Hungarian Flag to Be Unveiled at Italian World War Memorial Site

MTI-Hungary Today 2023.07.19.

The Sacrario Militare di Cima Grappa memorial site on Monte Grappa hill in Italy

In September, the Hungarian flag may be raised next to the Austrian flag at the First World War memorial site of the Sacrario Militare di Cima Grappa on Monte Grappa hill in Italy, the Directorate of War Graves and Heroic Cult of the Military History Institute and Museum of the Army of Hungary, announced on its Facebook page.

They wrote that the HM Institute of Military History and Museum’s working group held talks in Italy with its partner organization, the Italian Ministry of Defense Office for the Protection of Military Memory and Culture, to discuss details of the planned unveiling ceremony of the Hungarian flag at the Sacrario Militare di Cima Grappa memorial site.

The flag-raising ceremony is expected to take place in September.

They added that the idea of placing the Hungarian flag at the Monte Grappa memorial site was first raised in 2011, and in 2016, the initiative was taken to place the Hungarian flag next to the official flag of the Republic of Austria. The Hungarian proposal was accepted by the Italian side in 2019.

It was recalled that

Monte Grappa, inaugurated in 1935, and classified as a special status memorial site (sacra zona), is an emblematic site linked to the Italian battlefield of the First World War, the Piave Front,

where more than 12,000 Italian and more than 10,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers are buried.

Photo via Facebook/Magyar hadisírgondozás

Fact

The Second Battle of the Piave River, fought between June 15 and 23, 1918, was a decisive victory for the Italian Army against the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I. Though the battle proved to be a crucial blow to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and through it the Central Powers, its full significance was not initially appreciated in Italy. It would later become clear that the battle was in fact the beginning of the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Monte Grappa is of particular importance in the memory of Italian soldiers, as shown by the monumental structure of the memorial site and the fact that the hill is specifically mentioned in the Hall of Battles in the Palazzo Venezia National Museum in Rome, the Directorate of War Graves wrote in the post.

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Via MTI, Featured image via Facebook/Magyar hadisírgondozás