Redefining peace: Fascist Italy and fallen soldiers of the First World War

Abstract

Italy’s Fascist regime exploited the difficulties that arose from the transition to peace after the First World War. As a highly contested event, the war destabilised Italy’s liberal state and paved the way for Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. Although Italy was on the winning side, a disappointing peace treaty deepened divisions between Italians who remembered the war as a glorious triumph or as a pointless slaughter. Having taken hold in a society fractured by war, Fascism adopted a narrative of victory as a unifying device, a foundational myth, and a source of legitimacy. This article focuses on a group of ossuaries, or bone depositories, which were built by Mussolini’s regime in 1929–39 for the reburied remains of fallen soldiers in order to show how Italian Fascism rewrote public memories of the war and its outcomes. Through their architecture, their uses, and related discourses, the ossuaries helped to project a positive image of the war, to bolster Mussolini’s power, and to prepare Italians for future military engagements.