South Tyrol. The Other Italy. Elizaveta Ebner
to pronounce the word “Tyrol”. The name of the region was changed to Alto Adige, and all the South Tyrolean cities, villages and settlements, as well as surnames of local people, were substituted by their Italian versions. The only place that managed to escape that fate was the village of Lana, whose name, apparently, sounded Italian enough as it was.
New teachers were sent from Italy to South Tyrol. The government saw them as enthusiasts and colonialists, who were supposed to bring the modernized Italian way of life to the Austrian province. Claus Gatterer, a patriarch of Austrian journalism of the 20th century, wrote that “Italian teachers were often in fact much better than the popular opinion about them. They suffered from the atmosphere of hostility that surrounded them, and had no social contacts. Farmers in the villages were suspicious of them, especially of teachers wearing town clothes, which were considered immoral.” In accordance with the Italian fashion of the 1920s and 1930s, the teachers wore miniskirts and men’s haircuts, which more than embarrassed South Tyrolean farmers, who were not used to this style. To deal with the stress from working in this region, where people were so unfriendly to them, teachers would sometimes go out drinking at night; in the morning they could not come to work, in which case their students had to be sent home.
In order for the language and the traditions of the region not to be lost by new generations, enthusiasts among German-speaking teachers secretly organized their own classes, called “catacomb schools”. One of their patrons was the Catholic priest Michael Gamper. He was outraged with King Victor Emmanuel III not keeping his promise to respect the national identity of the South Tyrolean people. The priest, under the protection of the Catholic Church, began creating German publishing houses in the region, wrote and published articles in German. The Fascist regime that had captured South Tyrol quickly ranked Gamper as the “public enemy number one”, and he was forced to hide from persecution in a Tuscan monastery. Nevertheless, the priest was lucky to survive, while many other enthusiasts of the “catacomb schools” were much less fortunate. They had to die for their cause. People remember with sadness the story of a very young teacher Angela Nikoletti, who died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis, which she had contracted in prison.
Even later, in the days of Nazism and Hitler’s meetings with Mussolini, German was forbidden in South Tyrol, as if the language of the “chosen people of Aryan race” was something illegal. The inhabitants of South Tyrol, as always, found themselves on the borderline – this time, between the two dictatorships. Formally, they had a choice: either to join the Nazi Germany and leave their homes, or to stay and experience all the “charms” of the Fascist regime.
It is against this background, and with an utmost ardour and desire to complete the work as soon as possible, that the triumphal arch was built in Bolzano (Bozen) – the monument in Neo-Romanesque style, with an ominous inscription in Latin that bode no good for the region.
The Victory Monument was Benito Mussolini’s ambitious idea. The dictator declared in the Italian parliament that “a memorial to Cesare Battisti and other martyrs” would be built in Bolzano, adding that it would be erected “on the same foundation as the monument to the German victory”. The “monument to the German victory” that Mussolini was referring to was the monument to the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger (Imperial Riflemen) in Bolzano (Bozen), which was actually dedicated to the memory of the dead, and not the “German victory” at all.
On July 12, 1926, on the tenth anniversary of the death of Cesare Battisti and Fabio Filzi, at a distance of approximately eight metres from the foundation of the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the Victory Monument. In a solemn setting, in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel III, Marshals Luigi Cadorna, Pietro Badoglio and several ministers, two more were added to the first stone. The first of them was brought from Monte Corno, where Cesare Battisti was captured, the second from Monte Grappa, conquered with enormous human losses only in 1918, and the third from Monte San Michele, a strategically important mountain located on the Italian-Slovenian border. The mortar was made using water from the river Piave. The first symbolic stone of the Victory Monument was blessed by the Bishop of Trento, Celestino Endrici, notwithstanding the written request from the clergy of South Tyrol to Pope Pius XI that the monument should not receive a church blessing.
After the construction of the Victory Monument was started, more precisely, on June 9, 1927, the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen was blown up. The remaining blocks were given to the cities that had donated money for the construction of the Victory Monument. Only four sculptures by Franz Ehrenhofer were rescued, transported to North Tyrol, and then placed on Bergisel.
On the day when the Victory Monument was inaugurated, a protest demonstration was held on Mount Isel in Innsbruck, in which more than 10,000 people took part, including representatives of South Tyrol. Ernesta Bittanti, the widow of Cesare Battisti, opposed using the figure of her husband and other irredentists in the Fascist campaign, and did not come to the opening ceremony of the triumphal arch. Later, her daughter, Livia Battisti, would repeatedly suggest renaming the arch the Monument of Memory and Warning. Despite the discontent of the Battisti family, they did place into one of the niches of the 19-metre-high triumphal arch a bust of the 42-year-old journalist Cesare Battisti – a politician, a scientist, an irredentist, and a patriot of Trento, who had been executed by Austrians.
Cesare Battisti was a hero during his life and remained one after death. He did not need any monuments.
The Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria-Hungary and Germany was formed in May 1882. It was based on the Austro-German Alliance pact of October 1, 1879 and the union treaty between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy of May 20, 1882. The union was renewed on May 6, 1891. The core of the pact was formed by articles II and III, transferred from the previous treaties of 1882 and 1891 without changes. The articles stated that Italy, in the event of an unprovoked attack by France, would receive help from the Allies. The same obligation would be placed on Italy if France attacked Germany without direct provocation from the latter. Also, if one or two of the contracting parties, without a direct provocation on their part, were attacked and involved in a war with two or several great powers not participating in this treaty, then the circumstances requiring the fulfillment of the treaty would be present for all the contracting parties simultaneously. At the same time, the Triple Alliance agreed with the special statement of Italy that the participation of England in a war against the Triple Alliance would exclude the participation of Italy because of the vulnerability of its territory to the British fleet. The two treaties contradicted each other.
In August 1914, the tripartite alliance was broken; Italy declared itself neutral and refused to join the war on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Italy explained its decision by the fact that articles II and III of the alliance treaty did not make sense in that situation: Austria-Hungary was waging an offensive war, not a defensive one.
Despite the neutrality officially declared by Italy, militaristic tendencies quickly gained popularity in the country and grew into movements which called for war, but on the side of the Entente. These movements were led by the Tyrolean socialist from Trento, Cesare Battisti, and the Italian playwright Gabriele d’Annunzio. A number of Italian deputies, as well as Alcide de Gasperi, doctor of philology and a native of Trento, considered that the country didn’t need to enter the war, and that it was better to continue to maintain neutrality.
Germany suggested that Austria-Hungary should hand over to Italy the territories inhabited by Italians. It was assumed that this would stop the Italian supporters of the war on the side of the Entente. The vote on that issue in the Italian parliament showed an unexpected and discouraging result: 320 deputies were for neutrality, and 508 were for joining the war. On May 23, 1915, the Italian ambassador in Vienna declared war. A week earlier, Italy had joined the Entente Powers (Russia, Britain and France) and took on the obligation to enter the war against Austria-Hungary in exchange for the territories of Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and part of Dalmatia. The position of Austria in relation to its former ally would be expressed by Kaiser Franz Joseph I, who, addressing his