Download TCBH Duncan Tanner Essay Prize Winner 2011

Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2012, pp. 311–335
doi:10.1093/tcbh/hws020
Christina Loong* University of Sydney, Australia
............................................
TCBH Duncan Tanner Essay
Prize Winner 2011
‘Victory Will Be With Us’:
British Propaganda and
Imperial Duty in Florence
during the First World War
Abstract
This article seeks to contribute to existing historiography by studying how
the crisis of the First World War prompted the British residents of Florence to
define for the first time what it meant to be Anglo-Florentine in a city that was
populated by a significant international community. By examining two
Anglo-Florentine newspapers, and archival records, it demonstrates how an
expatriate community defined itself along sharply nationalistic lines, borrowing
from the language of newspapers in Britain, and how its members regarded
themselves as being loyal patriots of the British empire, despite living outside its
formal and informal spheres of influence. This new identity referenced the
expatriate Britons’ attachment to their adopted home, tracing a tradition of
Anglo-Italian relations that stretched back to Classical history. It would also have
international implications, as Anglo-Florentine patriotism produced the first
centre in Italy dedicated to cultural propaganda, the British Institute of Florence,
established in 1917, forerunner to later institutes around the world. Though
*[email protected]. This essay was originally presented as a workshop paper
at the Nation-Empire-Globe Research Cluster’s 2011 postgraduate masterclass at the
University of Sydney. My thanks go to Robert Aldrich for his invaluable help, and to
Chris Hilliard and Antoinette Burton for their insightful comments on several early drafts
of the essay. Thanks to the participants of the masterclass for their insights, which were of
great help. I am also indebted to Alyson Price, the archivist at the British Institute of
Florence, who shared a wealth of knowledge about the Institute’s history with me, guided
the initial stages of my research in Florence, and helped me discover the Institute’s
amazing archives.
ß The Author [2012]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions,
please email: [email protected]
312
CHRISTINA LOONG
the impact of the First World War on national and cultural identity in Great Britain
and her empire has been extensively studied, the effect of the conflict on British
expatriates has until now been neglected. This article seeks to address that gap.
In July 1917, the Anglo-Florentine author and propaganda agent for the
British government’s News Department (the propaganda wing of the
Foreign Office) in Tuscany, Edward Hutton, wrote to his superior in
London, enclosing a sample of notepaper that he had produced for
distribution to wounded Italian soldiers. His plan was for soldiers to
write their letters home on the notepaper, and ’thus become agents of
our propaganda’.1 The notepaper depicts a fully armed Roman soldier
stamping on a vanquished Germanic figure (whose shield bears the
word ’barbarie’, or ’barbarians’), with the words ‘We sons of Rome
combat Prussian militarism,’2 and an exhortation to remember the
deeds of great Italians from Julius Caesar to Giuseppe Garibaldi in the
fight against ’barbarism and tyranny’, here equated with the spectre of
the German army. The brief passage ends with the words ’Victory will
be with us’3 in bold, capital letters and underlined emphatically.
By using the image of a Roman soldier, Hutton was linking Italy’s
embattled present with the achievements of her Classical past. The passage
also connects the fighting of Italian soldiers with the heroic deeds of their
forefathers and glorifies the justness of their cause. The reality of the war
was quite different from the rosy picture that the notepaper painted;
hostility from Italians and the workings of German propagandists in
Florence and the wider region of Tuscany, both real and imagined, were
a constant anxiety for those Anglo-Florentines who became involved in
the Allied propaganda effort. In fact, their efforts to perform their patriotic
duty, in an area outside the British empire, would for the first time see
the demarcation of a clear Anglo-Florentine identity4 that linked them
spiritually to their faraway empire and made them conscious of their role as
cultural intermediaries between their countrymen and the Italians with
whom they shared their adopted home.
When the First World War began in the summer of 1914, Florentine
society was in the middle of its usual summer hiatus. Urbane and
cultured, many of Florence’s international residents had been drawn to
the city by its stores of art and tumultuous, romantic history. Of these,
the British were the most numerous. The city’s first Protestant cemetery
1
E. Hutton to H. Montgomery, The National Archives: Public Record Office
(TNA:PRO), Kew, Foreign Office (FO) 395/98, N22/135549, 1 July 1917.
2
Noi figli di Roma combattiamo il militarismo di Prussiano.
3
La vittoria sarà con noi.
4
I use Charles Tilly’s definition of identity as ‘an actor’s experience of a category, tie,
role, network, group or organization, coupled with a public representation of that
experience’. C. Tilly, ed., Citizenship, Identity and Social History (Cambridge, 1996), 5–7.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
313
at the Piazzale Donatello, for example, held the earthly remains of 1409
individuals, of whom 760 were British.5 All foreign visitors to the city,
in fact, were usually called inglesi, regardless of whether they actually
were English or not.6 There was a plethora of shops selling British food
and goods to homesick travellers and residents, two Anglican churches
and Catholic masses in English to minister to their spiritual needs, and
English-language newspapers to report on the latest happenings in the
city, in Italy and back home in Britain.7 Two of these, the Italian Gazette
and the Florence Herald were active for the first 2 years of the war, and
provide a valuable insight into how Anglo-Florentine residents coped
with the upheaval caused by the conflict. More importantly, they also
show how some British residents in the city began to define the
parameters of what it meant to be British in Florence.8
Anglo-Florentines’ patriotic duty was not restricted to the printing of
these newspapers, both of which were forced to cease publication
before the war ended. The Italian Gazette ended in 1915, and the Florence
Herald 2 years later. Though the British ambassador to Italy, Sir James
Rennell Rodd, was doubtful of most British residents’ ability to help in
the distribution of propaganda, certain Anglo-Florentines like Hutton
began to participate—under both unofficial and official initiatives—in
the manufacture and distribution of pro-Allied propaganda. Eventually,
this would lead to the foundation of the British Institute of Florence, the
first centre in Italy dedicated to cultural propaganda and a model for
later British institutes worldwide.9
This essay examines how a British sense of self developed outside
the empire, influenced by ideas of a traditional Anglo-Italian relationship that stretched back to the Classical period and to the more recent
support in Great Britain for the Risorgimento and its figurehead
Giuseppe Garibaldi, as well as imperially influenced ideas of patriotism. It argues that the Anglo-Florentines studied here cast themselves
as local conduits of understanding between Italy and the British
Empire. They were anxious that Florentines should support the Allies,
but above all thought of themselves as loyal British subjects playing
5
J. A. Freeman, ‘The Protestant Cemetery in Florence and Anglo-American Attitudes
toward Italy’, Markers, 10 (1993), 218–48, 223.
6
G. Artrom-Treves, The Golden Ring : The Anglo-Florentines 1847–1862, trans. S. Sprigge
(London, 1956).
7
See Chapter 13 of B. Roeck, Florence 1900: The Quest for Arcadia, trans. S. Spencer
(New Haven, 2009).
8
Though the term ‘English’ is used in many of the sources used in this article, it
should be pointed out that many Britons travelling overseas during this period identified
themselves as English, rather than British, though they might come from areas outside
England. I have used the term British because it encapsulates the wider idea of being
from Great Britain and a subject of the empire. See M. Morgan, National Identities and
Travel in Victorian Britain (New York, 2001), 195–96.
