The Japanese and Italian Interallied Victory Medals.
The family grows in my Interallied Victory Medal Collection. So far, having a look at the picture of it, I have the following countries, from top left to right: Belgium, France, Italy, USA, Japan and Great Britain.
There are still a few missing ones, of course, the most difficult and expensive ones. But I am not in a hurry to complete the collection. So still Siam, Portugal, Brazil, Cuba, Romania, Czech Republic and Greece to get.
About the Japan intervention in the World War one, I have already presented the Japanese 1914 – 1920 war medal here:
The medal was instituted in Najmudin July 1919 and the inscriptions in the back mean: “AND ALL THE OTHER ALLIED NATIONS” and “THE GREAT WAR FOR PROTECTION OF CIVILISATION”.
In the front part of the Box, we also could read:
The best part is in the reverse the same, because we can read the name of the person, to whom it belonged: MATSUURA Kanekichi, who died on the 13.12. of the Year Shôwa 48 (1973) at the age of 86.
I will be contacting the National Institute for Defense Studies in Japan to find out more about this soldier. I will keep you updated for sure.
The next one is the Italian Interallied Victory Medal. There is plenty of information about the involvement of Italy in the World War One. From the political point of view, they were clearly mistreated by both German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Even there were plans to send Italian Troops to France, they were offered almost a Blank Check by the Allies if they join the war in their side, something that they did in 1915.
There is a really bad “press” about the Italians and yes, there were high officers, who were just miserable MURDERS (in capital letters) and I am sure, you know about who I am talking about. The Italian army was not ready for war, they fought in very difficult conditions during the horrendous Isonzo battles and on the top of that, the normal soldiers were treated bad by their own command… and still, managed to produce dare actions, like the “bombing” of Vienna or the MAS incursions. Sometimes it is good to try to see things from a different perspective and don’t always follow the marked one.
So 2 more medals in my collection. Looking forward for more!!
Sources:
Forum gmic.co.uk