Cesare Battisti (4 February 1875 – 12 July 1916) was an Italian patriot, geographer,[1] socialist politician and journalist of Austrian citizenship, who became a prominent Irredentist at the start of World War I.

Battisti attended the University of Florence, where he became a follower of the Italian irredentism movement, aiming at the unification of his Trentino homeland with the Kingdom of Italy, though contrary to activists like Ettore Tolomei and Gabriele d'Annunzio he did not claim the predominantly German-speaking areas of South Tyrol up to the Brenner Pass.

[2] A journalist by profession and a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria, he was elected as a representative to the Tyrolean Landtag assembly at Innsbruck as well as to the Austrian Imperial Council (Reichsrat) at Vienna in 1911, where he vainly tried to obtain a status of autonomy for the Trentino region.

[4] With Italy's entry into World War I following the 1915 London Pact, though still an Austrian citizen, Battisti fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Alpini Corps at the Italian Front.

After the Battle of Asiago, he and his 2nd Lt Fabio Filzi were captured by the Austrian forces on 10 July 1916 and faced a court-martial in his hometown Trento at the Castello del Buonconsiglio, charged with high treason.