Philadelphia's Little Italy Responds to Its Motherland's Declaration of War

At Public Events in Those Days Both the Italian and
 American Flags Were Waved in Little Italy

By Richard N. Juliani

By May 1915, anticipation and apprehension had visibly increased within the Italian colony of Philadelphia.  As the Chamber of Deputies in Rome deliberated the decision that would bring their nation to war, Philadelphia’s Italians gathered to discuss what the outcome would mean not only for Italy but themselves as well.  Widely recognizing that war was now inevitable, they awaited the return of Consul General Gaetano Poccardi from meetings at the Italian Embassy in Washington, where he was expected to receive instructions to release an order for the mobilization of reservists. . .

Within the next few days, the “war wave” suddenly swept across Little Italy.  While discussing the likelihood of Italy entering the war, Italians had initially remained unwilling to believe that their homeland would take up arms.  The origins of many immigrants in provinces of the Abruzzi where Socialist sentiments prevailed had also discouraged belief in war.  But with news that Parliament had voted [on May 23rd U.S. time] to authorize the King to declare war being posted at newspaper offices, banks and travel agencies, along with reports that even Socialist deputies had already offered to enlist into military service, dispositions quickly changed.  And like the crowds clamoring for war in cities across Italy, Philadelphia’s Italians openly voiced their concerns as they joined into the call for military action against an old adversary.  They gathered at Palumbo’s Restaurant on Catharine Street, at the nearby Mascagni Hotel and Restaurant, and on the sidewalks between South Seventh and Ninth Streets, to talk excitedly about recent events.  A small boy, dressed in a Bersaglieri uniform, wearing a hat with green feathers and wielding a wooden sword, elicited repeated outbursts of cheers.  Men and women, old and young, could be heard singing the Royal March, along with the hymns of Mameli and Garibaldi, as people poured onto the streets.  And as the crowds shouted salutes for King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena, photographic images of their royal majesties became visible in the windows of shops and homes.  At least, that was what one reporter claimed to have seen and heard.

If more residents of Little Italy had been able to read the newspapers, their early enthusiasm might have been tempered by accounts of what their native country faced.  As Philadelphia’s Italians eagerly plunged toward imagined encounters, more sober assessment of Italy’s military capability on actual battlefields reached less optimistic conclusions.  While the call up of various classes of reserves could mobilize nearly 2,000,000 men, the need for arms and ammunition, growing more acute over time, would require aid from other nations.  A detailed appraisal of Italy’s strength produced a grim prognosis: “Many an Italian regards the struggle to come with a lamentable lightness. He fails to realize that tens of thousands of his countrymen will leave their bleached bones in the mountain fastnesses of the Austrian Alps before the Italians can hope to see Vienna in subjection, even before they cut off the ‘water-rats’ at Pola.” Anticipating that any attack by Italy had to come through Alpine passes, Austria had already deployed troops and fortified the mountainous salient of the “unredeemed” Trentino. The “bleached bones,” as fully literal as it was metaphorical, which captured the core of the argument, was as much a warning to the enthusiastic crowds on the streets of Philadelphia as on any piazza in Italy. But fervently convinced that destiny made victory inevitable, its costs, particularly in young lives, could be ignored—at least for the moment —and no crowd of “patriots” could be dissuaded from marching on the safe streets of an American city.                

As Little Italy shifted to more careful reflection, “the first flush of excitement [had] given way to sober thought and definite planning to aid their government.” New concerns went further into the minds of people whose origins had shifted from the Abruzzi alone to Calabria and Sicily as well. And news that the Italian government had decreed pardons for all “military offenders”, presumably evaders of their obligations to serve, if they would answer the call within three months beginning 7 May, invited a mildly facetious observation: “This makes it possible for many an outlaw to rehabilitate himself.” With an estimated 175,000 Italian residents, including as many as 25,000 of them ready to volunteer for duty with Italy’s army, Carlo D. Nardi, an editor at L’Opinione, declared that Philadelphia would  become the center for a great mobilization with any declaration of war. But with men seeking to know when and where to report, the answer also depended on finding a way to implement this task without incurring opposition from American officials. . .

As Italy’s declaration of war was being embraced in South Philadelphia, it inspired Italian residents of other sections of the city.  In the Italian quarter of Germantown, sometimes referred to as Little Italy North, some 100 or so “patriots” gathered at a street corner, then marched to Germantown Avenue as Italian women and children on sidewalks cheered. And  boarding trolley cars which carried them to the Italian Consulate, they offered their services as aspiring soldiers to their native country.

