Luigi Albertini

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Luigi Albertini (1871, Ancona – 1941, Rome) was an influential Italian journalist and an early and outspoken antifascist. He was a member of parliament in the Italian Senate from 1914 until the advent of the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini. Under his direction, the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera became the most widely read daily newspaper in Italy. In November 1925, he was dismissed by the co-owners of the newspaper because of his stand against the Fascist government, after an earlier support for the Fascist movement against the Left. Albertini died in Rome in 1941, having just completed his three-volume masterwork, The Origins of the War of 1914. Albertini became a newsman after studying law at the University of Turin, and joined the Milan daily Corriere della Sera in 1896 where he soon became a major shareholder and director. Albertini was also a key moderate political and cultural figure in Italy before the 1922 Fascist takeover. Because of his anti-Fascist positions he was forced to resign and sell the newspaper in 1925. He retired from public life and dedicated most of his time to writing and managing his farm outside Rome.

The three volumes of The Origins of the War of 1914 are his greatest achievement. Researched and written with the assistance of Luciano Magrini, a former Corriere della Sera foreign correspondent bilingual in German. Magrini was able in the years between 1928 and 1940 to interview many of the important protagonists of the First World War obtaining many documents that are part of the three-volume work. First published in Italian after Albertini’s death in 1942 and 1943, the work was translated into English by Isabella Massey and first published by Oxford University Press in 1954-1957. A new corrected edition has been republished by Enigma Books in 2005 with a new introduction by Dr. Samuel R. Williamson, professor of history at the University of the South. “The bedrock of all discussion remains L. Albertini’s The Origins of the War of 1914…which provides a detailed chronology of the crisis and excerpts from the most important documents.” John Keegan, author of The First World War.

THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR OF 1914 by Luigi Albertini (translated from the Italian by Isabella Massey), New Introduction by Dr. Samuel R. Williamson, 3-volume set, 2,280 pages, maps, index, each volume 6" x 9", ISBN 1-929631-26-X (three-volume set), Enigma Books, 2005.