The Great War: illusion and disillusion in the writings of Italian Red Cross nurses

Abstract

All Italian Red Cross nurses began their experience in WW1 as volunteers, even if variously motivated. Their writings − memoirs, letters, journals − show that their initial feelings and ideals in many cases changed deeply when they came into contact with the real war. While some nurses ended by cursing the war and the powerful men they considered responsible for it, other ones found deep fulfillment in their role and in the forms of emancipation the war had offered to them. The article develops this subject on the basis of a number of nurses’ memoirs.