One of the main issues during the First World War was the treatment of prisoners of war. In theory their rights should have been guaranteed by the Second Hague Convention, an agreement that entered into force shortly before 1914 and was signed by forty-four states.
In practice, however, things went differently. In the document, for example, it was decided that prisoners should receive the same food ration as that given to soldiers of the army that had captured them. But, obviously, in view of the events of that time it was not possible to guarantee this right: as time went by the number of prisoners increased while resources became scarcer. Those who were captured, therefore, received a worse treatment than what had been decided a few years earlier.
Insofar as the Italians were concerned, it has been estimated that some 600,000 soldierswere captured between 1915 and 1918, half of whom were taken during the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. Most of them were taken to Mauthausen (a town that sadly also became notorious during World War II), to Theresienstadt (Bohemia), to Rastatt (Southern Germany) and to Celle (near Hannover).
One should not think that all these prisoners were the result of military action. Most of them in fact “allowed” themselves to be captured by fleeing from the frontline and presenting themselves at the emplacements of their enemies. This was a desperate choice but was prompted by the hope of finding conditions in prison camps that would be better than those in the trenches.
Instead, even detention was a very difficult experience. The absence of heating inside the barracks as well as the lack of warm clothing made the bitter cold unbearable while food rations were really small. Due to the great shortage of flour in the Empire, this was often mixed with powdered acorns or with ground straw while instead of pasta they were given a kind of potato and cabbage soup.
At the same time others who were convinced interventionists and patriots suffered much more because of their inability to act rather than due to hunger. Carlo Emilio Gadda, captured near Caporetto on 25th October 1917, left us a valuable testimony of this tough period. Imprisoned in the concentration camp at Celle, he wrote: “Yes, I suffer so much for my family, for my homeland, especially in these difficult moments: that indeed my anguish almost chokes me. But the inhuman suffering, the load that I have to bear is heavier, and my damned anger – they are all there, that as I have already said: it is this inability to join the action, having to remain motionless while the others are fighting, being unable to throw myself into the danger […]” (Carlo Emilio Gadda, Giornale di Guerra e di prigionia, Garzanti, Milan, 1999, page 291).
About 100,000 Italians who were captured by the Austro-Hungarian forces and by the German troops never returned back to their families. The hardships, the hunger, the cold and disease (first of all tuberculosis) were the main causes of this large number of deaths.
