FREE PHOTOS: Cadde per la grande patria
Sicily in the Great War
The island of Sicily might have been forgiven for not feeling very patriotic in 1915. When Italy joined the war, the country had only been unified for fifty years, and Rome was a long, long way away. The island boasted some of the highest desertion and evasion rates for the army.
However, 44,544 Sicilians died as a result of the war. That’s nearly 9% of all Italian deaths, so regardless of how Italian they felt, Sicilians more than played their part. A rural island, there were few who qualified for exemptions when summoned, and the majority were put straight into infantry units, which increased their odds of becoming casualties.
Drive a lap of Sicily and just like at home in the UK, you’ll pass a war memorial in every town and village. I just wanted to introduce you to three Sicilian casualties, found on found on random wanderings through the island’s cemeteries.
The memorial in the town of Noto in the southeast of the island is one of my favourites in Sicily. Around the base are plaques naming famous battles.
The memorial on Sicily’s north coast at Cefalu is really unique. The names are inscribed at random on a collection of rock.
Tenete Giuseppe Grasso, killed 4th August 1916 at Montfalcone. His death occurred on the opening day of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, one of several Italian offensives on this front. There were twelve in all, but this one was actually successful, resulting in the capture of the key town of Gorizia.
Sottotenete Sebastiano Barbagallo Greco - 70th Infantry Regiment
Killed at Monastir, 19th June 1918. The front in Macedonia was a truly multi-national effort, with Allied troops present at some stage from Britain, France, Serbia, Italy, India and others.
Corporal Rosario Raciti Consoli - 97th Infantry Regiment
Killed at Gorizia, 9th November, 1916. This was a couple of days after the conclusion of the Ninth Battle of the Isonzo. The Italians were intending to build on the success of the summer, but on this occasion failed.
There are a few British graves on the island, especially naval. Messina Town Cemetery has a section and was visited by the King and Queen in the 1920s.
Reginald Farmer was the son of British emigrants and born in Sydney. When his father died the family moved back to England, but by 1908 they had relocated back to Australia and Reginald was serving in the Merchant Navy. He joined HMAS Torrens in June 1916 in East Asia and by summer 1917, they had been sent to the Mediterranean for escort duty to help prevent submarine losses in the Strait of Otranto. In September 1918 the ship docked at Messina for a refit. According to the Mosman Library Service:
“On 1st October, while the ship was in dry dock, Reginald contracted what was later diagnosed by Italian doctors as the 'Spanish' influenza. Efforts to treat his symptoms aboard the Torrens were ineffective and his temperature rose to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. On 6th October he was taken ashore to the Military Hospital for treatment. Delirium set in and he died there of pneumonia on 9th October 1918, aged 30.
I love visiting foreign war memorials, too. I've seen many in French villages where the list of fallen are often grouped together, showing sometimes that whole families had been decimated, fathers and sons killed. And the occasional memorial to 'foreign' soldiers, too - I visited an Australian cemetery in a tiny French village once.