WWI Italian Front

The paper is devoted to the experiences of the 1st Brigade of the Legion who were transferred to the Italian Front in September 1917 after the Oath Crisis.
Founded officially in December 1914 under the command of Józef Piłsudski, the 1st Brigade was characterised by its independent nature in relation to the rest of the Austro-Hungarian army as “Polish soldiers, infantry without a Fatherland, fighting alongside another army” and bound closely to the person of their commander.
After the 5th of November 1916, when the 1st Brigade refused to pledge allegiance to the Emperors of Germany and Austro-Hungary in July 1917, its officers, citizens of the Kingdom of Poland, were sent to internment camps in Beniaminów, with the non-commissioned offices sent to Szczypiorno. Józef Piłsudski and Kazimierz Sosnkowski were themselves held in Magdeburg whilst legionnaires from Galicia were interned in Huszt, Marmaros-Sziget or forced to join other Austrian army units and sent to the Italian Front in order to fight far from their homeland.
The Legionnaires of the 1st Brigade took part in the last German-Austrian offensive in June 1918 (the Battle of the Piave River). The impressions of Piłsudski’s legionnaires is compared with the memoirs of other Polish soldiers from Galicia who had been called up to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army earlier in the war and had seen action on the Italian Front at the end of 1915 and took part in the Fourth and Fifth Battle of the Isonzo in 1916.

During the Great War, the “trench clubs” were used in various armies. These weapons were handcrafted by the soldiers or distributed by the commands, who assigned them mainly to the raiders. On the Italian front, the Regio esercito did not adopt this weapon, unlike the Austro-Hungarian army which gave it to elite units. Therefore, the Italian-Austrian front presented an asymmetrical situation compared to the Western theatre, where the weapon was used by both sides. This had consequences on the ways of perceiving this weapon in Italy. The trench clubs, evoking an archaic and medieval form of combat, were represented by the Italian propaganda and by the public opinion as proof of the barbaric nature of the enemy. The article aims to analyse the representations of the weapon circulating in Italy and how these cultural constructions were transposed by the soldiers, influencing their attitude and behaviours. At the same time, the essay tries to reconstruct the uses of trench clubs in combat, with a focus on the battle of Mount San Michele (29 June 1916), a key moment for understanding the genesis of these propaganda narratives.

With the centenary years 2014–2018, a hitherto relatively unknown branch of archaeological research, the so-called conflict archaeology, is coming into the limelight. Since  excavation work is able to supply only very selective assertions on account of the enormous extent of the mountain front, the overriding objective of monument conservation in the years to come must focus on taking stock of all material remains from the WWI era.
As a result of the developments in satellite geodesy and 3D documentation, it is now possible to approach this task on a wide scale and comparatively economically. The data collected form the basis of targeted protection measures and provide for future reference numerous new methods of presentation which fulfil the requirements of nature and monument preservation as well as the growing interest of demographic groups.

Il Progetto “www.sanitagrandeguerra.it - banca dati dei servizi sanitari italiani nella Grande Guerra” è ideato, curato e realizzato dall’Associazione Storica Cimeetrincee (ASCeT), un'associazione storica, apolitica e senza fini di lucro, attiva nella ricerca e memoria storica del primo conflitto mondiale con sede in Castello, Calle S.Gioachin, 450 - Venezia.

Il Progetto ha prodotto la digitalizzazione di 25.210 dati quali sedi dei seguenti reparti di sanità italiani mobilitati nel periodo maggio 1915 – novembre 1918:

Regio Esercito – Servizio sanitario militare:

 Sezioni di Sanità;
 Ospedaletti da campo da 50 letti;
 Ospedali da campo da 100 letti;
 Ospedali da campo da 200 letti;
 Ambulanze chirurgiche;
 Ospedali militari di riserva e civili (in fase di realizzazione);

Croce Rossa Italiana:

 Sezioni di sanità;
 Ospedali di guerra;
 Ambulanze chirurgiche;
 Ambulanze da montagna;
 Posti di soccorso ferroviario;
 Ospedali territoriali (in fase di realizzazione);

Corpo Ausiliario del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta:

 Posti di soccorso;
 Ospedali di guerra;
 Treni ospedali