“Narrative Is a Thread, and Truth Is a Fabric”: Luigi Barzini and the Russo-Japanese War

Abstract

Luigi Barzini Sr. was one of the top war correspondents of the early twentieth century, according to war journalism historian Phillip Knightley. Yet Barzini's reports from the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), which made him a celebrated figure in Italy, have not previously been translated or analyzed in English. This article details Barzini's early life and Russo-Japanese newspaper correspondence, focusing on his eye for detail, appreciation of soldiers, cultivation of sources, and insistence on being a truthful witness. It draws on Barzini's papers in Italy's national archive and his correspondence in Corriere della Sera, accessed via Italy's national library.

Notes

Luigi Barzini, “La grande battaglia: La presa di Chantan: Si può descrivere una battaglia?,” Corriere della Sera (Milan), June 19, 1905.

Hanjapu was a tiny village south of Mukden (Pinyin: Shenyang or Hôten) and near the Sha River. Efforts to find Hanjapu's spelling in modern Pinyin were unsuccessful.

Luigi Barzini, “La grande battaglia: La presa di Hanjapu (Con l’esercito di Nodzu),” Corriere della Sera, June 23, 1905.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 44, 46, 62–65, 92, 122, 197–199, 219–220; and Luigi Barzini, “The Battle in the Snows,” The War Illustrated, accessed April 2, 2012, http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Italian_Soldier/Battle_Snow_01.htm.

Luigi Barzini, Peking to Paris (Lake Elmo, MN: Demontreville, 2007); and Enzo Magri, Una vita da inviato (Florence: Polistampa, 2008).

Knightley, The First Casualty, 44.

Harold Laski, The Rise of European Liberalism: The Philosophy of a Business Civilization (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 78.

Roy Bridges, “Exploration and Travel outside Europe (1720–1914),” in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 53.

Jean Rabaut, “Le grand reportage n’est plus ce qu’il était,” L’histoire 41 (January 1982): 92–93. The headline of the article translates as “The big story isn't what it used to be.”

Walter Redfern, Writing on the Move: Albert Londres and Investigative Journalism (Oxford, UK: Peter Lang, 2004), 213.

Ibid., 33.

Ibid., 39.

Jean Rabaut, “Albert Londres, grand reporter,” L’histoire 70 (September 1984): 74.

Redfern, Writing on the Move, 48–49.

Marcello Cimino, Presentazione di Adolfo Rossi, “L’agitazione in Sicilia: Inchiesta sui Fasci dei lavatori,” accessed March 28, 2014, http://www.spazioamico.it/Adolfo%20Rossi.htm.

Michael S. Sweeney, The Military and the Press: An Uneasy Truce (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 29.

Jack London, “Japanese Officers Consider Everything a Military Secret,” San Francisco Examiner, June 26, 1904.

Knightley, The First Casualty, 44.

Ibid., 46.

Michael S. Sweeney, “‘Delays and Vexation’: Jack London and the Russo-Japanese War,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 75, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 548–559. Stanley Washburn of the Chicago Daily News wrote, “The sad truth … is that there is literally nothing known about anything connected with the war, and what's more, the Japanese don't intend that there shall be anything known until their various columns are in Korea.” See Stanley Washburn, “Chasing the War News Phantom,” unidentified newspaper clipping, scrapbook no. 2, box 3, Stanley Washburn Papers, MS 82-1315, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Peyton C. March, “Report No. 6, War Department, Office of the Chief of Staff, Washington, January 3, 1905,” Reports of Military Observers Attached to the Armies in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War, Part I (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), 55.

Greg McLaughlin, The War Correspondent (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 55.

W. Joseph Campbell, The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms (New York: Routledge, 2006), 80.

Quoted in Frank Rosengarten, The Italian Anti-Fascist Press: From the Legal Opposition Press to the Underground Newspapers of World War II (Cleveland, OH: Case Western Reserve Press, 1968), 34–35.

Giovanna Dell’Orto, American Journalism and International Relations: Foreign Correspondence from the Early Days of the Republic to the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 89.

