First World war Habsburg Soldiers buried in Rome

It has been four years since I became aware of a site that sheds light on the horrors of war
and the long time it takes for the bereaved to learn about the fate of their loved ones. Sure
we had a list of the names of men buried far from their homes, but the majority of them
were marked “unidentified”. This means that the families were never informed of the resting
place. Therefore, the first part of our project aimed to work in an international team,
covering all the necessary languages from the Habsburg Monarchy, to try to identify them.
Part 1 ended with us managing to identify more than two hundred of them, and we
published a book in which we described the burial site, how it was set up, what the soldiers'
last months were like (they were prisoners of war in camps in and around Rome, most of
them died of the Spanish flu), and we also included some biographies with some family
stories we were told by descendants. The book was also made accessible online:
https://www.bmlv.gv.at/wissen-forschung/publikationen/publikation.php?id=1181
Our important message was and is that these soldiers were much more than just names on a
death list and little coffins in the crypt. They had a life before they were called up to fight in
the First World War. And they also had families who were desperate to find out about their
fate. For us historians working in research institutions and universities, meeting descendants
and talking to them were touching moments. They often heard for the first time where their
missing relatives were buried. Part 2 of our project, which began in summer 2025, starts
here. With an enlarged research team, we want to give even more of these men back their
life stories - to research their biographies and add them to a memorial book located in the
Anima church in Rome. However, this time it will be not only us authoring the biographies,
but we invite our history students, young researchers as well as the interested public to
contribute. Everybody interested to become an author might mail to:
tamara.scheer@univie.ac.at or contact one of our scientific commitee. 

We have a name list that already provides many research links and information we already collected.
With the memorial book, visitors can browse through lives that took place throughout the
Habsburg Monarchy before 1914, Jewish peasants from Galicia, and Orthodox farmers from
Vojvodina, Roman Catholic craftsmen from Upper Austria and merchants from today's
Slovenia. They cover all languages and nationalities, as well as religions, but importantly,
they were men of the people, not officers, or the well-educated. They are those who are
often forgotten in history. We plan to make the memorial book also available online. Part 2
will end with a presentation of the memorial book in Rome.

Contact: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Tamara Scheer * tamara.scheer@univie.ac.at
Project funded by: FWF (V-555 and 10.55776/PAT1679824) and the Pontifical Institute Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome