On Nov. 4th 1921 the remains of the unknown soldier were buried at the Vittoriano national monument of Rome, after a 3 months long train journey through the main Italian cities from Aquileia, Friuli.

6 comments

1. The body of the unknown soldier had been chosen months before in Aquileia during the so called Aquileia rite, where Maria Bergamas, the mother of a soldier who died in 1916, was chosen to represent all the mothers who lost their children (650.000 deads) during the war.

   Maria Bergamas, a citizen of Gradisca d’Isonzo, in the north eastern province of Gorizia, then in the Austrian empire, was allowed in a chamber with 11 coffins. The coffin next to the point where she fainted in a burst of grief was chosen to represent the unknown soldier.

   Antonio Bergamas, her son, was born in 1891 and had defected the Austrian army to fight for the Italian one in 1915. He had been killed in Malcesine during the 1916 Strafexpedition by a machine gun.

   The coffin was loaded on a train and passed through the stations of the main italian cities, where the widows and mothers of the fallen soldiers could pay homage to him.

   He was buried under the statue of the goddess Rome at the newly completed Vittoriano national monument, built from 1878 to commemorate Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the newly unified Italy. Since then two soldiers and a flame watch over the unknown soldier.

2. So strange to see the vittoriano without the statues on the top.

3. What better way to inspire the next generation to die screaming for their mom at the bottom of a shell hole before being dumped in a mass grave.

4. Slight nitpick, even though it’s unambiguous, but your date format is a bit messed up. I mean it’s a European sub, so using the European date order is preferred. It seems like some people think that’s not a valid way to write dates, for some reason.

5. Did they really go through Italy for three months with a rotting body?

6. How many west European countries have done the same?