Page 67 - La Grande Guerra dei Carabinieri

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Little-known roles of the Carabinieri Corps:

Antonio Vannugli, Director of Asinara
Antonio Vannugli,

uring the First World War, the Carabinieri Corps was invested with new, divergent responsibilities, some-
times far removed from standard, traditional, institutional duties. Among these, a very particular role
D emerged for the Carabinieri Corps and its personnel through the tasks assigned to Colonel Antonio Van-
nugli and to the Carabinieri who served on the island of Asinara. As well as a medical centre on the island, pres-
ent since the last decades of the 19th century, a penal colony was also established, and so too on other islands.
The link between Asinara and the Carabinieri Corps became stronger from 1916 onward when Colonel Anto-
nio Vannugli, former commander of a Carabinieri Legion and then of a mobilized Carabinieri Regiment, was as-
signed as director of the colony of Austro-Hungarian prisoners on the island. In fact, there were also the camps
of what was left of the Serbian army and the civilians who followed them: together evacuated by the Italian
Royal Navy at the beginning of the war. The Carabinieri on Asinara were attested with a varying presence of
between thirty and over a hundred, and they played a primary, but forgotten, role in the course of the events on
the island but above all they distinguished themselves in the years under the direction of Vannugli: a Carabinie-
ri officer assigned to a function far from the traditional ones of the Corps, but no less suited to its essential na-
ture. During Vannugli’s time on the island, between 1916 and 1917, sanitary conditions for the people quartered
on Asinara significantly improved compared to the first period
after their arrival, which was characterized by a very high num-
ber of deaths. This contribution highlights quite well the role of
the Carabinieri in this complex piece of history, of which people
are still unfamiliar with to this today.

Roma, Museo Storico dell'Arma dei Carabinieri, 22 marzo 2018. Tavola rotonda
“Il Podgora di Antonio Vannugli e del Reggimento Carabinieri Mobi litato”. L'in-
tervento della dottoressa Barbara Pavarotti, discendente del colonnello.
Round table "The Podgora of Antonio Vannugli and of the Carabinieri Regi-
ment". The speech of Dr. Barbara Pavarotti, great-granddaughter of the colonel.