Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
Encyclopedia
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy
under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia
, which was its legal predecessor state. It existed until 1946 when the Italians opted for a republic
an constitution
.
Italy declared war on Austria
in alliance with Prussia
in 1866: despite an unsuccessful campaign, it received the region of Venice
following Bismarck
's victory. Italian troops entered Rome
in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy accepted Bismarck's proposal to enter in a Triple Alliance
with Germany and Austria in 1882, following strong disagreements with France about the respective colonial expansions. However, even if relations with Berlin
became very friendly, the alliance with Vienna
remained purely formal. So, in 1915, Italy accepted the British invitation to join the Allies in World War I
because the western allies promised territorial compensation (at the expense of Austria-Hungary) for participation that were more generous than Vienna's offer in exchange for Italian neutrality. Victory in the war gave Italy the status of a major power
, with a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations
.
During the time of the regime of the National Fascist Party
from 1922 to its ousting in 1943, under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini
, the name often given by some historians to the Kingdom of Italy during this period is "Fascist Italy". Under fascism, the Kingdom allied with Nazi Germany
in World War II until 1943. In the remaining two years of World War II
, the Kingdom of Italy switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini as Prime Minister and banning the Fascist party. The remnant fascist state that continued fighting against the Allies was a puppet state of Nazi Germany, the "Italian Social Republic
", still led by Mussolini and his loyalist Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic
, which is the present form of Italy today.
until 1870. The state for a long period of time did not have Trieste
or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Treaties of Versailles
and St Germain, the state was granted Gorizia
, Trieste and Istria
(now part of Croatia
and Slovenia
), and small parts of modern-day northwestern Croatia
as well as a tiny portion of the Croatian province of Dalmatia
. During the second World War, the Kingdom gained more territory in Slovenia and more territory from Dalmatia. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded and the Kingdom abandoned its land claims.
The Kingdom of Italy also held colonies and protectorates and puppet states, such as modern-day Eritrea
, Somalia
, Libya
, Ethiopia (occupied by Italy in 1936, and then occupied by the British in World War II), Albania
, Greece
(occupied in World War II), Croatia
(Italian and German puppet state in World War II), Kosovo
(occupied in World War II), and Montenegro
(occupied in World War II), and a small 46 hectare
section of land from China
in Tianjin
(see Italian concession in Tianjin).
. Executive power belonged to the monarch
, as executed through appointed
ministers
. Two chambers of parliament
restricted the monarch's power– an appointive Senate
and an elective Chamber of Deputies
. The kingdom's constitution
was the Statuto Albertino
, the former governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were solely responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system
elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, to be elected on the first round of balloting. If not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies.
After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation
into large, regional, multi-seat electoral constituencies, was introduced after World War I. Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government into a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists
and classical liberals
. Elections took place in 1919, 1921 and 1924: in this last occasion, Mussolini abolished the PR replacing it with a block voting system on national bases, which gave to the Fascist Party the absolute majority of the Chamber seats.
Between 1925 and 1943, Italy was quasi-de-jure
Fascist
dictatorship, as the constitution formally remained in effect without alteration by the Fascists, though the monarchy also formally accepted Fascist policies and Fascist institutions. Changes in politics occurred, consisting of the establishment of the Grand Council of Fascism
as a government body in 1928, which took control of the government system, and the Chamber of Deputies being replaced with the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations
as of 1939.
who led Italy were
to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula
.
After the Revolutions of 1848
, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi
. He was popular amongst southern Italians and in the world was renowned for his extremely loyal followers. Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification in southern Italy, but the northern Italian monarchy of the House of Savoy
in the Kingdom of Sardinia
, a de facto Piedmont
ese state, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state. Though the kingdom had no physical connection to Rome
(deemed the natural capital of Italy, but still capital of the Papal States
), the kingdom had successfully challenged Austria
in the Second Italian War of Independence
, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule. The kingdom also had established important alliances which helped it improve the possibility of Italian unification, such as Britain
and the Second French Empire
in the Crimean War
. Sardinia was dependent on France being willing to protect it and in 1860, Sardinia was forced to cede territory to France to maintain relations, including Garibaldi's birthplace Nice
.
Cavour moved to challenge republican unification efforts by Garibaldi by organizing popular revolts in the Papal States
. He used these revolts as a pretext to invade the country, even though the invasion angered the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church
from the anti-clerical secularist nationalist republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX
. Despite their differences, Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860. Subsequently the Parliament declared the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on February 18, 1861 (officially proclaiming it on March 17, 1861
) composed of both Northern Italy
and Southern Italy. King Victor Emmanuel II
of Piedmont-Sardinia
from the House of Savoy
was then declared King of Italy
. This title had been out of use since the abdication of Napoleon I of France
on April 6, 1814.
Following the unification of most of Italy, tensions between the monarchists and republicans erupted. In April 1861, Garibaldi entered the Italian parliament and challenged Cavour's leadership of the government, accusing him of dividing Italy and spoke of the threat of civil war between the Kingdom in the north and Garibaldi's forces in the south. On June 6, 1861, the Kingdom's strongman Cavour died. During the ensuing political instability, Garibaldi and the republicans became increasingly revolutionary in tone. Garibaldi’s arrest in 1862 set off worldwide controversy.
