Unknown Soldier now 100 years old
In the United States we observe Veterans Day on November 11, the date of Germany’s formal surrender at the end of World War 1. To be precise, the ceasefire took effect at 11:11 on November 11. We called it Armistice Day when I was a sprout, but now the date recognizes veterans of all wars.
The war between Italy and Austria-Hungary, however, came to an end on November 3, when the ceasefire was signed at the Villa Giusti outside Padova, to take effect on November 4. That date has long been observed here as a national day of remembrance, though by the end of it all, the warring parties had signed no fewer than 16 peace treaties.
It’s bad enough to know who were the casualties, but the nameless ones are what haunt me. In 1921, Italy consecrated its national Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Rome, and this year marked its hundredth-year anniversary. There are military shrines (sacrario) all over Italy and it is appalling how many of their soldiers are unknown. The monument in Gorizia notes 57,741 Italian casualties, of which 36,000 are unknown. At the shrine at Redipuglia are 100,000 fallen, and 60,000 unknown. At Asiago are 54,286 dead of which 33,000 are unknown. Obliterated.
Which brings me to the sacrario crowning Monte Grappa. The Grappa massif was the site of some of the war’s most violent battles, and where the Austrian advance into Italy was finally stopped.
Two weeks ago — the evening of October 29 — a remarkable event passed through Venice in the form of the “Train of Memory,” a steam train that retraced the route of the train that traveled from Aquileia to Rome bearing the coffin of the nameless soldier chosen to represent all of them to his final resting place at the Altar of the Fatherland. As before, the train left Cervignano Aquileia on October 29, stopped at Udine and Treviso, and arrived at Santa Lucia station in Venice at 9:30 PM. A few hours later it departed for Bologna, Florence, Arezzo, and finally Rome.
We waited at the station, determined to see it despite a delay of 90 minutes. A ceremony had been organized, though it was less majestic than those I discovered had been held in other stations. Music, speeches, uniforms. More music. It was moving in spite of all that; for me, the emotion was compounded by the fact that Lino’s father had been a train driver in the steam era, and that Santa Lucia station was once full of puffing, gasping trains just like this one.
The original train was something infinitely grander and more solemn, of course. This brief film clip shows scenes from the train’s passing towns and stations on its way to Rome, and I trust that even without your understanding the narration, the images will express something of the magnitude of the experience. It seems as though everyone who saw the coffin gave it something from the depths of their heart and spirit, as each person glimpsed, in a way, their own lost soldier.
So where is the monument to the Unknown Soldier in Venice? There is only one and it’s at Sant’Elena, modestly placed amid a sort of garden, a genteel afterthought. For years this piece of stone just sat on the ground till finally a group of former soldiers managed to get it up onto a sort of pedestal. Some cities, such as Florence, organized ceremonies with the laying of a huge laurel wreath.
Here, not so much. The only wreath was placed by Daniele Girardini, president of a military history association named cimeetrincee (peaks and trenches). Not even a nod from the city government, much less a ceremony. Maybe ceremonies are empty calories, but no ceremonies are worse.
“I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice, ” wrote Ernest Hemingway. “I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it…Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage…were obscene beside the concrete names of villages… the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
On the eve of Phase 2
This morning was glorious, as so many mornings have been over the past two months; the shining sun and gleaming water and tranquil atmosphere — perhaps too tranquil, but that’s for another discussion — made our daily dawn walk something lovely.
We started these walks on Monday, March 9, the first morning of lockdown, sensing that we had to keep moving somehow if we were going to be housebound essentially 24 hours a day (legal escape hatch: the supermarket run). Sneaking out under what was then the barely brightening sky, I felt like we were doing something extremely daring.
A few other people were also out, running, or walking purposefully, with or without a dog. We avoided each other, we pretended we didn’t see anyone. Everyone seemed to be operating under the Cone of Silence.
