Written by the Center of Historical-Military Studies
During the Risorgimento the inhabitants of Trentino were mostly favorable to Italy and opposed to Austria. This was also the opinion of the Austrian government and military, beginning with Radetzky. [Alan Sked, Radetzky e le armate imperiali. L'impero d'Austria e l'esercito asburgico nella rivoluzione del 1848, Bologna 1983] In later years, Markus von Spiegelfeld, Lieutenant of Tyrol since 1906 (and thus also governor of Trentino), sent a memorandum in 1912 to the heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand of Austria stating that the population of Trentino was full of Italian sentiment and ideas: “All the people there are nationalist, indeed remarkably nationalist.” [P. Pombeni, "Il primo De Gasperi. La formazione di un leader politico", il Mulino, Bologna 2007, pp. 183 ff.]
This awareness of the hostility of the people of Trentino against the Austrian occupation meant that since 1848 Trentino-Alto Adige also was to become the scene of violence and killings by Habsburg soldiers and anti-Italian nationalists.
For example, in an isolated house within walking distance of Vilpiano (a town near Bolzano), there lived a family of Italian settlers, who were called from Trentino by the owner of a farm in order to introduce the cultivation of the mulberry into that area. On June 17, 1848, while the family of eight people were peacefully having dinner in their home after working during the day, they were suddenly attacked by an excited crowd consisting of Schützen (territorial Tyrolean militias) and Germanic peasants, armed with shotguns, pitchforks and cleavers. Except for one, all members of the family were massacred, some with bayonets and cleavers, with shouts of “Death to the Italian traitors” during the attack. The only survivor was arrested on suspicion of treason and, after a long imprisonment, was finally released because it was recognized he was completely innocent. The perpetrators of the massacre, carried out solely out of hatred toward Italians, were left undisturbed and unpunished by the judiciary and the imperial police.
During the war of 1866 many hundreds of Trentino Italians were jailed and deported to the fortress at Comons, in Hungary, only because they were suspected of having irredentist ideas. This measure was a foreshadowing of what later happened during the First World War, when 100,000 Trentino Italians were sent to concentration camps.
Even when not burdening themselves with massacres and assassinations, the work of the Habsburg authorities was still oppressive and provocative towards the Italian inhabitants. For example, in the town of Levico, an Austrian Major sentenced a young man to a long imprisonment because he was guilty of not removing his hat when he accidentally crossed the street of the Habsburg officer. Another time, another officer of the Imperial Army ordered a man to destroy a bouquet of margherite (daisies), which he had just bought, merely because the Queen of Italy at the time was named Margherita. The inhabitants of Trento saw their city become an object of destruction by a military-occupation regime that in practice lasted from 1860 to 1867: many private homes were confiscated and assigned to the military; others had their doors and windows walled up, or were demolished. Last but not least, the cost of the occupation was charged to the citizens, so that the cost of food, of lodging, of the garrison, etc., not to mention the massive damage inflicted on the buildings, fell entirely on the people of the city of Trento.
The situation of the Italians in Trentino became worse after 1866, with the infamous decision of Emperor Franz Joseph at the Council of Imperial Ministers on November 12, 1866, in which he ordered the “Germanization and Slavicization” of Trentino, Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia:
“His Majesty has expressed the precise order that we decisively oppose the influence of the Italian element still present in some Crown lands, and to aim unsparingly and without the slightest compunction at the Germanization or Slavicization – depending on the circumstances – of the areas in question, through a suitable entrustment of posts to political magistrates and teachers, as well as through the influence of the press in South Tyrol, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic Coast.”
[The original version in German: « Se. Majestät sprach den bestimmten Befehl aus, dass auf die entschiedenste Art dem Einflüsse des in einigen Kronländern noch vorhandenen italienischen Elementen entgegentreten durch geeinignete Besetzung der Stellen von politischen, Gerichtsbeamten, Lehrern sowie durch den Einfluss der Presse in Südtirol, Dalmatien und dem Küstenlande auf die Germanisierung oder Slawisierung der betreffenden Landesteile je nach Umständen mit aller Energie und ohne alle Rücksicht hingearbeitet werde. Se. Majestät legt es allen Zentralstellen als strenge Plifcht auf, in diesem Sinne planmäßig vorzugehen. » Die Protokolle des Österreichischen Ministerrates 1848/1867. V Abteilung: Die Ministerien Rainer und Mensdorff. VI Abteilung: Das Ministerium Belcredi, edited by STEFAN MALFÈR, Wien, Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst 1971; the quote appears in Section VI, vol. 2, meeting of Novembre 12, 1866, p. 297]
Already in 1866 the lieutenant of Tyrol, Prince Lobkovitz, and the Hofrat of Trento, Count Hohenwart, gave impetus to a school program in the German language for the area of Trentino, while at the same time fostering the Germanization of the mixed-language zone to the north of Salorno. To demonstrate the continuity of this policy, in January 1886 the then-lieutenant of Tyrol, Widmann, wrote to Prime Minister Taaffe arguing that Germanization was necessary for the general interests of the Imperial State and thus defended the attempts to Germanize the schools in Trentino.
