Sweethearts on the 24 May

24/05/17

The turning point of the centenary took place now two years ago, so it is possible to have a more serene and devoid of patriotic approaches to the fateful date of the 24 Maggio 1915.

A day certainly strange in which there would be little to remember, let alone to celebrate, and yet Italy is a very strange nation, always ready to proceed in the wrong direction along the winding path of history.

So let's start from the beginning, we certainly find it hard to find a state in which a war debut is somehow remembered, too early, too high, defeat always possible, of course it could be objected that the war was victorious and with the in hindsight every date is good to remember the glorious events, the fact remains that Italy entered the conflict with a year of delay, changing its alliances in race and however following a wait-and-go neutralism, as a postcard of the era in which the king "sciaboletta" was watching who were the strongest in the tug of war metaphor of the conflict.

All facts that perhaps it would have been better to bury in the mists of memory instead of remarking it beautifully with the rhetoric of the radiant May, which moreover brought much misfortune when Italy in black shirt tried to propose it again in September of 1940.

Overcoming the irrational and all-Mediterranean element of bad luck, we will try to get into the intricacies of Italian foreign policy at the time and of the choices progressively more and more inclined to the conflict of a ruling class never able, in the last 150 years, to deny itself.

During the wait-and-go neutralism, the arrest of the German offensive on the Marne caused the Salandra government to change its mind about the German invincibility, Pollio, however, was dead and his successor, Generalissimo Cadorna, with his "red book of the young marmots" pushed for dealing with the conflict with Napoleonic boldness, probably without remembering what had happened to Napoleon at Waterloo a hundred years earlier, to which must be added an ante litteram consociativismo which saw all together unionists and liberals, socialists and nationalists all asking for intervention in the name of a Italy that in the conflict could have safeguarded its international stature, certainly with a Sovereign and Head of State like Vittorio Emanuele III perhaps the stature would have been better left aside and then in Europe not a few, first of all the Tsar, had the memory alive. of the Crimean adventure, about ambiguous international policies.

The war, however, is too serious and in the 1914 it was the Kaiser himself who guaranteed for the Italian ally that, with the war won, mind you, the reasons for Rome would have been widely reflected, but it would have been sufficient for Italy to remain neutral; let's face it the Germans is not that they trusted much of the former enemy now ally and probable future enemy, but even this was not enough to make Orlando and Salandra desist from his intentions, so at the end of April the 1915 was signed in secret the pact of London.

The British cynics understood that the Italians needed, to use an all Bourbon dialectal formula, to have their blood thrown away, to ensure that they remained faithful, so not only was the alliance and commitment to active participation in the conflict not enough, but until the fateful 24 Maggio remained clearly visible the sword of Damocles of the naval block, since, as was believed in London, without making clear mention of it, Italy had all the papers in order to fail the agreements, in this case wheat, coal and everything it came from the maritime traffic would have come less consequently thanks to the powerful action of the British Her Majesty's navy.

Thus came the 24 Maggio with Corriere Domenica to immortalize the royal family waving the Tricolor on the balcony of the Quirinale, while the first shot will be fired from a patrol of financiers along the Isonzo line, near Monfalcone, not yet Italian, a difficult and cumbersome mobilization, poorly trained troops, a front line from the Adamello to the Adriatic which, on looking at it, gave the impression of being a line of defense and instead should have been the starting line for a big offensive leap, everything very very complicated; it may still be objected that we are using hindsight and that in any case the war was won, all true, but the doubt remains that 24 Maggio, after all, is celebrated, like perhaps the entire First World War , on the emotional wave of the stanzas of EA Mario, a post office worker who certainly more than the Government and the General Staff was able to fix in history the events of national history, however if this were true it remains a bitter question: why in Italy everything should it take on the dimension of the song?

Signature letter: L'homme qui goes