In Italy as in other countries the outbreak of the First World War created new opportunities and channels for propaganda. The unusual circumstances of Italy’s entry into the war meant that the government played no active role in propaganda work during the early years of the war. Public opinion was served by a pro-war nationalist press that avoided the unpleasant details of life on the front, while the army regarded discipline as more important than morale, leaving soldiers’ welfare to the Church. The momentous Italian defeat at Caporetto saw an end to this laissez-faire approach and the beginnings of a more centralised and managed effort to motivate the public and the army to the national cause.

Pro-war propaganda to May 1915

In the UK, France, Germany and Austria-Hungary, propaganda was mainly a centrally managed effort by the government and the armed forces from the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. Italy did not enter the war until May 1915, and before this there was no organised state propaganda relating to the war. Instead, business interests and the press themselves took the lead.

Between the end of 1914 and 1915 there was a sustained campaign in the Italian press for the country to enter the war. There were strong views in favour of intervention among the leading economic, industrial and financial interests, particularly those linked to heavy industry and war production, such as Ansaldo and Fiat, who financed Benito Mussolini’s pro-war paper Avanti! and the Banca Italiana di Sconto. These financed the press to urge the government to enter the war alongside the Entente. Most intellectuals were in favor of entering the war and many actively argued for it. The culmination of this campaign was Radiosomaggismo.

In fact the majority of the Italian people did not support entering the war, but the government of Antonio Salandra made little attempt to involve parliament in the decision. It was widely expected that the war would be short and produce substantial territorial gains for Italy, so there appeared to be little need for an organised propaganda effort.

Government and private initiatives after May 1915 Once war was declared, it was considered unnecessary to make the case for war beyond irredentism and "sacred selfishness”. It was generally believed that the conflict would be short, and the conservative leaders Antonio Salandra and Sidney Sonnino did not consider public opinion or support for the war to be essential. For these reasons government involvement in propaganda activities remained sporadic. It was not until the government of Paolo Boselli in 1916 that some form of ministerial responsibility for propaganda was first established. Two ministries without portfolio were created; one was for propaganda under Vittorio Scialoja who in 1915 had founded the Unione Generale degli Insegnanti d’Italia ("General Union of Italian Teachers") aimed at involving teachers in promoting the mobilisation of society on the home front. The other was for civil assistance, under Ubaldo Comandini. From July 1917 Comandini was in charge of internal propaganda, and from February 1918, of the new Commissariato Generale per l'Assistenza Civile e la Propaganda Interna (General Commission for Civil Assistance and Internal Propaganda).

Numerous private associations made up for the lack of state-directed propaganda and took on the burden of civil assistance; some of them arose in the early months of 1915 with the aim of national education and assistance to the working classes most affected by the mobilization. As the war went on they became more numerous, and many of these were brought together in the summer of 1917 in the Opere Federate di Assistenza e Propaganda Nazionale (Federation of National Assistance and Propaganda Organizations), directed by Comandini himself. This was a single private body, made up of 80 provincial secretaries and 4,500 commissioners, and it became the main organization used by the government for assistance and patriotic propaganda directed at the civilian population. Subsequently, the Federation provided the "P officers" with material for the troops at the front and supported the soldiers on leave. Both the Opere Federate and P Service collaborated with a wide range of partners, printed internal bulletins, and organised conferences to mobilise support for the war. They published talking points for conversations with soldiers and while the Opere Federate put on propaganda plays for the popular theatre, the P Service staged them for the troops.

Press censorship

Although slow to mobilise public opinion through active propaganda, the government did act to censor the press. War correspondents were aware of the reality of the front and sent detailed reports to their editors. Nevertheless the reading public saw only articles that hid, and in some cases falsified, much of the truth, in a conscious process of disinformation in which much of the public did not seek objective information. Towards the end of 1915 Giovanni Papini wrote in Il Resto del Carlino that people limited themselves to looking at the official headlines and press releases and that soon, perhaps, they would not even read these anymore. This was probably due to the fact that readers, despite having the vague feeling of being deceived, sought in the newspapers only the confirmation of their illusions. Those lucky enough to escape the horrors of war preferred not to see them described in detail in the newspapers. As the historian Antonio Monti wrote in 1922, with the passage of time this meant that the press had served to deepen and widen the fatal division of the country into the two camps - the troops in the trenches on one hand and "imboscati" (draft-dodgers) on the other. This division greatly embittered the feelings of the soldiers towards "imboscati" and towards the journalists themselves. In the writings of officers and soldiers, it was common to find harsh and contemptuous judgments on the press, who were regarded as guilty of distorting the reality of battle by reducing the struggle of millions of men to mere spectacle, falsifying the soldiers' feelings and state of mind.