While unsubstantiated rumors that Austrian and German “spies” were gathering information on Italians elicited apprehension but little harm, more direct encounters became violent.  In the evening of the day that brought news of war, an incident would galvanize Philadelphia’s Italians with patriotic zeal for their native land.  It began when a group of young men scanning bulletin boards in search of war related news encountered an Austrian at Seventh and Chestnut Streets who disputed Italy’s chances of success against his own nation.  As their argument escalated, the Austrian allegedly stabbed Ottavio D’Angelantonio, reputed to be one of the eager stalwarts who had already volunteered for military service in Italy.  Released from the hospital where he had been taken for medical treatment, the first casualty of the war joined incensed friends who clamored to launch another counterattack on any one who looked German or Austrian.  In recognition of “the first blood spilt for Italy in Philadelphia since the war began”, friends toasted D’Angelantonio at Palumbo’s Restaurant, while their hero, medicated by Chianti, proudly displayed the wound on his arm to admirers. But D’Angelantonio had a more personal reason for his actions—his brother, Tommaso, was already in military service, holding the rank of sergeant, and stationed at the city of Bari with the Italian army.  And with news quickly spreading among Italians, a cry rose from Little Italy: “More than 25,000 soldiers for the Italian army from Philadelphia.” . . .

With Italians ready to back words by action, D’Angelantonio, on the day after being stabbed, had reportedly sought information at the Italian Consulate on how he might expedite his intention to join the army. But by then fervor had reached a broader audience. It was being rumored that all men between eighteen and forty-five years of age would be obliged to report for duty, while men who refused would be prohibited from returning to Italy. It was also said to be unnecessary to speak of openly in the Italian colony in order to spur young men into action. A group of them had called upon editor Nardi, at the office of L’Opinione, with plans to organize a Philadelphia Regiment that would enable them to face the enemy as a group representative of their adopted city. When another committee of young men called upon Poccardi at his office,  seeking information on the presumed declaration of war, he had reportedly answered “Not a word!  Not a word.” With his staff clearly occupied with preparations related to military mobilization, Poccardi had been instructed by his embassy in Washington to remain silent on what the immediate future held for Italy and its reservists in immigrant colonies. 

As immigrant reservists, uncertain but impatient, waited for clarification, their situation became even more confused. Some men had already been summoned to military service.  In a letter from Rome where he had gone to visit relatives, Giuseppe Donato, another editor of L’Opinione, wrote that he had been detained by an order to join his regiment as a lieutenant. Meanwhile, before a general summons of reservists, a call had been made for physicians overseas. The first Philadelphia Italian to be officially beckoned was identified as Dr. Joseph Pasceri.  Although in the United States for only seven years, he had married an American woman from Richmond, Virginia. From his residence on North 63rd Street, Pasceri had served the Italian community in West Philadelphia. As a captain in the Italian Royal Medical Corps, he had received an order to report to the Fifth Army being mobilized in Verona. Along with Pasceri, at least nine other Italians, practicing in the community or studying at local medical schools, now ready to offer their skills on battlefields, indicated their willingness to answer the summons. But a more general order for mobilization remained to be issued. . .

[When it came,] the call for mobilization had brought a “fever of excitement” among Italians. About 30,000 men in Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware were said to be eligible for military service. One report placed the 30,000 into the estimated 80,000 population of the “local colony”, presumably referring to Philadelphia alone. When the Italian Consulate issued what was intended to be its final call in July 1915, some 3,000 reservists from the Philadelphia district had already returned to Italy. The second manifesto, addressed to all males, whether Italian born aliens, naturalized citizens of the United States, or even American born, with 19 August as the deadline for leaving Philadelphia and 31 August as the final date on which they could present themselves in Italy, before they would be redefined as deserters and much worse as “traitors” to the cause of Italy. . .  For uncounted others who chose not to report, it meant giving up the hope of ever being allowed to return to Italy. But another threat to mobilization had emerged with growing signs of even broader efforts to oppose the war. . .

 

Service in the American Military by the Men of Little Italy Began in 1916 with the Crisis on the Mexican Border. 
Shown Here Are Italian National Guardsmen from the
Neighborhood Reporting for Duty. 

Source: Selections from Little Italy in the Great War: Philadelphia's Italians on the Battlefield and Home Front, by Richard N. Juliani, pages [21-38]. Used by permission of Temple University Press. © 2020 by Temple University. All Rights Reserved