Throughout the period of 1866-1918 an Italian university never existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nor was there even a faculty. There were, in all and for all, some courses in Italian, for a few years, at the University of Innsbruck, which made an unusual exemption and special concession. It had some courses in the faculty of law, some courses in the faculty of medicine, and a single course in Italian language and literature. Even for law and medicine, however, these parallel courses in Italian were not sufficient to ensure a complete course of studies. The concession of these courses, which were parallel and not substitutes for those in German (Italians could follow some courses in their language, if they wanted to, but still had to take courses in German), had only been allowed due to the necessity of having officials and doctors who could easily interact with Italian-speaking patients: it was therefore a special authorization granted primarily for operational reasons. All the other courses, and every other faculty, were in German; it was a German university with a German faculty.
The request for a university in the Italian language, or at least a faculty, was repeatedly advanced since 1866 by the Italians, but always refused. They were opposed by both the Austrian and the Slavic nationalists, and by the highest political and military officials, such as the Lieutenant of Trieste Kellersperg, another Stadtholder of the Littoral like Goëss, the Lieutenant of Tyrol Schwarteznau, Archduke Eugene, commander of the Tyrolean Army Corps... They all feared that a university or faculty in the Italian language would reinforce the ethnic identity of the Italians, and therefore irredentism. Worthy of mention are the arguments made by Goëss against having an Italian university in Trieste: according to him, it was not granted because it would strengthen Italian irredentism at the expense of more loyal ethnic groups like the Austrians and the Slavs; it would have undermined the system of primary and secondary schools in the German language, which also served as a tool of cultural Germanization against Italians; Goëss also recalled that Trieste was considered the gate of Germanism in the Adriatic Sea.
The famous “Demonstrations of Innsbruck” (“Fatti di Innsbruck”) became emblematic of the pressure exerted against the Italian ethnic group by the Empire and by Germanic nationalists who also made use of this school system and the university.
As was mentioned in more detail above, since 1848 the Italians of Trieste called for the opening of an Italian university in Trieste — the largest coastal city, which was the third largest in the Empire, after Vienna and Prague — but this request was always rejected. After 1866, in addition to the ethnic cleansing orchestrated by Franz Joseph, the Italians also had to deal with the impossibility of studying at universities in Italy, primarily that of Padua, which since the fifteenth century had represented the place of formation of all the leaders of Trentino, Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia. Therefore the demand that the central government permit the opening of an Italian university in Trieste became a pressing issue. Finally in 1904, after a wait of 56 years, Vienna granted the foundation of — not a university — but merely a faculty of a law in the Italian language, and not in Trieste, but in the distant Germanic city of Innsbruck. Already this decision revealed the Austrian determination to prevent — as much as possible — the formation and preservation of Italian culture in their territories.
However, on November 3, 1904 several hundred Italian students, many of which came from Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, were in Innsbruck to assist at the opening of the academic year of the faculty of law. However, upon their arrival in the Austrian city, the local nationalists and Pan-Germans gave proof of their open hostility towards the foundation of this faculty. The police of Innsbruck, after pressure from the local political authorities, entered the classroom, where Professor Angelo de Gubernatis was holding the inaugural address, and ordered the interruption of the ceremony.
The Italian students were then limited to providing a banquet in honor of Prof. de Gubernatis, with the agreement of the authorities. However, that was enough to arouse the violent reaction of the inhabitants of Innsbruck, who staged a kind of insurrection. The Italians present in the city were expelled and their property looted, while the students were surrounded inside the university seat and besieged with firearms. Finally, the army intervened, who, however, arrested all the Italian students (including Cesare Battisti and Alcide De Gasperi), although they had not committed any crime and were limited to defending themselves from the violent citizens of Innsbruck, who, by the way, were never arrested. Following this anti-Italian pogrom, the the faculty of law was later ordered to be closed.
