Civic Militias before the First World War.
Political violence and the crisis of the state
in Italy and Spain (1900-1915)
The purpose of this article is to examine the
historiographical debate on armed groups and political
violence from the 1900s to the early 1920s. The article
examines the cases of Italy and Spain and investigates
how practices and forms of organised political violence
before the First World War can be interpreted as signs
of the crisis of liberal regimes and of the emergence of
authoritarian political cultures. In recent years historians
have paid much attention to paramilitary groups and
political violence in the aftermath of the Great War, often
considering the conflict itself as a trigger factor. The first
section analyses this debate, with special attention to
the controversial concept of «brutalization», while the
second section focuses on the cases of Italy and Spain.
Finally, the third section uses archival sources to study
practices, political cultures and the relationship between
state powers and the Catalan Somatén Armado, on the
one hand, and the Citizens’ Patrols in Bologna, on the
other, in the pre-war period.
Parole chiave: paramilitarismo, prima guerra
mondiale, violenza politica, Italia, Spagna
Keywords: paramilitary, First World War,
political violence, Italy, Spain