‘The loneliest of the war’s victims’: wives and families of Italian emigrant soldiers in the First World War

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women’s experiences during the First World War have received considerable scholarly attention but the fates of emigrant women have remained understudied. This article focuses on Italian emigrant women in the Americas, Europe and North Africa and uncovers how their experiences differed both from those of women in Italy and from those of other women in their adopted countries. The female emigrants most affected by the war were the wives of the 300,000 reservists who returned to Italy for their military service, which plunged many families into crisis. The difficulties faced by all wives of mobilised soldiers were exacerbated for female Italian emigrants. As Italian men had been the only emigrant group to depart en masse for service at home, the case of Italian women is unique. As non-citizens, they were generally not entitled to state aid. In addition, the Italian government subsidy was entirely insufficient abroad and many families were ineligible for support. This article thus explores how the Italian government and private charity abroad responded to this unfolding crisis in Italian emigrant communities and how the women themselves experienced the war and the new challenges of being an emigrant on a foreign home front.