- 22 ore fa
Alla fine del 1917 Armando Diaz, succeduto a Cadorna, inaugura il cosiddetto Servizio P: un'organizzazione costituita per la vigilanza, l'assistenza e la propaganda all'interno del Regio Esercito, voluta all'inizio del 1918 su disposizione del comando supremo militare italiano. Si era resa più che mai urgente l’esigenza di una capillare e persuasiva opera di propaganda atta a motivare i soldati dopo il terribile disastro di Caporetto.
Se la Prima guerra mondiale costituisce per molti aspetti un vero spartiacque della modernità, per quanto riguarda la comunicazione essa rappresenta una vera e propria rivoluzione mediatica, resa possibile da un lato dai nuovi mezzi tecnologici e dall’altro dal definitivo affermarsi della società di massa: una vera e propria arma che si intensifica e si trasforma nel corso nel conflitto.
Se la Prima guerra mondiale costituisce per molti aspetti un vero spartiacque della modernità, per quanto riguarda la comunicazione essa rappresenta una vera e propria rivoluzione mediatica, resa possibile da un lato dai nuovi mezzi tecnologici e dall’altro dal definitivo affermarsi della società di massa: una vera e propria arma che si intensifica e si trasforma nel corso nel conflitto.
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ApprendimentoTrascrizione
00:00We are also far away, we have to oblige.
00:06The gigantic battle, engaged in pieces.
00:10The death of the dead, and the will of wines.
00:13To undermine, to who knows, to overstep the bounds of a madman.
00:18The color of the dead, we refuse the new ones.
00:21The road, the world does not happen, it does not go.
00:25Until war and death, and victory have been invaded.
01:06Everyone do your duty.
01:09It is the best-known Italian graphic icon of the Great War.
01:12It is 1917, the year of the Caporetto defeat.
01:24Achille Mozan, the author of the poster, draws a soldier with a stern look,
01:28who, having emerged from the trench, points his finger at the passerby.
01:32He invites him to subscribe to the war loan,
01:35a fundraiser to finance war expenses.
01:38That simple gesture is reproduced and posted on walls throughout Italy,
01:42in theaters, in train stations, along the streets,
01:46even in a giant format of 30 square meters.
01:49The model is that of the poster designed by Alfred Litte in 1914.
01:56At that time England could only count on a volunteer army.
02:01and Lord Kirchner, Secretary of State for War,
02:04calls His Majesty's subjects to arms, ordering them
02:07Your country needs you.
02:11And again in 1917 the same gesture was used by James Montgomery Flagg
02:16in one of the most famous posters in history,
02:19which will be printed in over 4 million copies.
02:22Uncle Sam, the national symbol of the United States,
02:25who points his index finger at the viewer while reciting the phrase
02:29I want you for the US Army.
02:34The one fought between 1914 and 1918
02:38it's also a war of words.
02:41Words that serve above all to incite, support, resist,
02:45or to reply, to deny, to confront internal and external enemies from a distance.
02:56A psychological war, made of invectives, threats, insinuations, slander.
03:02Words used as weapons.
03:04The First World War is a fundamental stage in the organization
03:08and in the use of propaganda as an integral part of the war effort.
03:12A means to control consensus among one's ranks
03:15and weaken the enemy's internal front.
03:19A weapon capable of influencing public opinion and guiding its behavior.
03:24The most original instrument, perhaps the most human,
03:27in a merciless, hellish, inhuman war.
03:33We must fight the enemy with words too.
03:36Seek every political and patriotic justification in war.
03:40To do this, you need to find the most suitable topics,
03:43the clearest language.
03:45On the one hand, the most common stereotypes are used,
03:49you look for the opponent's weak points.
03:51On the other hand, attempts are being made to instill courage and revive internal forces.
03:56Because in the end it would prevail between the belligerents
03:59not only those who had managed to prevent
04:01the influx of material resources to the enemy,
04:03but also those who knew how to encourage their soldiers
04:06and the civilian population to fight and sacrifice.
04:17To achieve this goal, all the tools are used
04:21that technology makes available.
04:24Photography, cinema, oratory techniques, newspapers.
04:27And then posters, postcards, flyers, satirical drawings, brochures.
04:33Texts disseminated and circulated in the trenches,
04:36among civilians, dropped from planes, fired with grenades without explosives.
