Latin Civilization versus German “Barbarism” during the Great War: The Enemy’s Narrative in the Marzocco

This contribution aims to investigate the case of «Il Marzocco», a Florentine weekly newspaper that in the early decades of the twentieth century established itself as one of the most relevant Italian cultural journals. It was driven by a strong interventionist orientation and took an early position both on the war and on the identification of the enemy. Indeed, that of the «Marzocco» represents a significant, and so far little-studied, case for understanding how the Italian press set up and conveyed the image of Germany and Austria, showing the recurrent motifs adopted in the negative narrative of the enemy, old and new at the same time, to fuel war propaganda and justify the conflict.

With the beginning of the Great War, the Italian interventionist factions quickly placed themselves in an anti-Austrian position, rooted in the Wars of Independence against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, seen as the enemy par excellence of the formation of a unified Italian state. The casus belli was the annexation to Italy of Italian-speaking territories still under Habsburg control. A different discourse concerned Germany, with which Italy traditionally maintained good diplomatic relations, had no direct grounds for conflict, and which much of the Italian intellectuals looked upon as an industrially and culturally advanced country.

However, the rapid escalation of the war in 1914 prompted many interventionists to side against Germany, along with Austria, and to create a narrative based on the head-on clash of values between what was seen as Latin civilization and German «barbarism». This was a rhetoric that sought to legitimize itself through Italy's Roman past, seen as a civilizing force and antagonistic to the crudeness of the barbarians, and a narrative that brought Italy, France, and United Kingdom together as progressive nations against the ancien regime imperialism of the Central Empires.