9
F. Donaldson, The British Council: The Firsty Fifty Years (London, 1984), 34.
314
CHRISTINA LOONG
their part in Britain’s war effort. This subsequently affected the form
and content of the propaganda that was produced in the city, eventually
leading to the foundation of the British Institute of Florence in 1917,
which would survive the conflict and influence British cultural
propaganda in Italy and overseas.
The effects of the First World War on almost every aspect of British
society have been well documented. From how the poets studied by
Bernard Bergonzi conceptualized their experiences of war to the
nursing sisters who had their patriotism questioned as a result of their
professional training, and the evolution of a rabidly anti-German press
which delighted in printing atrocity stories, historians have documented the tremendous impact the First World War wrecked on
everyday life in Britain and how the conflict forced a re-assessment of
both patriotism and British identity.10 Furthermore, recent works have
forced a re-examination of long-held beliefs about the nature of how
propaganda and enthusiasm affected responses to the conflict.11 What
has not been covered, as John Fisher has argued, is the impact of the
First World War on British expatriate communities.12 It is important
to take into account how distance from the empire, as well as an
imperial sense of spiritual belonging, affected the ways in which these
communities identified themselves as loyal subjects and patriots. Much
has been written of the influence of informal empire in expatriate
British communities in Shanghai or Argentina,13 but there is no
corresponding study related to communities outside the formal and
informal spheres of the British empire, nor indeed of the reaction of
these communities to the upheaval caused by the First World War.
Though Robert Bickers’ edited volume on other expatriate British
communities around the world has finally provided a solid base from
which to examine the history of these groups, its focus is still largely on
communities within the formal empire, with the exceptions of Shanghai
and Argentina, which fall within the sphere of informal British imperial
10
B. Bergonzi, Heroes’ Twilight: A Study of the Literature of the Great War (London, 1980);
A. Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008); J.
Watson, Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain
(Cambridge, 2004). See also Gallagher and Robinson’s seminal work on informal empire,
J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, The Economic History
Review, 6 (1953), 1–15.
11
For example, Gregory, The Last Great War, 24–5.
12
J. Fisher, ‘Keeping ‘the Old Flag Flying’: The British Community in Morocco and the
British Morocco Merchants Association, 1914–24’, Historical Research, 83 (2010), 719–46,
719.
13
For example, R. Bickers, Britain in China : Community, Culture and Colonialism 1900–
1949 (Manchester, 1999); A. G. Hopkins, ‘Informal Empire in Argentina: An Alternative
View’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 26 (1994), 469; A. S. Thompson, ‘Informal Empire?
An Exploration in the History of Anglo-Argentine Relations, 1810–1914’, Journal of Latin
American Studies, 24 (1992), 419.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
315
influence.14 The British community in Florence possessed none of the
economic might that was wielded by their counterparts in China or
South America, having been drawn to Florence almost exclusively by its
culture and lower costs of living. Indeed, the histories of groups, like
the British in Florence, which existed beyond both formal and informal
empire, have still not been the subject of any systematic study, an
omission that will be addressed.
The emergence of a distinct Anglo-Florentine identity as a result of the
Great War not only uncovers a previously unrepresented aspect of
the way in which the war affected notions of British patriotism and duty
but also highlights how distance from imperial influences shaped
expatriate identity, and highlights the how a sense of belonging to a
wider empire permeated these expatriate communities. As such, this
study seeks to engage with the debate between Bernard Porter and
John Mackenzie over the extent to which the empire was a significant
presence for those not involved in Britain’s imperial project to prove how
the idea of empire was a unifying force to those Britons outside it.15
Following Antoinette Burton’s directive that British history must
be given greater nuance by considering how different groups relate to,
and create, their own idea of ‘Britain’,16 this article considers the
emergence of a national identity outside the borders of nation and
empire. It also seeks to expand the field of expatriate history in general.
As such, it draws on the pioneering work of Maura O’Connor, who
examined the Victorian political infatuation with Italy, and Philip M.
Taylor’s study of British cultural propaganda conducted through the
British Council during the inter-war period. 17
Being British in Florence: Patriotism and Duty
Florence at the beginning of the First World War was a city eager to
embrace the new century. For a short time, she had been capital of the
newly united Kingdom of Italy,18 which had prompted several projects
of modernization, including the widening of streets to accommodate
14
R. Bickers, ed., Settlers and Expatriates: Britons over the Seas (Oxford, 2010).
J. M. Mackenzie, ‘ ’Comfort’ and Conviction: A Response to Bernard Porter’, The
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 36 (2008), 659–68, B. Porter, ‘Further
Thoughts on Imperial Absent-Mindedness’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth
History, 36 (2008), 101–17.
16
A. Burton, ‘Who Needs the Nation? Interrogating ‘British’ History’, Journal of
Historical Sociology, 10 (1997), 227–48.
17
M. O’Connor, The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination (New York,
1998); P. M. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–
1939 (Cambridge, 1981).
18
The Kingdom of Italy was declared in 1861 and Florence was its capital from 1865 to
1871, when the government moved to Rome.
15
316
CHRISTINA LOONG
increased flows of traffic, the replacement of the old markets and
Jewish ghetto in the city centre with the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II
and the installation of gas lamps. As a result, Florence no longer
resembled the city that had drawn the Romantic poets Byron and
Shelley in the early nineteenth century, a fact often loudly lamented by
British residents and travellers.19
In 1914, the British population in Florence was estimated at 5,000–
10,000 (as a comparison, a report from 1970 had the number residents at
947).20 Unfortunately, as no official records were kept at the time, the
true number of Anglo-Florentines—that is, the British residents of
Florence—must remain unknown. What is certain, however, is that in a
population of around 190,000,21 the British were a significant cultural
presence and were determined to have their voices heard. In 1970, the
British Consul observed that the pre-war community was made up of
the ‘intellectual heirs of the Brownings, the Trollopes, [the poet Arthur
Hugh] Clough and [the author Walter Savage] Landor, the distinguished, the rich, the respectably retired, the Italophiles, the students,
minor poets, painters and governesses, also an element with its own
reasons for living abroad, giving rise to the aphorism that Florence was
‘‘a sunny place for shady people’’ ’.22
Many Anglo-Florentines believed that they were culturally superior
to their countrymen who chose to visit other cities in Europe. As the
author of a 1906 article in the Florence Herald noted:
Florence . . . is an exceptional place, more fortunate in many ways
than any other town in Europe, in that it contains a larger leisured population of foreign residents, British, American, Russian, German, etc. than
any of its compeers and . . . almost every man of the civilized races who can
claim any right to be considered educated . . . spends a few weeks here.23
The notion of the foreign community being unique because it
was composed of a greater number of cultured intellectuals would
differentiate the propaganda efforts undertaken in the city in the Great
War. Importantly, this distinction would eventually influence the
founding of the British Institute of Florence.
Being British in pre-war Florence was thus to be counted as part of
the city’s wider international community, which had attracted a number
of intellectuals and socialites from various parts of Europe and
America. The American art critic Bernard Berenson, for example, lived
19
Roeck, Florence 1900, 50–1.
C. M. Pirie-Gordon to M. Stewart, TNA: PRO, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) 47/375, 25 February 1970.
21
Roeck, Florence 1900, 46.
22
Pirie-Gordon to Stewart, TNA: PRO, FCO 47/375, 25 February 1970.
23
F. P. Fletcher-Vane, ‘On the Value of clubs’, Florence Herald, 6 November 1906, 8.
Emphasis added.