Restrictions on soldiers The army censored the post of soldiers writing to their families, and only rarely granted home leave. The winter of 1915 saw a number of soldiers allowed to return home for the first time, with the intention that this would raise morale. In fact it had the opposite effect. The soldiers realized that the country was unaware of the realities of the war that the newspapers and the military were trying to hide. Hoping for a short war, the Salandra government did not want it to become unpopular so they took no measures to limit general consumption or impose austerity. The soldiers did not find their home towns proud of their sacrifices, ready to welcome them as heroes. The High Command not only forbade them from revealing anything about what was happening at the front, but they also made sure the carabinieri stopped the soldiers from entering cafes or from walking with a girl on their arm. Corrado De Vita wrote "I saw so many of those young people enjoying themselves in theaters and cafes that I felt like punching them and hating them more than the Austrians."

Propaganda at the front before Caporetto

Before 1917 propaganda, recreational and welfare initiatives for soldiers were scarce and poorly managed. Propaganda was understood in traditional forms, such as speeches given by officers and invited speakers. As these speakers were exempted from military service, they appeared "privileged" in the eyes of the infantry. These proclamations about the reasons for the war were entirely alien to the language and mentality of the soldiers, who regarded the requirement to stand and listen to them as a waste of time, which lowered their morale. Giuseppe Prezzolini wrote in his essay Vittorio Veneto: "It was called propaganda to order soldiers to attention in a courtyard, after eight hours on duty, and there, taking away an hour of freedom, forcing them to listen to the chatter of a lawyer unused to the fatigue of war." For the vast majority of soldiers, their willingness to fight was not secured through effective propaganda or strong patriotic motivations, but despite this the Italian army gave proof of its reliability, commitment and obedience throughout the three and a half years of war. Only a few Italian soldiers fought with clear ideas and personal conviction, while most did so without understanding the reasons for the war. This was partly due to a very low level of education, and partly due to how the High Command managed the troops. From Luigi Cadorna downwards, commanders were less concerned about motivation and more interested in maintaining discipline through corporal punishment.

Up to 1917 troop welfare activities were left to priests who operated with the permission of the High Command but without their involvement. Parish priests had always been important and trusted cultural mediators in peasant communities. One of them, Don :it:Giovanni Minozzi established a network of “Case del Soldato”, rest houses behind the front where infantrymen could relax, read, listen to music, attend theatrical performances, and obtain help writing letters home. Minozzi sensed that morale and willingness to fight required more subtle methods than lectures imposed by officers, and had to be based on the creation of welcoming and reassuring environments for the soldiers. To convince, it was first necessary to assist and instill trust. Patriotic and ideological discourse was not completely ignored in the Case del Soldato, but it was not imposed.

Before Caporetto organised propaganda initiatives took place only in the 2nd Army under Luigi Capello. Army documents from June 1917 show that there was an internal propaganda office, while material and moral assistance was generally left to priests, as for the rest of the army. Capello intended to use propaganda to raise the morale of his troops, which had been undermined by the battles of the Isonzo and established a Propaganda and Education Office. Its first major change was to replace the figures invited to address the men at patriotic meetings. Until then, these had been lawyers, politicians, or senior officers; now they invited with lower officers "since the soldier prefers to listen to his officer with whom he is in daily contact, tied by the esteem and affection that arise from the community of deprivation and risks" and even with ordinary soldiers. To do this, Capello and his collaborator in the Office, Alessandro Casati, chose eighty men, half of whom were officers, explaining to them the themes and techniques to be adopted. With these men, the soldiers had the impression of actively participating in a discussion rather than passively attending a meeting. On 24 July Capello confirmed the usefulness of these new meetings, which resumed on 11 September after being interrupted by the eleventh battle of the Isonzo. Capello then decided to employ the interventionist artist Ardengo Soffici to support propaganda work by illustrating brochures and magazines aimed at the soldier. The experiment was not followed up due to the breakthrough of Caporetto, but Capello's experiments were subsequently used in a decisive way by the new Servizio P (P Service).

Propaganda at the front after Caporetto