There is a moment, during the Academy, when the word goes to the kids: the working method patiently built by the adults passes into the hands of the eighth grade members, who present a work to their classmates, just like we do.
After having collected good and bad, generative or destructive fictions for a long time, we must admit that fiction reaches its lowest, pettiest, most guilty point when it becomes war propaganda. Fundamental, in this sense, is the courageous novel by Eric Maria Remarque, Nothing new on the Western Frontpublished in 1928, during the post-war period, when patriotic rhetoric was still at its peak, challenging even the rise of the most authoritarian regimes that would lead to the second conflict.
As we adults always do, even the little ones first painted the historical context of the novel and the events it tells.
It always strikes us how the study of history, developed today in a straight line, from third grade to eighth grade, means that twelve or thirteen year olds know absolutely nothing about the tragedy of the world wars, the study of which is relegated to the last months of third grade and often treated hastily. A questionable choice, if it is true, as it is true, that the First World War is the origin of the great dramas of the Short Century, many of which, unresolved, have crossed the millennium.
The name that this singular war fiction takes is: propaganda. Ne spieghiamo ai ragazzi l’etimologia: pro it is the preposition which among its many, in this case, has the meaning of a favor in; e agerethe verb of doing, present in passive periphrastic form with the meaning of the things that need to be done. In short, it means working in favor of something that must be acted upon: in whose opinion? Most of the time according to the will of a powerful person who wants to manipulate the people for his own benefit and that of his. Regarding the Great War, we have identified two apical moments: the interventionist propaganda of 1914–1915 and that which followed the drama of Caporetto, aimed at reassuring the minds of soldiers and civilians and encouraging them to continue their commitment to a war that many of them considered over and lost.
Emma takes the floor first and, starting from the European situation of the great sick empires, tells her companions about the attack in Sarajevo, the great alliances and the moves that followed and Italy’s position at the onset of the conflict. It therefore presents the most widespread opinions against the war (socialists, Giolittians, Catholics) and, in return, the bombastic interventionist voices. Among these, if the irredentists were animated by the desire to conclude the Risorgimento process, conquering Trentino and Friuli, the nationalists – first of all Gabriele D’Annunzio – hoped, like those throughout Europe, for the rebirth of a strong country, capable of having an important place on the international stage and of dominating even outside its borders. Then there were the large industrial groups (FIAT first and foremost), who saw the arms race as an opportunity for growth, and finally more eccentric intellectual elites such as Marinetti’s Futurists, for whom war was the great purifying fire that would wake up a humanity that was now asleep and in decline: “war is the only hygiene in the world”, they said.
Although the non-interventionists were numerically more relevant, the voice of propaganda grew louder and louder. Its main tools were newspapers (a mass media that had recently achieved widespread diffusion, thanks to rotary machines), posters and posters which, thanks to strong and captivating images, reached even those who were unable to read, and then cinema, theater and school itself. The purpose was mainly the invitation to enlistment, the collection of funds, the demonization of the enemy; the contents touched sensitive chords: the completion of the Risorgimento, the defense of the homeland, the unity of the Italians, the heroism of our soldiers and the inferiority of the Austrian barbarians. Thus, thanks to this immense machine, Italy, a year late, entered the war, not on the side of its historic allies (the Triple Alliance), but alongside the Triple Entente.
The First World War, after the first months in which Italy did not participate, was above all a war of attrition and position. The Italians were mainly engaged on the eastern front, along the Isonzo line, which was stained twelve times with the blood of thousands of soldiers. October 24, 1917 was the day of defeat: the line was breached at Caporetto, as we all know. From the next day, the second great phase of propaganda begins, which Samuele tells us about. This was, if possible, even more hateful, mean and false than the first. After the defeat, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had retreated more than twenty kilometers behind the front line were resigned to having lost the war and relieved at the idea of being able to return to their homes after years in the trenches. The responsibility for the defeat rested on the shoulders of Cadorna, who was deposed. He was succeeded by Armando Diaz; It is striking how one of his first moves was the creation of Programma Pdove P stands silently for propaganda. In this second phase, the trench newspapers dominated. They had to reach the troops on the Piave line, but also the civilians waiting for news in the city. The most famous newspapers were The tradotta (more sophisticated, in color), The ghirba (most popular cut) e Il Montello. Almost every division created its own, filling pages and pages of good news, funny anecdotes, uplifting images. The tones of this propaganda were less martial and authoritarian than the first; they were tinged with psychological nuances and a more common and youthful language.
There were many artists called to collaborate on these newspapers: painters certainly, but also writers and poets who tried to reach with the power of their talents the destroyed souls of those poor boys wounded in the bodies but, much more seriously, in the souls, but also of the new recruits, such as the famous ragazzi from ’99. The contents of this vile propaganda were the exaltation of soldiers and their transformation into national heroes, the vulgar derision of enemies, the loving testimonies of mothers and wives who awaited their men in warm homes.
The First World War, as we know, was won by us, but never was a victory more a harbinger of trouble! The Caporetto veterans, returning from the front, were certainly not given the welcome and treatment subtly promised by the newspapers and they easily, like poor flies in a spider’s web, fell into the new terrible propaganda of the cunning Mussolini and his fascism. But that’s another story…
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