WW I MaCabre Dead Man Public Executi Italy C. BATTISTI Vintage Postcard n 11

Description

PRISONER  - TRENTO \ AND
MaCabre Dead Man Public Execution Italy
CESARE  BATTISTI Vintage Postcard
Cesare Battisti (politician)
When Austria-Hungary mobilised in August 1914, Battisti fled with his family to the Kingdom of Italy, where he held public meetings demanding Italy join the Triple Entente forces against Austria.[3] With Italy's entry into World War I following the 1915 London Pact, though still an Austrian citizen, Battisti fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Alpini Corps at the Italian Front
Battisti is remembered at Via Cesare Battisti near Piazza Venezia in Rome
After the Battle of Asiago, he and his 2nd Lt Fabio Filzi were captured by the Austrian forces on 10 July 1916 and faced a court-martial in his hometown Trento at the Castello del Buonconsiglio, charged with high treason. Though Battisti officially enjoyed parliamentary immunity, he was sentenced to death by strangulation. He requested a military execution by firing squad so as to not dishonor the Italian Army uniform, but the judge denied his request and instead procured for him some shabby civilian clothes. Dressed in these, he was executed (hanged and garrotted) the same day, the brutality of which was increased by the fact that executioner Josef Lang [de] botched the job so that Battisti actually was hanged twice.
The smiling execution squad posed with his body for photographs, which when later published did severe damage to Austria's reputation. The author Karl Kraus applied a picture as frontispiece of his 1922 play Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind). Battisti is considered a national hero in Italy and several memorials were dedicated to him in Rome as well as in his hometown Trento and at the Bolzano Victory Monument. Both Trento and Bolzano had been under Austrian control until 1918.