20
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
317
at I Tatti, a villa in Fiesole, just outside the city walls of Florence. The
widow of Augustus Paget, former British ambassador to Rome, Lady
Walburga Paget, held court at her villa at Bellosguardo, whilst the
formidable adventurer and author Janet Ross welcomed visitors from
England to her villa at Poggio Gherardo.24 Florence’s reputation as a
centre for intellectuals was further strengthened when the German
community established the German Art Historical Institute or
Kunsthistorisches Institut in 1897, and the French followed by opening
their own Institute in 1907.25 Bernd Roeck has traced the German
community’s history through the period of the art historian Aby
Warburg’s time in Florence during the fin de siècle. He argues that just
before the First World War, there was a feeling of internationalism that
pervaded the expatriate community in Florence that disregarded
national identity in favour of a kinship felt by those who had been
drawn to the city’s art and history.26 For British residents, the outbreak
of the war would shatter this internationalist ideal in favour of a
sharply delineated national identity informed by a sense of a shared
Classical past with Italy and an imperial worldview.
Historians have noted that the enthusiasm for the First World War, at
least in its early stages, can be traced to the notion of a ‘cleansing war’,
which was influenced by imperial rhetoric. As Mackenzie observed, the
idea of war being rejuvenating for a nation bordering on dangerous
indolence was a common imperialist trope.27 Nicoletta Gullace has
pointed out too, that a general anxiety regarding the degeneration
of the British race in the years before the war prompted politicians
and recruiters for the army to portray volunteering for active service as
a means of reinvigorating British masculinity.28 For those AngloFlorentine men who volunteered for the front, the army would have
seemed an irresistible means of proving both their patriotism and
manhood to the empire. W. J. Reader confirmed this by noting that the
conflict was ‘in some obscure way a wanted war’, and he adds that by
the outbreak of the conflict, patriotism and imperialism were inseparable, an argument supported by Peter Parker.29
24
W. Paget, In My Tower, 2 vols. (1; London, 1924); L. Waterfield, Castle in Italy: An
Autobiography (London, 1961).
25
Institut Français De Florence, ‘Il Centenario’, <http://www.france-italia
.it/FIRENZE/Istituto-francese-di-Firenze/il_centenario.php?c¼4606&m¼55&l¼it>, accessed 27 May 2011; Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, ‘History of the Institute’, <http://
www.khi.fi.it/en/institut/geschichte/index.html>, accessed 27 May 2011.
26
Roeck, Florence 1900, 252.
27
J. M. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion,
1880–1960 (Manchester, 1984), 6.
28
N. F. Gullace, The Blood of Our Sons: Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British
Citizenship During the Great War (New York, 2002), 40–41.
29
W. J. Reader, At Duty’s Call : A Study in Obsolete Patriotism (Manchester, 1988), 15–16,
40; and P. Parker, The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public-School Ethos (London, 1987), 54.
318
CHRISTINA LOONG
The symbiotic relationship between patriotism and imperialism was
found in Florence, although the reaction to the beginning of the war, as
recorded in the Anglo-Florentine newspapers, was delayed somewhat
since both the Florence Herald and the Italian Gazette were on their usual
summer printing break. Published weekly, both newspapers had
been founded to cater primarily to the social and cultural needs of the
British community in the city. Produced under the direction of their
anonymous editors—who unfortunately left few personal traces on the
pages of their newspapers—these newspapers were intended to supplement the daily European editions of major Anglo-American broadsheet
newspapers, such as the Times and the International Herald Tribune,
which could be found in libraries like the Gabinetto Viesseux. Such ready
availability of news from Britain ensured that Anglo-Florentines could
stay connected with, and feel themselves a part of, the empire.
The first issue (5 November 1914) of the more stridently patriotic
Italian Gazette after its summer hiatus was a resounding call to arms,
running a bevy of articles detailing everything from a summary of the
latest developments on the various fronts, to a list of Anglo-Florentines
who had volunteered for Kitchener’s army and a denunciation of the
widely respected British authority on Renaissance art, Vernon Lee, who
had written a letter to the New York Nation sympathizing with
Germany. The most striking aspect of this issue is its printing of the list
of Anglo-Florentine volunteers who had returned to Britain to join up,
particularly because the newspaper also printed the letters of two
brothers, which capture the popular enthusiasm for the war in its initial
stages. In keeping with what Reader has written about the sudden
overwhelming enthusiasm of the first few months of the war, the
Gazette’s publication of the men’s names is a clear demonstration of
how the patriotic fervour for battle transcended the geographical
boundaries of empire. In Britain, as Reader points out, over 750,000
men had joined the army within the first 2 months of the war. 30 By
publishing the list of men who had enlisted, therefore, the Gazette was
effectively declaring itself and the rest of the British community as
much a part of the war effort as their compatriots around, as well as
outside, the empire.
The letters from a pair of Anglo-Florentine brothers, Eric and Jack
Johnstone, provide a more personal touch to the Gazette’s names of
volunteers. Eric, the older of the two, had left for Britain in the years
before the war to work at an unnamed bank. His letter to his parents in
Florence is poignant and warrants extended quotation:
I am to-day one of the happiest chaps in the country. Since this
morning I am a soldier in His Majesty’s Forces. For the last few
30
Reader, At Duty’s Call, 15.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
319
weeks we have been balloting in our Bank for young chaps to join
the Army, and until to-day I have not been among the lucky ones.
I was nearly on the point of going off when this morning another
fellow and I were sent for and we were told we had the Bank’s
consent to join. We could go straight off and enlist. I nearly dropped
with joy.31
Jack’s letter is no less enthusiastic, and is full of confidence in the
righteousness of the British cause. After describing how five hundred of
his fellow volunteers sang hymns and were treated to a sermon, Jack
closes his letter with the observation that it was ‘no wonder that
England wins, with a just cause and with such boys as we see here’.32 Also
included in the same issue was a poem by the flowery named ‘Rose de
Boheme’, which utilized both bucolic and martial imagery in its plea for
divine aid:
England, where peaceful homesteads smile,
Where hedge and flowery bank beguile
The traveller with fragrant wile,
AVENGE US
Free England, lo! We cry to thee,
Crush out the Vandals ruthlessly33
Entitled Louvain, the poem directly references the infamous sacking
of the Belgian city by German forces. The incident was one that Adrian
Gregory has identified as being among the first atrocity stories to be
given extensive coverage in the Daily Mail, one that he notes was
integral to engendering anti-German sentiments amongst the British
public.34 The poem was followed by an even more lurid piece, penned
by Mrs E. H. Procter. Entitled ‘Don’t Wait, Enlist Today’, it warned
young men that if they did not take the initiative and join up, Britain
might end up like Belgium,
You may see your own dear mother
Struck down by Uhlan blades,
While your unprotected sisters
Share the fate of Belgian maids.
...
Still there is time for action,
Listen to K[itchener]. of K[hartoum].,
‘Your King and Country need you,
31
Anonymous, ‘Serving Their Country: Florence British Residents in England and at
the Front’, Italian Gazette, 5 November 1914, 1.
32
Anonymous, ‘Serving Their Country’, 1. Emphasis added.
33
R. De Boheme, ‘Louvain’, Italian Gazette, 5 November 1914, 2.
34
Gregory, The Last Great War, 50.
