1914-1918: una guerra nuova

Abstract

La Prima guerra mondiale, da subito chiamata la “Grande Guerra”, fu una guerra nuova, perché? Ci furono circa 74 milioni uomini chiamati alle armi in 16 nazioni, ci furono circa 20 milioni di morti e 21 milioni di feriti tra militari e civili. Secondo una delle varie stime, le sole spese di guerra ammontarono a 147 miliardi di dollari per gli Alleati, mentre costò 61.5 miliardi di dollari agli Imperi centrali. Fu una guerra di 4 anni combattuta per quanto riguardò il teatro europeo su quattro fronti: fronte orientale, fronte balcanico, fronte occidentale e fronte italiano; migliaia di chilometri di trincee scavate lungo 800 km tra il canale della Manica e la Svizzera quindi altri 650 km da quest’ultima fino alle rive settentrionali del golfo di Venezia. La Grande Guerra fu caratterizzata da battaglie di materiali, di innovazioni tecnologiche e mediche, vedi i nuovi mezzi di trasporto, i grandi miglioramenti tecnici dell’artiglieria, l’introduzione di armi automatiche, lo sviluppo dell’aereo militare, che dominarono l’elemento umano. Per tutto questo fu chiamata la Grande Guerra, la prima guerra di massa.

The First World War, called the “Great War” since the beginning, was a new was, why? 74 million men in 16 countries were called to arms, there were approximately 20 million deaths and 21 million injuries among military personnel and civilians. According to one of the various estimates, war spending alone amounted to $147 billion for the Allies, while costed the Central Powers $61.5 billion. It was a 4-year war fought, as fas it concerned the European theater, on four fronts: Oriental front, Balkan front, Western front and Italian front; thousands of kilometers of trenches dug along an 800 km length between the English Channel and Switzerland then other 650 km from the latter to the northern shores of the Gulf of Venice. The Great War was a Materialschlacht, or a battle of materials, of technological and medical innovations, see the new means of transport, the outstanding technical improvements in artillery, the introduction of automatic weapons, as well as the development of the military aircraft, which dominated the human element. For all these reasons, it was called the Great War: the first mass war. This war could have been Italy’s final war of independence, instead the state’s interventionist forces bargained right up to the last moment for the most lucrative alliance possible in terms of territory to be annexed believing in a brief military involvement. The Italian people played no part in these crucial decisions nor were they even mere spectators, but, unaware or only superficially informed about unfolding events, they were sent to fight, regarded as nothing more than an expendable resource.