Cesare Battisti (4 February 1875 – 12 July 1916) was an Italian politician who became a prominent Irrendentist at the start of the First World War.
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He was born the son of a merchant at Trento, a city with a predominantly Italian-speaking population, which at the time was part of the crown land of Tyrol in Austria-Hungary. Battisti attended the University of Florence where is started to follow the Italian irredentism ideals for his Trentino and, a journalist by profession, won office both municipally and in the County of Tyrol. He was elected to the Tyrolean Landtag at Innsbruck and to the Austrian Reichsrat at Vienna in 1911 as a Socialist representative.
Disgruntled by Austro-Hungarian attitudes to minorities in their empire, Battisti agreed to construct a military guide for the Italians to Austrian provinces that bordered Italy.[1] When Austria-Hungary mobilised in August 1914, Battisti fled to the Kingdom of Italy with his family where he held public meetings demanding Italy attack Austria.[2]
With Italy's belated entry into World War I following the 1915 London Pact, though still an Austro-Hungarian citizen, Battisti fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Alpini Corps at the Italian Front.
After the Battle of Asiago he was captured by the Austrian forces on 10 July 1916 and faced a court-martial in his hometown Trento at the Castello del Buonconsiglio, charged with high treason. Sentenced to death by strangulation, he requested a military execution by firing squad so as to not dishonor the Italian Army uniform. The judge denied his request, and instead procured for him some shabby civilian clothes. Dressed in these, he was executed (hanged and garrotted) the next day, the brutality of which was increased by the fact that the executioner Joseph Lang botched the job and Battisti actually was hanged twice.
The smiling execution squad posed with his body for photographs, which later published did severe damage to the Austrian reputation.
Battisti is considered a national hero in Italy, and a memorial monument was dedicated to him in his hometown.