Italian Mines and Miners in the First World War: Raw Materials and Tunnel Warfare

Paolo Sammuri
Sezione di Storia delle Geoscienze - Società Geologica Italiana. E-mail: science.sam@tiscali.it

At the outbreak of the First World War, Italy had a serious shortage of raw materials, above all coal and iron. However, during the war, the mining data collected by the Italian Royal Mining Corps, extracted from the "Rivista del Servizio Minerario", show a clear increase in the production of both. Mine output as well as industrial production grew by means of the strict control of the so called "Industrial Mobilization", under the military management of General Dallolio. Former Head of the Under-secretariat for arms and munitions, he became Minister in the new Ministry for Arms and Munitions. At that time also the debate on "the Italian mining problem" started in "La Miniera Italiana", directed by Mario Cermenati. The miners' experience in working with explosives, together with mining techniques, was very useful for the Army, especially in the "Genio" (the Italian engineer corps) for defensive and offensive works. The effort and challenge of the Italian army engineers, employed as miners in tunnel warfare in Trentino, has been shortly examined also on the basis of the documents preserved in the Archives of ISCAG (Istituto Storico e di Cultura dell'Arma del Genio).

mines, Raw Materials, Miners, Army Engineers, Military Mining, Tunnel Warfare, First World War.