So: At 6:30 AM it’s on with the mask and gloves and out we go. Then nine times over the bridge outside our house (the tenth would be on the return trip). This was Lino’s idea, and it was a good one. Next, we walk up to the end of via Garibaldi, turn left, and walk along the lagoon-front (at 6:50 AM we pass the Giardini vaporetto stop), down to land’s end at Sant’ Elena all the way to the Morosini Naval School.
We get the Gazzettino at the newsstand at the Sant’ Elena vaporetto stop and retrace our steps toward the Giardini dock, which we pass at 7:20. We proceed all the way to the top of via Garibaldi, then home. A stop at the fruit and vegetable boat may be in order (beat the crowds), then home by 7:40. This adds up to 2.8 miles, if anybody cares.
After two months of this, we have come to recognize a number of people. Not that we KNOW them, we just know that at that point there will be the two heavyset women and one heavyset man, evidently relatives or friends (or both), walking a nondescript dog. There’s the man with his black and white English setter and the catapult-thing that throws the ball amazingly far. At the brick bridge we will encounter Barbara, owner of the bar/cafe “Vecia Gina” where we love to sit outside under a big umbrella in the summer, drinking and munching and cooling off.
Sometimes by the bridge by the viale Garibaldi we’ll run into Ennio, whom Lino has known forever and I somewhat less than that — he used to belong to our boat club. There might be Bepi “Stella” out walking his old black dog. And so it’s a mix of people we know and people we think we know by now, though I recognize them more by their clothes than their faces — logical, considering that almost everybody’s masked. Lino sometimes whispers “Who was that?” even when somebody has just said “Ciao, Lino.”
This afternoon there were many more people out strolling than ever before, and clumps of kids of various ages yelling in various ways. Some people clearly were not from around here, but they weren’t foreigners, just Venetians from other parts of the city. The new regulation says that you can go visit relatives (but not unrelated friends), so I suppose these were social visits to random family members.
But we also saw three Carabinieri walking around, two policemen (Polizia di Stato) in the Quintavalle canal on their jet skis, and not long afterward a regular police motorboat pulled up and three officers crossed the bridge and disappeared, evidently in search of someone or thing. We both had the feeling that they want us all to know that it’s not party time yet; we all have been warned in a thousand ways that we must, MUST continue with masks and gloves and distancing. Even the Prime Minister has implored everyone not to act like everything’s fine, because it’s not. He has also repeated that if infections begin to increase, we are all going to be back where we started, only worse. He didn’t actually say that we’d be locked inside our houses, but it didn’t sound good.
Tomorrow people will start to go back to work. We will take our walk, but I think it will be different. It won’t be a secret thing among just us anymore.
Bring on the Santas
Before we leave the subject and the scales and bones and gift-wrapping of Christmas behind, one last glimpse of holiday merriment. I wasn’t there, I’m sorry to say — I was sorry to say it the day it occurred, too, which was December 21.
The event: A “corteo,” or boat procession, in the Grand Canal, composed of anyone who wanted to row as long as he or she was dressed as Santa Claus (or “Babbo Natale,” as he’s known here).
The reason: First, because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Second, because it seemed like an amusing occasion for the Coordinamento delle Remiere (the association of rowing clubs) to give a prize and a big round of applause to the dwindling group of hardy souls who have rowed in all 40 Vogalongas. I say “dwindling” because in May there were 24 such persons, and on Santa Sunday there were 22.
The special bonus: Fog. Fog and just enough wind to make the air feel even sharper. But would this deter anyone willing to pull out the boat and pull on the red-and-white outfit? Obviously not.
Because I was busy elsewhere, Lino armed a modest sandolo and headed for the lineup joined (happily for Lino and I think also happily for the others) by Gabriele De Mattia, a former rowing student of his and ex-cadet of the Francesco Morosini Naval School, and his girlfriend, Francesca Rosso. She had never rowed before, but Lino soon took care of that.
So the three of them spent the morning rowing, and Lino was awarded a red pennant, such as those given to the winners of races here, with his name on it, and everybody was happy. Especially when the sun finally came out.
So a big shout-out to Francesca, who when she wasn’t rowing, was taking pictures. If she hadn’t been there, you all would just have had to imagine it. As would I. This is better.
