The activity and influence of the American Red Cross in Italy during and after World War one (1917–1919)

ABSTRACT

During the First World War, the Italian people became familiar with the American khaki uniform not from the presence of combat units, which hardly appeared in Italy, but rather from the American Red Cross (ARC) workers, who arrived immediately after the disastrous rout of Caporetto (October/November 1917). Throughout Italy, they were the most visible representatives of mythical America, its munificence, effectiveness and concern for the common man. Relief for wounded and sick soldiers was but a small part of ARC activity: more than two thirds of its total expenditure was upon civilians. In fact, its greatest mission was to put new heart into all components of Italian society. It was there not only to heal combatants’ wounds, but also to minister to the ‘wounds of the spirit’ of the population, in terms of demoralization, unrest and attraction towards revolutionary violence. Accordingly, it extended its activity over the entire country, from the Alps to the islands, dividing it into 16 districts, each under a Red Cross delegate. At the end of the war, the organization’s staff numbered 949 US employees, along with approximately 1000 Italian workers. In all, more than 7000 cities, towns and villages were reached by Red Cross representatives. Its substantial donations of material aid went to soldiers, hospitals, refugees, orphans and needy families. The Italian campaign was second only to the French in terms of budget and range. Besides emergency work, it comprised long-term projects, such as the construction of a village for refugees near Pisa, nursing schools and strategies for the prevention of tuberculosis, which in effect became pilot projects for European reconstruction and civilian aid in general in peacetime.

KEYWORDS:

• First World War and Italian-American relations
• American Red Cross in Italy
• Post-Caporetto Italy
• US foreign aid
• European humanitarian reconstruction
• Red Cross movement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Kellogg, What the ARC Did.

2. “Le dichiarazioni del Presidente del Consiglio sui recenti accordi internazionali,” Il Tempo, December 13, 1917.

3. Isnenghi and Rochat, La Grande Guerra 1914–1918, 200.

4. Melograni, Storia politica della Grande Guerra 1915–1918, 287 and 292–310; and Forcella and Monticone, Plotone di esecuzione, 442–5.

5. Procacci, “Opinione popolare e idea di rivoluzione in Italia 1917–1918,” 18–24.

6. Gibelli, La Grande Guerra degli Italiani 1915–1918, 263–75.

7. Tooze, The Deluge, 174.

8. For less favourable attitudes towards ARC initiatives in France and Belgium, see Part I of this special issue: McGuire, “At (Red) Cross Purposes” and de Mûelenaere, ”International Development Contested.”

9. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 36.

10. Fava, “Tra Nation-building e propaganda di massa,” 156–92.

11. Gibelli, La Grande Guerra degli Italiani 1915–1918, 174–5.

12. Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, La violenza la crociata, il lutto, 96–8.

13. Horne, “A World at War,” 294.

14. Organizations listed in ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs, 76–111.

15. Dos Passos, The Best Times, 63.

16. “American Red Cross Gives Italy First Evidence of U.S. Aid; Important Factor, Says Maj. Murphy,” Washington Post, January 21, 1918, 9.

17. Gibelli, “Introduzione,” to La Grande Guerra degli Italiani 1915–1918, XXIV–XXV.

18. Saiu, Stati Uniti e Italia; Burgwyn, The Legend of the Mutilated Victory; and Fiorentino and Sanfilippo, Stati Uniti e Italia nel nuovo scenario internazionale 1898–1918.

19. Rossini, Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy; and Nigro, New Diplomacy in Italy.

20. Creel, How We Advertised America; Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War; and Mock and Larson, Words that Won the War.

21. Vaughn, Holding Fast the Inner Lines.

22. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 79–81; and Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna, 133–41.

23. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 75–9, 117–21.

