Page 578 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

1218 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

And spreads a little more, even in spirits alien from bellicose attitudes, a different vi-
sion of the war. Neither brute force nor arbitrary act of singles, groups and classes; not
waste of lives and goods but exercise of the highest virtues, hard need for everybody. A
useful proof to help to see the limits and to add value to the best of peoples; a powerful
force that, willy-nilly, pulls into history those who live outside it and make the world’s
spiritual wealth greater. These ideals and visions operated during the Risorgimento and
17
then downed or remained into a misty, purely theoretical, distance .
The Turco-Italian war and the ‘grammar of the bayonet’ 18
A colonial war was the most convenient place to locate this kind of narrative. Since
mid-19th century, a wide body of ‘colonial literature’ has emerged all around Europe,
providing its images and codes. In the following years, the exploration of Eastern Africa
and the penetration from the Assab bay towards Ethiopia nurtured the taste of the emerg-
ing Italian middle class for the ‘exotic’, a taste (and a category) that gained increasing
19
appeal in the aesthetic of the new, influent bourgeoisie . At the end of the century, after
the establishment of the Colonia Eritrea (1890), the experience of Adowa too entered
the mechanism, setting the standards to depict – both visually and verbally – the staunch
resistance of the Italian forces against their overwhelming foes. This official memory
became on the one hand the epitome of the national heroism, on the other that of the sav-
agery and the inherent barbarity of any African enemy . With the Turco-Italian war, the
20
process moved one step further. In the Libyan framework, even the most (apparently)
hopeless bayonet charge was presented as an inebriating feast, with the most violent and
bodily aspects removed or relegated to the background . In the words of an officer of
21
the 11th Bersaglieri at Henni:
At 3.30 I give an order that rouses the Bersaglieri’s spirits: ‘Fix bayonets! Prepare to
charge!’ Almost immediately, a loud resounding shout sweeps over the ground and is
heard a mile away, firing those who hear it as with a great blaze of enthusiasm. On from
our cover to the enemy’s trench we charge, yelling the war-cry ‘Savoia!’ The oasis be-
17 “Nel paese si colorò di nuova e calda luce la figura del soldato […] Quelli che volevano dare al Risorgimento
[…] un compimento nella vita morale […] che sentivano il bisogno di maggiore ordine interno, di gerarchia,
di regola, di disciplina, e ne cercavano un modello […] potevano additare […] l’esercito”. volpe, L’impre-
sa..., cit., pp. 83-84 (Italic in the original).
18 “E si diffuse un po’ più che non fosse, anche in spiriti alieni da atteggiamenti bellicisti, una concezione di
guerra diversa da quella tradizionale: essa, non forza bruta, non arbitrio, di individui e gruppi e classi, non
sperpero di vite e beni, ma esercizio di alte virtù, dura necessità di tutti, utile esame che aiuta a vedere le man-
chevolezze ed a valorizzare il buono dei popoli, forza potente che trae nella storia, volenti o nolenti, quelli che
ne vivono fuori e aumenta la ricchezza spirituale del mondo. Idee e concezioni già operose nel Risorgimento,
ma poi come tramontate o rimaste in una nebbiosa, puramente teorica, lontananza”. Ibidem.
19 The following remarks largely draw from g. pastori, Steel and Blood. The Social Construction of Hedged
Weapons Image in Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth Century, in K. jones - g. macola - d. welch (eds),
A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire, Franham, 2013, pp. 149-62.
20 On the issue, see the three volumes of Orientalismi italiani, ed. by Gabriele Proglio, Alba, 2012-
2013; on the impact of Ethiopia in the development of the Italian orientalism, see m. demichelis,
L’etiopistica italiana fra afro-orientalismo e colonialismo, ivi, vol. I, Alba, 2012, pp. 90-107. On
orientalism, the main reference is, quite obviously, E.W. said, Orientalism, New York, 1978.
21 See, for example, Sul campo di Adua. Diario di Eduardo Ximens. Marzo-Giugno 1896, Milan, 1897