ITALY-CHINA Portrait of ten uniformed soldiers with two Chinese collaborators in the “Tianjin Italian Concession”

ITALY-CHINA Portrait of ten uniformed soldiers with two Chinese collaborators in the “Tianjin Italian Concession”, a territory located in China occupied by the Kingdom of Italy between 1901 and 1943. The two collaborators wear the long traditional braid, and one of them holds the mascot, a Pekingese dog. Italy obtained the Concession to Tien-Tsin according to the provisions of the Peace Treaty (Boxer Protocol) of 7 September 1901; it consisted of a plot of land about a kilometer long and wide on average, just over half, along the Pe Ho River (Hai-he). Officially, the Concession became such from 7 June 1902, but the occupation of the area by Italian troops had already taken place in January 1901. On October 18, 1903, the radiotelegraph station was inaugurated in the Royal Legation of Italy in Beijing and, for greater security, a second one was installed in Tianjin, which entered service in February 1904. In Tianjin, the commander therefore had five sailors, a dozen Royal Carabinieri and a radio station, exercising the duties of Governor of the Italian Concession. When the First World War came to an end, about 900 soldiers of Italian ethnicity but originally from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, “unredeemed”, arrived at the Italian Concession from upset Russia by the civil war; framed in the “Redeemed Legion of Siberia” and united with Alpini from Italy, they formed the Italian Expeditionary Corps in the Far East, which in the summer of 1919 fought for Allies and against the Soviets in support of the Russian “Whites”. Photography, China, 1910-1920.