A new military history of the Italian Risorgimento and Anti-Risorgimento: the case of ‘transnational soldiers’

The article discusses new studies of foreign soldiers in the Italian armed groups of the (Anti-)Risorgimento against the background of recent scholarship on ‘transnational soldiers’, which acknowledges the complexities of foreigners' initial motives for enlistment and of the transnational processes inside the single armies. The article suggests that from the mundane structures of military life to the perceptions of the rank-and-file, many aspects of the soldiering experience in the multinational armed groups on all sides of the Risorgimento actually advanced rather than obviated national boundaries. This paper further demonstrates that the military cultures of the nationalists and the anti-unity forces were much more porous and mutually constitutive than is often recognised. The histories of the ‘transnational soldiers’ in the armed groups of the Risorgimento and Anti-Risorgimento are crucial for a possibly new, comparative history of the armed groups of the (Anti-)Risorigmento. This paper explores approaches of the culturally revived ‘new military history’ and suggests that it provides much still unrealised potential for Risorgimento historiography.     

Italian regionalism or ‘Padanian’ nationalism — the political project of the Lega Nord in Italian politics

The resurgence of regionalist political parties has had a considerable, though variable, impact on contemporary European politics in recent decades and there are numerous examples of such parties across Europe. In Italy, there are several regionalist parties, however, it is the emergence in the last 15 years or so, of the Northern League (Lega Nord) (LN) political party, in the North of Italy, which has given a new impetus to debates about the significance of regionalism in Italy as well as across Europe. This paper discusses the different approaches to defining regionalism as well as the common features and driving forces of contemporary political regionalist projects. It then focuses upon the political discourses of the LN in order to discuss the ways in which the party resembles other regionalist projects, while having certain key, distinct and rather unique differences. This is because the LN's political project is not based in an area that has historic claims to nationhood. Instead, the LN has attempted to invent an ethnicity for the North of Italy (or ‘Padania’) in order to justify its political claims for the protection of the economic interests of the region. ‘Padania’ (which is the Latin term which refers to the basin of the River Po), has never ‘existed’ as an administrative or political unit but the LN has attempted to construct (and invent) a geography and a history in order to justify its territorial and political claims.     

All the way? The evolution of German military power

German strategic decision‐makers have to reconsider their approach to the use of force. In Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr is faced with the challenge of a growing insurgency. This situation requires a willingness to provide combat forces for the NATO‐led International Security Assistance Force. Hence, the conviction in German domestic politics that the Bundeswehr should only be employed for the purposes of stabilization and reconstruction is increasingly challenged by a changing operational reality in Afghanistan, and allies’ reluctance to continue to accept German policy. In essence, the issue is about German participation in counterinsurgency operations. To continue current policy undermines Germany's military credibility among allied partners and restrains Germany's ability to utilize fully military power as an instrument of policy. This article argues that while military force in recent years has become an integral part of German foreign policy to pursue national interests, political decision‐makers in Berlin and the broader German public will still have to come to terms with the reality of a new security environment in Afghanistan. For the German government the ‘small war’ in northern Afghanistan is a very politically exhausting undertaking. Both politically and militarily Germany seems ill‐prepared to sustain such an operation. Its political and strategic culture still promotes an aversion to involvement in war‐fighting. In addition, the government and the Bundeswehr lack vital strategy‐making capabilities. Still, there are indicators that the changing operational reality in Afghanistan might lead to a significant evolution of the German approach to the use of force.     

11 September 2001: the Italian writers’ response

One month after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the Corriere della Sera published an article on the possible future consequences for literature of this horrific event. Some novelists boldly declared their work would not be affected at all, while others observed that their literary visions and perspectives were already responses to life's tragic aspects. Several writers confessed to wondering, at least initially, whether literature henceforth could continue to have any real sense. A decade later, this essay examines the nature of the Italian response. It looks first at the views of those writers who expressed opinions directly to the press or in essay form, and then at a small number of novels (by Tullio Avoledo, Marisa Bulgheroni and Tiziana Rinaldi Castro) and short stories (by Andrea Piva, Andrej Longo and Andrea Canobbio) which have embraced the theme, and which have done so in ways that reinforce the sense of an underlying political and/or cultural aesthetic. Connections between twenty-first-century reactions to 9/11 and the Italian experience or memory of political terrorism and war will be explored, as well as the question of inspiration for novelists, in the particular context of catastrophe or trauma.     

