Il Trentino e i trentini nella Grande Guerra

The Kingdom of Italy attacked Austria–Hungary in 1915 to complete the Risorgimento by capturing (‘redeeming’) the remaining imperial territories south of the Alpine watershed. These territories formed part of one Habsburg crownland—the Tyrol, and the entirety of another—the Küstenland or Littoral. In the last census, some 768,000 or 1.5 per cent of Habsburg subjects identified as Italian by language. Half of these lived in Trentino, the southern portion of Tyrol. At least 55,000 trentini served in the imperial army; more than 11,000 perished on the Eastern Front, where another 15,000 were taken prisoner. Some 77,000 civilian trentini were evacuated northwards, away from the war zone: 15,000 were kept in Tyrol or Lower Austria, 20,000 were interned in large camps for ease of surveillance, and the remainder were dispersed around Bohemia and Moravia. Meanwhile, 29,000 civilians who found themselves south of the front line were relocated in Italy. Until the 1980s, Italian historians paid little attention to the complex identities of these territories and their inhabitants. The plangent narrative of national liberation has since been revised, using overlooked sources to recover the direct experiences of soldiers, prisoners, casualties and non-combatants

Art · Humanities · Historical and Environmental Studies · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society