[ANGELO ARA, La questione dell’Università italiana in Austria, in «Rassegna storica del Risorgimento» LX, 1973; G. DEUTHMANN, For the history of some schools in Dalmatia, Zara 1920; VIRGINIO GAYDA, L'Italia d'oltre confine. Le provincie italiane d'Austria, Torino 1914; ATTILIO TAMARO, Le condizioni degli italiani soggetti all'Austria nella Venezia Giulia e nella Dalmazia, Roma 1915; ERNESTO SESTAN, Venezia Giulia. Lineamenti di una storia etnica e culturale, Udine 1997; A. M. VINCI, Storia dell’Università di Trieste. Mito, progetti, realtà, Trieste 1997; the same doctoral thesis of Michael Völkl cited by felicitamodna82 devotes ample space to the political activity of De Gasperi against the attempts to Germanise Trentino, which was repeatedly and openly denounced by this politician. An entire chapter, the fourth, is dedicated to his opposition to Germanic nationalism: Die negative Erfahrungsebene: Der deutsche Nationalismus, in MICHAEL VÖLKL, Das Deutschenbild Alcide De Gasperis (1881-1954). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der italienischen Deutschenwahrnehmung, Monaco 2004, pp. 105 ff.; DAVIDE ZAFFI, Associazionismo nazionale in Cisleithania. Il Deutscher Schulverein (1880), in Studi trentini di scienze storiche, 67, (1988), pp. 273-323.]
There was also heavy political discrimination at the expense of the Italians. The electoral system in force in Austria from 1861 (effectively founded by the Februarverfassung in that year) until 1908 became known as the system of Representation of Interests, Curiae and Classes (Interessen-Klassen-und Kurien Vertretung). It was a decidedly classist electoral system, which socio-economically favored the ruling classes and disadvantaged all the others. Overall in the Empire, the ethnic group that was really favored by this type of electoral arrangement was certainly the Germans. They would use this system in favor of the Slavs against the Italians in the Littoral, but in favor of the Germans against the Slovenes in Carniola and against the Czechs in Bohemia, and in favor of the Germans against Italians in Tyrol (which at the time included Trentino). We learn this in the study of Ernesto Sestan. [E. SESTAN, Le riforme costituzionali austriache nel 1860-1861, in La crisi dell’Impero austriaco dopo Villafranca, Trieste 1957.]
In fact, if you examine the electoral life of the three administrative areas in which the Italian subjects of the Empire lived after 1866, that is to say, Tyrol, the Littoral and Dalmatia, it is easy to prove that there was an overall strong discrimination against the Italian element.
Within Tyrol the Italians were heavily discriminated against, from the point of view of representation, in a threefold way. First, the area of Trentino had been forcibly attached to the administration of Tyrol proper, which had a German majority. The requests of autonomy for Trentino from Tyrol were regularly advanced by the Italians of Trentino since the beginning of the nineteenth century until the beginning of World War I, but was regularly rejected by the central authorities. Even the moderate autonomist project presented in 1901 and again in 1902 were rejected. [S. BENVENUTI, L’autonomia trentina al Landtag di Innsbruck e al Reichsrat di Vienna, Trento 1978; R. SCHOBER, La lotta sul progetto d’autonomia per il Trentino degli anni 1900-1902, secondo le fonti austriache, Trento 1978, edited by the Società di studi trentini di scienze storiche, XXXI.] Secondly, as explained above, the electoral law in place effectively only benefited the Germans, rather than the Italians. Thirdly, the people of Trentino were underrepresented in the Diet of Innsbruck even in relation to the total percentage of the population of Tyrol: for example, in 1816, at the time of the annexation of the two ancient ecclesiastical principalities of Trento and Bressanone (Brixen) into Tyrol, Trentino obtained only 7 out of 52 seats in the diet, which is a smaller percentage than that of the Italian population in comparison to the overall "Tyrolean" population.
Also, in the administrative unit known as Tyrol (both in Trentino and in the mixed-language area north of Salorno), a series of nationalistic Germanic associations (who were opposed to the Italians) began to operate, such as the Komitee zur Unterstützung der deutschen Schulen in Welschtirol, the Deutscher Schulverein, and the Tiroler Volksbund, which could rely on the support of the political authorities.
