The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a multicultural and multiethnic state including also some areas mainly populated by Italians, such as today's Province of Gorizia. When the war broke out, some of these, refusing to recognise the Empire and believing that their lands belonged to Italy, deserted and joined the Italian Army as volunteers.
Once the war was over, these men became quite popular and were celebrated, especially by the fascist regime, as examples of patriotism. For a long time, it was thought that the number of these volunteers was quite consistent but further studies actually showed the opposite.
In the gardens between Via Regina Elena and Via Gorizia in Gradisca d'Isonzo, near the fort, you can reach an opening shaded by century-old trees and observe two monuments in memory of this fact, showing that the Great War in Friuli Venezia Giulia was a complicated affair. The altar dedicated to the soldiers from Gradisca who fell while fighting for Italy and the Column in memory of the soldiers from Gradisca who fought for Austria-Hungary symbolically recall the lives of those Italians under the Habsburg Empire.
In the middle of the opening, a large altar is dedicated to soldiers from Gradisca who fought for Italy during the Great War. On one side, you can read the names of five soldiers, including the famous Antonio Bergamas, son of Maria, the woman who chose the body of the Unknown Soldier. On the opposite side, a long inscription signed byGeneral Armando Diaz recalls the events of the Great War, especially its most glorious period, when Italy took back the eastern part of Veneto and Friuli in 1918.
At its side, in 2001, the Municipality of Gradisca added a simple four-sided column tocommemorate the soldiers from Gradisca who had fought for the Habsburg Army in the Great War. Arranged in alphabetical order are 90 names of soldiers who fell between 1914 and 1918.
INFORMATION
Public Gardens at the corner with Via Gorizia-Via Regina Elena
I-34072 Gradisca d'Isonzo (GO)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
I.A.T. Gradisca d'Isonzo
via Ciotti, 49
I-34072 Gradisca d'Isonzo GO
Tel +39 0481 960624
Fax +39 0481 960624 prolocogradisca@virgilio.it