The War Years

The Italian Families managed to rub along nicely with most people in the local area but it was all about to change.

The outbreak of war saw peoples lives turned upside down... some lives would never be the same again.

During world war 1 some of the Italian migrants were called back home to Italy to join the army and fight for the country of their birth. Conscription was necessary in many countries to form an army large enough to defend against the enemy.

Italy began to fight along the northern border against Austria & Hungary including high up in now-Italian alps where the winters were extremely cold.

Despite winning the majority of battles by repeatedly attacking, the Italians suffered heavy losses.

Sadly they made little progress as the mountainous terrain favoured the enemy.

In 1917 Italy was forced to retreat by a counter offensive attack made by the German - Austrians at the "Battle of Caporetto". When Russia left the war it freed up troops from the eastern front allowing the central powers to move reinforcements to the Italian front.

In November 1917 the "Battle of Monte Grappa" & " Battle of the Piave river" in 1918 saw the offensive of the central powers stopped by the Italian forces. The  Italians also took part in the "second Battle of Marne" and the subsequent "Hundred Days Offensive" in the western front.   

During October 1918 despite being outnumbered the Italians breached the Austrian line in Vittorio Veneto and caused the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. After quickly recovering territory that had been lost fighting at Caporetto they moved into Trento and South Tyrol. Fighting ended in 1918.

The Italian army were also involved in fighting in the Balkan, African & middle areas and then took part in the occupation of Constantinople. 

As with most English families some that joined up went to war as boys and returned as men... and unfortunately some never returned at all.

Most of the men that went to war had no formal training and were ill equipped to deal with the conditions they were faced with.

The English Italians born to migrant families were sent to the western front and endured the harsh realities of war.

No one will ever truly know the actual number of men who died at the western front in Flanders fields... the number too many to count. France recorded almost 1.4 million military deaths most of these on the western front. A lot of the fighting took place on French soil. "The Battle of the Somme" in France and the "Battle of Passchendaele  " in Belgium held as great historic events claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. For others that became ill or injured they were sent to make shift field hospitals to be nursed back to health only to be returned to the front to fight again. The majority of the men must have known that death was inevitable, if the enemy didn't get you the wide spread disease would.

The war raged on for four years... over hundreds of miles. Some French villages in areas of France are home to small world war 1 cemeteries the result of all the small battles, skirmishes and bouts of trench warfare.

Quite a few of the men from the west bar families have graves out in France and Belgium.  

When the  second world war arrived there was a completely different atmosphere.

Mussolini announced his decision to side with Germany and this had a devastating consequences for the Italian communities in England, people that they had lived worked alongside treated them differently.

The government ordered all aliens to be rounded up and interned or in some cases expelled.

Deportation was part of the "Collar the Lot" strategy that parliament enforced... Anyone of foreign origin was targeted... no one was safe.

By the end of 1939 and early part of 1940 most of the 70,000 'aliens' - immigrants - living in Britain had been sent before a tribunal which assessed their loyalty to Britain.

The UK interned approx. 4000 people of Italian origin due to suspicion of their loyalties to the Country. Most were sent to the Isle of Man. People were arrested and imprisoned for no other reason than the fact that they were born in Italy. 

By 1943  Italy's war with the allies was almost over, this saw many freed from internment to return to what was left of their lives and businesses.

Not many families were left untouched by this situation as war wasn't bad enough. Almost overnight they went from being hardworking Mosaic workers and Ice Cream sellers to being despised by the very people they lived alongside. Businesses were targeted and peoples lives threatened.

Local businessmen and respected families were herded u p by the police. Quite often a knock on the door in the dead of night would see men getting dressed and being bundled into military vehicles by the authorities. Ripped away from their families and facing the prospect that they may never see their loved ones again they had no choice but to follow the orders of their captors.

It is said that some of the experiences that affected the Italian communities at this time were traumatic.

Many wives were left to fend for themselves and they did all they could to support and feed their families in the hope that those taken would soon return.

I have no doubt that at this time the community would have pulled together and do what they could to help those in need and the families most affected by this parliamentary order.

The Italian community also suffered the effects of the blitz in Sheffield. The hard hitting bombing raids devastated all of Sheffield causing loss of homes, businesses but worst of all loss of life.

Once again the English born Italians joined the British forces and fought for their country of their birth. Despite the fact that some of them had family members affected by the "Collar the Lot" order they still took up arms for the country they believed in... even though they knew full well that their friends and loved ones at home were being treated so badly by the same country. 

At the end of the war the families displayed no sign of animosity to their captors, only grief for their dead and joy for the return of the living.