Postcard 'Ritorneremo!' (We shall return), Italian soldier before a ghostly tricolour and a Union Jack (Italy, 1942)
Colour postcard: a soldier in tropical khaki and pith helmet stands with a rifle and fixed bayonet over fallen comrades, while a pale, translucent giant in the same uniform rises behind him wearing a tricolour with the Savoy cross as a sash. At the right a Union Jack flies on a mound. White letters at the foot read RITORNEREMO! (We shall return!). The tell: the dead are shown as the reason to return, with an enemy flag as the thing to be pulled down, so the defeat is told as a pledge.
Propaganda techniques used in this postcard
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Italian wartime postcard publisher (not identified on the Commons file page), Fascist Italy
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Fascist Italy
- Medium
- Postcard
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Fascist Italy
- Leader
- Benito Mussolini
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Empire and colonialism, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Benito Mussolini
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved October 11, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (Commons PD tag; Italian basis, URAA status not asserted)
Italian wartime postcard, 1942; scan via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
Original (Italian) · read from the image, not independently checked
RITORNEREMO!
WE SHALL RETURN!