Gaetana Maronne and Paolo Puppa, eds., Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies (New York: Routledge, 2007), 978.

Magri, Una vita da inviato, 59.

Robert Lumley, Italian Journalism: A Critical Anthology (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1996), 2.

Matthew Hibberd, The Media in Italy: Press, Cinema and Broadcasting from Unification to Digital (Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2008), 26.

Ibid.

Magri, Una vita da inviato, 59.

Ibid., 8–17.

Ibid., 24.

Ibid., 31–32.

Spellings of Chinese place names appear as they were rendered in the press at the time, followed by their modern Pinyin name in parentheses.

For general histories of the Russo-Japanese War, see John W. Steinberg, Bruce W. Menning, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David Wolff, and Shinji Yokote, eds., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005); Richard Connaughton, Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: Russia's War with Japan (London: Cassell, 2003); and Denis Warner and Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 (London: Frank Cass, 2002). For an encyclopedic treatment of the war, see Rotem Kowner, Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006).

Luigi Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese: La battaglia di Mukden, narrata da Luigi Barzini (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1906), vii.

George Lynch and Frederick Palmer, eds., In Many Wars by Many War Correspondents (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2010).

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, x–xi.

Luigi Barzini, “La guerra russo-giapponese: Corrispondenti di guerra; guerra e carambola—aspettando di partire par il campo,” Corriere della Sera, May 9, 1904.

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, 7.

Ibid., xi–xii.

Luigi Barzini to Corriere della Sera, telegram, August 28, 1904, “Milano FR Tokio 0 60 27 3 40 PM Z Press Corriere Milano, Aug 28 1904,” Oggetto Barzini 363–399, Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, l’Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Italy.

Luigi Barzini to Corriere della Sera, telegram, “Milano Tokio 0 49 7 1 50 – Sr Z Press (date obscured),” Oggetto Barzini 363–399, Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, l’Archivio Centrale dello Stato.

Sweeney, The Military and the Press, 4.

Hayashi Gonsuke to Komura Jutarô, March 31, 1904, “United Kingdom No. 1,” in folder “Nichirosen eki no sai senkyo shisatu no tame gaikoku shimbun kisha jugun ikken,” Nihon Gaimusho hozon kiroku [Records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs], Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, National Archives of Japan, Tokyo.

Luigi Barzini to Corriere della Sera, telegram, September 9, 1904, “Mylan Fr Fusan 0 49 8 8/15 SR Sept-9-04,” Oggetto Barzini 363–399, Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, l’Archivio Centrale dello Stato.

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, xiv–xv.

Ibid., xvi.

Luigi Barzini, “La grande battaglia: La battaglia comincia,” Correire della Sera, n.d., in Oggetto Barzini, l’Archivio Centrale dello Stato di Roma.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Luigi Barzini, “La grand battaglia: Contro alle Montagne (Con l’esercito di Kuroki),” Corriere della Sera, June 19, 1905.

Ibid.

Luigi Barzini, “La grande battaglia: Contro alla Putiloff (Con l’esercito di Nodzu),” Corriere della Sera, June 21, 1905.

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, 55–56.

Luigi Barzini, “La grand battaglia: Contro alle Montagne.”

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, 171.

Barzini, “La presa di Chantan.”

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, 130.

Barzini, “La presa di Chantan.”

Ibid.

Knightley, The First Casualty, 65.

Ibid.

Luigi Barzini, Scene della grande guerra (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1915).

“New Italian Newspaper,” New York Times, December 28, 1922.

Nick T. Spark et al., “Suddenly and Deliberately Attacked: The Story of the Panay Incident,” accessed May 8, 2013, http://www.usspanay.org/attacked.shtml.

Knightley, The First Casualty, 43, 66.

Shahira Fahmy and Thomas J. Johnson, “Embedded versus Unilateral Perspectives on Iraq War,” Newspaper Research Journal 28, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 98–114.

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, xvi.

Ibid., xv.

Barzini, Guerra russo-giapponese, v.

Barzini, “Contro alla Putiloff.”