04:46No one can consider himself a stranger to the common effort,
04:49not even those who are far from the front.
04:51Everyone must be immobilized, regardless of their social class.
04:59In Italy, the battle of wall posters began during the period of neutrality
05:04and intensifies in the early months of 1915.
05:07The main problem is to mobilize a public opinion that is resistant to war.
05:12And the task of motivating the peasant population is particularly difficult.
05:17completely alien to patriotic themes.
05:24They are mainly nationalistic associations
05:26who seek to influence the masses through rallies and conferences.
05:30This is still an improvised and spontaneous propaganda
05:34which places the emphasis mainly on the myth of the unredeemed lands
05:37and on the glories of the Risorgimento.
05:41And so, in the iconography of 1915,
05:44the conflict is seen as a fourth war of independence,
05:48the only way to complete the unification process
05:51and free the national territory from foreigners.
05:57The reference to the protagonists of the Risorgimento is frequent.
06:01In this poster, in a sort of small pantheon, are depicted:
06:06the most remote fathers of the country,
06:08Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II
06:11and more recently, Guglielmo Oberdan and Vittorio Emanuele III.
06:20After a few months of bloody fighting, the page is turned.
06:25Sad, dark, painful representations appear,
06:28disconsolate mothers and widows, weeping orphans, wounded fighters.
06:35The enemies are increasingly threatening
06:37and are depicted with caricatural features,
06:41deformed and grotesque of brutal, bestial, cruel beings.
06:45Images that are meant to provoke feelings of repulsion.
06:49Austrians and Germans then become godless barbarians,
06:53bloodthirsty demons, dehumanized figures.
06:56Symbols, uniforms and sovereigns are depicted negatively.
07:04The main opponent is the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph,
07:09one of the favorite targets of propaganda.
07:11It will be depicted in increasingly bloodthirsty guise.
07:15Here he is pierced in the throat by a bayonet.
07:19And here is Cecco Beppe's funeral transport.
07:23Fierce satirical press published in 1915,
07:26when the emperor is still alive.
07:29He died on November 21, 1916.
07:34On the other side of the front,
07:36Austrian propaganda mainly focuses on the theme of betrayal.
07:40The Triple Alliance Treaty that linked Italy, Austria and Germany,
07:45since 1882,
07:46It was denounced by the Italian Parliament only on 20 May 1915.
07:51And so the bersagliere, symbol of the Italian army,
07:55he is depicted in the guise of Judas.
08:01In the world war, however, you are not alone in fighting the enemy.
08:05Propaganda postcards let it be known that the Allies,
08:08near or far,
08:09they are powerful, brave, heroic.
08:12And they fight side by side with the Italian soldiers.
08:15Thanks to clever techniques such as the use of colours, flags and positive depictions,
08:21reassuring feelings are instilled among the population.
08:24From April 6, 1917,
08:26The United States is the new ally.
08:36But the mobilization is not only psychological,
08:40it is also material.
08:41To win the war you have to find the resources.
08:44between 1914 and 1918,
08:48the Italian state resorts to six national loans.
08:51The first was approved in December 1914,
08:55when Italy had not yet entered the conflict.
08:58The last one will be used for reconstruction.
09:01Loans could be subscribed
09:04at various credit institutions
09:06and gave the right to interest
09:08which varied from 4.5 to 5%.
09:16The message is imperative.
09:19You must sign to support the soldiers at the front,
09:22to drive out the invading vandal,
09:24to achieve victory quickly.
09:26For this incessant propaganda campaign
09:29the most famous illustrators and advertisers of that period were mobilized.
09:33Among these Giuseppe Russo, who with the pseudonym of Girus
09:36He gained great popularity by drawing a cannon
09:39which turns gold coins into lead.
09:45Artists don't just use pencil and brush.
09:49Many of them fight at the front,
09:51they live the experience of the trenches,
09:53some lose their lives there.
09:55Aldo Mazza, volunteer party,
09:57he will be decorated with the war cross.
10:00His manifesto,
10:01don't let me run out of ammunition,
10:04he was unlucky.
10:05The soldier's unwarlike motto,
10:07his frightened expression and the gesture with which he seems to beg for help
10:12These are all elements that discouraged its use.
10:17Started with Tony di Messi,
10:19This propaganda campaign developed during the conflict
10:22at an ever-increasing rate.
