Week 25

 

Soon after the Congress of Rome, the theme of the oppressed nationalities begun to appear in a more consistent manner – here issue 9 of La Tradotta with the title “the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary” – in the various trench newspapers^1 and propaganda outlets catering to the soldiers and army members. This was both the result of the personal commitment to the principles promoted by the Congress of various men active in the propaganda effort, like Gaetano Salvemini and Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, and a consequence of the obvious value that the “agreement” between the Italian government and the various nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had in terms of direct propaganda among the enemy.

The institution of a Czech Legion within the Italian Army and the recognition (this time official) of the Czech Committee as an actual government of the Czech Nation were major points of the Italian propaganda effort, showcasing that the Italian government accepted – at least in its instrumental value – the idea of an incumbent dissolution of the Austrian Empire. Throughout the last months of the war various reports would show the effectiveness of such propaganda among the enemy (the Italians had not attempted any of this during the first years of war, in part for it being dishonorable and in part for fear the enemy would reciprocate, and had begun only after the Austrians had made large use of the methods during the weeks of Caporetto), noting the increasing number of deserters who asked to join the Legion soon after their surrender.

Pietro Jahier's L'Astico summarized the situation on April 25^th : During the world war for the emancipation of the nations, the oppressed had banded together, brought to look at each others as brothers from the sufferings and common ideals and Austria had begun to appear as it really was: a form of government that was extinguished in modern social consciousness. […] The acknowledgment of this political truth that had been sanctioned with the Pact of Rome […] was not only the result of the action of the Italian irredentism. […] Everybody knew that Yugoslavs and Bohemians had favored Brusilov's victories by surrendering in large numbers on the Eastern front; that they had laid down their arm on the Italian fields walking towards [the Italian] soldiers while singing their national anthems; that, once taken prisoners, had gained the right to fight for the Russians, and distinguished themselves for their valor; that they had petitioned with the Italian government for the same right, offering to serve, even when officers, as simple infantrymen.

But one thing that not everybody knew was the impressive activity of propaganda and organization that their best citizens, in voluntary exile since the beginning of the war, had exerted within the Entente capitals, creating themselves into Committees that had gained the stature of true government cores. […] Those men fought openly, with their national colors on the uniform. Aware that, if captured by the Austrians, they would not be prisoners but martyrs. Like the patriots of Italian independence. […] For this reason the Motherland of Garibaldi and Mazzini had celebrated them and acknowledged them as sons, when they made their way trough the cities in the rear. And once they ascended to the trenches, there they would be welcomed as brothers and champions.

The men could certainly feel sympathy for the oppressed peoples, whether they were the Czechs, or the Belgians, or any other victim of some undetermined atrocity. But to fully understand and appreciate the process, is something the Italian authorities doubted – and perhaps rightfully so – that the men could do, or a reasoning they wanted to engage with, as they were certainly busy with the more pressing matter of surviving the war.

The propaganda effort of the Italian High Command – as developed within the guidelines established by the so called Service P. - followed the pedagogic system we all are used to: to teach the same ideas and concept, with varying degrees of depth and complexity according to the age, the level of scholarization, or within the army, the rank and inclination of the men. The same subjects had to be proposed to illiterate land workers, peasants and factory workers, professionals and citizens, young men barely of age and grown men with a dozen children of their own – in the view of prominent pedagogist G. Lombardo Radice, the officers had to function as “teachers” for the ranks, with various instructions on how to better approach the men and promote those ideas among them. It was therefore clearly an operation from above; one nonetheless that attempted at least to understand the “infantryman” - this mysterious figure of human type – well enough to find a way through his shell and into his hearth. It does therefore tell us not only how the propaganda matters were approached by the Army and Government but also how the Italian authorities represented the Italian man, how they appealed to him and what instruments were used.

We have already touched on this point before; I'd like to focus here on another way of approaching the men. One that is certainly familiar to us: that of visual shorthands. And how they allowed to develop a pattern of symbols that essentially replaced the abstract concepts, such as nation, justice, motherland, right and victory – in a process that was both identification and usurpation of the significant towards the significate.

 

The Motherland – explained the Italian propaganda (a neat song titled Georafia) from the pages of San Marco – was a soldiers's family, his (tiny tiny) house, his place, his (little) room, his loved ones, his town, his church, his fields. It was a women first – see this illustration in issue 9 of La Tradotta where two women contend the fate of the four years old war, and guess which one is Austria-Hungary and which one is Italy and this celebratory depiction of the allied nation in issue 19 of La Tradotta – a wife, a mother, a maiden in distress, a lover to be.

There is a joke – that Italians know two kind of women: virgins and... those who are not. It's one of those jokes that fortunately have not aged well; but for a man at war, it might have rang true. On the front men could frequent brothels – or meet women as well – but those weren't mothers, or wives, or virgins. Back home, women awaited their man, or any man who had done their duty – because women would not surrender their virtue to a man who had not proven himself in war: “Vittoria” the most beautiful of women could be won by anybody “as long as they held fast and did well on the front” – said a vignette of Canevari in issue 16 of La Ghirba In the meantime she awaited. And women were the cities of Trent and Trieste, the unredeemed lands, like Istria, claimed by the Austrian but giving herself to the Italian in this twin illustration from issue 20 of La Tradotta.

Here and there a few concessions were made to the needs of the soldier's mind; and soldier's girls appeared willing to offer their comfort to any good infantryman. Girls like Rosina (whose childishly evocative surname “holster” paired with that of her lover would have probably put a smile on a thirteen year old face) who wasn't married and wasn't pure at all, since she had had a boy from each corner of Italy and understood therefore every accent, but was still a good natured gal – refusing the advances of her master (Rosina of course was a home servant!) who had found a way to avoid military service and posed as wannabe socialist. Rosina had no child, no husband and was of a low social extraction. Her many dialects could not hide just as many spelling errors in her fictional letters to her lovers on the front. These were the social boundaries of a man's indiscretions, the naive official declension of the common woman, as the intellectual world passed it on towards the men.

Stephen E. Clay’s enormous four-volume interwar order of battle for the U.S. Army lists colleges and universities with ROTC programs, as well as Organized Reserve divisions, but does not provide one list combining both, which I have compiled below. Divisions often formed informal relationships with local institutions, and newly-graduated lieutenants could reasonably expect an assignment to their local division. ROTC programs also provided officers to corps and army-level units. Larger programs offered a choice of several branches for candidates to select, but smaller ones often only offered one branch.

Division	Allotted State(s)	ROTC Feeder(s)
76th Division	Connecticut, Rhode Island	Connecticut Agricultural College, Harvard University, Yale University
77th Division	Metropolitan New York City, New York	College of the City of New York, New York University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Delaware College
78th Division	Delaware, New Jersey	Delaware College, Rutgers College, Princeton University
79th Division	Eastern Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Military College, Gettysburg College, Lehigh University, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit, Lafayette College, Valley Forge Military Academy
80th Division	Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C.	Maryland State College, Western Maryland College, Johns Hopkins University, St. John’s College, Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Military Institute, Georgetown University, George Washington University
81st Division	North Carolina, Tennessee	North Carolina State College, Davidson College, University of Tennessee
82nd Division	Florida, Georgia, South Carolina	University of Florida, University of Georgia, Georgia School of Technology, Emory University, North Georgia Agricultural College, Clemson Agricultural College, The Citadel, Wofford College, Presbyterian College,
83rd Division	Ohio	Ohio University, Ohio State University, University of Dayton, University of Akron, University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, Denison University
84th Division	Indiana	Indiana University, Purdue University, Culver Military Academy, Rose Polytechnic Institute, DePauw University
85th Division	Michigan	University of Michigan, Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, Michigan College of Mining and Technology
86th Division	Illinois	University of Illinois, University of Chicago, Knox College, Northwestern College, Northwestern University
87th Division	Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi	University of Alabama, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Marion Military Institute, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, University of Mississippi, The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi
88th Division	Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota	The State University of Iowa, Iowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanic Arts, Coe College, University of Minnesota, University of North Dakota, North Dakota Agricultural College
89th Division	Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota	University of Kansas, Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, Fairmount College, University of Nebraska, Creighton University, University of South Dakota, South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
90th Division	Texas	Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, Texas Technological College, North Texas Agricultural College, John Tarleton Agricultural College
91st Division	California	University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Los Angeles, California Institute of Technology, Leland Stanford Junior University, University of San Francisco, University of Santa Clara, Pomona College
94th Division	Massachusetts	Boston University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
95th Division	Oklahoma	University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, Oklahoma Military Academy
96th Division	Oregon, Washington	University of Oregon, Oregon State Agricultural College, University of Washington, State College of Washington
97th Division	Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont	University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Rhode Island State College
98th Division	Upstate New York	Syracuse University, Clarkson College of Technology, Cornell University, Niagara University, St. Bonaventure College
99th Division	Western Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania State College, Pennsylvania Military College, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit
100th Division	Kentucky, West Virginia	University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky State Teachers’ College, Eastern Kentucky State Teachers’ College, West Virginia University
101st Division	Wisconsin	University of Wisconsin, Ripon College, St. Norbert’s College,
102nd Division	Arkansas, Missouri	University of Arkansas, Arkansas State College, Henderson State Teachers’ College, Little Rock College, Ouachita College, Missouri School of Mines, University of Missouri, Washington University, University of Kansas
103rd Division	Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico	University of Arizona, Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Colorado State School of Mines, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, New Mexico Military Institute
104th Division	Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming	University of Idaho, Montana State College, University of Nevada, University of Utah, Agricultural College of Utah, University of Wyoming

Source:

Clay, Stephen E. U.S. Army Order of Battle 1919-1941, Volume 4, The Services: Quartermaster, Medical, Military Police, Signal Corps, Chemical Warfare, and Miscellaneous Organizations 1919-1941. Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2014.