It was 12 noon on November 4, 1918, when the Supreme Commander of the Italian Army, General Armando Vittorio Diaz , issued the war bulletin no. 1268, better known as the Victory Bulletin: “The Austro-Hungarian Army is annihilated”. A few years later, in 1922, the date was declared a National Holiday, National Unity Day and Armed Forces Day.
Since then, November 4 has recalled the value of national defense, evident in the motto chosen for the 2021 edition: “Greatness has no time and no name”. There are many initiatives organized by the dicastery. Tomorrow the celebrations will culminate with the solemn ceremony at the Altare della Patria, in Rome, at the end of a journey that began last June 1st at the same symbolic headquarters of the Unknown Soldier. Also because this year marks the hundredth anniversary of her entombment, which took place on November 4, 1921, after a special convoy transported the body of the unnamed soldier from Aquileia to Rome, chosen (among those of eleven unidentified Italian dead) by Maria Bergamas, a mother representing all the Italian mothers who had lost a child during the war and to whom the remains had not been returned. The fiction “Maria’s choice” is dedicated to her, a docufilm that will be broadcast tomorrow in prime time on Rai1.
That train stopped in over a hundred cities and received the tribute of the entire country. To remember that trip, last October 29, the Train of Memory left, arrived yesterday at Termini station, welcomed by Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini together with colleagues Dario Franceschini (Culture) and Fabiana Dadone (Youth Policies). And always yesterday, with the highest offices of the State, starting with President Sergio Mattarella, the Holy Mass was celebrated in memory of the Fallen in the Basilica of S. Maria degli Angeli. Today the head of state placed a laurel wreath at the Cemetery of the Heroes of Aquileia, and then in Redipuglia at the military memorial.
“Celebrating the Unknown Soldier one hundred years later means celebrating a fundamental moment in the history of our country; it means celebrating a symbol that honors our past, recalls our memory, unites a people, because it is also around the symbols that the unity of a nation is built “, remarked Minister Lorenzo Gueriniinaugurating the Cemetery of the Heroes of Aquileia on Friday after the renovation. “What we remember and celebrate today – he explained to the students present – I hope will become a reference for your heritage of values, for your future, for your growth as citizens”.
Everything will be concentrated tomorrow at the Altare della Patria, for a date rich in history and national values. A few hours before that noon bulletin, on the evening of November 3, 1918, at the villa of Count Vettor Giusti del Giardino , near Padua and better known as Villa Giusti, the commander of the VI Austro-Hungarian Army Corps Weber von Webenau signed the armistice clauses imposed by the Marshal General of the Kingdom Pietro Badoglio. In the meantime, the Italian troops had made their entry into the territories of Trento and Trieste, the last act of the Vittorio Veneto counter-offensive which began on 24 October and was only possible thanks to the strenuous defense that the year before had stopped the Austro-Hungarian army on the Piave and on Monte Grappa. In fact, in October 1917, the attenuation of the war commitment of Russia, totally absorbed in the Bolshevik revolution, had allowed the Austro-Hungarian Empire to strengthen the effort on the southern front, penetrating the Italian defenses in what is remembered as defeat of Caporetto.
Despite the resounding defeat, the change in military leadership between generals Cadorna and Diaz and the rapid reorganization of the Forces made it possible to stop the enemy advance right on the Piave. From there the Italian counter-offensive in 1918 started, not before having resisted the Solstice offensive with which, in June of the same year, the Austro-Hungarian army had tried to break through the Italian defensive lines again. On 24 October, at 03:00 in the morning, with the artillery fire of the IV Army of General Giardino in the Grappa sector, the Italian offensive aimed at Vittorio Veneto and destined to bring our milestones into Trento and Trieste, forcing the Austro-Hungarian representatives at Villa Giusti to accept, after three days of negotiations, the conditions imposed by the Italian counterparts. A few days later, on 11 November, in a railway carriage in Rethondes in northern France, it was the German Empire that signed the armistice with the Allied powers. The Great War was over, and Italy had won. If the First World War was over for everyone, the fourth war of independence was over for our country, the one that had allowed us to conquer the unredeemed lands of Trento and Trieste.
103 years since then, it’s still a day of celebration. It was King Vittorio Emanuele III , with the royal decree 1354 of 23 October 1922, who established that “November 4, the anniversary of our victory, is declared a national holiday”. A year earlier, on November 4, 1921, the solemn burial of the unknown soldier had taken place at the Altare della Patria, a place where the President of the Republic still goes to pay homage to this day. It was possible thanks to the law of 11 August 1921, approved “for the burial in Rome, on the Altar of the Fatherland, of the body of an unknown soldier who fell in war”, in order to honor the sacrifices and heroisms of the national community in the body of an unknown soldier.
Since that distant 1922, the Day of National Unity and the Day of the Armed Forces have been celebrated on 4 November, a holiday that has gone through all the phases of Italian history since the first post-war period. Celebrated with strong nationalist tints during the Fascist period and almost forgotten after the Second World War, this holiday was resized in the 70s according to a spirit of savings that made it a “movable party”. It was in the early 2000s the president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to restore luster to this day full of symbolic and emotional value. Even in the repudiation of war as an instrument of offense, one cannot fail to remember all those who sacrificed their lives for the ideal of homeland and attachment to duty.

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