Un esercito senza re. La chiamata di leva del marzo 1946 e il rifiuto della coscrizione nei fascicoli del Tribunale militare di Bologna

The first call of conscription after the Second World War took place in March 1946. Many conscripts refused to report to the districts, incurring the crime of «lack of call», under the jurisdiction of the military courts. A quantitative analysis of the files of the military court of Bologna reveals how the phenomenon had a very strong impact in the two provinces of Romagna (Forlì and Ravenna) with a deep-rooted republican tradition. The documents reveal how at the basis of the refusal there was a confused political motivation that was substantiated both in a rejection of the monarchy – perceived as a dying institution – and in the opinion that the current government was not legitimized. The expectation of the Constituent Assembly as a moment of palingenesis emerges from the documentation. The comparison with historiography and with journalistic sources shows how the army was at the center of political controversy and how the conscripts had been the recipients of propaganda that sometimes took on provocative aspects.