IRREDENTI MARTYRS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2968, 4 January 1917, Page 7

IRREDENTI MARTYRS

.— ——* : — 1 AUSTRIA'S WAY WITH PATRIOTS JUDICIAL MURDERS a 'A' special correspondent of the Now •York "Evening Post," wilting from Florence on September 25, gave the following account of the manner in which Austria dealt with some of the heroes of Italian nationalism who fell into her hands. Tho cases ho desoribes, tho correspondent states, aro typical of many others. The old Hymn of Garibaldi, which even to-day is showing its vitality as a stirring battle song, begins "with tho well-known lines: "Si Ecopron le tonibe, si lovano i morti, I martiri nostri son tutti risorti!"' Who are these Italian Martyrs "who have all arisen P" The children of Italy, especially of northern Italy, even before learning at school or In books the names, and deeds of military heroes, are taught at their mothers' . knee to reverence the martyrs of Italian nationalism; for the difference between the heroes and the martyrs of United Italy is one which makes a ■deep appeal to the mind of the Italian 'people, a mind which readily differentiates tie quality of courage Tram that of self-sacrifice. The martyrs of Italian nationalism— of nationalism in the-sense of a desire in people of Italian stock'to be politically united to the Italian nation—have been men who deliberately chose a line of conduot in testimony of their faith which in almost every instance meant the certainty of an iguominious death. They are patriots who, in Austrian' judicial records, ippear as rebels and traitors; indeed, in the majority of cases no one can challenge the legal right of Austria to lang them, for they havo been generally what are known as Irredenti, that is, Austrian subjects of Italian origin born in those provinces of the Ha£sburg Empire which have an Italic history and tradition. ' ."'■'• : Hanging is Austria's Answer.. Against suoh. fine, spiritual longing Austria has always opposed the political necessity of holding together its conglomerate empire of assorted races and nationalities; it has always, therefore, considered the nationalistic aspirations of its subjects as grave political, crimes, resorting to hanging as the most effective deterrent to check their spread. Its policy in regaru to irrodentism may be summed up in tho answer given by Prince Schwarzenberg to • a counsellor who advised moderation in dealing with tho national aspirations of the various races, in tho ■ empire:-' '.■■ ■ ■ "I shall treasiire, all that you have counselled," replied tho Crown Minister, after listening to.his liumane ad•viser, "but to-day we'll begin with a good hanging!" ! . S ; .-. True to such policy, Austria, in its now secular conflict with Italy, has made great use of the executioner, especially in the days when -Lombard}; aud tho Veneto were still irredenti. in exactly the same way;that tho Treutino and Istria are "unredeemed" to-day. During the revolutionary period, in Italy s in 1848, one hundred and fifty-two Italians wero hauged for aspiring to bo politically members of tho Italian-na-tion-, and of these fully one-third were between twenty and thirty years of age, the 'youngest of them" lie'iiiK all university students. Between 1819 and 1852, in Lonibardy alone, there were 632 hangings\for political crimes, a reign of-_terror through wholesale executions being expended throughout the Italian peninsula wherever the flapshurgs ruled; -•■■■.■■'.■■ ■ - .. : . This persistent poliev has created in the popular imagination of tho Italians a picture of the Austrian Emperor as a hangman; soldiers and civilians of the' masses invariably speak of him, caricature and' sine; of him, ;is il boja, and thousands of humble folks for whom tho.causes and aims underlying tho present great struggle in Europe appear, as in. a glass, darkly are u.nErudfjiugly giving their contribution of .suffering and blood as soldiers of Italy in a war against "tho Hangman," who has executed so many of their brothers for no other reason than that they wished to bo Italians. Herr Lanse's Activity. (The Austrian Government, apparently, still believes in the efficacy of liaiigiiiK as a deterrent to political crime; many stori.es, of executions' have como from Galicia and from"' the conquered territory of Serbia, Montenegro, and northern. Albania. But whilo these lack authentication,' there is no question regarding the activity of Herr Lange the royal and imperial executioner in tho , unredeemed Italian provinces. Among tho fully authenticated cases in those provinces two stand out- in-strong relief, as"the victims were men whose lives and deeds would have entitled them, ; in ;• other davs.-to'a fraternal" wclcbhib" iii "the" noble and heroic lesions of Giuseppe Garibaldi: they are Nazario Sauro and Cesare Battisti. From the Austrian point of view, both of these men .wero clearly- v and legally traitors"; they, wero Austrian subjects who! had joined the ranks of the fighting forces of Italy while that" country was at war with Fran/. Josef's empire; yet Austria could hardly have found two other "culprits" whose ignominious death would have inflamed so jnstantly or more universally the hatred of tho Italian people- against the "monarch-executioner , ' who finds, comfort, as the popolino says, for the loss of Gomia in hanging two helpless finsoners of war. Sauro, the Sailor Martyr. Nazario Sauro had nothing of the hero, and still less of tho martyr, in Jus outward appearance. Hβ was born in Istria (where ho'resided most of his life) in 1880, and was ' therefore an Austrian subject, His one'persistent ideal was the union with Italy of the Italian provinces still hold by Austria. The son of a. sea, captain, and himself a typical sailor, he" had added to a wide, practical knowledge of the Adriatic a careful study of the inlets, islands, and bays of his native coast, a study conducted in the stirring hope that some day ho might put his expertness at tho service of the Italian cause. Hβ missed no opportunity to insist , fin and to keen alivo in his province tho nationalistic faith in which ho moved and had his being. Eluding 'the Austrian police, which had redoubled the watch around him after tho war in. Europe began, ho crossed over to Italy, taking up his residence with his family in Venico, where, in his modest quarters, he gave hospitality to other refugees - even poorer than himself. At first he .devoted himself to organising a baud of volunteers (the Mazzini Legion), who were to land in Dalmatia and start an insurrection there; but when it became clear that Italy would emerge, from her neutrality, the insurrectionary plan was abandoned, and Sauro gave himself most earnestly to stir up sentiment jn Italy for an early intervention on the side of tho Allies. No doubt the happiest clay of his life was the one which marked the beginning of the Italian hostilities against Austria. He at once volunteered in the Italian navy, in whose service his familiarity with the Dal- . matian coast proved of much value in the Italian naval operations m the northern Adriatic. ■ Last May he was awarded the; silver _ medal for military ■ bravery, in recognition, of forty-nine

