Justin Tuveri, 109; one of Europe’s few remaining veterans of World War I

Justin Tuveri, 109, who fought for Italy during World War I and was one of the few remaining European veterans of the Great War, died Oct. 5 at his home in the French resort town of St. Tropez.

Tuveri, who spent most of his life in France, remained active despite his advanced age, pruning trees and cleaning out rain gutters at age 90 and driving until he was 98, according to the newspaper Le Monde.

Although Tuveri became a French citizen in 1940, he did not figure on the French Defense Ministry’s list of surviving veterans from the 1914-18 war because he had fought for Italy. Only two French veterans from the war are still alive, the ministry said.

Tuveri, born in Collinas on the island of Sardinia in 1898, was a member of the Sassari Brigade, a Sardinian infantry unit nicknamed the “Dimonios” -- “Demons” in the island’s dialect. The brigade fought Austro-Hungarian and German forces in the heights of northeastern Italy, suffering 15,000 casualties.

After the war, Tuveri immigrated to France, where he worked in a quarry and then as a driver and caretaker for the Greek royal family, Le Monde reported. Although he was born Giustino Tuveri, he changed his first name in France.