ABSTRACT

Confinement remained the main instrument of Italian internment policy until the end of the war, and flexibility was its principal characteristic. A combination of factors contributed to shape the policy on enemy aliens, a policy in which internment constituted only one aspect and not always the most important. Thus, when Italy entered the First World War, it could have relied upon the expertise on internment it had just developed dealing with colonial subjects. In fact, however, the internment of enemy aliens and colonial subjects shared neither the same features nor the same confinement stations. Whereas in the case of enemy aliens, confinement was the inevitable consequence of the policies adopted by other belligerent countries and in particular Austria-Hungary, the internment of colonial subject assumed a strict punitive character. Deportation and internment of colonial subjects thus co-existed alongside that of enemy aliens, political dissidents and refugees from the war zones.