La Puglia, i pugliesi e la prima guerra mondiale

Abstract

The paper intends to reconstruct the consequences of the tragic events of the First World War in Apulia, through the analysis of the positions of the main protagonists of the regional politics and culture of the period and through a reconstruction of the episodes of the war that saw Apulia as protagonist. Italy declared war to Austria-Hungary in May 1915, when prime minister was a conservative Apulian politician, Antonio Salandra. Other politicians and intellectuals who sided with the interventionist front in Apulia were Gaetano Salvemini, Antonio De Viti De Marco and Tommaso Fiore. The Italian involvement in the war led, among other things, to several Austro-Hungarian Navy’s bombings of the main coastal cities of Apulia, such as Bari, Barletta, Monopoli and Bisceglie. Brindisi and Taranto, instead, were the main naval bases in the sectors of the South Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Brindisi, in particular, was involved in the rescue of the Serbian refugees, both military and civilian, who, tempting to escape to the arrival of the armies of the Central Powers in the Balkan area, took refuge along the coast of Albania, from where they were recovered by the Navies of the Entente and transported in Brindisi or in the Greek island of Corfu.