The Komitee, created in 1867, and which aimed to support German educational institutions in Trentino, received personal financing from the Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph.
The Tiroler Volksbund was founded in 1805 and led by the Austrian nationalist Walter Hörmann with the motto “Tyrol for the Tyrolese, undivided from Kufstein to the lock of Verona, eternally belonging to the German Fatherland.” This program contained a dual anti-Italian objective, because it rejected the demands of autonomy for Trentino (advanced since 1848, and always rejected by the central government) and also claimed that Trentino was “lost German land”. According to this absurd theory of history advanced by this association, totally ideological and not based on fact, Trentino in the strict sense was supposedly entirely German in the past (a completely false statement) and it was now necessary to Germanize the area. The Volksbund, whose primary goal had long been the Germanization of Trentino, gained the support of the Tyrolean school authorities, but still failed to prevent the opening of Italian public schools or nursery schools (kindergartens) in the mixed-language area, since the number of interested parties exceeded by a large margin the minimum required by law.
The Schutzverein Südmark (association in defense of the Southern march) was founded in 1889 in Graz, active in Tyrol since 1894. This was a Pan-Germanist association which also received substantial funding from Germany proper (not only Austria) and which had as its statutory objective the Germanization of the borderlands of Deutschland.
During the Taaffe government, the Deutscher Schulverein association devised a Germanization project for the middle of Trentino, comprising approximately the line drawn from Luserna, Folgaria, San Sebastiano, Valsugana, Valle del Fersina, Val del Cadino, and Val di Fiemme. The outcome of such a plan, had they achieved it, would have broken up the Italian national continuity of Trentino.
The Verein zum Schutze deutscher Interessen im Ausland (Society for the Protection of German Interests Abroad), which later became the Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (Society for Germans Abroad), was founded in 1881 in Munich. Wilhelm Rohmeder, who was part of the junta of the Volksbund, also operated in this group.
The nationalist Germanic societies of Trentino can be categorized into two orders and two types: 1) those which were strictly Pan-Germanist, which operated wherever Germans were living, or in areas adjacent to Deutschland, in order to expand their territory and forcibly Germanize the other regions; and 2) those formed specifically for the Austrian imperialist objectives in "Tyrol" (which, under colonial Habsburg rule, also included Trentino after 1815). The Verein zum Schutze deutscher Interessen im Ausland, the Schulverein, and the Austrian and German Alpine Club (which concerned itself more with anti-Italian politics than with climbing) belonged to the first category, whereas the Tiroler Volksbund belonged to the second. The Schutzverein Südmark was almost an intermediate group between the two categories.
These nationalist associations differed also in their modes of operation, as some were concerned with Germanizing the schools (in the case of the Schulverein), others wanted to do the same with the economy, or raise funds for the establishment of Germanic colonies in Trentino (in the case of the Schutzverein Südmark). The Tiroler Volksbund had an enormous political influence and decisively conditioned the Diet of Innsbruck, while the Austrian and German Alpine Club was most powerful among unionists in the streets and squares.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which formally called itself “Catholic”, permitted the activities of Pan-Germanist associations in Trentino-Alto Adige which had anti-Catholic and Protestant tendencies (this is especially true in the case of the Tiroler Volksbund), causing the reaction and the indignation of the Bishop of Trento, Celestine Endrici, and also the Catholic politicians of Trentino, including Alcide De Gasperi, who condemned the appearance of such anti-Italian and anti-Catholic policies (for example, an editorial in the Voce cattolica on February 1, 1906 said: “we must defend ourselves against those who undermine the Italian character of our land”). De Gasperi protested against the practices of Germanization put in place by the Germanic nationalist Tiroler Volksbund and against the initiatives promoted by the central government in Vienna and by the local government in Innsbruck. De Gasperi argued that “instead of bullying Trentino with these measures, the Government would do well to satisfy their economic, national and cultural needs”. But this did not matter because the Austrian authorities were disinterested in solving the serious problems of Trentino and refused to grant this region autonomy from Tyrol. [G. ANDREOTTI, De Gasperi e il suo tempo. Trento, Vienna, Roma, Milano 1964, p. 76]
All these associations were operating both in South Tyrol and in Trentino. The Habsburg authorities carefully controlled the Italian associations, even those which were simply cultural, and tended to suppress them, while the Germanic nationalist groups, which endorsed the forced Germanization of South Tyrol and Trentino, all the way down to the lock of Verona (Berner Klause), were left entirely free to act, and indeed were supported and favored.
