Baldan Sofia 4ALS

THE ITALIAN UNKNOWN SOLDIER

At the end of the Great War the Italian government wanted to celebrate all the people who died during the conflict and to unify the Nation after this bad period.
The idea of the monument in honour of the Unknown Warrior was thought by the colonel Giulio Douhet. He proposed to celebrate the sacrifice of the Italian soldiers who died during the Great War choosing one Unknown Soldier and burying him in the Pantheon as symbol to unify the Nation and give to Italian people a common identity.
Douhet grew up in a military ‘atmosphere’ and had the idea that the war was synonymous of recognition. The Unknown soldier was a humanitarian recognition for all those who died and all those who lost a relative during the war.
The colonel Douhet proposed his idea in 1920 to the Parliament that approved it with a royal decree in 1921 and decide to bury the Unknown Soldier into The Alter of the Nation.
The ministry of the war established a commission to select 11 bodies chosen from the places where the Great War was fought: Rovereto, Dolomiti, Altipiani, Grappa, Montello, Basso Piave, Cadore, Gorizia, Basso Isonzo, San Michele and the way between Castagnevizza and the sea.
The bodies were taken to Aquileia and the choice of the body was given to Maria Bergamas: the mother of Antonio Bergamas,hailing from Gradisca d’Isonzo, who was a volunteer who deserted the Austro-Hungarian Army. He died during the war and his body has never been found.
On 28th October 1921 in the basilica of Aquileia was celebrated the ceremony for the choice of the Unknown Soldier. Maria Bergamas was brought in front off the 11 coffins covered by the tricolour: she couldn’t even finished to saw all the coffins that she fall on her knees in front of the tenth coffin and crying shouted his son’s name.
The other ten coffin were buried in the war cemetery of Aquileia in the “Ten Unknown Warriors’ tomb”.
The coffin chosen by the woman was put on a gun mount and then on a railway hearse escorted by some veterans.
The Unknown Soldier travelled to the Capital by train and stopped in every station(Udine, Treviso, Venezia, Padova, Rovigo, Ferrara, Bologna, Pistoia, Prato, Firenze, Arezzo, Chiusi e Orvieto): people attended him to celebrate his sacrifice and all the people him represents.
The celebration of the Unknown Warrior took place in Rome in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri Church on 4th November 1921. The Unknown Warrior was welcomed by King Vittorio Emanuele II with all the Italian military forces’ flags, and the representatives of the soldiers, of the widows and of the fallens’ mothers.
At the end of the ceremony the coffin was buried into The Altar of the Nation.
On the tomb of the Soldier there are the date of the beginnin and the end of the Great War and the inscription:«Ignoto il nome - folgora il suo spirito - dovunque è l'Italia - con voce di pianto e d'orgoglio - dicono - innumeri madri: - è mio figlio»
In the same year was given to the Unknown Soldier a military value gold medal after the proposal of the Honourable Giovanni Giuriati.
On 12th October 1921 the Unknown Soldier also received the Medal of Honor by the United States of America Government.