10:25In 1916, for the third national loan,
10:28the iconographic subject of the winged victory is used for the first time
10:32holding a sword and a golden branch.
10:35"He who does not give his arm to his country must give his mind,
10:39the goods, the heart, the renunciations, the sacrifices",
10:42the Prime Minister had solemnly affirmed,
10:45Antonio Salandra,
10:46in a famous speech held in the Capitol on June 2, 1915.
10:51It is the same sentence that appears at the bottom of this poster,
10:55in which an Alpine soldier writes a letter home
10:57recommending that the loan documents be signed.
11:04Italians respond generously.
11:08The mobilization of public opinion
11:10will in fact bring in revenue to the state coffers
11:12more than 14 billion lire in currency of the time,
11:15a significant figure considering the difficult economic conditions of the war period.
11:23In a world still without radio and television,
11:26the manifesto proves to be the most powerful means of reaching the masses
11:30and to convince them through words and images.
11:33It possesses considerable power of persuasion.
11:37It must attract the reader's gaze from afar.
11:40An Alpine soldier hits a large hand with an axe as it tries to cross the Piave,
11:44the river along whose banks the Italian army retreated after the Austro-German breakthrough in the autumn of 1917
11:51at Caporetto.
11:57With his manifesto, Achille Maussin expresses the absolute necessity of resisting the Austrian offensive.
12:05For Italy, this is indeed a dramatic moment and propaganda efforts are intensifying.
12:11There is now talk of a defensive war, an attempt to unite the country around its army.
12:17Even the posters express anguish and dismay.
12:21This soldier, reduced almost to despair, is the symbol of it.
12:29It is an anguish also represented graphically through signs and colors full of terror.
12:35We must resist and repel the invader at any cost and sacrifice.
12:40The linguistic style is concise, imperative and therefore more effective.
12:50The Italians strengthen their defenses, reorganize their units, and motivate their soldiers.
12:55These are months of uncertainty about the outcome of the war.
12:58Until victory, when the Eighth Army celebrates the breakthrough and occupation of Vittorio Veneto
13:04October 30, 1918, the last and decisive battle.
13:12Italy is an exhausted, worn-out nation that needs to be rebuilt.
13:17The chimneys of the construction sites are smoking again
13:20and an industrial landscape replaces the spectral one of the battlefields.
13:30On May 23, 1915, Giuseppe Avarna, ambassador of Italy to Vienna,
13:35delivers the declaration of war to the Austrian Foreign Minister, Stefan Burjan.
13:41At dawn on the 24th, hostilities between the two former allies began.
13:46Trains loaded with soldiers leave for the front.
13:49A woman is also travelling in one of these.
13:52Her name is Luigia Ciappi, a twenty-year-old elementary school teacher originally from Rosarno, Calabria.
13:58Luigia wants to fight on the front lines, so she disguised herself as a man and is ready for anything.
14:03But during the journey his disguise is discovered by his comrades,
14:07who hand her over to the Carabinieri at the Bologna station.
14:10With arms and baggage she is forced to follow two officers to the police station,
14:14where in the end, despite himself, he confesses his identity.
14:18She says that she was gripped by a strong patriotic spirit
14:21she had managed to infiltrate a Florentine barracks,
14:24mingling with the crowd of those called up.
14:26There she even managed to get her uniform and weapons delivered.
14:31And after a few days of training she was sent to the front.
14:35Luigia is sent home and becomes the symbol of women's warrior virtues.
14:39The story is reported by the main newspapers.
14:43In 1916 his figure inspired the writer Carolina Invernizio
14:48the novel The Bersagliere's Girlfriend.
14:50The chronicles of the time also mention the so-called visiting ladies,
14:55volunteers of bourgeois and aristocratic extraction,
14:58who work for the various assistance offices and donation offices.
15:01They have the task of providing support and comfort to the families of those mobilized
15:06and also to the soldiers themselves when they are on leave in the rear or in hospitals.
15:11With great energy the propaganda women organize balls, lotteries,
15:16charity raffles, used clothing drives and they sell a patriotic kiss for as much as 100 lire.
15:27Winning the war requires the heroism of the soldiers and the full support of those back home.
15:32It is the logic of mass mobilization.
15:35Every sector of society must make its contribution to maintaining the home front.
15:42In Italy, with over 5 million men called to arms,
15:47women represent the clear majority of civilians.
