Fascist Italy

Fascist Italy

Italy before 1919

Italy achieved her unification in 1870. She had a constitutional monarchy like that of Great Britain. But democratic traditions failed to develop in Italy because the government was controlled by corrupt politicians. They controlled the elections by bribing the voters. Once they were in power, they were more interested in making personal gains for themselves than in solving the social and economic problems of the people. As a result, by 1914 Italy remained a poor and backward country. The franchise was limited to 2.5 per cent of the population until after the election of 1913. Industrial progress was slow. Moreover, Italy was poor in natural resources and lack of fertile land. Many of the farm laborers were landless and were often unemployed.

In the late 19th century, peasants and unskilled laborers experienced difficulty because the Italian land system did not offer much hope for personal improvement and the Italian government policy was one under which the nation would be industrialized at the expense of the people. Landlords had control of land and they charged high rent, paid low wages, and did not provide stable employment. Between 1870 and 1900 production of foodstuffs, except for fresh fruit, fish, tomatoes, and vegetables, slowed. Thus, malnutrition spread throughout Italy.

Most Italian immigrants left Italy to escape poverty. Millions of Italians were forced to emigrate abroad.

The foreign policy of the Italian governments also lacked the grandeur the days of the Caesars. Although Italy tried to raise her own international prestige by acquiring overseas colonies, she met with no success. She was defeated by Abyssinia, an African state, at the battle of Adowa in 1896. Because of its lack of success in both domestic and foreign affairs, the parliamentary government became a symbol of decadence and corruption— it was neither trusted nor respected by the people.

Italy in World War I

A gunshot fired on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo killed the heir apparent to the Austrian throne and the war started. On July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia. Within a week the major European powers were declaring war to each other: Russia against Austria, Germany against Russia, France and England against Germany. Italy, however proclaimed its neutrality. Italy interpreted Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia as an act of aggression, and not a defensive one. Following the terms of the Triple Alliance, Italy was obliged to support Germany and Austria.

On May 24, 1915, Italy took part in the war on the side of the Allies because they were more successful in the war than Germany and Austria. The fact that Italy was joining the war was mainly a result of the monster agitations and demonstrations organized by Benito Mussolini and others fervent for action. Mussolini said: "We want war! Today it’s war, tomorrow will be revolution!"

King Victor Emanuel III, who had ascended the throne in 1900, and his president of the council, Salandra, were also for war. Their attitude was influenced by the terms of the secret treaty of London of April 26, 1915, by which Italy was promised the Trentino, the southern Tirol, Trieste with the surrounding district and the Dalmatian coastline, but even more important, a share in the distribution of the German colonies.

Publicly, Italy said to the world was: Our natural sympathies are enlisted on the side of the Allies, because of the brutal German aggression against Belgium and because of the vandalism of the German troops.

Until 1918, the Italian part in the war consisted mainly in a series of unsuccessful, bloody attempts to break through the very strong defensive positions which the Austrians held in the Alps over a length from the Swiss frontier to the Adriatic coast at the mouth of the Isonzo near Trieste.

In the spring of 1918, The Austrian army succeeded in breaking through on the Isonzo around Caporetto. The Italians were driven back to the River Piave. The Boselli cabinet, which had come to power after the Austrian offensive of 1916, fell and was replaced by a government formed by Vittorio Orlando. Meanwhile the Italian army managed to turn and stand in positions prudently prepared in advance. There they received timely reinforcement from five British and six French divisions and the Austrians penetrated no farther.

Despite his victory on the Piave, the Italian commander Cadorna was replaced by General Diaz. Under his leadership the Italian army launched on October the 24th 1918 a major attack against the Austrian forces along the entire front, initiatating the battle of Vittorio Veneto, a village where one of the main actions was fought. On November 3th, 1918 the Italians entered Trent and Trieste, and on the following day the Austrians signed an armistice at Villa Giusti, near Padua. Within a week the Allies initiated a major offensive attack along the French front that terminated in the total victory of the Allies.

The war had cost Italy 600,000 lives.

The Peace Conference

At the peace conference, which opened in Paris on January the 18th , 1919, the Italians felt that they had made a war effort comparable to that of France and Britain, and when they found themselves treated as inferiors their disillusionment was extremely great. They found too often that the Italo-Austrian front was spoken as a ‘secondary front’, and they found also a disposition to accord to each country its ‘natural frontiers’ based upon the Wilsonian doctrine of ‘self-determination’.

The Italians believed that their campaign of October 1918 had been the decisive factor in the winning of the war, and they were no longer merely irridentists, interested in ‘natural frontiers’ and ‘self-determination’, but victors looking for prizes and in particular for the promises of the secret treaty of London. But France, England, and the United States all opposed the expanded Italian claims.

On April 24th, Prime Minister Orlando left the conference in protest. Italy greeted his decision with enthusiasm, but became disillusioned when, a week later, Orlando returned to Paris without having obtained any concessions in advance.

Finally, on June 2nd, 1919, the Treaty of St. Germain fixed the peace terms with Austria, which, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of London, established the frontiers of Italy to the BrennerPass.Italy thus obtained the Trentino with the entire valley of the AdigeRiver, Trieste, and Istria. However, the treaty did not give to Italy the Adriatic islands which had been promised in the Treaty Of London, nor did it define the territotial boundaries between Italy and the new state of Yugoslavia.

New Problems After The First World War

The government was faced with many new problems after the First World War.

The first one was the Italian dissatisfaction with the territorial settlement made at the Paris Peace Conference. Most of the Italians had expected big territorial gains when they entered the war. According to the Treaty of London, Italy was promised Trentino, Trieste, Southern Tyrol, Istria, Dalmatia, the coastal districts of Albania, a share in the division of the Ottoman Empire and of the German colonies in Africa.

Although the Italians fought bravely and lost 600,000 men, the territories ceded to Italy in the Pairs Peace Conference were not as many as she had originally been promised. Italy was given Trentino, Trieste, Tyrol and Istria, but she did not get any former German colonies nor any land in Asia Minor, Albania and Dalmatia. There was much resentment against the weak and unsuccessful foreign policy of the Italian government.

In September 1919, a band of alien patriots, under Gabriele D'Annunzio, took Fiume, a port on the Dalmatian coast, by force in defiance of the decision of the Paris Peace Conference. But the Italians could not enjoy their victory for long because in November 1920 the Italian government had signed the treaty of Rapallo with Yugoslavia, by which Fiume became a free city under the League of Nations and Italy renounced Dalmatia as her sphere of influence. In January 1921, the Italian troops drove D'Annunzio and his followers from Fiume. Many Italians were deeply disappointed with their government which seemed be too weak in its foreign policy.

Post War Poverty

The second problem was general economic distress. Italy was a poor nation. She could only support her

war effort by obtaining foreign loans. Immediately after the war, as Europe was exhausted by the war, the Italian tourist trade and export trade came to a standstill and there was large-scale unemployment throughout the country. The problem of unemployment was aggravated by the return of millions of ex-soldiers to Italy and a new immigration law of the U.S. government which restricted entry of immigrants. Moreover, runaway inflation added to the sufferings of the Italians. The lira had only one-fifth of its pre-war value. Encouraged by the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the unemployed workers and peasants stirred up riots and strikes throughout the country.

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