After 1907 a police state was established in Trentino, dependent on the authority of the Imperial and Royal Army and the Ministry of War in Vienna. In that year a military police was formed which was directly dependent on the command of Innsbruck and completely separate from the government, and which had its own officials and agents. It had its headquarters in Bolzano, but had sections in all major centers of Trentino and Alto Adige (South Tyrol), through the so-called Kundschaftstellen. Offices were usually chaired by a Chief of staff, who had both the task of practicing espionage against Italy, and of controlling the local Italians subject to Austrian rule. The authorities of this military police were de facto superior to that of the local police, the civil servants and the local political authorities, so that, when and where they wanted to take action, they were able to impose their will.
For example, there were numerous arbitrary arrests, operated entirely illegally by the same military police, bypassing any civil authority, including judicial ones, and in the absence of any guarantee for the accused, who were imprisoned for long periods on the basis of mere suspicion, without lawyers, defenders or any form of legal protection. In the summer of 1912 alone there were seventy arrests for political reasons, on the grounds of suspicion, following a decision of the military district of Innsbruck, and only a single case was able to reach trial. Very frequently there were mass expulsions of Italians from Trentino. Suffice it to say that in the period between January 1, 1911 and September 30, 1912 alone, and only in the city of Trento, the military police ordered over 100 expulsions. And then we must take into account the people who suffered from the precautionary measures of the police, who imposed the loss of jobs, the forced removal of certain towns, etc.
This situation was exacerbated by the role of semi-secret associations dedicated to espionage in favor of the Habsburg authorities. This made possible the establishment of the association known as the Mariani (Marians) in Trentino, intended for high school students, organized by priests and supported by the Austrian officials and soldiers. Although theoretically it had a religious purpose, in practice it actually engaged in espionage and spying against all students and teachers who were suspected of being pro-Italian. Students were taught to do this by their catechists and spiritual fathers, who then reported their findings to the police authorities. It should be noted that all other student associations were prohibited by law, so that the only possible association to join was the “Marians”. [Gayda, L’Italia, cit., pp. 406-407]
In a detailed speech to the Parliament of Vienna, on December 12, 1911, Cesare Battisti was able to denounce the presence and the illegality of a de facto military regime in Trentino, which pursued a project of slowly strangulating the Italianity of the region.
The military authorities forwarded to the local state officials the policy which was to be practiced against the Italians, using for this an official circular which specified the policy which must be followed against the Italians. First, it was necessary to avoid giving work, contracts, contracts, etc. to all the “regnicoli” (Italians from the Kingdom of Italy). Second, they were to be expelled under any pretext. Third, Italians from the Kingdom of Italy were to be denied access to Trentino, including even shepherds, vendors, etc. Fourth, it was necessary to prepare a blacklist of Italian "suspects" from Trentino, who should be deported if necessary. [Gayda, L’Italia, cit., pp. 397-398] The accuracy of Battisti's speech was not denied, and its truthfulness is further proven by the deportation of 75,000-100,000 Trentino Italians to concentration camps during the First World War.
The economy of Trentino was heavily damaged by the measures taken by the imperial authorities to break the cultural and economic ties that bound Trentino to the neighboring Italian regions. The result was that commerce, the physical movement of people, the establishment of enterprises, etc. were sometimes hampered or prevented. All this helped to bring about a serious economic crisis in Habsburg Trentino.
One example among many was the so-called “Question of the Malghe”, when the authorities impeded the traditional and very ancient movement of shepherds and ranchers among the plains and the mountains, because it meant crossing the Austrian military border.
The malghe (mountain huts) are alpine pastures that usually were (and still are) rented during the summer to shepherds and ranchers. Under Habsburg rule, just before the First World War, they numbered nearly 600 in Trentino, which was sufficient to give pasture to about 55,000 heads of livestock and cattle.
Trentino was rich in grazing lands, but did not have much livestock. On the other hand, the Veneto had much cattle but proportionally less grazing lands. For these reasons a tradition had been established for many centuries which saw a seasonal transmigration of shepherds and ranchers from the area of Verona, Vicenza and Belluno, travel with their herds to the pastures of Trentino, and then depart in early autumn and winter. This transmigration was profitable to both parties: to the shepherds, who could spend the hot summer months with fresh herbs for their livestock; and to the owners of the mountain huts, who could lease land that otherwise would have remained unproductive.