15:50They must therefore take responsibility for the families
15:53and perform traditionally male jobs.
15:56They are thus used in munitions factories, in textile industries, in offices.
16:02Daily and weekly newspapers compete in publishing photographs of women portrayed
16:06while they work as street cleaners, postmen, saleswomen, and tram drivers.
16:11Already during the period of neutrality, it is due to the initiative of exponents of women's associations
16:16and the founding of the first war preparation committees.
16:20Then, at the outbreak of the conflict, hundreds of assistance committees were born,
16:25associations and organizations throughout the country with the aim of providing material and moral comfort to the fighters.
16:32Thousands of volunteers are actively participating in organizing the civil mobilization.
16:37It's not just about the charitable gestures of some noble woman or rich lady.
16:43Thousands of ordinary women are involved,
16:47mostly coming from the middle classes,
16:49who before the war generally lived far from public life.
16:53Propaganda emphasizes their participation.
17:01The priority is no longer to support the war with words,
17:06but to help with works those who fight for their country.
17:10Through news offices, women play an important role.
17:14They must facilitate and above all solicit communications relating to the soldiers at the front
17:20between the Ministry of War and the families.
17:23The first of these offices was founded in June 1915 by a group of noble women from Bologna.
17:29It is an army of volunteers, ladies, young ladies, teachers and nuns,
17:34but also priests, students and professors.
17:37Everyone busy sorting the mail,
17:40in filing news and managing direct relationships with families.
17:46Women's experience and ability in managing household finances also
17:51can contribute to the homeland's war effort.
17:54In January 1918, the National Women's League for the Limitation of Consumption was established in Rome.
18:02Among his tasks is the dissemination to families of a card with advice on cooking low-fat foods.
18:08cost
18:08and practical demonstrations of the goodness of these recipes.
18:12The members of the association organize the distribution of a huge quantity of hot soup in the working-class neighborhoods of the city.
18:22But heat is also needed to warm food in the difficult climatic conditions and amidst the discomforts of the trenches.
18:29This is why the Scaldarancio was invented,
18:32a kind of torch made with a roll of paper soaked in grease and wax or paraffin
18:37which, when ignited, manages to heat up the food in the mess tins.
18:42The Opera Nazionale Scaldarancio, the most important and widespread women's assistance association, is founded.
18:49In a short time this simple and effective tool becomes part of the army's equipment.
19:02The army also needs heavy clothing for soldiers at the front.
19:06An invisible enemy threatens our brothers in the Snowy Alps.
19:10This hidden and terrible enemy is the cold.
19:14Against it, the courage of soldiers is of no avail, but your love is of great value.
19:19The warmth of the wool is your warmth as mothers to the soldiers.
19:28Thus the mayor of Bari, president of the civic assistance committee, invites women to give wool to the country.
19:38One of the most active associations is the soldier's outfit.
19:44It is necessary to organize the distribution of knitting and sewing work, follow its processing, and take care of the packaging of the clothing packages
19:51to be sent to the front.
19:54In those years of restrictions, that inventiveness and that ability to save and recycle, which have always been considered typical virtues, emerged.
20:02feminine.
20:03To make coats, pieces of fur taken from used clothes are used.
20:08By collecting peach and apricot stones, a material useful for various pharmacological uses is obtained.
20:15In January 1916 a group of Milanese women designed a garment to keep away lice that tormented infantrymen in
20:23trench.
20:24They use anti-parasitic substances usually found in household closets, naphthalene and camphor.
20:30This is how the anti-parasitic kit was born, a woolen garment from which bags of pesticides are hung with a system of crossed straps.
20:38tissue containing the mixture.
20:41By leaking out of the pockets, the antiparasitic substance acts without coming into direct contact with the skin.
20:48Military commands include anti-parasite kits among the items to be manufactured for the army.
20:54And the soldiers, regardless of its effectiveness, appreciate and thank it.
21:03The conflict creates a social problem of enormous proportions: childcare.
21:09Many children are in dramatic conditions, having lost both parents, their fathers in the trenches and their mothers for
21:16poverty and illness.
21:18Efforts are being made to provide basic needs such as food and medical care.
21:23But the available facilities are few, the assistance services are insufficient and poorly organized.
21:29There is a need for the availability of economic resources that only the contribution of private charity can ensure.