320
CHRISTINA LOONG
Come and enlist to-day.’
Join all our brave defenders,
Scatter the brutal foe,
With all our Empire praying,
God bless you where you go.35
Though less ardent in its language than the Italian Gazette, the
Florence Herald also made sure to point out where its sympathies lay. Its
first issue after the summer of 1914 carried an editorial that stated in no
uncertain terms that any neutrality on the part of the paper and its staff
was impossible. The editor of the Herald noted that forming an opinion
of the conflict was the moral duty of all concerned: ‘It is not only a duty
to form an opinion . . . but in all well thinking citizens of ‘‘this world’’
it is the inevitable consequence of having a conscience.’36 That this
conscience would have pro-British inclinations was a given; as later
British propaganda was to show, and as Eberhard Demm and Cate
Haste have pointed out, the British cause was portrayed as the moral
opposite to that of Germany’s. Germans were depicted as having
callously started the conflict in order to gain more territories for her
empire and causing a threat to Western civilization.37 By printing
volunteer lists and poetry that referenced both infamous atrocities as
well as symbols of Britian and her heroes, and by declaring their
unwavering support for the war, the editors of the Herald and Gazette
ensured that their patriotism towards the wider British empire was
noticed, both by Anglo-Florentines and by any other resident who read
their newspapers.
The case of British expatriates in Florence can be compared with the
more well-documented exploits of their counterparts in other countries.
Fisher has noted that the loss of younger men in Morocco’s British
community as volunteers for the front led to the suspension of
pig-sticking there, which had been a long-standing social event.38 In
South America, according to David Rock, ethnic identification with
Britain led many Anglo-Argentine men to volunteer for armed
service.39 Out of the 28,000 strong community in 1914, 5,000 men
volunteered for the front, of whom three-quarters were killed.40
Similarly, in China, the Shanghailander community lost 200 of its
35
E. H. Procter, ‘Don’t Wait, Enlist Today’, Italian Gazette, 28 January 1915, 8.
‘Fair Play’, Florence Herald, 31 October 1914, 1.
C. Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning : Propaganda in the First World War (London,
1977), 22; and E. Demm, ‘Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War’, Journal of
Contemporary History, 28 (1993), 163–92, 175.
38
Fisher, ‘Keeping ’the Old Flag Flying’ ’, 727.
39
D. Rock, ‘The British of Argentina’, in R. Bickers, ed., Settlers and Expatriates: Britons
over the Seas (Oxford, 2010), 18–44, 34.
40
J. Walker, ‘ "A Little Corner of the Empire": British Travel Writers in the Argentine:
An Overview’, Inter-American Review of Bibliography, 44 (1994), 265–81, 278.
36
37
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
321
volunteers and Bickers describes a crowd of 7000 gathering to send off
a contingent of 110 men.41 Though the statistics for Anglo-Florentine
volunteers are not available, it is clear that many British subjects
living overseas felt a common obligation to defend their homeland.
Geographical distance played no great barrier to expatriates’ identification with the wider British empire.
Another way in which the Gazette chose to display its patriotism was
by denouncing a pro-German article protesting Britain’s war written
by Vernon Lee, the pen name of the Anglo-Florentine author and
intellectual Violet Paget. Unfortunately the author of the article remained anonymous, so there is no way of discerning whether their
comments towards Lee were informed by personal animosity, but there
is no disputing the intended effect. Expressing disgust at Lee’s horror
towards the author H. G. Wells’ plan to starve Germany into surrender,
the anonymous correspondent of the Gazette noted:
Miss Paget is horrified that Mr. H.G. Wells should have proposed to
Americans the reduction of Germany by starvation but she has not a
word of sympathy for the Belgians, reduced to beg their bread in
foreign lands by Germany’s hordes of pillagers.42
The article branded Lee a ‘confederate of Germany’ and observed
scathingly that ‘Miss Paget had been ‘‘blameless’’ in the eyes of her
countrywomen had she stayed her disloyalty.’43 That a prolific author
and long-time British resident would display such unpatriotic
sentiments was unforgivable to the Gazette’s correspondent, but the
Gazette’s printing of the response to Lee’s letter without reproducing the
original itself is telling. Obviously the newspaper would not print
articles that might be considered sympathetic to Germany, in keeping
with contemporary practice.44 Yet, by pointing out the disloyal views of
other Anglo-Florentines, the Gazette was restating and emphasizing its
own patriotism and moral outrage that any right-thinking British
resident might consider that the German cause had any validity.
During their short wartime run, both newspapers continually printed
articles that portrayed the Allied war effort as being better prepared
and more successful than that of Germany and her allies, regarding it
their duty to portray Britain’s war in a positive light. Some of these
were translations from Italian newspapers, likely printed in order to
show the support of Italian journalists for the Allies, but also to
41
R. Bickers, ‘Shanghailanders and Others: British Communities in China, 1843–1957’,
in Bickers, Settlers and Expatriates, 269–301, 269.
42
Anonymous, ‘A Lady’s Speech: Miss Paget and Germany’, Italian Gazette, 5
November 1915, 2.
43
Anonymous, ‘A Lady’s Speech’.
44
Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning, 3.
322
CHRISTINA LOONG
highlight both the morality of Britain’s war and to encourage feelings of
solidarity between the two nations, especially in the months before Italy
entered the war in May 1915.45 Though the editor of the Florence Herald
acknowledged that his newspaper had a limited circulation and a
negligible impact on the views of the Italian public, he felt that ‘a paper
published in Italy for English speaking readers . . . has a higher duty to
perform and may eventually raise its humble voice to help strengthen
Latin and Anglo-Saxon friendship at a moment when these two elect
branches of the human Family are heroically defending the cause of
Civilisation’.46 This sense of duty to foster stronger Anglo-Italian ties is
interesting to note, and taps into the already long-standing British
tradition of equating civilization with the Mediterranean, and indeed,
with Italy in particular.47 In doing so, the editor of the Herald was
intimating that by improving Anglo-Italian relations, at least in
Florence, British residents were, in some small way, helping to defend
the stability and longevity of Western civilization itself.
Defining an Anglo-Florentine Self
Part of the anti-German rhetoric found in official British propaganda
produced in the First World War was the disavowal of any cultural
links between Britain and Germany and a championing of the Latinate
heritage of the empire.48 For the British residents of Florence, this
would be a defining feature of their wartime identity. The Gazette
reproduced an assertion by the Italian economist and future President,
Luigi Einaudi, found in the Corriere della Sera, that the British empire
was ‘the true spiritual heir and perfector of the finest political creation
the world has ever known – the Roman Empire’.49 The Herald, however,
preferred to dwell on Einaudi’s theory (from the same article) that
Britain was protecting the future of Western civilization. Referring to
the policy of gradual self-government in Britain’s colonies, Einaudi was
of the opinion that
England is apparently the only country to have learned through past
experience to foster freedom and the spirit of independence in her
45
For example, ‘In the Italian Press’, Italian Gazette, 21 January 1915, 2; ‘Rule Britannia’,
Florence Herald, 23 January 1915, 2; ‘The British Army’s Vigilance’, Italian Gazette, 5
November 1914, 1.
46
‘To Our Readers’, Florence Herald, 27 November 1915, 1.
47
R. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World 1860–1960 (New York, 1996), 160; J. Pemble,
The Mediterranean Passion : Victorians and Edwardians in the South (Oxford, 1987), 139; and
O’Connor, The Romance of Italy, 14.
48
J. S. Ellis, ‘ ’The Methods of Barbarism’ and the ’Rights of Small Nations’: War
Propaganda and British Pluralism’, Albion, 30 (1998), 49–75, 70.
49
‘In the Italian Press’, 2.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
323
colonies, and . . . the weakening of England might be the loss to the
cause of civilisation of one of the greatest factors of progress.50
One of the main reasons the Florence Herald would have published
this passage in particular was because it followed the line of official
British propaganda on the necessity of war. Britain’s declaration of
hostilities was portrayed as the defence of ‘poor little Belgium’ against
the evil German invader, who disregarded previous agreements on
Belgian neutrality.51 Britain was dutifully defending the rights of small
nations, a trope that was intimately connected with the imperial
mission of bringing the light of British civilization to those less
fortunate. 52
As Duncan Bell has pointed out, British imperialists in the late
nineteenth century traced the foundations of their empire and its
civilizing mission to the example provided by Rome, though they were
careful to distance themselves from that empire’s eventual fall and
dissolution.53 The invasion of the Britain by Julius Caesar and his
troops, however, provided Anglo-Florentines with an appropriate
starting point from which to begin the history of Anglo-Italian
relations; from the Romans, through the Renaissance that had inspired
Shakespeare, to events closer to the present day, when the Risorgimento
and the exploits of its hero Garibaldi had moved half a million people
to welcome him when he visited London in 1864.54 That Florence
boasted so many British residents and drew so many tourists surely
spoke of a connection between the two countries. Printed not long after
Italy’s declaration of war, the following verse by Nesta de Robeck
employs familial imagery with a heavy hand to emphasize the
relationship between Britain and Italy:
What English heart does not go out today
To thee, oh Italy, as we see thee stand,
Great Latin mother of our northern land,
Beside us as our sister in the fray For we remember how, when far away
In the dim past thou stretchedst out thy hand
...
Always we loved thee, yea and love thee still55
50
‘Rule Britannia’, 2.
Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning, 22; and Demm, ‘Propaganda and Caricature’, 175.
52
Parker, The Old Lie, 54.
53
D. Bell, ‘From Ancient to Modern in Victorian Imperial Thought’, The Historical
Journal, 49 (2006), 735–59, 745.
54
O’Connor, The Romance of Italy, 150–1; and A. Scirocco, Garibaldi : Citizen of the World,
trans. A. Cameron (Princeton, 2007), 338.
55
N. De Robeck, ‘To Italy, May 1915’, Florence Herald, 31 July 1915, 4.
51
324
CHRISTINA LOONG
It is interesting to note that de Robeck names Italy explicitly as the
spiritual ancestor of Britain, but intimates that the two countries are
now on equal terms as sisters. This was a common view of Italy,
influenced by Britain’s imperial experience;56 though Italy was heralded
as the ancestor of modern Britain, she was regarded as a fallen
civilization, weakened by her many years of occupation from foreign
invaders, and only lately united as a nation.57 Indeed, Italy’s decline
from the lofty heights of the Roman empire was one that imperialists
were keen to avoid.58 Britain, on the other hand, boasted a vast empire
and advanced armed forces. At the heart of imperialist rhetoric was a
belief in national racial superiority,59 and Andrew Thompson points out
that Italians were often used as a standard degenerate ‘other’ against
which to measure the superiority of the British race.60 Part of being
Anglo-Florentine was to appreciate the cultural heritage of Italy, but to
recognize its ultimate inferiority to the power and civilizing force of the
British empire. Although they were located outside the realm of formal
empire, it is clear that many British residents in Florence still regarded
themselves as being very much part of it if not physically, then very
much in a spiritual sense where ties to Britain negated the tyranny of
distance.
One Anglo-Florentine who felt a strong connection with the empire
was Lina Waterfield, niece of the author Janet Ross. In 1900, she had
already displayed a fierce patriotism during the Anglo-Boer War, when
she wrote to her friend Madge, eldest daughter of the writer John
Addington Symonds, confessing that she ‘read three papers a day &
dream all night I am fighting the enemy’.61 During the First World War,
she volunteered in unofficial patriotic Italian groups to produce
pro-war propaganda, coming to the notice of the Foreign Office in
London, and eventually took charge of the official British propaganda
effort in Tuscany. She was also the main driving force behind the
fledgling initiative that eventually resulted in the British Institute in
Florence, and was a member of the Institute’s governing board during
its turbulent inter-war period, when she was arrested by Fascist officials
56
O’Connor links the mission to civilize Southern Women in newly independent Italy
with the wider civilizing mission of the empire. M. O’Connor, ‘Civilizing Southern Italy:
British and Italian Women and the Cultural Politics of European Nation Building’,
Women’s Writing, 10 (2003), 253–68, 261–4.
57
Pemble, The Mediterranean Passion, 141.
58
Bell, ‘From Ancient to Modern’, 738.
59
Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 254.
60
A. S. Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back?: The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the
Mid-Nineteenth Century (Harlow, 2005), 186.
61
L. Waterfield to M. Symonds, British Institute Archives (BIA), Florence, Waterfield
Collection (WC), WAT:1:G:75:ff1-2, 1 January 1900.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
325
at Molinella, a town near Bologna, for investigating the effects of
Syndicalism on agriculture there.62
Given the nature of the conflict, the new Anglo-Florentine identity
espoused by the newspapers was also explicitly anti-German. This
is unsurprising, but demonstrates how these Anglo-Florentines defined
themselves along nationalist lines, in contrast to pre-war ideas of
being part of an indistinct international community. Their idea of
‘German-ness’ equated the Kaiser and his troops with Biblical notions
of evil. In a 1915 article from the Italian Gazette, the writer who called
himself ‘An Old Volunteer’ encouraged his fellow Anglo-Florentines to
regard the war as a blessing in disguise, for there was now an
opportunity to check the destruction threatened by German expansionism, which he claimed had been slowly gathering force in the years
leading up to the war. In fact, instead of growing weary of the fighting,
the British and their allies should welcome the opportunity to rid the
world of German aggression:
Some day we may realize with thankfulness how important it was
that the wild animal should come out into the open and offer us the
golden opportunity to kill it. And as for hatred, does not the fox hate
the huntsman, the burglar the policeman, the assassin his judge?
Now let us look forward to the thief hating his captor.63
Furthermore, ‘An Old Volunteer’ was of the opinion that it was the
patriotic duty of all Anglo-Florentines to hate Germans, branding those
who were squeamish about applying blanket condemnations to an
entire people disloyal.64 He was very clear on this point, writing that
‘the Germans, to me, in this war represent evil. We are commanded in
the Scriptures to hate evil. Therefore surely we should hate the
Germans.’65 In his equating of Germans as the spiritual offspring of
Satan, the author of this tirade displays a trope found in British
newspapers and propaganda, the vilification of all Germans as cruel
and debased. As has been observed, atrocity stories found in the British
press painted German forces as being capable of inhumane cruelty
through graphic descriptions of the carnage wrought by German
soldiers.66 By doing this, a hatred of the enemy was quickly roused,
inspiring greater resolution that the conflict at hand was righteous and
worth supporting.67 This argument is supported by Winter, who noted
that the press in Britain also utilized the tactic of defining Britishness as
62
63
64
65
66
67
Waterfield, Castle in Italy, 197–203.
