24 May 1915: the First World War began in Manfredonia
Perhaps not everyone knows that the First World War began in Manfredonia at dawn on May 24, 1915.
That It was raining that day and in the Adriatic, near Barletta, the Austrian battle unit Helgoland appeared, armed with 12 cannons. Two Italian destroyers, the Aquilone and the Turbine, patrolled the area. The Turbine, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Luigi Bianchi, was pursued by Heligoland and Bianchi decided to lure the Austrian cruiser towards the Tremiti, where he knew there were other Italian ships.
Heligoland reached the Gulf of Manfredonia, where local fishermen, believing it to be an Italian vessel, approached to offer help. The Austrian commander asked where the telegraph station was located, but the fishermen, misunderstanding, indicated the railway station outside the city (country station), which was hit by as many as 100 bombs. At the beginning of the last century, in the center of Manfredonia, and precisely in the tower of San Francesco, there was in fact a telegraph that was used to communicate remotely. This error allowed the population to escape, avoiding a massacre.
Meanwhile, two more enemy ships arrived in the Gulf. The battle raged, the Turbine was hit repeatedly and many men fell from its sides. However, the commander wrote in his logbook, “the crew worked peacefully, despite the rain of enemy shells which was always incessant and intense”. He continued as if it were nothing even a sailor whose forearm had been amputated by a grenade.
In order not to hand over the ship to the enemy, the valves were opened, the Turbine took on water and became flooded, leaning on one side. The survivors lined up on the main deck, Bianchi ordered a final salute to the flag, and in unison the men shouted: “Long live Italy, long live the King!”. A lifeboat was put into the water by the enemy for the wounded and survivors, while a huge whirlpool swallowed the Turbine, taking it to the abyss, where the remains are still found today.
And as a plaque near the Bar Impero in Piazza Marconi reports, while ‘the Piave murmured calmly and placidly as the first infantrymen passed by on 24 May’, Manfredonia, “first of all the Adriatic cities, fearlessly experienced the Austrian anger and the shining Italian value”.
Maria Teresa Valente
