Summaries Andrea Frangioni, The Ideological Assumptions behind Italian Neutralisms The essay aims to summarize the positions of the three main political groups supporting Italian neutrality in 1914-1915: liberals, socialists and catholics. The analysis, based on the ideological assumptions of these groups, confirms that it was almost impossible for them to share a common strategy to prevent Italy from entering the First World War. Keywords: Unspoken Assumptions, Great Power, Italia nostra, General Strike, Catholic Movement. Andrea Guiso, Neutral Italy, the Parliament and the Legitimation of the War Italian historians have generally viewed Italy s participation in the Great War as an expression of a radical, absolute war against the parliament, whose narrative would inevitably produce the history of a defeat. Focusing on the role actually played by Parliament while Italy was still neutral and on the institutional and governmental culture of the country s political class, the paper proposes a partial revision of this historical assessment, while also revealing a picture full of contradictory elements: the non uniqueness of events in Italy in defining the relationship between war and representative government; the unresolved tension between absolutist claims and the parliamentarization of the Kingdom s political constitution ; the ambiguous political conduct of the majority and the political and institutional inconsistencies of its leader, Giovanni Giolitti. Keywords: First World War, Parliament, Italy, Neutrality; Legitimization. Elena Papadia, Above the Fray? Intellectuals Neutrality and the Case of Aldo Palazzeschi The essay describes the arguments made by those few Italian intellectuals who sided in favor of neutrality; not only because they did not support Italy s participation in the conflict, but also because they refused to enlist their intelligence in the service of the bourrage des crânes the war had 229
generated. After carefully looking at the Italia nostra, a group caught between Germanophilism and a conscious defense of cultural freedom, the essay outlines the position of Benedetto Croce, the theorist of the limits of patriotic obligation; it then goes on to discuss Aldo Palazzeschi, the only intellectual in the Italian avant-garde (and one of the few in the European avant-garde) who rejected the claims that art and culture should be subject to the demands of total war. Keywords: Aldo Palazzeschi, Benedetto Croce, Futurism, Neutralism, Pacifism. Ross A. Kennedy, Peace Progressives and American Neutralism, 1914-1917 This paper analyzes the values and logic of the most influential critics of us neutrality in 1914-17. These peace progressives viewed official us policy as biased toward the Allies and they opposed us entry into the war in April 1917. They were convinced that however World War i turned out, America s well being was secure. They saw no national security reason for the us to align itself and they feared that taking sides would lead to sharp increases in American military forces and to intervention in the war itself two developments they believed would militarize American society, destroy progressive democratic reforms, and ruin America s ability to mediate an end to the war. They placed great value on American mediation which they saw as the pathway to reforming the international system and ridding it of power politics. Rather than favoring one side or the other in the war, the peace progressives called for a policy of strict neutrality, which to them meant avoiding conflict with either group of belligerents, if necessary by waiving American neutral rights. They also called for America to lead a conference of neutrals in continuous mediation of the war. To them, this course amounted to implementing international reform even while the war was going on. In the long run, although the peace progressives failed to prevent us entry into World War i, their ideas reverberated over the following decades, especially in the movement to outlaw war and in democratic peace theory. Keywords: United States, Neutrality, World War i, Progressives, Mediation. Stefano Luconi, The Italian-American Communities in the United States and the First World War The article examines the reaction of Italian emigrants in the United States to the First World War, placing it within a broader perspective starting from the outbreak of the military conflict while their motherland was still neutral. It argues that enlistment should not be the only parameter to assess Italian Americans support of the war. Although the essay acknowledges 230
instances of draft evasion and dissent, for either personal reasons or ideological motivations, it draws attention to a significant mobilisation in support of Italy s war effort, which also took the form of raising financial contributions and shipping other material aid, besides marking the development of an Italian identity on the part of the emigrants. Keywords: Italian Emigrants, First World War, United States, Mobilization, Ethnic Identity. Alfonso Botti, Church, Catholics and the First World War in Spain: A Survey After a preliminary survey of the scholarship on the Spanish Church s attitude to wwi and Spanish neutrality, the article provides an initial overview of the position of the newspaper El Debate, of the Jesuits periodical (Razón y fe), the Dominicans (La Ciencia tomista), and other Church publications. The resulting picture confirms that Spanish Catholicism was mostly in favour of the Central Powers; the author discusses the motivations for this and sheds light on the persistence of an interpretation that the war was a consequence of secularization. Keywords: Spain, Spanish Church, wwi, Neutrality, Intransigent Scheme. Maximiliano Fuentes Codera, Beyond Aliadófilos and Germanófilos: Europeans and Pacifist Paths During the Great War in Spain In recent decades, several studies which have examined the political and cultural impact of the Great War in Spain have focused on the well known controversies between aliadófilos and germanófilos. Although several works of unquestionable quality have recently been published, they have paid little attention to the Spanish neutralist and pro-european minority groups. This article aims to look at their approaches, their collective efforts and, most importantly, their relationships with international pacifists who were in touch with Romain Rolland throughout the conflict. Keywords: First World War, Spain, Neutrality, Pacifism, Intellectuals. Irene Bevilacqua, A Dutchman in the Pontine Marshes. Nicolaes de Wit and his Land Reclamation and Colonization Plan (1630-1637) Between the 16 th and 17 th centuries, the Papal State sought to drain all the marshes within in the boundaries of its domains (the wetlands of Bologna and Ferrara, the Chiane, the Paludi Pontine), also using foreign skilled workers, not a new solution for the Popes. One little known case was that of Dutch engineer Nicolaes de Wit, promoter of a complex land reclamation and colonization plan for the 231
Pontine Marshes, which even included setting up a shipping company. De Wit brought with him his knowledge of water management, a specific legislation, a skilled workforce and new forms of financing, but he also adopted the organization typical of the Dutch onderneming (in use for years in Dutch reclamations). He also drew up a settlement plan for Dutch Catholic refugees in the reclaimed lands. Keywords: Marshes, Papal State, Migration, Dutch Engineer, Shipping Company. Diego Pizzorno, At the Service of the Este. The Grimaldi Court and the Court of Modena between the 1630s and 1640s Linked to their patrons, the Este family between the 1630s and 1640s the Genoese Grimaldi de Castro engaged in an informal diplomacy on behalf of the Duchy of Modena. Their inclusion in Spanish and Genovese systems of power is an example of an eclectic diplomacy that ranged between formality and informality. For its part, the court of Modena supported the Grimaldis private interests while praticing its diplomacy in Madrid. The story of the relationship between Modena and the Grimaldis intertwines diplomacy and private interests, unfolding in a context that was complicated by international upheavals, and by the resulting changes in the policies of the Duchy of Modena and the Republic of Genoa. Keywords: Genoa, Court of Modena, Italian Diplomacy, Grimaldis, Patronage. Damiano Garofalo, Memory and Shoà in the Postwar Italian Newsreel (1945-1965) This essay focuses on references to the Holocaust in postwar Italian newsreels. After a brief overview of the Italian audiovisual cultural industry, the text examines all the newsreels which were produced in Italy between the end of the wii and when they stopped being shown in 1965. The aim is to study how the memory of the Holocaust was spread, or repressed, by conducting a textual analysis of all the episodes which were the sole source of audio-visual news in postwar Italy, at least until the advent of television in 1954. Keywords: Holocaust Memory, Newsreeels, Post-War Italy, Audiovisual Media. 232