the new Italy. The Fascist party referred to Caporetto as the moment of its birth, and all aspects of commemorating the war were subsumed into a new fascist narrative. Mussolini disliked melancholy or mourning sentiments, so the grand war memorials he commissioned were intended to be assertive statements of the dignity of Italy's fighting men. They were also conceived of as sentinelle della patria (“watchtowers of the nation”). At the charnel house, as at Redipuglia, the names of the dead appear under the heading ‘Presente’, as if they were still on duty. In building these memorials, Mussolini remobilised the Italian war dead and deployed them in a commemorative landscape of monumental fascist structures. The charnel house commemorates Caporetto as a national Calvary, bringing together the symbolism of the Catholic Passion with the monumental elements of fascist style. The pillars which mark the start of the winding road up to the summit bear, on one side, the cross, and in the other, the star of Italy. The road itself is a sort of pilgrimage route, and those venturing along it may stop to pray and contemplate each of Castiglioni's sculptures, which is provided with a bench for the purpose. Inauguration The charnel house was inaugurated by Benito Mussolini on 20 September 1938. Mussolini was undertaking a tour of the northeast; on the same day as the ceremony at Kobarid he had also inaugurated the Italian ossuary at Oslavia, laid the first stone in the building of a new Autonomous Fascist Institute in Gorizia, opened a new underground power station in Doblar and a new aqueduct in Volče. Two days earlier, as part of the same tour, he had announced fascist Italy's first racial laws in Trieste and inaugurated the giant ossuary at Redipuglia. The Slovenian anti-fascist group TIGR planned to assassinate Mussolini during the inauguration of the shrine and a young man from Bovec was ordered to blow him up. However the plot was discovered and the attempt was foiled. Today The charnel house is the only war memorial maintained today by the Italian state which does not stand on the soil of Italy. The remains of all other Italian war dead who fell on Slovenian soil were moved to the ossuaries of Redipuglia and Oslavia in Italy. Every year a ceremony is held at Kobarid to honour the dead. External links Memory and the cult of the fallen (Italy) Fascist