Colonial knowledge and the military in India, 1780–1860

Military officers and surgeons played a critical role in the collection, analysis and dissemination of knowledge in colonial India. Yet the little attention to date that has been directed at scholars with military backgrounds has treated their army service as incidental to, rather than formative of, their contributions to knowledge of India. While not all were actively engaged in intellectual pursuits, a surprisingly large number of orientalists came from the army. In some cases, this can be attributed to the military's need for specific information. But such strictly utilitarian motives were not always at work; boredom, curiosity and professional aspirations encouraged officers and surgeons to take up scientific, literary and artistic activities. Military service also offered opportunities for travel, as well as technical training, which furthered such pursuits. Consequently, much of the colonial knowledge that was generated in the first century of colonial rule was tinged with military values and it was sometimes framed in language redolent of the army. This would in turn help to popularise certain readings of Indian society, particularly those which stressed the medieval and fragmented nature of Indian society. The boundaries between fact and fiction became blurred as romanticism came to influence British aesthetic, historical and scientific encounters with India.     

‘Defending the race’: the Italian reinvention of the Hottentot Venus during Fascism

Abstract In 1938 the regime's popular periodical La Difesa della Razza published the portrait of Saartjie Baartman (a Khoisan woman known to the western world as ‘The Hottentot Venus’) to discourage miscegenation in the empire of Italian East Africa. But by 1938, Italian public and scientific interest in the Hottentot Venus had long faded away. In addition, readily available photographs of Italo-Eritreans could have been used to show the ‘outcome’ of miscegenation. Why then did the regime's organ publish a portrait of ‘The Hottentot Venus’? This article addresses this question, and explores how Baartman's story could serve the regime's aim of forging a new ‘racial consciousness’ among Italians. By focusing on the transformation of scientific discourses from the 1850s to the late 1930s, and on their silences, the article illuminates the process through which some of the regime's anthropologists constructed a new, ‘made in Italy’ story for the Hottentot Venus. Deliberately leaving out all the main issues long debated during the previous century, they turned this figure into an empty icon to support Fascist colonial obsession with the purity and prestige of the Italian race.     

German volunteers in the armed conflicts of the Italian Risorgimento 1834–70

Abstract

Between 1834 and 1870, Germans participated in the armed conflicts of the Italian Risorgimento in the ranks of both Mazzini and Garibaldi and of the Pope and Francis II of Naples. While acknowledging the difficulty in analysing the motives of historical actors, the essay compares the reasons that led these Germans to volunteer and fight. For those who fought for the cause of Italian unity, the networks created in exile in the 1830s remained decisive down to 1870, whereas the mobilization of volunteers in Germany for the Papal states reached its height only later between 1867 and 1870. Despite these chronological differences, the methods used in terms of the media and forms of organization to mobilize the volunteers and to legitimize war were very similar across the political spectrum. The foreign volunteers were described by their own side as brothers, but as mere mercenaries by the respective enemy side. At the same time, Germans and Italians brought their national stereotypes to the various armed groups and armies in which they served and in ways that made the latter important places for the staging of national ‘re-virilization’ achieved through heroic fighting.     

Drawing (on) women’s military experiences and narratives – Israeli women soldiers’ challenges in the military environment

This article utilizes arts-based methods as a feminist methodology for understanding women’s experiences in military service, according to theories of feminist security studies. It explores how non-combatant women in the army retrospectively narrate stressful situations that happened during their military service. Using arts-based methods, we examine how they derive meaning from their experiences in a masculine, military environment, affected by ongoing conflict. This article analyzes twenty images drawn by Israeli women who served in the army in the previous 2–4 years. The women drew a stressful event from their military service, explained the image, and elaborated on how they coped with the situation. A content analysis of the pictures and the narratives produced three themes: the responsibility for others in life threatening situations, the military as a first professional work experience and the interaction between military and gender hierarchies. In general, women soldiers experienced the army as complex as they encountered their first adult work space in which they learned responsibility and skills of the ‘adults’ world’. However, they were also exposed to a rigid hierarchy and to stressful security situations typical of army contexts. While non-combat women soldiers were allegedly protected from the violence of the army, they are also indirectly exposed to the danger inherent in an army context. This analysis goes beyond the hero narrative, and moves into taboo territories of young women’s narratives and experiences in the military.     

The Nigerian Civil War and the ‘Italian’ Oil Workers

The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970, had significant international dimensions. On 7 May 1969, eleven employees of the Italian-run AGIP oil company were killed at Kwale while eighteen others were held prisoner by Biafran soldiers. The death penalty given to the surviving oil workers by the Biafran government had a damaging effect on Biafra’s international image and temporarily weakened European sympathy for Biafra. Unofficial sources later accused Biafrans of collecting a ransom in exchange for the release of the oil workers. Using previously underutilised archival materials in Britain, Canada and the USA, this paper argues that Biafra rather attempted to use the foreign workers to secure de facto recognition, a move that ended in a fiasco.     