‘Approaching the Dawn’, Italian Gazette, 22 April 1915, 1.
‘Approaching the Dawn’, 1.
‘Approaching the Dawn’, 1.
Gregory, The Last Great War, 68–9.
Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning, 3.
326
CHRISTINA LOONG
being contrary to ‘lesser’ German civilization.68 Thus, the actions of the
newspapers in Florence were in step with their counterparts back in
Britain, but also demonstrate how notions of Anglo-Florentine identity
were being affected by ideas prevalent in the British press.
Being Anglo-Florentine was also to be a cultural conduit between
Britain and Italy. Indeed, this was the niche that both the Italian Gazette
and Florence Herald had claimed for themselves, and it was certainly a
driving force behind the efforts of individuals like Hutton and
Waterfield, who both produced and organized the distribution of
propaganda through official and unofficial channels. In a city that had
led the driving cultural revolution of the Renaissance, it was essential
that Italians were made aware of the great threat to the civilized world
that the war posed. Creating a clearer understanding between British
residents and Italians had, in fact, been the purpose of the newly
revamped Gazette in 1909, when it had boasted that it would ‘cultivate
on the part of foreign residents a friendly feeling towards the Italians’.69
While this usually meant that the newspaper simply printed the British
community’s points of view (which were often complaints related to the
municipal council’s running of the city) and offered a summary of
interesting articles in the Italian press, the crisis of the war meant that
such complaints and anecdotes had to be set aside in order to foster a
genuine Anglo-Italian understanding. More often than not this meant
trying to influence British views of Italians. Einaudi’s article and the
pro-British views of other Italian journalists were translated for the
Gazette and Herald’s readership, but efforts to influence Italian opinion
were muted. Prevented by censorship laws that forbade the printing of
outright propaganda whilst Italy still remained neutral, the Gazette
instead tried to counter negative perceptions of Italy in British
newspapers, which unhelpfully mocked the squabbles of Italian
politicians:
It is unfortunate that at this critical juncture some leading newspapers
understand so inadequately the cross-currents of Italian politics, and
that the advice they tender is often more calculated to irritate than to
persuade.70
At the end of 1914, when the editorial was published, both the
Central Powers and Allies were wooing Italy for her support. As the
war began to consume its toll of men and resources on both sides,
68
J. M. Winter, ‘British National Identity and the First World War’, in S. J. D. Green and
R. C. Whiting, eds, The Boundaries of the State in Modern Britain (1996), 261–77, 266.
69
‘REORGANIZED: The Italian Gazette’, The Italian Gazette, 4 October 1909, 2.
70
‘Italy’s attitude – From a London Correspondent’, The Italian Gazette, 26 November
1914, 1.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
327
the need for Italian soldiers as support grew ever more pressing. Italy’s
resources of manpower and its influential position with other neutral
nations such as Romania made it a valuable potential ally to both
belligerent powers.71 Ultimately, however, the British managed to
secure Italy’s support for the Allied cause by promising territories in
the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 1915 Treaty of London.72 Poor
planning and the incompetency of senior officers, however, crippled the
Italian war effort. The enduring image of the Italian experience of war
would be defeat at the Battles of Caporetto in 1917, where Italian troops
suffered massive loss of life in comparison to their Austro-Hungarian
enemies—over half a million Italian casualties in comparison to twenty
thousand Austro-Hungarians. Indeed, the devastation of Caporetto
would eventually become a rallying point around which Mussolini
drew his supporters after the war had ended, promising to avenge
Italy’s humiliation.73
Ultimately, the role of Anglo-Florentine newspapers in helping to
promote cross-cultural understanding between their compatriots and
Italians may be more accurately stated to be printing Italian praise for
British efforts, and occasionally criticizing negative British views of
Italy. The part played by a number of key individuals, however, was
more successful. In terms of official persuasion, the tactics adopted by
several Anglo-Florentines meant that the tone of British propaganda
utilized for Florence would be distinct from that found in other areas of
Italy. For many residents-turned-propagandists like Hutton and
Waterfield, an intellectual centre such as Florence would not respond
to the more political propaganda that was being used in other Italian
cities such as Milan and Naples. Instead, they elected to conduct
cultural propaganda, which focused on educating Italians on British
culture and history in an effort to create a more sympathetic
understanding of her reasons for war. According to Taylor, cultural
propaganda is ‘the promotion and dissemination of national aims and
achievements in a general rather than specifically economic or political
form, although it is ultimately designed to promote economic and political
interests’.74 Compared to the political forms of persuasion found in
officially produced propaganda like Hutton’s notepaper for Italian
soldiers that exhorted the morality of the Allied cause and promoted
immediate goals such as ultimate victory over Germany, the propaganda proposed to be used in Florence by Waterfield was a subtler
71
W. A. Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword: Italy’s Neutrality and Entrance into the Great
War, 1914–1915 (New York, 1987), 148.
72
C. Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (Boston, 2008), 411–12.
73
Duggan, The Force of Destiny, 399–400.
74
Taylor, The Projection of Britain, 126. Emphasis added.
328
CHRISTINA LOONG
form of influence through the medium of education, intended to foster
continuing goodwill towards Britain.75
Conducting Propaganda: Persuading the Natives
For the patriotic Anglo-Florentine, there were a number of ways to show
support for the British cause. These included participating in fundraising
efforts for organizations like the Patriotic League of Britons Overseas, or
for the British Red Cross Society, whose first ambulance unit in Italy was
commanded by the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan.76 Those
individuals keen to act in a more pro-active manner saw propaganda
work as an obvious solution. Local Florentines were to be cajoled and
taught that Great Britain’s war was the concern of every individual who
would save the civilized world from the destabilizing forces of Germany.
In late 1914, the Italian Gazette ran a series of bilingual issues in order
to combat what it saw to be the insidious influence of German
propaganda in the local newspapers, a concern that was not without
reason. As stated earlier, the German community was a significant
presence in Florence before the outbreak of war. Roeck has noted that
the community was made up of members of the German educated
classes, who often felt intellectually superior to their Anglo-American
counterparts and this ensured that despite the international flavour of
the expatriate colony, both groups were not especially close socially. The
noted art historian Aby Warburg, for instance, regarded most
Anglo-Americans in the city as being too superficial.77 Furthermore,
even though English-language books were more readily available,
German literature and ideas were also widely known to educated
Florentines. Even more worryingly for British propagandists, Germans
could also lay claim to an intimate relationship with Italy that could be
traced back to the first Holy Roman emperors, the later writings of
Goethe and a similar adulation of Garibaldi.78
In contrast to the British, German propaganda was much better
prepared at the beginning of the war. An impressive bureaucracy
ensured that propaganda material was being distributed to German and
enemy soldiers, as well as any civilians that the invading army came
across, as soon as war had been declared.79 In neutral countries like
75
R. E. Cavaliero, ‘Cultural Diplomacy - the Diplomacy of Influence’, Round Table, 298
(1986), 139–44, 140 –43.
76
G. M. Trevelyan, Scenes from Italy’s War (London, 1919), 38–39.
77
Roeck’s study is by far the most comprehensive account of the pre-war German
community in Florence; Roeck, Florence 1900, 169.
78
Roeck, Florence 1900, 97.
