ABSTRACT
In September 1916 Cesare Battisti, a member of the Vienna Reichsrat and volunteer in the Italian army, was executed for treason by Austria-Hungary, along with fellow irredentists Damiano Chiesa and Fabio Filzi. Born in Trento, these Italians were Austrian citizens, and in Battisti’s case an elected official of the Austrian state, and yet they considered their national loyalty to Italy more important than any duty owed to the Habsburg Empire. By contrast, fellow Trentino parliamentary deputy Alcide De Gasperi – who would himself become an Italian prime minister after World War II – remained in Vienna throughout the war; his citizenship outweighed his Italian nationality. From an Italian perspective, the irredentist volunteers like Battisti were to be commended for their noble self-sacrifice rather than considered as traitors to Austria; no duty was owed to the empire, in this view. Paradoxically, Italy was simultaneously decrying the treacherous ‘betrayal’ of newly conquered Arabs and Berbers in Libya who refused to support the Italian occupation there. Under what circumstances, then, was loyalty owed to empires? This essay uses Battisti’s own writings and the responses to his death to analyse contemporary Italian conceptions of citizenship, national identity and loyalty.
