The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

dust settled long ago on the incestuous and sadomasochistic traces in his work, his career in the First World War has gained a power to appal. The whiff of sulphur around his name has transferred from his sex life and steamy novels to his politico-military career. For he emerged in 1915 as the figurehead of the intervention campaign, and went on to become the country’s most publicised and decorated soldier. Daring exploits with aeroplanes and torpedo boats lifted his popularity to new heights; he became a full-blown national hero. The sordid aspects of his past – adulteries, illegitimate children, trails of creditors – were obscured by the blaze of glory conferred by the press, the military and politicians.
    D’Annunzio’s embrace of war in 1915 was predestined. An outspoken patriot all his life, he attacked Austria as an oppressor of subject peoples, but his real commitment was to Italy’s imperial mission in the Adriatic basin and beyond. He loved the idea that Italy should control the entire Dalmatian coast. He complained that Austria was crushing Italy’s ‘left lung’ – its north-eastern territories. Economic or demographic arguments against these maximalist claims could not touch him; for his position rested on faith in ‘Latin genius’ and the superiority of ‘Latin’ civilisation.
    As Italy was duty-bound to assert itself as a great power, it had to build up its armed forces. In his journalism, D’Annunzio had called since the late 1880s for Italy to develop its navy (‘Italy will be a great naval power or it will be nothing’). Favouring war on principle, he was thrilled by the Libyan campaign of 1911, and wrote a series of commemorative poems for Corriere della Sera , swiping at Austria as well as Turkey. One poem, ‘The Song of the Dardanelles’, was censored by the government, on the grounds that its attack on Austria was dangerous to Italy’s strategic interests. (In a typical flourish, he likened the double-headed imperial eagle to ‘the head of a vulture which vomits the undigested flesh of its victims’.) D’Annunzio did not forgive Prime Minister Giolitti for this affront.
    By this point, Corriere was his preferred outlet in Italy. Its editor, Luigi Albertini, became a confidant. He paid off some of his debts, and warned that his creditors would take every penny if he returned. During 1913 and 1914, D’Annunzio wrote desultory pieces for Corriere , trying to fend off his French creditors. He had tired of his current principal mistress, a Russian countess. In short, he was hankering for change when Germany attacked France, a clash that he saw as ‘almost divine’ in scope, a ‘struggle of races, an opposition of irreconcilable powers, a trial of blood’. He wrote to Albertini at the end of August that ‘destiny’ appeared to be shaping events ‘like a sublime tragic poet’. He refused to leave Paris, instead laying in a stock of tinned food, filing articles to Corriere and seeking official permission to visit the front. He hailed the successful French resistance on the Marne as a miracle.
    Italy’s rightful place, in his view, was with the Allies. He told friends that he would end his ‘exile’ when Italy declared war, but his confidence in this longed-for outcome wavered. Then, out of the blue, in March 1915, a letter held out an opportunity to return in proper style, giving the countess and his creditors the slip. He was invited to speak at the unveiling of a monument to Garibaldi and his volunteers, on 5 May, at the spot near Genoa where the heroes had set sail to conquer Sicily in 1860. The King and his ministers were to be present. At the same time he was contacted by Peppino Garibaldi, grandson of the great man. Peppino had led a brigade of Italian volunteers fighting with the French. After heavy losses, the brigade was dis banded on 5 March. D’Annunzio was contacted by French govern ment figures to assist with a propaganda project: the surviving volunteers would