THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 12, 16 July 1945, Page 30

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

By

Our guide at Pompeii showed us some faded and almost illegible lettering, now preserved under glass, and explained that here were the names of the candidates for elections. We also saw a

notice saying ” It is wonder, oh Wall, that thou hast not collapsed under the weight of so much nonsense.”

To-day mural inscriptions fall into four broad groups—those by Italians for Italians, by Italians for the Allies, by the Allies for troops, and by the Allies for the Italians.

The first group is by far the biggest, and a large part of it remains from the Fascist period— everywhere the party signwriter conscientiously plastered his DUCE or the classical DUX, but most of those within reach have now been erased, painted over, or defaced. The tags and uplift motives for the most part remain, the most common being VINCERE, sometimes it is VEDERE, VIVERE, VINCERE, sometimes COMBATTERE, and in suitable spots there are longer injunctions.

The rest give some indication of the mixed and always articulate political feeling resulting from years of suppression. The most common is the hammer and sickle, usually stencilled, but occasionally in a bold freehand. Sometimes this is surmounted by a good stencil of Lenin, and generally in red. I have seen these from Taranto to Trieste and from Ancona to Rome.

Then there is the host of VIVAs, abbreviated in the sign W which a dissenter inverts — — so you have 4f\ BENEDETTO CROCE, and the same goes for BADOGLIO, SAVOIA, and IL

RE who had some same initial popularity which has since waned, and FUORI IL RE is not uncommon.

In the north round Monfalcone I encountered a batch which puzzled me at first—lL 1925 or IL 1921, which is a graphic stencil of a dive-bomber, motor-cyclist, or a battleship. Later I decided it was the class of the year.

The farther north we went, the more marked became the partisan activity. From somewhere they had armed themselves with German equipment, which by this time was pretty plentiful—rifle, pistol, machine gun, or grenades—a red scarf was essential, and so was the Communist salute with the clenched fist. We were a little self-conscious at first returning it in kind as we did in returning the greeting “ CIAOU ” or “ e viva,” but it came with practice. A good many of the partigiani were opportunists, I fear, though some did excellent work, and at the end even the most bogus of them was willing to round up stray Germans who, however, always showed a marked disinclination to give themselves up to any other than Allied troops.

Round Trieste the changed to ZIVEL, and the second word was always TITO. The adherents of different parties are by no means inarticulate, and the VIVAs are many for the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Action Party, and the rest.

Nor have the people been sparing in notices for Allied consumption, which range from laundry notices to ecstatic shouts of welcome, generally spelt phonetically, with VIVAs for the Allied leaders, STALIN (always correct), CHURCHILL

(CHURCHIL or CIORCIL, which is puzzling), and ROOSEVELT (RUSVELT). I should enjoy Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek’s VIVA. Some others are of the formal WELCOME TO THE LIBERATORS type and odd ones— LONG LIVE DEAR OLD ENGLAND; LONG LIFE TO THE USA ; HURRAH ! BOYS ! HURRAH ! I was nearly thrust from the cab of my truck by one enthusiast who had tacked on the end of a long pole a piece of cardboard saying, YOU ARE WELL COMMING.

Good CLEAN BARBERS and VERY BEST LAUNDRIES abound, the jewellers are apparent without peer, and there is at least one FAST WASHWOMAN.

Allied signs for troops are terse and frequently trilingual—English, Polish, and Italian—and sometimes in Hindustani, Greek, French, and lately in Hebrew as well. We shall miss such engaging directions as WASKI POST and PUNKT RAT, though no one can ever tell what they mean.

The sign means “ Out of Bounds ” to us and “ Off Limits ” to Americans, and grows mushroom-like in all newly taken towns. Notices about dust and mud vary with the season, we know when verges are cleared of mines, and when Bailey bridges or diversions are ahead. We are told to take our Mepacrine daily and defeat malaria. Most of the notices about V.D. disappeared when servicewomen came to stay. They were, like the complaints of Aquarius, “ Many and various,” and probably too out-spoken to appear in print.

For the Italians the Allies periodically posted up proclamations and posters. The proclamations were in Italian and English, and always there was a knot of people round them. Posters were generally good. The first I saw was a strong picture of Garibaldi, and below it, his “ Questi sono i vostri amici,” and there was another of an old peasant woman’s head with finalmente written across the top and below :

VOSTRO IL SUOLO

VOSTRO IL RACCOLTO

Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels featured, and were usually either gibbering over a microphone or suffering some unpleasant but obviously effective treatment from a soldier or a shell.

Then there is the group all Italians know -

“ Vietato entrare ”

“ Proibita al tutti civili

“ Zona Proibita ”

“ Solo per i Militari ”

The Allied Military Government oi Occupied Territory advertised its presence by the obvious abbreviation AMGOT, which changed overnight to AMG when it was discovered that AMGOT is, I think, Persian for something unpleasant a dog has finished with.

I am sorry now that I didn’t make notes on the way north ; it would have been a fruitful study and a not too distorted mirror of local opinion, but now I must rely on my failing memory.

Curiously, I have never seen a \j/ HITLER.

The Horse Objects.— lt is not at all surprising that the Crown Equerry should have

appealed to the public not to throw paper from the windows of buildings on the route when the King and Queen with mounted escort drove to St. Paul’s for the VJ Day Thanksgiving Service. That American form of rejoicing is not one that would inspire any confidence in the heart of the average horse. For some reason deep buried in past history and equine psychology horses are exceedingly timorous of white objects on the ground ; they will shy with great vehemence from even a fallen newspaper. One has seen a leader of a troop of Dragoon Guards break right out of line as the horses trotted in file from the parade ring of the Royal Lancashire Show after an exhibition ride that had included jumping on to and from a platform flanked by burning paper hoops ; the reason was that the horse had been startled by the white-coated form of an attendant stooping to knock a little guide-flag into the ground. That Army charger had been elaborately schooled to resist its own instincts and to jump between flames, but the unexpected white coat near ground-level when the display was over was too much for its equanimity.— The Manchester Guardian Weekly.