Renato Serra, who died heroicaly in action on the Isonzo front in August 1915, wrote in his diary a week before that 'war becomes like life itself. It's all there is: not a passion any more nor a hope. Like life, rather sad and resigned, it wears a tired face, seamed and worn, similar to our own.' All over Europe young men were finding out much the same thing, but this scholar and essayist, the friend and colleague of Benedetto Croce, put the matter unusually well. Like most young Italian intellectuals of the time, he was keen on sport, science, motor-cars, military conquest. He had written a penetrating study of Kipling, and a remarkable piece on the departure of a regiment for the Libyan adventure of 1912, an essay which combines patriotic fervour with a deep intelligence and self-questioning.

LRB 2 February 1989 | PDF Download