Giovanni Lorenzoni

“ Battisti said to him, "to make it known to my brothers that I am glad to die for Italy, without fear of the Austrians and their gallows."
Soon afterward, Lang, the hangman, placed the noose around his neck and pushed him off his feet so that the body would hang in empty space — but the rope, too weak to support his gigantic frame, snapped. Battisti, half-dead, fell to the ground; he loosened the rope, still taut around his neck, and once more, for the last time, shouted in a hoarse voice: "Viva l'Italia, abbasso l'Austria" (Italy forever, down with Austria!) . ”

“ The Dante Alighieri Square - Trento Battisti to improve his policy along national lines without in any way disavowing his socialistic ideas.
If socialism signified opposition to all tyranny, what greater oppression demanding redress was there to be found in the Trentino than that of Austria, encamped as mistress on our soil! If socialism signified the elevation of the masses, how could this be attained while tolerating and acquiescing in their continued subjugation by a foreign power? ”

“ To this work Battisti gave his whole soul, contributing the energies of his heart and of his oratory. He stumped in every Italian city of any importance. He welcomed objections — they added zest to his speeches and enhanced their didactic value. It was rather uphill work. Popular feeling against war ran high, and many interests were keen in keeping them so, either in good faith or in bad faith. In bad faith were the enemies of Italy, the open or secret agents of the Central Empires. In good faith were the other objectors, the upholders of the old Triple Alliance policy. ”

“ This most awful crime of Austria caused a mighty sensation throughout the civilized world. In Rome, on the 20th of July, an imposing mass-meeting at the Capitol solemnly swore to win the war and erect a monument to the martyr-hero in the liberated city of Trento as a perpetual reminder to future generations of his sacrifice for Italy. ”

“ Battisti was sentenced and hanged as a traitor, which he was not, having been staunchly faithful until death to Italy, his true country. If the Austro-Germans and Magyars, by way of a smashing defeat, could in the future become new human creatures, they would bless the memory of Battisti, who spent the best of his strength to save Italian blood from the Austrian tyrants and to stop them from their continuous sins against Providence and humanity. ”

“ For Cesare Battisti, as well as for the true Trentino people, these were very thrilling times. Battisti displayed in those days a tremendous activity, and in Rome his voice sounded, together with the voice of our greatest living poet, Gabriele d'Annunzio. The healthy conscience of the Italian people won; Italy resolutely preferred the way of Camillus, Caesar, Garibaldi — not the way urged by Prince Buelow. On the 24th of May, 1915, the bells of the Capitol belfry rang joyously for the victory Italy had achieved over herself. War was declared. ”

“ In an admirable speech before the House of Deputies at Vienna on December 12, 1912, against the military dictatorship in Trentino and the provocative policies of Austria against her ally, Italy, Battisti closed with the memorable words: "We demand that these mad policies be brought to an end. If in the Austrian bureaucratic repertory there be a fitting phrase, it is the phrase designating as 'irresponsible power' that of certain men. ”

“ The Adamello Group where Battisti fought during several winter months of the hamlet, and for the first time had the opportunity of seeing another kind of warfare, more awful than the high mountain warfare which was so well known to him. On December 24, 1915, he writes: "War here looks far more lugubrious and tragic than up in the mountains: here war is not only waged by soldiers against soldiers, but it vents its brutality against everything, against any kind of material, against defenseless people, against the land itself." ”

“ Wearisome work, mostly obscure, difficult, hardly understood, often opposed by the public, which allowed itself to be won, little by little, by this great fighter. It was only recently, just before the war, that Battisti became probably the most universally beloved man in Trentino, particularly by the young men, who saw in him the esthetic embodiment of the ideal of their youth and of the highest spirit of their country.
He entered Trentino public life as a socialist. Who was not a socialist in Italy between the years 1893 and 1898? ”

“ One of the German deputies, undoubtedly a direct ancestor of the present Boche, explained his vote thus: "I wear German spectacles, and therefore see the world as German.... I only say: Beati possidentes. We have southern Tyrol (as the Germans called Trentino) , and therefore we shall keep it. That is how I understand the right of the people! Nor do I think that I am asking too much when I propose the expulsion of these Trentino deputies who, with their request for separation, have pronounced their own death sentence....." ”

“ The activities of the Pan-Germanists, disguised as tourists, employees and soldiers, became so provocative and created such an oppressive atmosphere that the only way out seemed to be war, the Germans thereby hoping to kill irredentism by annihilating the Italians, the Irredentists hoping to become united to Italy. ”

“ The Trentino is, together with the Upper Adige, a part of a compact geographical region, more particularly called Venezia Tridentina. It is formed by the southern part of the old Austrian province of Tyrol; it is bounded on the north by the watershed line of the Central-Oriental Alps. The waters that run to the north find their outlet in the Black Sea. The waters that run to the south, are all tributaries of the Adige River, which eventually finds its outlet in the Adriatic. It belongs, therefore, geographically to Northern Italy. ”

“ The socialist ideal of that time did not take the form of an ideal of class; it was more a very high human principle supposed to be capable of transforming mankind for the common good. Such a socialist was Battisti, and the great task he had set himself was to convert the mass of Trentino laborers and peasants to socialism as he understood it. ”