To the barracks: the President,the military and democratic consolidation in Portugal (1976–1980)

After two turbulent years in which different pathways for the future of the political and institutional framework of Portugal clashed, the country began a process of consolidation of the democratic institutions delineated between 1975/6. However, the role played by the military in the fall of the previous dictatorial regime and the fragility of the new democratic institutions did not allow their immediate withdrawal from political life. The President of the Republic was a military man and the political parties had agreed to maintain an unelected sovereign body, the Council of the Revolution, which only dissolved in 1982. Based on primary sources that only recently became available, this article presents some elements that help to understand the success of democratic consolidation in Portugal. This long process should not be interpreted as a confrontation between civilians, desirous to put an end to military tutelage, and the military, who at all costs sought to keep their privileges. The dividing line should be placed between those who defended the maintenance of the status quo, and the supporters of military subordination to the civil power.     

Abolish the army? The ideal of democracy and the transformation of the Czechoslovak military after 1918 and 1989

This article deals with the relationship between the democratic transformations in Czechoslovakia after 1918 and 1989 and the armed forces. The democratic ideal of transformation seemed to be alien to the military institution, which upheld the old regime and paradigmatically represented undemocratic patterns of governance. In order to accommodate the popular demand to ‘abolish’ the army, the new political elite strived to initiate an institutional transformation that would re-legitimize the armed forces. Whereas after 1918 the military improved its reputation by changing into a ‘school of nation’, after 1989 the military, expected to become fully professional, went through a period in which its inner organisational culture was liberalized and personal freedoms of the soldiers were strengthened. The decline of previous authorities and the rise of civic self-confidence connected to the process of democratisation also led to the demoralisation of the soldiers. The liminal phase of military transformation was marked by the experience of the first ‘post-war war’, the Czechoslovak-Hungarian War in 1919 and the Gulf War in 1991, which indicated the needs of the new security environment and gave the idealistic thinking about the democratic military a touch of reality.     

Re-examining the Australian public's attitude to military casualties: post-heroic or defeat-phobic?

Australia, like most other developed democracies, is often alleged to suffer from ‘casualty phobia’. The perception that the Australian public will not tolerate casualties in foreign conflicts has shaped the decisions of both civilian and military policy makers. Measures taken to protect Australian forces from casualties may, for instance, also serve to increase the risk to civilians in the country to which they are deployed. The USA underwent a similar debate some years ago. Innovative public opinion research techniques—especially ‘survey experiments’ which allow researchers to establish causal relationships by consciously manipulating one variable while holding others constant—have established that the American public are not reflexively casualty-phobic and that the impact of casualties on public opinion can be outweighed by other factors, such as the public's confidence in the mission's overall success. In this article, the author replicates one of the key survey experiments from the US debate, suitably adapted to Australian conditions, with a nationally representative sample of Australian voters. The author finds that the same pattern holds in Australia as in the USA: casualties do lower public support for a given mission, but the mission's chances of success matter more.     

The Preacher’s Agenda: A Dominican versus the Italian Renaissance

Abstract

This article reviews the cultural agenda of the celebrated Dominican preacher Giovanni Dominici (1356–1419) in fifteenth-century Florence. Central issues discussed include Dominici’s educational programme, his cultural propaganda, his interest in the visual arts and his opposition to the study of the classics, as expressed in his public popular preaching. The close examination of his cultural agenda discloses Dominici as the most extreme opponent of humanist studies.     

Ideology,clientelism and the ‘fascistization’ of the Italian state: fascists in the Interior Ministry police

Abstract

This is a study of fascist police personnel under Mussolini's dictatorship. Based on an examination of the personal files of the Interior Ministry police, the article questions how far the recruitment and/or promotion during the mid-to-late 1920s of fascist police officers and officials, several of whom had been involved in the black-shirt movement before the March on Rome, represented an effective ‘fascistization’ strategy. If their presence led to a ‘fascistization’ of the police of sorts, they generally distinguished themselves neither as ‘good’ policemen nor as ‘good’ fascists. The professional attitudes and ideological outlooks of fascist policemen should be considered in the broader context of clientelism and factionalism which characterized public life in Italy and which played a key role in career advancement in the state.     

Mediating culture in the Italian literary field 1940s–50s

This introduction lays out the scholarly and methodological context in which to situate the contributions to this special issue. By combining a rigorous scrutiny of hitherto untapped archival sources with a re-examined application of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture within the field of periodical studies and publishing history in Italy (1940s–50s), the studies illuminate the complex ways in which journals, periodical editors and the connected publishing houses negotiate cultural practice in a literary field increasingly dominated by the polarization of political discourse.