Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-qmkzp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-07T12:24:11.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Weeping tears of blood’: exploring Italian soldiers' emotions in the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Vanda Wilcox
Vanda Wilcox*
Affiliation:
Department of History and the Humanities, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy
*
∗ Email: vwilcox@johncabot.edu
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Emotion plays a vital role in any rounded history of warfare, both as an element in morale and as component in understanding the soldier's experience. Theories on the functioning of emotions vary, but an exploration of Italian soldiers' emotions during the First World War highlights both cognitive and cultural elements in the ways emotions were experienced and expressed. Although Italian stereotypes of passivity and resignation dominated contemporary discourse concerning the feelings and reactions of peasant conscripts, letters reveal that Italian soldiers vividly expressed a wide range of intense emotions. Focusing on fear, horror and grief as recurrent themes, this article finds that these emotions were processed and expressed in ways which show similarities to the combatants of other nations but which also display distinctly Italian features. The language and imagery commonly deployed offer insights into the ways in which Italian socio-cultural norms shaped expressions of personal war experience. In letters that drew on both religious imagery and the traditional peasant concerns of land, terrain and basic survival, soldiers expressed their fears of death, isolation, suffering and killing in surprisingly vigorous terms.

Keywords

First World Warcombatemotionsfearmoraleletter-writing

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Special issue: Emotions , May 2012 , pp. 171 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

References

Bellassai, S. 2005. The masculine mystique: Antimodernism and virility in fascist Italy. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10, no. 3:314–35.Google Scholar
Bellosi, G., and Marcello, S., eds. 2002. Verificato per censura. Lettere e cartoline di soldati romagnoli nella prima guerra mondiale. Cesena: Società Editrice ‘Il Ponte Vecchio’.Google Scholar
Beltrame Menini, L., ed. 2001. Adorata Luigia. Mio diletto Antonio. Storia d'amore e di guerra (1910–1919). Padua: Panda Edizioni.Google Scholar
Bourke, J. 1999. An intimate history of killing: Face-to-face killing in twentieth century warfare. London: Granta.Google Scholar
Bourke, J. 2005. Fear: A cultural history. London: Virago.Google Scholar
Bravo, A. 1980. Donne contadine e prima guerra mondiale. Società e Storia III, no. 10:843–62.Google Scholar
Cadorna, L. 1967. Lettere famigliari, ed. Cadorna, R., Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Caffarena, F. 2005. Lettere dalla Grande Guerra. Scritture del quotidiano, monumenti della memoria, fonti per la storia. Il caso italiano. Milan: Edizioni Unicopli.Google Scholar
Das, S. 2005. Touch and intimacy in First World War literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edmonds, J. 1949. Military operations in Italy 1915–1919. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Favetti, G. 2004. L'esercito della morte. Dall'Africa al Carso, il diario di un volontario irredento, ed. Giuseppe, . Magrin, Udine: Gaspari.Google Scholar
Forcella, E. and Monticone, A. 1968. Plotone d'esecuzione. I processi della prima guerra mondiale. Rome–Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Frescura, A. 1981. Diario di un imboscato. Milan: Mursia.Google Scholar
Fussell, P. 1975. The Great War and modern memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garrone, G. and Garrone, E. 1974. Lettere e diari di guerra 1915–1918. Milan: Garzanti.Google Scholar
Gatti, A. 1964. Caporetto. Diario di guerra. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Gemelli, A. 1917. Il nostro soldato. Saggi di psicologia militare. Milan: Treves.Google Scholar
Gentile, E. 2008. L' apocalisse della modernità. La Grande guerra per l'uomo nuovo. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Gibelli, A. 1987. Pratica della scrittura e mutamento sociale. Orientamento e ipotesi. Materiali di lavoro, no. 1–2:7–20.Google Scholar
Gibelli, A. 1998a. L'officina della guerra. La Grande Guerra e la trasformazione del mondo mentale. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.Google Scholar
Gibelli, A. 1998b. La Grande Guerra degli italiani 1915–1918. Florence: Sansoni.Google Scholar
Gibelli, A. 2002. Nefaste Meraviglie. Grande Guerra e apoteosi della modernità. In Storia d'Italia 18. Guerra e Pace, ed. Barberis, W. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Grossman, D.A. 1995. On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Back Bay Books.Google Scholar
Isnenghi, M. 1967. I vinti di Caporetto nella letteratura di guerra. Padua: Marsilio Editori.Google Scholar
Isnenghi, M. 2002. Il mito della grande guerra. Bologna: Il Mulino. 1st ed. 1970.Google Scholar
Ius, L. and Ius, M. 2003. Vivere e morire da volontari. I diari di guerra di due fratelli bersaglieri, ed. Fabio, . Todero, . Udine: Gaspari.Google Scholar
Leed, E. 1979. No man's land: Combat and identity in World War I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Loez, A. 2003. Tears in the trenches: A history of emotions and the experience of war. In Uncovered fields: Perspectives in First World War studies, ed. Macleod, J. and Purseigle, P., 211–26. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Macleod, J. and Purseigle, P., eds. 2003. Uncovered fields: Perspectives in First World War studies. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Marshall, S.L.A. 2000. Men against fire: The problem of battle command. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. 2003. ‘Gladder to be going out than afraid’: Shellshock and heroic masculinity in Britain, 1914–1919. In Uncovered fields: Perspectives in First World War studies, ed. Macleod, J. and Purseigle, P., 195–210. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Ministero della Guerra, Ufficio Statistico. 1927. Statistica dello sforzo militare italiano nella guerra mondiale, ed. Mortara, G. Rome: Provveditorato generale dello stato.Google Scholar
Olson, D. 1994. The world on paper: The conceptual and cognitive implications of writing and reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Petersen, R.D. and Liaras, E. 2006. Countering fear in war: The strategic use of emotion. Journal of Military Ethics 5, no. 4:317–33.Google Scholar
Procacci, G. 2000. Soldati e prigionieri italiani nella Grande guerra. Con una raccolta di lettere inedite. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.Google Scholar
Revelli, N. 1977. Il mondo dei vinti. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Rochat, G. 1990. Gli arditi della Grande Guerra: origini, battaglie e miti. Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana.Google Scholar
Roper, M. 2009. The secret battle: Emotional survival in the Great War. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenwein, B.H. 2002. Worrying about emotions in history. American Historical Review 107, no. 3:821–45.Google Scholar
Scherer, K.R. 2005. What are emotions? And how can they be measured?. Social Science Information 44, no. 4:695–729.Google Scholar
Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, L. 1976. Lettere di prigionieri di guerra italiani (1915–1918), trans. Solmi, R. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.Google Scholar
Stephens, K. 2000. A critical discussion of the ‘New Literacy Studies’. British Journal of Educational Studies 48, no. 1:10–23.Google Scholar
Watson, A. and Porter, P. 2010. Bereaved and aggrieved: Combat motivation and the ideology of sacrifice in the First World War. Historical Research 83, no. 219:146–64.Google Scholar
Wilcox, V. 2005. Discipline in the Italian army, 1915–1918. In Warfare and belligerence: Perspectives in First World War studies, ed. Purseigle, P., 73–100. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Winter, J. 1995. Sites of memory, sites of mourning: The Great War in European cultural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Winter, J. and Prost, A. 2005. The Great War in history: Debates and controversies, 1914 to the present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar