The contents of this paper are the result of the Author’s reflections on the centennial celebration of the beginning of World War I (1914-2014). An overview of the various linguistic documents available on the topic (personal letters, post-cards, diaries and memoirs written by the soldiers and by their family members) (Section I) will be followed by the analysis of the motivations at the basis of Leo Spitzer’s efforts to collect, transcribe and publish a selection of texts written by Italian prisoners of war held in Austrian camps (Section II). The closing section (III) will focus on the documents collected after the publication of Spitzer’s seminal work; a few considerations on the possibility of continuing Spitzer’s philological legacy will be offered to the reader, through the edition of a hitherto unpublished letter displaying a number of Salentine linguistic features.