When Scarborough became an Italian story …………

The story of the German bombardment of Scarborough in 1914 is usually just a footnote in history books.

That said it will still be marked every year in the town, as well as on the blog,  and has become of special interest to David Harrop who has been collecting memorabilia on the event.*

My Wikipedia tells me that “The Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 16 December 1914 was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British ports of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby. 

The bombardments caused hundreds of civilian casualties and resulted in public outrage in Britain against the German Navy for the raid and the Royal Navy for failing to prevent it”.**

And that brings me to this small newspaper clipping which is undated and is really just a photograph.

But what singles it out as a little different from the news coverage of the attack is that it comes from an Italian newspaper.

The caption, “Case di Scarborough danneggiate dal bombardaento” which translates as “Scarborough houses damaged by bombing” is the give away and begs some questions.

These include, was there an accompanying story and just when was it published?

At this stage Italy was still neutral and did not enter the war on the side of the Allies until the May of 1915.

So it would be interesting to explore what the Italian media and the general public made of the bombardment, particularly because at the time Italy was part of the Triple Alliance with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and might have been expected to have joined them in the August of 1914 in the war against Britain, France and Russia.

I will in the fullness of time go looking at contemporary Italian newspapers, and follow up on what the historians have to say, leaving Mr. Harrop who acquired the picture the job of finding out the date and the source of the image.

Meanwhile I will finish by looking at the photograph in detail.

As ever the photographer managed to hoover up a few passers by who look back with a mix of curiosity and amusement at being captured on film, while the net curtains billow out of the window.

Location; Scarborough and Italy

Picture; “Case di Scarborough danneggiate dal bombardaento”, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop

*The bombardment of Scarborough, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Scarborough%20Bombardment

**Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Scarborough,_Hartlepool_and_Whitby