“ We are still uncertain about the number of those who shared the fate of our great hero and martyr, Cesare Battisti.
All the political parties of the Trentino have always been staunch defenders of the national principle. For having refused to bow to Austria's will, which amounted to renouncing his ideals, the Prince Bishop of Trento, Monsignor Endrici, who can be compared to Cardinal Mercier for nobility and loftiness of character, was interned in a monastery near Vienna, and forbidden to correspond with the members of his Diocese. ”

“ It is rather emphatically asserted that Italy entered the war on the conclusion of a bargain, having first carefully weighed the inducements and the sacrifices, just as a business man would show some unwillingness to enter a deal if not satisfied beforehand that he is to reap more profit than loss from the enterprise. ”

“ We live, hanging, so to speak, to the walls of the mountain, without tents, often without food, always without water, eating snow instead. The war we are waging these days is terrible, engagements following one another in rapid succession. ”

“ The political and national struggle in Trentino grew ever more difficult and intense. The existing Pan-Germanic societies redoubled their aggressive and corruptive activities; new societies sprang up disguised under Italian names, while the authorities showed more and more openly that they favored the Germanization movement; on demand of the militarists Trentino was transformed into one great fortress and three-fourths of the military force of the province (more than an army corps) was removed to Trentino. ”

“ Very important in Trentino, as well as in the Alto Adige, is the tourist industry, for tourists come here in summer as well as in winter, to enjoy the beauty of the landscape and to climb the celebrated mountains, especially the Dolomites. ”

“ The 27th of April, 1916, in a letter to me, he writes: "Austrian preparations against us are assuming enormous proportions. Austria's intention is to repeat against us the German attack on Verdun, but we are well organized. We can oppose not only men brimming over with enthusiasm and courage, but munitions aplenty and no end of defenses."
The offensive takes place, and nothing can hold Battisti in Verona any longer ”

“ In the Trentino there is a large and varied agriculture, from the vineyards to the silkworm, from fruit groves to forests, from grain to pasture lands and live stock; eighty-seven percent, of her surface is, productive area. More than two-thirds of this productive area is constituted of pasture lands in the high mountains, and woods. ”

“ Austria constantly refused to make any concessions, and it was not until about 1897 that a few Italian courses in law and social science were instituted at the German university of Innsbruck. These concessions were of small account, however, and students as well as the public refused to recognize them for more than that, while the agitation for an Italian univeristy at Trieste increased. Austria refused to accede to this demand ”

“ The hangman placing the noose around Battisti's neck
accomplishment, as is shown by the photograph which is here reproduced, and which was circulated among the popular magazines by the Austrian Government— not being then aware of her own guilt. Nothing is more impressive than the contrast between the Christ-like face of the martyr and the soul-deprived face of the hangman, with its ignoble grin.
His companion and disciple. Dr. Fabio Filzi — another noble figure of a soldier and a martyr — followed a few moments later as young Damiano Chiesa had preceded them two months before. ”

“ In the Trentino the population is exclusively and completely Italian. Its surface is 6,356 square kilometers and the resident population in 1910 was 386,437, with an average of 61 inhabitants for each square kilometer.
On the contrary, the population is mixed with prevalence of the German element in the territory of the Upper Adige, which has a surface of 7,178 square kilometers. It is largely a mountainous country, and not very productive, it had in 1910 a resident population of 243,503 with an average of 33.7 inhabitants for each square kilometer. ”

“ It is a very hard life because almost all positions are carried after difficult climbs. Winds and blizzards are doing their worst, where there is not even room, enough to build a shack. Sections of our corps are camping on peaks at an elevation of about nine thousand feet, where they look like eagle's nests. ”

“ In Trentino itself, despite the suspicious vigilance of Austria, Battisti's cult soon spread. Effigies of the hero so often found sewed in the garments of the people, between the cloth and the lining, bear witness to this. ”

“ But gallantry and luck are not sufficient to make an advance; all the encounters we have brought to a successful end were tactically impaired by the fury of the blizzards; some nights the temperature was as low as twenty-three degrees C. below zero."
At last, in December, 1915, he is given his commission as lieutenant and takes leave from the Fifth Alpine Regiment feelingly, because he had grown fond of his "gallant Bergamaschi" — and enters the Sixth Regiment, assigned to the Monte Baldo sector. ”

“ In the years 1911-1915 he was General Director of the International Institute of Agriculture, founded by the King of Italy, in Rome, at the suggestion of an American citizen, Mr. David Lubin, of California, and in which fifty-four countries, including the United States, are represented. Dr. Lorenzoni left this position in 1915 to volunteer in the Royal Italian Army Alpine Corps, where he served for twenty months. When captain he was called back by the Italian Government, which had appointed him professor at the Royal University of Macerata. ”

“ Attached to the same company are Dr. Fabio Filzi, from Rovereto, a friend and admirer of Battisti, and forty very young soldiers of the district of Verona, who, though simple peasants, had asked to be assigned to that company in order to fight under Battisti. Can we conceive anything finer than this spontaneous offering of themselves to an idea represented in a man!
The 29th of May, Battisti, with his Alpine soldiers, entered Trentino territory at Vallarsa, and during almost the entire month of June one assault followed the other. ”

“ Battisti always remained at the head of the movement for an Italian university at Trieste, strongly opposing the acceptance of any compromise that would establish this university elsewhere, even in Trentino. ”

“ Support and justification of such a demand was to be found in the Austrian constitution itself, an article of which guaranteed "equality of treatment to all nationalities," including the right of each nationality to study in its own language. ”