Oreste Baratieri

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Oreste Baratieri

Oreste Baratieri (born November 13, 1841 in Condino , †  August 8, 1901 in Sterzing ) was an Italian general . From February 1892 to March 1896 he was governor of the colony of Eritrea and was deposed after the Battle of Adua .

Life

Oreste Baratieri was born in the County of Tyrol as Oreste Barater . His parents were Domenico Barater from Albaredo near Rovereto and Lucia Zanella from Val di Sole . He later Italianized his surname to Barattieri and then Baratieri at an unknown date .

Even in his youth he had contacts with irredentists , including the much older lawyer Alfonso Cioli, whom he affectionately referred to as his father in his letters. He first attended elementary and middle school in Rovereto and Trento, then the Benedictine high school in Merano .

In 1859 Baratieri went to Milan . A year later, despite his severe shortsightedness , he joined the red shirts Giuseppe Garibaldi and took part in the procession of a thousand in Sicily . Among the guerrillas Garibaldi arrant soon career and was even promoted to captain in 1860. When Capua was captured in 1860, he was awarded the silver medal for bravery. In 1862 he joined the royal Italian army , but remained associated with Garibaldi's red shirts. In the Battle of Custozza in the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, he received the bronze medal for bravery.

He married in January 1867. In the same year he took part in the battle of Mentana , which ended in Garibaldi's defeat against the outnumbered troops of the Papal States and the French allies under the command of Hermann Kanzler .

In 1872 he was recognized as captain in the regular royal army. In the 1870s he took part in a scientific trip to Tunisia for the Italian Geographic Society. In 1876 he became a member of the Camera dei deputati , to which he belonged for seven legislative terms until 1897. In 1885 he was promoted to colonel and entrusted him with command of the 4th Bersaglieri Regiment. He led the regiment between 1887 and 1888 and between 1890 and 1891 in the Eritrean War .

In 1890 he was appointed deputy commander of the Italian expeditionary force in the colony of Eritrea and city commander of Massaua . In 1891 he was appointed commander in chief of the Italian colonial troops in Africa and in February 1892 he was appointed governor of Eritrea. In 1893 he was promoted to major general.

After the fall of the Giolitti government at the end of November 1893, Baratieri was proposed as Foreign Minister by Giuseppe Zanardelli while attempting to form a government, which triggered the protests of Austria-Hungary due to Baratieri's irredentist past . Thereupon both Baratieri renounced the office and Zanardelli to form a government.

Under the successor cabinet Crispi II formed by Crispi , he returned to Eritrea as governor with the task of adopting a more moderate colonial policy, which Baratieri did not heed. With his authoritarian, military style of leadership in the colony, which he ruled like a feudal lord at his own discretion, almost like a dictator and based, among other things, on a discriminatory racial policy, he soon offended liberal circles in Rome.

Building on the support of the former Garibaldinian Crispi, who strove for an expansive colonial policy, Baratieri was encouraged in his efforts. As part of the expansion efforts supported by Crispi, Baratieri conquered the Mahdist- occupied Kassala in Sudan on July 17, 1894 , for which he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Military Order of Savoy .

In December 1894, the Italians entered Ethiopia . With the start of the Italo-Ethiopian War, Baratieri's troops defeated Ras Mengesha Yohannes on January 14, 1895 at Coatit and two days later at Senafe . In March he occupied Adigrat and was promoted to lieutenant general. Even after the battle for the Amba Alagi in December 1985, which was costly for the Italian colonial troops , he was not removed from his post. In February 1896 he was urged by Crispi to an early prestige victory. When, however, after a long period of inactivity, he attacked the advancing Schoans at the Battle of Adua on March 1, 1896 , his troops suffered a devastating defeat, which led to Crispi's resignation, with which Baratieri also lost his greatest patron. The successor Crispis Antonio Starabba di Rudinì finally relieved him of his command. In June 1896, Baratieri was charged by the military court in Asmara with, among other things, negligence and omission. Scipio Sighele offered his defense because he was of the opinion that the main culprit for what had happened was to be found in the Crispi government.

In the subsequent trial he was acquitted . In August of that year he said goodbye after initially making himself available at his own request. He retired to Arco and later to Venice . In the following years he made his memoirs about his time in Africa. Marked by an illness, he died on August 9, 1901 in Sterzing while he was there for treatment. Baratieri was buried in Arco.

Works (selection)

  • La guerra civile di Spagna (1873-1874) . Le Monnier, Florence 1875.
  • Cassala: 17 luglio 1894. Relazioni e documenti . Voghera Enrico, Rome 1894.
  • Auto-difesa del generale Baratieri dinanzi al Tribunale speciale dell'Asmara . Tip. della Casa editrice italiana (IS), Rome 1896.
  • Memorie d'Africa (1892-1896). Carta generale dell'Eritrea e piani di battaglia appositamente compilati e disegnati . Bocca, Turin 1898.
  • Pagine d'Africa: (1875-1901) . Edited and introduced by Nicola Labanca, Museo del Risorgimento e della lotta per la libertà, Trento 1994.

literature

  • Piero Ardizzone: Un eroe mancato: Oreste Baratieri. Cronache del suo tempo . Piero Ardizzone, undated 2015.
  • Mariano Gabriele:  BARATIERI, Oreste. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 5:  Bacca-Baratta. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1963.

Web links

Commons : Oreste Baratieri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Mariano Gabriele:  Oreste Baratieri. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI).
  2. ↑ a b Clara Nardon: Cioli e Ciolli della val di Sole: documenti . Trento 2005 p. 332
  3. ↑ a b c Baratieri, Oreste. (PDF) In: cultura.trentino.it. Retrieved May 5, 2020 (Italian).
  4. ↑ Giuseppe Bufardeci: Battaglia di Adua. In: arsbellica.it. Retrieved May 6, 2020 (Italian).
  5. ↑ Oreste Baratieri. In: storia.camera.it. Retrieved May 6, 2020 (Italian).
  6. ^ Alessandro Studio: Storia del colonialismo italiano: da Crispi a Mussolini . Datanews, Rome 2003, ISBN 88-7981-225-4 p. 38
  7. ↑ Stefano Poscia: Eritrea: colonia tradita . Edizioni associate, 1989 p. 19
  8. ↑ Alessandro Dell'Aira: Baratieri, il generale sconfitto che divise irredentisti e trentini. In: povo.it. Retrieved May 8, 2020 (Italian).
personal data
SURNAME Baratieri, Oreste
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian general
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Condino
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1901
Place of death Sterzing