24. Cabanes, Origins of Humanitarianism.

25. Wylie, Oppenheimer, and Crossland, eds., The Red Cross Movement.

26. Irwin, Making the Word Safe.

27. Irwin, “Nation Building and Rebuilding.”

28. As far as the US primary sources are concerned, I referred mainly to the ARC records kept in the Hoover Institution’s archives at Stanford University, and to a lesser extent to the ARC records kept in the National Archives at College Park, MD.

29. ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs, 60–75.

30. ARC, Report of the Department of Public Information, 9–12.

31. See Oppenheimer’s essay in this volume.

32. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 37.

33. Total in lire from Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 209. The total expenditure in Italy from July 1, 1917 to June 30, 1919 is US$22.8 million: US$6.4 million for the first year and US$16.4 million for the second one. Applying an exchange rate of 6–7 lire for one dollar, we obtain totals in line with the present analysis, ANRC, Annual Report 1918, 42; and Annual Report 1919, 190.

34. Richardson, My Diplomatic Education, 171–2.

35. Rossini, Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy, chapters 4 and 5.

36. Horton, “The Drive of the American Red Cross in Italy,” 1. National Archives.

37. Bevilacqua, De Clementi, and Franzina, eds., Storia dell’Emigrazione italiana, vol. 1 “Partenze.”

38. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 57–9.

39. Antonio Gramsci, “Wilson e i socialisti,” Il grido del Popolo, October 12, 1918.

40. ARC, Report of the Department of Military Affairs, 6, Archivio Stato Maggiore.

41. One image frequently associated with the ARC work in Italy is that of the ambulances operating at the front, described by Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms, the novel based on his actual experiences in Italy as an ARC worker in the summer of 1918.

42. ARC, Report Department of Military Affairs, 7–14.

43. Arnaldo Fraccaroli, “Il grano e il sangue,” Il Corriere della Sera, July 21, 1918.

44. ARC, Report Department of Military Affairs, 16–22.

45. In its report for a shorter six-month period, the Department of Civil Affairs states that its total expenditure of about 46 million lire represented 64% of the entire expenditure of the ARC Commission to Italy, ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs.

46. Speech of ARC Captain Richard Wallace, Yale University Library.

47. Irwin, Making the World Safe, 114–15.

48. Cutlip, Fund Raising in the United States, 123–8.

49. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 61–2.

50. Horton, “The Drive of the American Red Cross in Italy,” 2, National Archives.

51. ARC, Department of Civil Affairs, Special Distribution to Soldiers’ Families, 11; and see also Irwin, “Nation Building and Rebuilding,” 423–4.

52. Comando della 1a Armata, “Pro-memoria,” 5–6, Archivio Stato Maggiore, Rome.

53. ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs, 51–5.

54. “Croce Rossa Americana, Missione in Italia,” Archivio Centrale Stato, Rome.

55. ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs, 19–22.

56. Ibid., 8–9.

57. “American Village Built in Italy: Will Soon Shelter 5000 Refugees in Pisa,” Boston Daily Globe, September 15, 1918, 49.

58. “The American City at Pisa: The Red Cross Model Town for Refugees Growing Rapidly beside the Historic Walls of Ancient City,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy 1, no. 2 (July 20, 1918): 2; and “A Red Cross City in Italy,” Red Cross Magazine 13, no. 10 (October 1918): 45.

59. Letter from Lee to Hereford, August 23, 1918, Records of the ANRC, Hoover Institution.

60. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 2.

61. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 43–4; and Irwin, “Nation Building and Rebuilding,” 426.

62. ARC, Report of the Department of Civil Affairs, 48.

63. Ibid., 37–9.

64. Jones, The ARC from Clara Barton, 161–8.

65. “New Rome Headquarters,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy 1, no. 7 (September 20, 1918): 3.

66. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 143–9. Bakewell does not mention her name, following a general rule of his book, but it is easy to recognize her. See also the “Red Cross Notes,” Millard’s Review of the Far East (1917–1919), August 10, 1918, 426.

67. “The Work of Four Women,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy 1, no. 2 (July 5, 1918): 5.

