelli, and he quickly became the paper's London correspondent.

Indro Montanelli ( April 22, 1909-July 22, 2001 ) was an Italian journalist and historian, known for his new approach to writing history in books such as History of the Greeks and History of Rome.

Throughout the so-called Winter War which ensued, Montanelli wrote hotly pro-Finnish articles both from the front and from bomb-stricken Helsinki writing about the almost mythical enterprises of the battle of Tolvajärvi, and of men like captain Pajakka who with 200 Lapps successfully confronted 40, 000 Russians in the region of Petsamo.

When the Winter War was over, and the non-aggression pact was signed between the Soviet Union and Finland, Montanelli was personally thanked by the elusive Mannerheim himself, for writing in favour of the Finnish cause.

He started out writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo (" Our time "), then worked under the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and La Voce and gained the attention of Montanelli himself who once used to say about him: " No, Travaglio does not kill anyone.

Looking at the decor, Montanelli astutely asked him how he felt about having destroyed their world.

Montanelli was not able to write about the details of the talks between the Soviet and Finnish delegations, as they were shrouded in strict secrecy, although he was able to interview Paasikivi, who was happy to fill him in on everything except for the content of the talks.

La Voce, always an elitist paper, folded after about a year, and Montanelli returned to Corriere della Sera.

The riots continued, especially at Livorno, which was a prey to actual civil war, and the democratic party of which Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi and Giuseppe Montanelli were leading lights became every day more influential.

When Mussolini declared war on Abyssinia with the intent of making Italy an empire ( Second Italo – Abyssinian War ), Montanelli immediately abandoned his collaboration with the United Press and became a voluntary conscript for this war.

With Italy's entrance in the war ( June 1940 ), Montanelli was sent to France and the Balkans ; then he was assigned with the responsibility of following the Italian military campaign from Greece and Albania as correspondent.

After witnessing war and destruction in the Balkans, and the disastrous Italian invasion of Greece, Montanelli decided to join the partisan movement against the fascist regime, by joining the Partito d ' Azione.

After the war Montanelli was to devote a book to this incident ( Il generale Della Rovere, 1959, later turned into an award winning movie directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Vittorio De Sica ).

Hitting the table, the red-faced student cut him off and angrily told him, as a matter of fact, that if he hadn't understood Montanelli's composition, then it was Montanelli who was the imbecil!

From 1995 to 2001 he was the chief letters editor of Corriere della Sera, answering a letter a day on a page of the newspaper known as " La Stanza di Montanelli " (" Montanelli ’ s Room ").

After the capture of the city of Santander, Montanelli wrote that '(...) it had been a long military walk with only one enemy: the heat '.

On one of these stood Hitler himself, but a few feet from Montanelli.

The newspaper was planned in 1972 by the journalist Indro Montanelli, together with the colleague Enzo Bettiza, after some disagreements with the new pro-left editorial line adopted by the newspaper Corriere della Sera, where Montanelli had been one of the most important contributors.

Indro Montanelli, then the most influential Italian journalist and a vocal anti-communist, attacked l ' Unità and denied any human responsibility: l ' Unità and the PCI were dubbed " jackals, speculating on pain and on the dead " in many articles by the Domenica del Corriere and a national campaign poster paid for by Democrazia Cristiana ( DC ).

All commissioned officers of the Eritrean Ascari were Italian, like the famous Indro Montanelli

The newspaper was launched on 25 June 1974 as Il Giornale Nuovo, with Indro Montanelli as editor and member of the publishing company board of directors and an editorial office composed of 59 journalists.

Montanelli admitted that in those days he saw in fascism the hope of a movement that could potentially create an Italian national conscience that would have resolved the economic and socioeconomic differences between the north and the south.

On 2 September 1977, Montanelli was shot four times in the legs by a two-man commando of the Red Brigades, outside the Milanese head-office of the Corriere della Sera.

One of the Italian correspondents, Indro Montanelli, sent home an article, in which he described the bravery and heroism of Polish soldiers, who charged German tanks with sabres and lances.

But after the restoration of the grand duke, Montanelli, who was in Paris, was tried and condemned by default ; he remained some years in France, where he became a partizan of Napoleon III.

His friendship for the marquis Gino Capponi, who had taken him into his house during the last years of his life, and who published after Giusti's death a volume of illustrated proverbs, was enough to compromise him in the eyes of such men as Guerrazzi, Montanelli and Niccolini.

There was talk of instituting a central Italian kingdom with Leopold as king, to form part of a larger Italian federation, but in the meanwhile the grand-duke, alarmed at the revolutionary and republican agitations in Tuscany and encouraged by the success of the Austrian arms, was, according to Montanelli, negotiating with Field-Marshal Radetzky and with Pius IX, who had now abandoned his liberal tendencies, and fled to Gaeta.

In 1977 Montanelli, in financial difficulty, accepted an offer by Silvio Berlusconi, who thus became the publisher.

Indro Montanelli edited and published il Giornale from its start, until Berlusconi entered politics ( December 1993 ).

On 8 February 1849, following Leopold ’ s flight, Guerrazzi formed a governing triumvirate with Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Montanelli and a republic was proclaimed ; on 27 March Guerrazzi was nominated dictator.

Undaunted, Montanelli pressed on that the automobile and Ford's revolutionary assembly line system had forever transformed the country.

He believed then, along with many Italians of the time, that this was the chance for Italy to bring civilization to the ' savage ' world of Africa, an enthusiasm that Montanelli blamed also on his passion for the works of Rudyard Kipling.

On his return from Abyssinia, Montanelli became foreign correspondent in Spain for the daily newspaper Il Messaggero, where he experienced the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco's troops.

Montanelli expressed a cutting indictment of the procedure in an interview on L ' espresso, declaring: " A director is not sent away like a thieving domestic " and, turning to the Crespi family, he branded their " authoritarian, bullying junta ways that they have chosen in order to impose their decision ".

Il Giornale della Libertà was a free weekly political, headed by Michela Vittoria Brambilla, and attached with Il Giornale, but was strictly criticized by the editorial staff and later went on strike ( for the second time after the leaving of Indro Montanelli ).

The story centers on the life of the protagonist, Arthur Burton, as a member of the Youth movement, and his antagonist, Padre Montanelli.