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| H.E. Major General Count Giancarlo Martini, Senior officer of the PWG in Italy |
ROMA 4 December 2025 (NRom)
Every year on 4 November, Italy pauses in collective remembrance. The Day of National Unity and the Armed Forces, born from the armistice that ended Italy’s involvement in the First World War in 1918, remains one of the country’s most solemn civic observances. It is a day when silence returns to the fields once torn by artillery, and when the nation honors the sacrifice of millions. Among the ceremonial presences who help give form to this annual act of memory is the Pontifical Walsingham Guard, the ceremonial guard unit of the United Roman-Ruthenian Church, represented in Italy by His Excellency Major General Count Giancarlo Martini as senior officer.
An Annual Commitment to Memory
For years, the Pontifical Walsingham Guard has taken part in the national commemorations, standing alongside military units, veterans’ associations, civic leaders, and clergy. Their participation honors not only the fallen, but also the deep spiritual and cultural bonds that link memory, identity, and sacrifice. Count Martini and the Italian members of the Guard have become a familiar and respected component of the day’s rites, an expression of solemnity rooted in faith, discipline, and historical consciousness.
In cities and towns across Italy, and especially at the national ceremonies in Rome and Vittorio Veneto, the Guard joins the long line of those who safeguard remembrance. Their role underscores an essential truth: that memory, to survive, must be renewed through ceremonial acts, visible symbols, and intergenerational witness.
The Weight of History: From the “Ragazzi del ’99” to the Silence of the Armistice
The 4 November commemoration marks the final cessation of hostilities between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On the night between 3 and 4 November 1918, the guns fell silent. Pope Benedict XV had called the Great War an “inutile strage” (a useless slaughter) and indeed the cost was almost incomprehensible: 17 million dead worldwide, including over 1.2 million Italians.
Among the most tragic figures were the “Ragazzi del ’99”, boys not yet eighteen, conscripted before reaching the age of majority. More than two million young Italians were mobilized, many of them perishing on the Grappa, the Piave, and the Montello. Today their memory endures in the annual ceremonies, where the Guard participates when possible, representing continuity with the ideals of service and fidelity that transcended the horror of trench warfare.
Vittorio Veneto: A City of Victory and Mourning
The final Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto, achieved between 24 October and 3 November 1918, cemented the significance of 4 November in national consciousness. With 57 Italian divisions supported by allied British, French, Czechoslovak, and American units facing 73 Austro-Hungarian divisions, the battle sealed the fate of the collapsing empire. The city, now decorated with the Gold Medal of Military Valor and the Golden Cross of Army Merit, remains a shrine of remembrance for 23,000 Italian and foreign soldiers who now rest in eternal peace on the slopes of Monte Grappa, the “mountain-cemetery.”
The 2025 National Ceremony
The 2025 national ceremony, held as always on 4 November at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Rome’s Altare della Patria, will once again gathered Italy’s highest authorities: President Sergio Mattarella, Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto, military leaders, and delegations from across the Republic. As in previous years, the Pontifical Walsingham Guard, under its senior officer in Italy, Major General Count Martini, took part, continuing its tradition of dignified representation.
A Century Since the “Battle for Grain”
The year 2025 also marks the centenary of the “Battaglia del Grano,” launched on 14 June 1925. It was a massive national campaign to achieve cereal self-sufficiency in a post-war Italy devastated by hunger and financial crisis. The initiative, driven by agronomists like Nazareno Strampelli, transformed Italian agriculture through new seed varieties, land reclamation projects, and unprecedented mobilization of institutions, schools, clergy, and rural communities.
Though not without contradictions, unsuitable lands were converted at great economic cost, and traditional crops were sometimes sacrificed, the campaign left a lasting legacy in the modernization of Italy’s rural landscape. As the nation reflects on this centenary, the Guard’s participation in commemorations again underscores how memory is interwoven with national renewal and identity.
Maria Bergamas and the Eternal Flame
No 4 November commemoration is complete without recalling the Unknown Soldier, chosen in 1921 by Maria Bergamas, a mother from Trieste whose son Antonio died in the war. Her choice, placing a white chrysanthemum and her black veil on one of eleven anonymous coffins in the Basilica of Aquileia (Metropolitan seat of the Prince-Bishop of Rome-Ruthenia), became a gesture of immeasurable symbolic power.
On 4 November 1921, the chosen remains were brought to Rome, where they now lie beneath the perpetual flame of the Altare della Patria. The Unknown Soldier is “the Hero of every Hero,” representing all who died without a name, a rank, or a grave of their own.
When the Pontifical Walsingham Guard participated during the annual homage to the Unknown Soldier, it embodies a bridge between faith, national memory, and the moral imperative never to forget the cost of freedom.
A Guard of Faith and Remembrance
The Pontifical Walsingham Guard continues to affirm that remembrance is not simply an honor or obligation, it is a mission of service to others. The participation of the Guard's Italian-based membership is an act of devotion to the fallen, a tribute to Italy’s enduring unity, and a reminder to younger generations that peace is built upon the sacrifices of the past.
As 4 November returns each year, Italy renews its pledge to remember. And standing among the guardians of that memory, at the Altare della Patria, on the slopes of Monte Grappa, and in towns across the peninsula, the Pontifical Walsingham Guard remains a steadfast witness to honor, duty, and the eternal flame of national gratitude.