21:37This is the main area of female intervention.
21:40In all the civil welfare committees, it is women who take care of it.
21:44There are no longer needy children, but the children of soldiers.
21:49Civil society has the task of making up for the absence of fathers.
21:53This is a moral duty.
21:59There is the war narrated by skilled illustrators and there is the patriotic participation of women.
22:05But the seventh art can also play an important mobilizing role.
22:09In 1914, few people were still aware of how much the new means of communication
22:16can be an effective propaganda tool.
22:19European armies do not have a cinematographic service
22:23and high commands deny civilian cameramen access to war zones.
22:28They fear that films shot on the front line could provide information to the enemy.
22:33or produce a depressing effect on the morale of the population.
22:38However, cinema always remains an extraordinary propaganda tool.
22:42to involve civilians in the war effort.
22:45The cinematic spectacle in fact guarantees a notable public appeal.
22:50An excellent opportunity for various kinds of solidarity initiatives.
22:54And so the State produces, or commissions private companies, short films to advertise the war loan.
23:01or encourage certain behaviors among civilians.
23:05Save raw materials, don't spread military news, raise funds.
23:11Befana di guerra, for example, was distributed in Italy in 1915.
23:16It is a 7-minute short film very similar to those made in France or Great Britain.
23:22It is a short moral tale where the characters interact with allegorical figures.
23:27In Befana di guerra we find victory, in the English films Britannia, in the American ones Uncle Sam.
23:33The message is simple.
23:35Everyone must make a contribution to their country, according to their possibilities.
23:45During the Great War, a considerable number of films relating to the events of the conflict were produced.
23:52But, according to the most reliable estimates, the archives preserve less than 20% of the silent films made during that period.
23:59Among the few that have reached us is the Befana di guerra.
24:02This is a short and rare propaganda film recently restored,
24:07filmed with the aim of emotionally and financially involving the Italian population in the drama of war.
24:17In the opening shot, a little girl, before going to bed, prays next to her mother.
24:23The Befana arrives with some gifts.
24:26But the little girl refuses them and asks, good Befana, bring us Victory and her father.
24:32A figure, that of the patriotic child, who represents a cornerstone of the nationalist rhetoric of the time.
24:40The Befana goes to the front and enters a tent.
24:44Here, an allegorical figure of a woman, Victory, in a Roman toga and helmet, is singing Fratelli d'Italia to some
24:51soldiers.
24:51He asks the old woman to raise funds for the homeland and gives her a gray-green stocking.
25:02Back in the rear, Befana fills the stocking with contributions from all social classes.
25:07A group of workers, two rich gentlemen who live in an elegant building,
25:11a peasant family in whose modest home a portrait of the king stands out.
25:19On a street wall there is a propaganda poster for the war loan.
25:23The Befana points to the poster and invites passers-by to sign it,
25:28to make their savings available to achieve victory.
25:33A crowd of people flocks to the Banca Commerciale Italiana in Milan to finance the war effort.
25:38At this point the image of the patriotic stocking swollen with generous donations
25:43it turns into a map of Italy with the liberated redeemed lands.
25:52The father returns home and hugs his wife and daughter.
25:56To subscribe is to fight, to fight is to win, recalls an emphatic caption.
26:03In the final scene, victory blesses the Italian soldiers who cross the Austrian border,
26:08who are drawn as shadows of Roman legionaries.
26:12In Befana di guerra the propaganda insists in a very simple way on two aspects.
26:18On the one hand, the conflict is seen as the completion of the national unification begun in the previous century.
26:25On the other hand, there is the representation of the ongoing war as a democratic crusade against militarism and autocracy,
26:33a struggle of civilized nations against barbarians.
26:39Dutchman Louis Remakers is one of the greatest illustrators of the First World War.
26:44In 1914 he witnessed the atrocities committed by Germany during the invasion of neutral Belgium.
26:52We owe it to him, through the cartoons published by the newspaper The Telegraph,
26:57the most powerful propaganda campaign launched against German militarism.
27:01The Dutch, who remained neutral, accused him of endangering the peace of the nation,
27:06while Kaiser Wilhelm II directly condemns him to death, placing a bounty of 12,000 florins on his head.
27:13A German journalist writes, his pencil has done more harm than 10 defeats.
27:19A German journalist
27:21A German journalist
27:24A German journalist
27:30Thank you all.
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