79
G. S. Messinger, British Propaganda and the State in the First World War (Manchester,
1992), 15–16.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
329
Italy, German embassies and legations provided monetary assistance
and encouragement to local newspapers sympathetic to their views and
even printed their own.80 Newspapers funded in Italy included two
Florentine dailies, the Nuovo Giornale and La Nazione, in addition to
the two founded by the German embassy in Rome, the Concordia and
the ironically named La Vittoria. However, these papers did not enjoy
a very wide circulation, with the two German-founded dailies
eventually having to be distributed free.81 In fact, German and
Austrian propaganda in Italy was generally unsuccessful when
compared with the Allied effort. Florence, and the region of Tuscany,
was the notable exception, though Rennell Rodd was of the view that
‘ ‘‘the opinion of Florence . . . is not of much importance’’ in national
politics’.82 His observation, however, was evidently not shared by the
Anglo-Florentine newspapers, by Edward Hutton, who was dispatched
by the Foreign Office to head its propaganda bureau in the region in
1917, or by Lina Waterfield, who helped Italians with pro-British
sympathies organize the distribution of leaflets explaining why Britain
had declared war on Germany.83
Despite the fact that German propagandists were better organized
than their British counterparts, it has been argued that their effort was
ultimately doomed to failure. A large part of this can be attributed
to the German tendency towards autocratic militarism, which tolerated
no dissent and operated on the assumption that arguments of
military necessity would be persuasive.84 However, even though
German propaganda in Italy has generally been regarded as ineffective,
it is important to understand the anxiety that it caused amongst
British propagandists working in Tuscany. Given its socialist leanings
and strong opposition to the war, Tuscany was seen as being
particularly prone to German persuasion to push for an early end
to Italy’s involvement in the conflict after the Italian declaration of
war.85
In order to combat what it felt to be the insidious influence of
German propaganda, the Italian Gazette printed its first bilingual issue
on 26 November 1914. Designed to be shared with readers’ Italian
neighbours and friends, these editions reproduced English and Italian
80
Messinger, British Propaganda, 16.
Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword, 164–5.
82
Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword, 166.
83
Waterfield, Castle in Italy, 164–5.
84
Messinger, British Propaganda, 18–19.
85
Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword, 166. A fuller analysis of socialist activities in
Tuscany is found in N. C. Maccabruni, ‘Evoluzione politica e crisi Socialista in Toscana
alla vigilia della "Grande Guerra’’ ’, Movimento Operaio e Socialista, 15 (1969), 175–94.
81
330
CHRISTINA LOONG
versions of editorials and articles side by side. The Italian editorial
stated that:
This is not a newspaper of propaganda, and until today was always
published exclusively in English. But for this issue we make an
exception, not for propaganda, but to show Italians the methods of
the papers in Florence who tell lies and calumnies that bear the
German mark.86
Unfortunately, these editions were only produced for a 6-week run,
and in February 1915, abruptly came to a halt 2 months before the
paper ceased publication altogether. Since they were printed as a
response to German propaganda activities, the bilingual issues can be
seen as an illustration of Taylor’s claim that British wartime propaganda was always more reactive than assertive.87
The British effort to win over the hearts and minds of the Italian
people fared better in cities like Milan, where the efforts of a single
individual, Donna Bettina di Casanova, ensured that the British
propaganda effort flourished. Working on her own initiative, with a
team of women in the city, she produced, imported, and distributed
books, pamphlets, and leaflets, and organized lectures.88 Her efforts
were known to the War Propaganda Bureau founded by Charles
Masterman at Wellington House in London, where an official was of the
opinion that she was ‘a most meritorious female’.89 Donna Bettina’s
efforts represent an important milestone in propaganda work in Italy, as
it was through her actions that the first Anglo-Italian Institute in the
country was established in Milan in 1917. This first Institute provided a
reading room for soldiers on leave and both British and Italian civilians
to mingle, in addition to producing pro-Allied leaflets and public talks
in order to educate Italians on both the reasons for war and German
atrocities against civilians.90 It was from the model of this first institute,
86
Anonymous, ‘Gli Articoli di Guerra: del "Nuovo Giornale" e della "Nazione" ’, Italian
Gazette, 26 November 1914, 1. ‘Questo non è un giornale di propaganda, e fino ad oggi è
sempre stato pubblicato esclusivamente in lingua inglese. Però in questo numero facciamo
un’eccezion, no be far propaganda, ma per segnalare agli italiani i metodi seguiti da
giornali quotidiani di Firenze della diffusione di menzogne e calunnie di pura marca
tedesca.’
87
P. M. Taylor, ‘The Foreign Office and British Propaganda During the First World
War’, Historical Journal, 23 (1980), 875–98, 876. It should be pointed out that the question
of pro-German propaganda in Florence is more complex than the space in this essay
allows for.
88
E. Capel Cure to A. Randall, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/97, N22/230245, 24 November
1917.
89
Minute by H. Montgomery, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/97, N22/20187, 25 January
1917.
90
Capel Cure to Randall, TNA: PRO.
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
331
as well as the comparable example of the French Institute of Florence
that the British Institute was founded.91
Rennell Rodd believed that individuals like Donna Bettina were the
proper agents of British propaganda work in Italy, observing that ‘in
order to get the best possible results from our propaganda work in Italy
it is advisable to entrust it to Italians’.92 This is in keeping with much of
British propaganda conducted in foreign countries during the First
World War. In the case of America, British propaganda agents disguised
the origins of their material in order to give it more credibility, as it was
feared that obvious political propaganda could have a contrary effect,
as had been the result with methods employed by German agents in
other neutral countries.93
In Italy, propaganda literature and materials were printed as much
as possible by local Italians like Donna Bettina, often acting under
the direction of an agent of the British embassy or, after 1917, a
representative from the News Department. By using local agents as
much as possible, and by ensuring that any involvement by foreigners
in the production of propaganda was kept secret, British propagandists
ensured that the origin of their work appeared to be the spontaneous
efforts of like-minded Italians.94 It is also significant that Rennell Rodd
looked down on British residents in Italy, finding many of them
unsuitable to undertake propaganda work. He remarked that for
so-called experts of the country, they ‘become diletante [sic] and useless,
and in some cases actually harmful’.95 He did observe, however, that
there were certain other British residents like Waterfield who were
being employed in propaganda work who were actually effective in
gaining the attention and support of the Italians for whom they lectured
and produced pamphlets.
A delicate situation existed in Tuscany, where as Hutton observed,
‘any direct method of English propaganda . . . would have been
disastrous here in our special conditions; for me have to deal with
the most sceptical and the most disaffected people, with regard to the
war, that exists in all Italy’.96 Different tactics of persuasion would have
to be employed and a substitute for overtly political propaganda found.
In late 1917, Hutton and Waterfield discussed opening a British lending
91
For more on the French Institute of Florence and the work of Julien Luchaire, see I.
Renard, ‘A l’origine des instituts culturels Françáis a l’etranger: L’institut Françáis de
Florence au debut du XXÉ siecle.’, Melanges de l’Ecole Francaise de Rome, 114 (2002), 89–101.
92
R. Rodd to A. Balfour, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/97, N22/ 20187, 21 January 1917.
93
W. A. Wiegand, ‘British Propaganda in American Public Libraries, 1914–1917’,
Journal of Library History, 18 (1983), 237–54, 239.
94
Hutton to Montgomery, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/98 N22/20823, 20 January 1917.
95
Minute from S. Gaselee to A. Randall, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/175, 6327410, April
1918.
