Page 310 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

310 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

was a bit slower. To this purpose it was essential the external influence of the allies,
which decidedly contributed to rouse the High Command. While having to accept the
role of Foch, imposed by the Government, the High Command created an “Inter-allied
Propaganda Commission” in its own Press and Propaganda Office in that same April
which saw the meeting of the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities. The Commission,
which was formed by representatives of the allied countries (USA, Great Britain, France
and, obviously, Italy) made use of Balkan and Eastern Europe nationalistic exponents.
Its specific mission was in fact preparing the war propaganda against Austro-Hungarian
soldiers and civilians.
The history we want to tell precisely concerns the last semester of war, from April to
October 1918.

The Inter-allied Propaganda Commission was born as a compromise solution. It was
inter-allied, but solidly included in the Italian High Command. It was a structure to
which some relevance should be given, but it was created within the Propaganda Depart-
ment (col. Siciliani) of the Press and the Propaganda Office (col. Grossi) of the Opera-
tions Department of the High Command. It had no significant personnel and, for spread-
ing its material it had to rely on the structures of the Italian army, the Propaganda Offices
and the ITO Offices of the Armies. It had been created also thanks to the engagement of
a great intellectual, who had been responsible for twenty years of the artistic column of
the main national daily newspaper, the “Corriere della Sera”, and who volunteered for
the war: Ugo Ojetti. He was 47 years old in 1918, and was a nationalist interventionist,
but open to the question of nationalities. Already known by the Government and by the
High Command, which had entrusted him with the supervision on art manufactures and
monuments in the occupied or war-smitten areas, he was a uniformed civilian, very
close to the Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando – in some sense the most civilian
among the military, although maybe not one of the most military among the militarized
civilians. We will later see the relevance of these relationships between civilians and
military.
Under the thrust of the allies, of a major awareness of Italian military higher com-
mandants of the convenience of a propaganda for the enemy and, above all, of Ojetti’s
coordinating help, the Commission carried out a great work. Between April and October
more than 20 millions copies of leaflets were written in several languages and dropped,
by means of special shells or by planes, over the Austro-Hungarian troops. This mas-
sive propaganda answered to an analogous attempt to win the minds and hearts of Italian
soldiers promoted by the Austrian army. Therefore, it often occurred that propaganda
leaflets and journals alternatively dropped over the Italian and the Austrian trenches
responded to each other. It was a propaganda battle of extraordinary dimensions, which
had nothing to envy to the other huge battle fought on the Western front by Anglo-
French and German troops. It is always hard to establish the effect of a propaganda cam-
paign, but it is sure that the Italian one against Austria was relevant in view of Wien’s
final defeat.
Up to now, with regard to these facts, most of the authors – leading characters and