IL RISORGIMENTO

Hey, happy November 4^th!  Today is the 100th anniversary of National Unity and Armed Forces Day in Italy, and uniforms and hardware were on full display at Teatro Massimo (below) in Palermo—a curiously operatic setting for the Italian military.

Carabinieri Crowd-Control Vehicle

Army Humvee-type Vehicle

Unexploded Ordinance and Bomb Locator

Carabinieri Band Members

 According to Wiki:

National Unity and Armed Forces Day has been an Italian national holiday since 1919 and commemorates victory in World War I, a war event considered the completion of the unification of Italy. It's celebrated every 4 November, which is the anniversary of the armistice of Villa Giusti becoming effective in 1918 declaring Austria-Hungary’s surrender.

Gray-green Army Uniform, 1915

Under the terms of the armistice, Austria-Hungary's forces were required to evacuate not only all territory occupied since August 1914 but also South Tirol, Gorizia, Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia. All German forces should be expelled from Austria-Hungary within 15 days or interned, ... They were also obliged to allow the transit of the Entente armies [France, Great Britain, and Russia], to reach Germany from the South. Beginning in November 1918, the Italian Army with 20,000-22,000 soldiers occupied Innsbruck and all North Tirol.

Army Canteen, Mess Kit, Brass Telescope

After the war, the Kingdom of Italy annexed the Southern Tyrol (now Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol), as well as Trieste [, Istria and Gorizia].   

In 2018, the German Historical Museum held a centenary WWI exhibition, which featured the Italian alpine campaign.  You can read about the  campaign here:  Smithsonian.  I remember seeing photographs of Italian alpini crossing the rugged, practically vertical Dolomite Mountains in deep snow and icy conditions.   

These are the mountains that define the Südtirol, separating today’s Italy from Austria.   

It was nearly the end of the war, and the soldiers wore uniforms that had once been rather snappy, but by that late date had seen better days.  That November 1918 and continuing through the winter, they dragged themselves over the mountains dressed in ragged woolen coats, their boots either destroyed or replaced with strips of army-issue blankets, the holes in their worn knitted gloves exposing their fingers to frostbite.

It looked extremely brutal, even hopeless.  

But somehow these soldiers managed to outlast their Austro-Hungarian counterparts (below)

and went on to victory and a completion of the Risorgimento (resurgence) that had begun in 1815, continued through several civil wars, and was brought to incomplete fruition in 1860 by Garibaldi and his Spedizione dei Mille, the expedition of the one thousand that set out from Sicily and drove up the Italian peninsula to Campania near Naples, where he was welcomed by King Vittorio Emanuele II.

Soldiers Watching Women Kick-boxers

Underwater Unit

Tax Police Dog (This Cutie Can Smell Drugs and Illegal Cash in Excess of €10,000)

Wiki describes the Risorgimento as:

…the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. The process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and was completed in 1871 when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

Royal Carabinieri Palermo Print

The term, which also designates the cultural, political and social movement that promoted unification, recalls the romantic, nationalist, and patriotic ideals of an Italian renaissance through the conquest of a unified political identity that, by sinking its ancient roots during the Roman period, "suffered an abrupt halt [or loss] of its political unity in 476 AD after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire". However, some of the terre irredente did not join the Kingdom of Italy until 1918 after Italy defeated Austria-Hungary in World War I. For this reason, sometimes the period is extended to include the late 19th-century and the First World War (1915–1918), until the 4 November 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti, which is considered the completion of unification.

Air Force Recruiting

Anti-Sabotage Equipment

Army Equestrians

Be All That You Can Be!

Newfoundland and Labrador Rescue Dogs  with Trainers

Almost every Italian town I’ve ever visited has a street named IV novembre.  Now I know why.  Happy National Unity Day!  It’s unfortunate (but all too familiar) that Italian soldiers had to kill and be killed to get there.

Keep it real!

Marilyn

P.S.  The title photo of WWI and WWII memorabilia is a window display at the best menswear shop in Palermo, Dell’Oglio.