After Italy entered the First World War in 1915, the Trentine territory was an important front between Italy and Austria-Hungary, and suffered heavy destruction. After the call to arms summoned by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria on July 31, 1914, more than 55,000 Trentini fought for Austria, first against Russia and Serbia and, starting from 1915, also against Italians. Despite the fact that they were fighting against Italian soldiers (Trentini soldiers spoke Italian) desertion cases were extremely low. More than 10,000 of them died, and many others were wounded or made prisoners. Further, hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to abandon their native area when they were too near to the front lines. Many of them, captured by the Italian Army, were later transferred to Southern Italy as colonists.