Page 59 - La Grande Guerra dei Carabinieri

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Anzano di Puglia (FG), 8 giugno 1930. Cerimonia di donazione della Bandiera nazionale alla Stazione Carabinieri. La tradizione del “dono della
Bandiera” nacque durante il corso del conflitto.
Anzano di Puglia (FG), 8 June 1930. Ceremony of the national Flag donation to the Carabinieri Station. The tradition of “the Flag donation”
started during the war.

Carabinieri among the people
Carabinieri
people

uring the war, the Carabinieri ter-
ritorial commands, which were
D greatly undermanned due to the
deployment of personnel to the opera-
tional areas, had to tackle problems on
the domestic front as challenging as
those in war zones: the upsurge of com-
mon crime, the maintenance of public
order, the surveillance of sensitive tar-
gets, the compliance with the curfew or-
der and the bans issued by the military,
the call-up of conscripts, the pursuit of
draft evaders and deserters, and the as-
sistance to displaced people and victims
of bombings or natural disasters like
the 1915 earthquake in Marsica. The
ties with the local authorities were very
close everywhere. The Mayor of Castelnuovo Magra, Liguria, launched an initiative that was adopted through-
out Italy in the following years: “the Flag donation” to the Carabinieri station, which until then was the preroga-
tive of the higher Commands.
In 1917, the Auxiliary Carabinieri were established so as to reinforce the territorial Carabinieri units. The Aux-
iliary Carabinieri were selected among the Army soldiers and were equipped with Carabinieri uniforms and
leather accessories in order to carry out the institutional activities until the end of the war. That category inte-
grated the Carabinieri with the title of Carabinieri aggiunti (Army soldiers added to the Carabinieri), who were
established back in 1870 to man the Carabinieri stations; the Carabinieri aggiunti, instead, continued wearing their
Army uniforms adorned with Carabinieri braids.