One musician and Italian history
Before World War One was won, there was a long and grim period during which Germans and Austrians, having destroyed Russia, threw everything they had against Italy, France and Britain, hoping to destroy them in turn. After a catastrophic defeat on the river Isonzo, called the battle of Caporetto, the remains of the Italian Army retreated to the river Piave and the huge mountain Monte Grappa, and stopped there, resolute to hold that line or die trying. A Neapolitan popular musician, E.A.Mario, wrote the song that spoke for those men, "The Legend of the Piave," which immediately became a kind of second national anthem:
(The singer is Mario himself.)
25 years later, the glory and purpose of the Piave and Mt.Grappa had mutated into an abyss of disgrace, treachery and beggary. Italy was shattered, occupied by enemy armies, and starving. Having entered the war on the wrong side through a mean and disgusting calculation of advantages, it had to break out of one disastrous alliance without being able to expect any sympathy from the other side.
The city of Naples rebelled against occupying German forces on September 28, 1943. After four days of ferocious fighting, the Germans were forced to withdraw, and the Allies walked into Italy's largest city without having to fire a shot. However, Naples, at the centre of a war zone and a devastated economy, soon found itself close to starvation, while full of comparatively well-paid American and allied troops. I’m sure you can see what came next. There was not much violence of any sort - except for a Moroccan unit that made itself notorious across Italy - but plenty of what one might call commercial exchange.
The daughters of middle-class families, clean, elegant, polite and pretty, were very popular with servicemen. Also, they had no colour prejudice - before the war, Italian colonists in Ethiopia had infuriated Mussolini, who was a genuine racist, by associating happily with local girls - and I have the impression that black American servicemen were delighted with the opportunity to buy the “services” of these segnorine. The whole matter was terribly painful to the girls and their families, and as the situation improved they did their best to pretend it never happened; but they were not allowed to. These well-brought-up young ladies did not have the “professional habits” which allow regular prostitutes to avoid pregnancies, and when the inevitable baby boom took place, many of the children turned out to be of an unexpected colour. I don’t think anything much happened - people just wanted to get the whole thing over with, and Naples is a seaport and has always been full of people of every sort anyway - but, this still being Naples, they wrote a song about it.
And what is the punch-line? That the author of the music was the very same E.A.Mario again.
Click to view(The singer is Mario himself.)
25 years later, the glory and purpose of the Piave and Mt.Grappa had mutated into an abyss of disgrace, treachery and beggary. Italy was shattered, occupied by enemy armies, and starving. Having entered the war on the wrong side through a mean and disgusting calculation of advantages, it had to break out of one disastrous alliance without being able to expect any sympathy from the other side.
The city of Naples rebelled against occupying German forces on September 28, 1943. After four days of ferocious fighting, the Germans were forced to withdraw, and the Allies walked into Italy's largest city without having to fire a shot. However, Naples, at the centre of a war zone and a devastated economy, soon found itself close to starvation, while full of comparatively well-paid American and allied troops. I’m sure you can see what came next. There was not much violence of any sort - except for a Moroccan unit that made itself notorious across Italy - but plenty of what one might call commercial exchange.
The daughters of middle-class families, clean, elegant, polite and pretty, were very popular with servicemen. Also, they had no colour prejudice - before the war, Italian colonists in Ethiopia had infuriated Mussolini, who was a genuine racist, by associating happily with local girls - and I have the impression that black American servicemen were delighted with the opportunity to buy the “services” of these segnorine. The whole matter was terribly painful to the girls and their families, and as the situation improved they did their best to pretend it never happened; but they were not allowed to. These well-brought-up young ladies did not have the “professional habits” which allow regular prostitutes to avoid pregnancies, and when the inevitable baby boom took place, many of the children turned out to be of an unexpected colour. I don’t think anything much happened - people just wanted to get the whole thing over with, and Naples is a seaport and has always been full of people of every sort anyway - but, this still being Naples, they wrote a song about it.
And what is the punch-line? That the author of the music was the very same E.A.Mario again.