96
E. Hutton to J. Buchan, FO 395/98, N22/217349, 1 November 1917.
332
CHRISTINA LOONG
library in Florence. Waterfield suggested that if Italians learnt more
about Great Britain, then support for the war would surely follow.
Importantly, in contrast to the Anglo-Italian institute at Milan, both
Hutton and Waterfield agreed that the library in Florence was to be
‘entirely English and under English management’.97
Writing to John Buchan, author, Director of Information at the
Foreign Office and future Governor-General of Canada, the poet and
educator Frederick Herbert Trench outlined a scheme for a library
modelled on the French Institute of Florence, founded in 1907 to
educate Italians in French language and literature.98 Trench informed
Buchan that Waterfield had helped to secure premises for the library in
the Loggia dei Rucellai, situated in the centre of Florence, with funds
raised on her own. The purpose of the library, he noted, would be ‘the
cultivation of a better relationship, and mutual understanding, between
the students of the two countries by means of literature and economics,
the formation of a very select small library in a central position, and a
system of lectures’.99 Trench highlighted the need to keep the work of
the library separate from more conventional propaganda efforts, noting
that ‘political propaganda work . . . must be kept distinct from the
far-reaching objects of the small Institute proposed. On our part, we
believe that, in time, the Institute may itself prove a propaganda of no less
usefulness and importance.’100 Though the term was not employed to
describe what was being proposed, it is clear from later letters to
Buchan regarding the institute and memorandums within the News
Department that cultural propaganda was one of the main reasons why
the institute was proposed: a minute on the draft scheme for the
Institute stated that, ‘it seems inadvisable that this academic scheme
shall be confused with propaganda work - useful as the library may
be’.101
In a city valued for its intellectual reputation, the proposed library
(which would eventually become the British Institute) would cater to a
more educated class of Italians. This distinction found Waterfield at
odds with Hutton, who despite having apparently understood that
political propaganda was to be carried out separately from the
Institute’s work, wanted to transform it into an establishment more
along the lines of the Anglo-Italian institute of Milan. After a serious
disagreement over the way the Institute should be run, she wrote to
Buchan, providing him with what she outlined as the purpose of the
97
Waterfield, Castle in Italy, 167.
Renard, ‘A L’orgine Des Instituts Culturels Français’, 90.
F. H. Trench to J. Buchan, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/99, N22/234333, 2 December
1917.
100
F. H. Trench to J. Buchan, TNA: PRO, emphasis added.
101
Minute, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/99 N22/234333, 11 December 1917.
98
99
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
333
Institute, and how Hutton had misunderstood her position. Her
flustered letter identifies the Institute’s main points of divergence from
political propaganda:
I had understood that . . . Mr Hutton had quite come round to my
point of view that the Library should in no way be run as a propaganda
Office, with posters & war books in the windows, flags flying, & the
coming & going of either Italian or English soldiers. The Library was
to be for Professors & Students. . . . The more we were able to keep
the Library working on a purely intellectual basis the more likely we
were to obtain a valuable & permanent influence for good in
Florence, among this interesting but highly critical & cynical people.
I did not succeed in getting Mr Hutton to see that, while it were well
not to acknowledge our Library to be a propaganda centre or to run it
on obvious propaganda lines, it would in reality be the essence of
propaganda . . .102
Helpfully for Waterfield, Hutton was recalled to London not long
after to undertake propaganda under the aegis of the Italian embassy
there, owing to the antagonistic feelings he had raised amongst
propagandists in Florence.103 At the same time, the News Department
awarded a grant of £1,600 to the Institute and Buchan transferred
Hutton’s duties as official representative of British propaganda in
Tuscany to Waterfield.104 Importantly, Waterfield’s letter highlights
why the Institute in Florence would survive the war, when its sister
institutes in other Italian cities were shut down in accordance with
Foreign Office policy.105
The British Institute was established in order to safeguard the
long-term interests of Britain in Florence and the rest of Italy. Promoting
understanding between Italians and Britons through cultural education
and exchange would ensure stronger diplomatic ties between the
two countries. It also raised the cultural profile of the British in a
city where the French and Germans had already established significant
presences and ensured that British points of view had an outlet.
By educating Italians about British ideas, literature, language, and
history, the Institute separated itself from the short-term concerns of
wartime propaganda and guaranteed that it had relevance in post-war
Florence.
102
L. Waterfield to J. Buchan, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/175, N22/2227, 4 January 1918.
Emphasis added.
103
J. Buchan to A. Thorold, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/175, N22/2228, 31 December 1917.
104
H. Montgomery to A. Thorold, TNA: PRO, Kew, FO 395/175, N22/2228, 11 January
1918; and J. Buchan to L. Waterfield, BIA, Florence, WAT:1:G:90:f4, 28 December 1917.
105
Taylor, The Projection of Britain, 13.
334
CHRISTINA LOONG
Conclusion
When the First World War ended in 1918, it left in its wake a trail of
destruction that claimed the lives of nearly 38 million people, changed
geographical borders, and left an indelible legacy on the cultural
landscape of Europe. The British residents of Florence were amongst
those deeply affected by the changes the war had wrought, with the
conflict forcing them to define themselves in stark nationalist terms,
disregarding the pre-war internationalism that had permeated
Florence’s foreign community and instead casting themselves as
patriotic sons and daughters of the British empire; though they lived
beyond its borders, they were sure to emphasize how spiritual ties
linked them with their fellow British subjects. Newspapers like the
Italian Gazette and Florence Herald tapped into contemporary rhetoric
used by the British press to appeal to an imperial sense of duty
amongst their fellow Anglo-Florentines, but also dipped into the history
of Anglo-Italian relations to emphasize the Latinate heritage of the
British empire in order to encourage Italian support and participation in
the war. These newspapers were also careful to stress their continued
loyalty towards Britain and to define an Anglo-Florentine identity that
was staunchly pro-British and defiantly anti-German. The newspapers
were responding to the war as their countrymen back in Great Britain
did, but combined it with an awareness of their immediate environment, emphasizing the importance of Anglo-Italian friendship. Physical
ties to their adopted city, as well as cultural and spiritual links to the
empire and ideas of patriotic duty, all played a role in the formation of
a unique expatriate identity, in the absence of any formal or informal
imperial influence.
Further, the involvement of members of the community, such as Lina
Waterfield and Edward Hutton, in the production and distribution of
officially sanctioned pro-Allied propaganda dictated the type of
propaganda that was produced for Florence and Tuscany. The
distinction between overtly political forms of persuasion, and a softer,
more cultural approach was the basis on which the British Institute of
Florence was founded. Intended as a long-term solution to gain more
support and influence for Britain in Italy, the Institute would eventually
outlive the war and become a model for other British Institutes around
the world. The effect of the First World War on Anglo-Florentine
identity, influenced as it was by ideas of patriotism and a spiritual link
to the empire had implications not only for inter-war Florentine society,
but more importantly, on an international level, as one of the first
centres dedicated to British cultural propaganda. Expatriate identity
and the crisis of the Great War had produced one of the first outposts of
‘VICTORY WILL BE WITH US’
335
British culture outside the empire’s boundaries, with the mission of
drawing the native inhabitants of the land closer to a more beneficial
relationship with Great Britain, a mission that still continues today.
No similar independent institute in either South America or China, or
anywhere else outside the formal empire, still survives.