Emigrant Soldiers

A global history of the 300,000 Italian emigrants who returned to serve in Italy's armed forces in the First World War.

During the First World War, over 300,000 Italian emigrants returned from across the world to serve in Italy's armed forces. But what happened to these men during the war and after it had ended? Emigrant Soldiers reconstructs their experiences, following the trajectories of four men who returned from the United States, Brazil, France, and Britain.During the First World War, over 300,000 Italian emigrants returned to Italy from around the world to perform their conscripted military service, a mass mobilisation which was a uniquely Italian phenomenon. But what happened to these men following their arrival and once the war had ended? Selena Daly reconstructs the lives of these emigrant soldiers before, during and after the First World War, considering their motivations, combat experiences, demobilisation, and lives under Fascism and in the Second World War. Adopting a micro-historical approach, Emigrant Soldiers explores the diverse fates of four men who returned from the United States, Brazil, France, and Britain, interwoven with accounts of other emigrants from across Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Australia. Through letters, diaries, memoirs, oral histories, newspapers, and diplomatic reports, Daly focuses on the experiences and voices of the emigrant soldiers, providing a new global account of Italians during the First World War.