naval ■ operations conducted by him in the\ enemy's waters. On July 29, the ove of his departure on a very perilous undertaking, Sauro seemed to have had somo presentiment of Id's impending fato, although this did not affect his good humour at all. He bado good-bye to his intimate friends, and left two (letters, one for his wife, and tho other for his eldest son. He was captured by tho Austrians, and later hanged at Pola. Battisti, Orator and Mountaineer. Cesare Battisti' was a different type, though ho had strong points of contact with Sauro, in his fondness for Nature, his friendliness towards the humble, and his flaming lovo for Italy. Born at Trent in 1875, he went to Florence to complete his studies, where ho won his doctoral decree in letters at the Institute of Superior Studies. A man of action, strong, oven violent, in his eloquence, he exercised much influence on the masses, by whom he was eventually elected a Deputy' from Trent, sitting with the Socialists in the Austrian Parliament. In his speeches there, and elsewhere, and in all his journalistic labours, he was the dauntless and uncompromising asserter of the rights of Italians in the Italian provinces still under Austrian rule, struggling especially for administrativo self-government in ths trentino and for an Italian university at Triest. A passionate mountain climber, he took deep interest in the gatherings of Alpine clubs which were often a mask for the plans or hopes of the Irredentists of the Trentino. As Sauro had studied the Adriatic littoral, so Battisti devoted all his spare time to exploring the, mountain passes on the AustroItalian front, acquainting himself with every foot of that mountainous region. At the beginnins of European hostilities, fearing to be interned as so many li'redenti have been by Austria, he came to Italy; aiid when the Italians entered the lists, Battisti volunteered as a soldier, choosing to enter 'lie Alpini corps, both because of his knowledge of the mountains and because of that picked body of troops fell the honour of defending {lie Alpine frontiers of Italy. Austria.' offered a reward of 20,000 cronen \for his capture, and he was fully aware of the fate which awaited him if he should fall into the hands of the enemy. Nevertheless, he declined to _ change his name on the identification card carried by officer, or to shave off his long coatee which was a striking characteristic in rns appearance; and asked to be roheved, of desk 1 duty as advisor on Alpine matters at Headquarters, aud sent to the fighting lines. It was during tho great Austrian drive in the Trentino that, whilo holding an advanced position with a handful of his Alpini, he was captured by tho enemy before the expected reinforcements could come to his rescue. The Italian and the Austrian versions' of his capture differ widely, the former based on the testimony of some of his companions wiio escaped, beiug that Battisti was left on the ground severely wounded, tho fatter maintaining that ho was discovered near a group of corpses, feigning death. But tho character of the man, and- the unwritten law of the Alpini that no imwounded soldier of tho Alps ever surrenders, would give strong corroboration to tho Italian version. ■ "If they got me," he had said many mouths before, "I shall offer myself as an example both to Austria and to Italy." , That example, lin gave by" his death on tho gallows in tho fortress , of Trent, where, it is said, though wounded and a prisoner of war, ho was hanged in his uniform of an officer of tho Italian army. Sauro and Battisti arc only two of several Irredenti who have been executed by Austria recently; Cliiesa, of Bovercto, twenty-three years old, is another, and so is Filzi, of about tho samo ago. There will be, undoubtedly, many others, as tho number of Irretlonti who to-day,are. fighting in the ranks of tho Italian army is appreciable. Evidently neither the lieiv times nor tho now circumstances under which the present war is being fought have changed tho psychology of the governing class in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Yet, if. anything had been needed further to unite the-Italian people in tho. determination to fight this war to the bitter end, this recrudescence of Austrian'executions has furnished tho surest and most impressive means for crystallising and cementing the popular resolve.