A few months before the Kingdom of Italy's official entry into World War I, the disastrous 1915 earthquake almost completely destroyed the city of Avezzano, razing to the ground a lot of centers in Marsica and the nearby provinces as well. Because of the earthquake, the city recorded a population loss of about 90%. Despite everything, the few young men who had survived and belonged to the age classes of the last years of the nineteenth century were not exempted from military service and were called to the recruitment in the army at war and to the mobilization towards the Karst Plateau. In a short time, the youth who had survived the earthquake had to abandon the devastated areas, leaving a real generation void.