68. ARC in Italy, Department of Tuberculosis, General Report, forefront pages; see also Jensen, Mobilizing Minerva, 87.

69. “American Women to Fight Tuberculosis in Italy,” New York Tribune, September 6, 1918, 7.

70. “American Tuberculosis Unit Safe,” Boston Daily Globe, October 21, 1918, 10.

71. ARC in Italy, Department of Tuberculosis, General Report.

72. Ibid.

73. “American Red Cross Tuberculosis Work in Italy,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 181, no. 14 (October 2, 1919): 435–6; and see also Fiorilli, La signorina dell’igiene, 128–41.

74. For a discussion on the role of the Red Cross movement, and the League of Red Cross Societies in particular, in the aftermath of the First World War with focus on public health and the training of public health nurses, see Oppenheimer, “Nurses of the League,” 628–44.

75. “Health Unit to Italy. American Organization Will Wage Campaign Against Tuberculosis,” New York Times, September 1, 1918, 4; and “Tuberculosis Unit Reaches Italy,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy, October 20, 1918, 5.

76. ARC in Italy, Department of Tuberculosis, Supplementary Report on Nursing by Mary L. [sic] Gardner, General Report, 63.

77. Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 210; and ARC, Report of the Department of Public Information, 9–12.

78. Scrapbook of Clippings from Italian Newspapers, 1918, Records of the ARC, Hoover Institution.

79. ARC in Italy, Report of the Department of Public Information, 6 and 13.

80. Rossini, “Wilson’s Parallel Diplomacy,” 89–112.

81. Davison, ARC in the Great War, 207–21.

82. Henry P. Davison, “Drive a Success,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy I, no. 1 (June 20, 1918): 1.

83. ‘I hope to get away from here about february 21. […] Let me know when you will need me,’ letter from Hereford to Lee, January 31, 1919, Records of the ANRC, Hoover Institution.

84. His position within the League is mentioned in W.R. Hereford, “Croix-Rouge et ‘Publicity’,” Revue Internationale de la Croix- Rouge 2, no. 14 (February 15, 1920): 137–48.

85. “ARC Activities in Greece and the Balkans” and “Special Mission to Aid Greek Refugees,” Red Cross Bulletin of the ARC in Italy 1, no. 9 (October 20, 1918): 1; and “ARC Commission to Balkan States Organising in Rome,” ibid. 1, no. 12 (January 15, 1919): 8.

86. W.T. Ellis, “American Welfare Workers in Rome Typify the Vast New Project for World Service,” Atlanta Constitution, March 30, 1919, D 14; and see also “Mission goes to Balkans,” New York Times, November 23, 1918, 9.

87. ARC, An International Adventure, 1 and 26.

88. Cabanes, Origins of Humanitarianism.

89. “The Public Information Service of the Americans in Italy,” Records of the ANRC, Hoover Institution.

90. Rossini, “Wilson’s Parallel Diplomacy.”

91. Howard Chandler Christy. ‘The Spirit of America. Join’. Poster 1919. Poster No. POS-US.C58 No 4, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC, visible here: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708938/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniela Rossini

Daniela Rossini, former Professor of North American History and Women’s International History at the University of Roma Tre (Rome, Italy), is now retired. She spent three years at Harvard as a Fulbright scholar in the History Department and as a fellow of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, to which she has since been periodically affiliated. Her research interests include the First World War, Italian–US relations, war relief and propaganda, and women’s transnational history in the first decades of the twentieth century. Beyond Italy, her works have been published in France, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. Her last authored books include: Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy: Culture, Diplomacy, and War Propaganda (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2008); Donne e propaganda internazionale: Percorsi femminili tra Italia e Stati Uniti nell’età della Grande Guerra (FrancoAngeli: Milan 2015); and co-editor of 1917. L’inizio del secolo americano: Politica, propaganda e cultura in Italia tra guerra e dopoguerra (Viella: Rome 2018).