Page 311 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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historians, military and civilians, Italians and Foreigners – dealing with Italian propa-
ganda, and particularly with her propaganda for the enemy, shared the opinion of a
great and victorious propaganda battle. A research in the archives, in the military ones
(Historical Office of the General Staff of the Army), in the civilian ones (Central State
Archive, Orlando papers; Central National Library of Florence, Ojetti papers) and in
those related to leading characters of the time (Italian Historical Museum of War, Rover-
eto, Marchetti papers) leads to a bit different image about some characters of this history.
For instance, Ojetti papers underline the huge contrasts existing between Italian and
foreign commissioners. The US representative considered the Commission “dead”, and
the British one was very critical with regard to the Italian behaviour. On their turn, Ital-
ians, beginning from Ojetti, were afraid that the foreign presence aimed to keep Balkan
politics under control, and not to help and advise Rome. They were not completely
wrong. In August Ojetti even asked for the replacement of the British commissioners:
Steed, obviously, opposed to it.
The comparison between the Roman papers of the General Staff and the Rovereto
papers by Marchetti highlights the friction between the High Command and the Army.
The High Command tended not to acknowledge to the Armies the fact that in the first
years of war it were these latter that accumulated experiences, even innovative ones,
whereas Rome produced just a routine bureaucratic propaganda. In 1918, and with the
Inter-allied Commission, the High Command thought to cancel the autonomy of the
Armies, which instead went on.
On the other hand, reading together the papers of the High Command and those
by Ojetti, whose content was only partly anticipated in some edited collections of his
letters, helps to fully understand the actual conflict exploding within the Commission
between military men (Siciliani) and civilians, although uniformed ones (Ojetti). The
conflict obviously had a political valency, namely repeated the contrast between nation-
alist interventionists and democratic interventionists, or at least interventionists inter-
ested to the “policy of nationalities” theme. From the viewpoint of communication and
propaganda this is tantamount to differences between bureaucrats and experts. Ojetti
threatened first to resign in May, just after one month of presence. Then he did it again
in August, while Italian politics fully re-oriented itself towards war aims along the na-
tionalistic programme of a direct presence in the Balkans. As a matter of fact, because of
this contrast he remarkably reduced his activity, just when the final phase of the military
conflict had started.
In conclusion, inter-allied cooperation among different levels of the military institu-
tion and then between military and civilians was highly overrated. Each leading charac-
ter, and each current, had an interest in hiding a part of this conflict. Which was, on the
contrary, rather huge.

Re-evaluating and giving voice to the experience of the propaganda for the enemy
organized by the Inter-allied Commission and by the Italian High Command, giving to it
the relevance it is due in the history of the Great War Propaganda and, more in general,
of the Twentieth century, does not mean to ignore its problems.