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In 1866 Otto von Bismarck
, Minister President of Prussia offered Victor Emmanuel II an alliance with the Kingdom of Prussia
in the Austro-Prussian War
. In exchange Prussia would allow Italy to annex Austrian-controlled Venice
. King Emmanuel agreed to the alliance and the Third Italian War of Independence
began. Italy fared poorly in the war with a badly organized military against Austria, but Prussia's victory allowed Italy to annex Venice. The one major obstacle to Italian unity remained Rome.
In 1870, Prussia went to war with France starting the Franco-Prussian War
. To keep the large Prussian Army
at bay, France abandoned its positions in Rome - which protected the remnants of the Papal States and Pius IX - in order to fight the Prussians. Italy benefited from Prussia's victory against France by being able to take over the Papal States from French authority. Rome was captured by the kingdom of Italy after several battles and guerilla-like warfare by Papal Zouaves
and official troops of the Holy See against the Italian invaders. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Economic conditions in the united Italy were poor:, there were no industry or transportation facilities, extreme poverty (especially in the Mezzogiorno
), high illiteracy, and only a small percent of wealthy Italians had the right to vote. The unification movement had largely been dependent on the support of foreign powers and remained so afterwards.
Following the capture of Rome in 1870 from French forces of Napoleon III
, Papal troops, and Zouaves, relations between Italy and the Vatican
remained sour for the next sixty years with the Pope
s declaring themselves to be prisoners in the Vatican
. The Catholic Church frequently protested the actions of the secular and anticlerical-influenced Italian governments, refused to meet with envoys from the King and urged Catholics not to vote in Italian elections. It would not be until 1929, that positive relations would be restored between the Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican after the signing of the Lateran Pacts.
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After unification, Italy's politics favored liberalism
: the Liberal-conservative right (Destra storica or Historical right) was regionally fragmented, and Liberal-conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti
only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies (such as the nationalization of railways) to appease the opposition. In 1876, Minghetti was ousted and replaced by Liberal Agostino Depretis
, who began the long Liberal Period. The Liberal Period was marked by corruption, government instability, continued poverty in southern Italy, and use of authoritarian measures by the Italian government.
Depretis began his term as Prime Minister by initiating an experimental political idea called Trasformismo
(transformism). The theory of trasformismo was that a cabinet should select a variety of moderates and capable politicians from a non-partisan perspective. In practice, trasformismo was authoritarian and corrupt, Depretis pressured districts to vote for his candidates if they wished to gain favourable concessions from Depretis when in power. The results of the Italian general election of 1876 resulted in only four representatives from the right being elected, allowing the government to be dominated by Depretis. Despotic and corrupt actions are believed to be the key means in which Depretis managed to keep support in southern Italy. Depretis put through authoritarian measures, such as banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands across Italy and adopting militarist policies. Depretis enacted controversial legislation for the time, such as abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.
In 1887, Francesco Crispi
became Prime Minister and began focusing government efforts on foreign policy. Crispi worked to build Italy as a great world power though increased military expenditures, advocacy of expansionism, and trying to win the favour of the German Empire
. Italy joined the Triple Alliance
which included both Germany and Austria–Hungary in 1882 and which remained officially intact until 1915. While helping Italy develop strategically, he continued trasformismo and was authoritarian, once suggesting the use of martial law to ban opposition parties. Despite being authoritarian, Crispi put through liberal policies such as the Public Health Act of 1888 and establishing tribunals for redress against abuses by the government.
Common cultural traits in Italy in this time were social conservative
in nature, including a strong belief in the family as an institution and patriarchal values. In other areas, Italian culture was divided. Aristocratic
, noble
, and upper middle class
families in Italy at this time were highly traditional in nature, with the upper middle-class even being known to often settle differences between each other by duels. After unification, a number of descendents of former royal nobility became residents of Italy, numbering at 7,387 nobile families upon unification. Many of Italy's elites were wealthy landowners who maintained a feudal society in regards to their agricultural system's utilization of large numbers of peasants. Italian society in this period remained highly divided along regional and local sub-societies which often had historical rivalries with each other.
Upon unifying, Italy effectively did not have a single national language; Tuscan (which would be then known as Italian) was only used in Florence
while outside, regional languages were dominant. Even the kingdom's first king, Victor Emmanuel II
was known to speak almost entirely in Piedmontese and French
, even to his cabinet ministers. In addition to this, literacy was extremely poor in this era with an 1871 census indicating that 61.9 percent Italian men were illiterate and 75.7 percent of women were illiterate. This illiteracy rate was far higher than that of western European countries in the same time period. Some historians have claimed that census at this time for literacy were very lax as they only rated whether someone could write their own name and read a single passage, which may indicate that literacy in Italy was worse than what census projected. The level of illiteracy was compounded by the fact that Italy had very few public schools upon unification and no popular press was available across Italy due to the language division of the regional dialects. The Italian government in the Liberal Period attempted to reduce illiteracy by establishing state-funded schools to teach the official Italian language. Literacy and illiteracy variated in levels in the different regions of Italy where there were different levels of quality of public education, with the worst being in Southern Italy at the time which received minimal funding.