The Habsburg imperial army, or the military authorities in Trentino, began to increasingly oppose such peaceful and traditional economic activities, because it was deemed “wrong” to establish an economic link between the Trentino, a subject to Austrian rule, and the Veneto, which was part of the Italian State.
At first they placed limitations on cattle herding, which they claimed was for health reasons. Then came bodily inspections and searches at the expense of the shepherds, to see whether there were any italian officials hiding among them. Finally, a ban was placed on renting mountain huts to “regnicoli” shepherds, that is, citizens of the Italian State. In addition to damaging the shepherds and ranchers from Veneto, this measure led to the economic ruin of those mountain communities of Trentino which had among its main assets the renting of mountain huts, which were now desperately empty and unproductive.
The situation for the Italian subjects of the Habsburgs became worse with the First World War. Upon entry into the war the imperial government entrusted itself entirely to the coercive capacity of the army, which became, as was later to happen in Germany, the instrument of a gradual militarization of society, politics, economy and social life. Parliament was shut down indefinitely, while certain constitutional laws were suspended.
In the Habsburg lager (concentration camps) there were many innocent people arrested merely for careless speeches or attitudes deemed suspicious, or due to anonymous complaints. The arrests by the military authorities had legislative support in two Imperial Ordinances issued on July 25, 1914 [BLI n.164 and BLI n.156].
A recent study by Gerd Pircher has contributed to documenting the fate that was being planned for Trentino during the First World War: in the case of a Habsburg victory it would have been necessary to partially maintain military jurisdiction; German would be declared the sole official language and imposed in schools, carrying out a purge of the administration, place names and signs would be Germanized (which had already begun), Austrian immigration for the purpose of colonization would be encouraged, etc.
These plans were supported by a circle of soldiers, led by Archduke Eugene and by General Alfred Krauss and General Viktor Dankl, who intended the denationalization and Germanization of Trentino, deeming virtually every Italian as potentially hostile to the Empire and interning or deporting anyone deemed politically unreliable. [G. PIRCHER, Militari, amministrazione, e politica in Tirolo durante la prima guerra mondiale, Societa di Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche, Trento 2005. This is the Italian translation of the original Militar, Verwaltung, und Politik in Tirol in Estern Welkkrieg, Universitatsvelag Wagner, Innsbruck 1995.]
The promoters of the Germanization of Trentino in the period of 1915-1917 were the same military leaders in charge of the area, namely the Archduke Eugene (the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, officer of the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger, and for over ten years commander of the 14th Army stationed in Tyrol), General Alfred Krauss (who had political views similar to those of the Germanic nationalist party, the so-called “German-Nationals”), and General Viktor Dankl, head of the Command of the territorial defense of Tyrol.
These three towering personalities were followers of the ideas expressed by an Austrian nationalist historian, Professor Michael Mayr, a professor at the University of Innsbruck and member of both the Reichsrat (Parliament of the Monarchy) in Vienna and the Landestag (Regional Council) in Innsbruck. He formulated an operational plan against Italian irredentism in his book Die Entwicklung des Italienischen Irredentismus in Tirol (The Evolution of Italian Irredentism in Tyrol). He believed that by now the majority of the population in Trentino had become irredentist and that this constituted the basis of the claims of the Italian State on Trentino. Archduke Eugene and General Krauss and Dankl repeated exactly the same arguments of Mayr regarding the hostility of most of Trentino to Habsburg domination, and concluded that it was necessary to Germanize this region in order to permanently resolve its national problem.
By having the imperial order issued at the time of the outbreak of war with Italy, a state of siege was declared throughout Tyrol and the military authorities had virtually a free hand against the civilian population, being able to carry out their actions of forced Germanization and ethnic cleansing to the detriment of Trentino.
Since May 1915, with the entry of Italy into the war, the Austrian military authorities extended also to Trentino and to Venezia Giulia the policy of deporting to concentration camps the population deemed politically “suspect”, already implemented on a large scale in other regions and with other ethnic groups. In theory deportation could be decided for suspects because of their political opinions, or due to proximity to the war zone, but in effect it served to persecute those belonging to the Italian nationality. Needless to say, Germans were not regarded as suspect. Remember even the socialist deputy Valentino Pittoni (a pro-Austrian and anti-irredentist activist) said: “The slightest suspicions derive from dishonest sources, faulty reporting and unscrupulous officials who intern or illegally confine men, drag them around for years like common criminals, expose them to the hatred and contempt of the population, and deliver them to law enforcement agencies which show beastly joy against a defenseless people.”
