The White War by Mark Thompson

Author:Mark Thompson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780571250080
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Published: 2009-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

Looking back at Cadorna’s prestige during the war, Carlo Sforza was caustic: ‘The Italian middle classes wanted to believe that a harsh mask and hermetic silence were the sure signs of genius, and that brutality was energy.’ The vogue for vitalism encouraged people to believe that a great commander has certain qualities of energy and will. Italy’s supreme warlord must be great, therefore Cadorna possessed these qualities: youthful zest, tenacity, strength, manliness and decisiveness, but also modesty, goodness and simplicity. While he possessed some of these qualities in some degree, they recur so often in descriptions because the authors saw what they wanted to see. During the tragic last phase of the Eleventh Battle, Gatti was fascinated by Cadorna’s self- possession: ‘tranquil, serene, rested’, the Supreme Commander appears happy. ‘He speaks slowly, but is sure of himself: he sees nothing but his own thought. Everything that others say or do slides off Cadorna like waves off a rock. It leaves no trace. His energy is simple, primitive, infinite.’ These were hallmarks of true greatness. When Luigi Barzini paid tribute to Cadorna’s magical charisma, he took a cue from the generalissimo’s own tract on tactics, which stated that a ‘firm and indestructible will must descend from above to permeate and assiduously incite all levels of the hierarchy’.

Compared to the cult surrounding Mussolini in the 1920s and 1930s, Cadorna’s was modest, even frugal. It is impossible to imagine Cadorna fondling lions for the camera or making his generals sprint in their parade uniforms, sabres and medals a-jangle. For stunts of that kind, D’Annunzio was the model. Cadorna’s aristocratic hauteur, always with an air of noblesse oblige, was quite unlike Mussolini’s chosen style. The Duce’s charisma was crafted to maximise his communication with the masses, something that Cadorna did not have to do and would not stoop to attempt.

Still, there were seeds of the later cult in the earlier. If Cadorna was the first to be acclaimed as Duce or ‘Leader’, the second was D’Annunzio (as ‘commandant’ of the city-state of Fiume in 1919–20), and the last was Mussolini. The press promoted Cadorna as the nation’s best champion, above political squabbling, indeed above politics as such, perhaps to fill a vacuum; for nobody in government could inspire people to sacrifice. Mussolini’s energy, will, dedication, serene self- possession, virility, strength, decisiveness, simplicity, health, youth – and all the rest – dwarfed Cadorna’s. For Fascism was the vitalist regime par excellence, enthroning energy as the gauge of political value and the pretext for what one of its most penetrating critics – writing, as it happens, within a stone’s throw of the Isonzo – would call ‘a permanent revolution, emancipating action from the principle of responsibility, exempting it from the embarrassing specificity of a purpose’.

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