Life
Born in Capodistria, in what was then the Austrian Littoral (today Koper, Slovenia), he took to sailing from a very young age, and became the captain of a cargo ship when he was only 20. Later, in 1910, Sauro became an employee of the shipping company Zuttiati, connecting ports in Istria and Dalmatia to San Giorgio di Nogaro and Cervignano del Friuli.
After 1866 -when Venice and the republic of Venice region were annexed to Italy- there was some support for irredentism also in Istria, formerly a Venetian possession: Tino Gavardo, Pio Riego Gambini and Nazario Sauro were the most renowned of those who promoted Istrian unification to the Kingdom of Italy. Many of them enrolled voluntarily in the Italian Army during World War I against the Austrian Empire. Some were captured and hanged as traitors by the Austrians.
When World War I erupted, Sauro's Italian irredentism made him capture an Austrian vessel which he then sailed to Venice, joining other refugees who had gathered in the city and were pressuring Italy to join the conflict on the Entente side. When Italy did join the effort in 1915, he was a volunteer in the Italian Navy, and assigned to a torpedo unit, accomplishing over 60 missions over a period of 14 months. In June 1916, he was promoted Sub-Lieutenant on the Giacinto Pullino submarine, and awarded a Silver Medal.
On July 30 of that year, Sauro's ship was sent over to carry out a sabotage in the Hungarian port of Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia), but it crashed into a rock in the Kvarner Gulf. The crew was intercepted by the Austro-Hungarian destroyer Satellit, and imprisoned. Sauro was recognized and placed on trial for his previous act of treason, and, after facing a military tribunal in Pola (now Pula in Croatia) was sentenced to death and hanged.
He is remembered as a hero of Italy. Two ships of the Italian Navy were named in his honour:
- The destroyer Nazario Sauro, built in 1926 and sunk in 1941
- The submarine Nazario Sauro, built in 1980 and taken out of service in 2009
His son Italo Sauro later became an influential Fascist official.
Read more about this topic: Nazario Sauro
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in infantine joy and amazement, before the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)