Hi, i'm from Italy and i come from a really high-grade nobility family from the south of Italy.
I'm studying some history of my family and i realised that the father of my grand father was born in 1899. Here in Italy, these boys who were born in 1899 were the ones who saved the country during the horrible war with Austria, enrolling in 1917 when they became just 18 years old.
I wanted to know what was the role of noble borns during WWI, i know that his sister was an important red cross volunteer and she died on the front, she had a medal for this. But i don't know anything about her brother Paolo, my grandfather's father.
It would be a great honour to know if he served for the army as a '99 boy since this generation is highly rewarded with pride.
During the history of my family, many ancestors had military grade in chivalry and command. My grandfather also was enrolled in WWII as anti-aircraft artillery, but rapidly dismissed for political reasons or for illness.
Thanks for the help!
I can't speak to the specific role of nobles in WWI Italy, but I have had friends who engaged in some family history tracing in Italy in WWI a while ago. If you wanted more information about your ancestor specifically maybe you can do what they did. They had to submit a form to the provincial archives where he was born/lived to get access to military records from WWI.
A search found this thread, which while a little old, would probably still work,
https://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum/italian-genealogy/15162
which has information regarding how to get in touch with the archives. Obviously you would just need to fill in all the appropriate information to the letter such as finding the provincial records where he lived.
While not a full answer I hope maybe this can at least serve as a starting point for information specific to your ancestor. Hope someone else contributes to the role of the nobility.
from what i could find there wasn't (theoratically) any exception to recruitment for italian nobles during ww1, specifically the legge "7 giugno 1875 n. 2532" every male citizen of age had to be conscripted, but only one year later would the "testo unico delle leggi sul reclutemento dell'esercito (legge 26 luglio 1876 n. 3260)" be approved and wich gave precise indications regarding the formation of draft lists.
here is a list of royal laws and decrees,
and here is the state archive of reggio emilia, it makes a summary of the military draft laws in it's municipalities.
if you want to find where your ancestor server you should consult your local statearchive, they should have everything you need.