The deportees from Trentino were more than 75,000, to which must be added tens of thousands from Trieste and Istria, deported from Pola and from a large adjacent area, extended to include Rovigno, and an unknown number of Italian residents from the Austrian-controlled Cadore region and Dalmatia. Trentino was almost depopulated in entire zones, Trieste was reduced to a third of its inhabitants before the war, and Pola (and the entire surrounding Istrian area) was reported as being almost a desert. On July 12, 1917 Alcide De Gasperi described in Parliament the the living conditions of the deportees, whom he said were treated “not as citizens, but as administrative objects more or less according to arbitrary individual opinion.” [Cited in G. VALORI, Degasperi al Parlamento austriaco, Parenti, Firenze, 1953, p. 161.] Even the Polish Halban commented harshly on the policy of interning the civilian population pursued by the imperial government: “I do not envy the man who devised the Barackensystem. He will have to answer before God and the State for the thousands of lives that have been destroyed.” [P. MALNI, Fuggiaschi. Il campo profughi di Wagna 1915-1918, Consorzio Culturale del Monfalconese 1998, p. 147.]
The deportations were perpetrated by the Habsburg authorities by force and deception, forcing many to leave their homes with nothing but their clothes and convinced to go a short distance away for a few days, but instead were deported to concentration camps for years and in remote places. The Empire made use of violence on a large scale already at the time of imposing the deportations: for example, the small towns and Marter and Roncegno, in Valsugana, in Trentino, were subjected to Austrian artillery bombardment, and they also used incendiary projectiles, forcing the inhabitants to leave.
Written testimonies after the war consolidated the sad fame of some places of imprisonment which justly became a symbol of Austrian oppression against the irredentist aspirations of the Italians. The concentration camps in the Austria of Franz Joseph were surrounded by barbed wire and guards, where the inmates lived in wooden barracks, subjected to forced labor, little fed and poorly cared for. The Habsburg authorities used to separate the villagers among them, indeed even break up families, some being deported to camps far away from each other and of course outside of possibilities of communications. Inevitably they had high mortality rates.
The assessment of the conditions and the treatment suffered by the deported Italians in the concentration camps (Konzentrazionlager was the official name in use) of Franz Joseph of Austria may be provided by the detailed explanation of certain data on mortality. The large number of concentration camps used, the loss of much of the documentation, and a relative lack of historiography makes the analysis of total casualties difficult. However, we can still observe reports with the the exact number of deaths suffered in some of the concentration camps in which the Italian subjects of the Hapsburg Empire were imprisoned.
Katzenau: 1,754 deported, 353 died; (20.5%)
Tapiosuli: 9,000 deported, 2,000 died; (22.2%)
Pottendorf: 6,000 deported, 650 died; (10.8%)
Mitterndorf: 12,000 deported, 1,913 died; (16%)
Wagna: 21,000 deported, 2,920 died; (14%)
Total: 49,754 deported; 7,836 died; (15.7%)
It is essential to remember that this data is only partial, since they refer only to a small percentage of the deportees. There were many other camps for which the documentation is partial or lost: Gollersdorf, Fischa, Mistelbach, Braunau Am Inn, Beutschbrod, Traunstein, Gmund, Liebnitz, etc. In fact, of those civilians deported to the Habsburg camps during the First World War, about 185,000 were of Italian nationality and subjects of the Habsburgs by citizenship. The camps we documented above contained only 49,754, about a third of the total.
The German-National Party gave its full support to this action aimed at denationalizing the Trentino, so much so that one of its decisions approved a series of measures and projects that would have been made: German as the only official language of administration, an education system only in German, the Germanization of the all place names, etc. Austrian nationalist circles thought of replacing the population with thirty colonies formed by Austrian veterans of the war, and considered keeping the region under siege even after the war, until its Germanization was complete. Some of these provisions were already implemented during the conflict, such as the use of only German as the administrative language, the Germanization of place names, signs and commercial insignia, the suppression of Italian associations, the imprisonment or deportation of a large part of the ruling class of Trentino, etc.
It can therefore be concluded that only the military defeat of the Habsburg Empire prevented the total forced Germanization of the Trentino, namely the realization of the project of ethnic cleansing designed already in 1866 and subsequently reaffirmed during the years of war.
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