A Second World War veteran who survived Italy's disastrous foray into Russian territory and its subsequent retreat, Revelli became well known for his book Mia Tardi about the ordeal.
[2] Revelli was a freshly commissioned second lieutenant when, on 21 July 1942, he left Italy on one of the two hundred troop trains sent to the Eastern Front by Mussolini as the Italian Army in Russia (ARMIR).
On 19 September 1942 Revelli was wounded in an action which earned him a Silver Medal of Military Valor and a promotion to lieutenant, returning to the frontline after recovering in the hospital of Dnepropetrovsk.
From very shortly after 8 September 1943—the date on which the Italian armistice with the Allies was announced—to the end of the war, Revelli was a partisan commander, first in the Alpine valleys west of Cuneo, Italy, then across the border in southeastern France.
In a poem titled "To Mario and Nuto," Primo Levi, one of Revelli's great friends, writes: “I have two brothers with lots of life behind them, / Born in the shadow of the mountains.