Living standards were low during the Liberal Period, especially in southern Italy due to various diseases such as malaria
and epidemics that occurred during the period. As a whole, there was initially a high death rate in 1871 at 30 people dying per 1000 people, though this reduced to 24.2 per 1000 by the 1890s. In addition, the mortality rate of children dying in their first year after birth in 1871 was 22.7 percent while the number of children dying before reaching their fifth birthday was very high at 50 percent. The mortality rate of children dying in their first year after birth decreased to an average of 17.6 percent in the time period of 1891 to 1900.
Upon unifying, Italy had a predominantly agrarian society as 60 percent of the active population worked in agriculture. Advances in technology, the sale of vast Church estates, foreign competition along with export opportunities rapidly transformed the agricultural sector in Italy shortly after unification . However these developments did not benefit all of Italy in this period, as southern Italy’s agriculture suffered from hot summers and aridity damaged crops while the presence of malaria
prevented cultivation of low-lying areas along Italy’s Adriatic
coast.
The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873. Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy. The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were earning revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. Lower class Italians were hurt by the break-up of communal lands to the benefit of landlords. Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasant
s but short-term labourers ("braccianti") who at best were employed for one year. Peasants without stable income were forced to live off meager food supplies, disease was spreading rapidly, plagues were reported, including a major cholera
epidemic which killed at least 55,000 people.
The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively because of overspending by the Depretis
government that left Italy heavily in debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes by their vineyards. In the 1870s and 1880s, France's vineyard industry
was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy prospered as the largest exporter of wine
in Europe. But following the recovery of France in 1888, southern Italy was overproducing and had to cut back, which caused greater unemployment and bankruptcies.
The Italian government invested heavily in developing railways in the 1870s, more than doubling the existing length of railway line
between 1870 and 1890.
Italy’s population remained severely divided between wealthy elites and impoverished workers especially on regional lines. An 1881 census found that over 1 million southern day-labourers were chronically under-employed and were very likely to become seasonal emigrants in order to economically sustain themselves. Southern peasants as well as small landowners and tenants often were in a state of conflict and revolt throughout the late 19th century. There were exceptions to the generally poor economic condition of agricultural workers of the south, as some regions near cities such as Naples
and Palermo
as well as along the Tyrrhenian coast. The 1910 Commission of Inquiry into the South indicated that the Italian government thus far had failed to ameliorate the severe economic differences and the limitation of voting rights only to those with sufficient property allowed rich landowners to exploit the poor.
A number of colonial projects were undertaken by the government. These were done to gain support of Italian nationalists and imperialists, who wanted to rebuild a Roman Empire. Already, Italy had large settlements in Alexandria
, Cairo
, and Tunis
. Italy first attempted to gain colonies through negotiations with other world powers to make colonial concessions. These negotiations failed. Italy also sent missionaries to uncolonized lands to investigate the potential for Italian colonization. The most promising and realistic of these were parts of Africa
. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa
(in present day Eritrea
) in the 1830s and had entered deep into the Ethiopian Empire
.
On 5 February 1885, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum
, Italy landed soldiers at Massawa. In 1888, Italy annexed Massawa by force, creating the colony of Italian Eritrea.
In 1895, Ethiopia led by Emperor Menelik II abandoned an agreement signed in 1889 to follow Italian foreign policy. Italy used this renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia. Ethiopia gained the help of the Russian Empire
, whose own interests in East Africa
led the government of Nicholas II of Russia
to sent large amounts of modern weaponry to the Ethiopians to hold back an Italian invasion. In response, Britain decided to back the Italians to challenge Russian influence in Africa and declared that all of Ethiopia was within the sphere of Italian interest. On the verge of war, Italian militarism and nationalism reached a peak, with Italians flocking to the Royal Italian Army
, hoping to take part in the upcoming war.
The Italian army failed on the battlefield and were overwhelmed by a huge Ethiopian army at the Battle of Adwa. Italy was forced to retreat into Eritrea. The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy.
From November 2, 1899, to September 7, 1901, Italy participated as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance
forces during the Boxer Rebellion
in China
. On September 7, 1901, a concession in Tientsin
was ceded to the Italy by the Qing Dynasty
. On June 7, 1902, the concession was taken into Italian possession and administered by an Italian consul
.
In 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire
and invaded Tripolitania
, Fezzan
, and Cyrenaica
. These provinces together formed what became known as Libya
. The war ended only a year later, but the occupation resulted in acts of discrimination against Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands
in October 1911. By 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died from a lack of food and shelter. The annexation of Libya led nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea
by occupying the Kingdom of Greece
and the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia
.
became Prime Minister of Italy for his first term. Although his first government quickly collapsed a year later, Giolitti returned in 1903 to lead Italy's government during a fragmented period that lasted until 1914. Giolitti had spent his earlier life as a civil servant, and then took positions within the cabinets of Crispi. Giolitti was the first long-term Italian Prime Minister in many years because he mastered the political concept of trasformismo
by manipulating, coercing and bribing officials to his side. In elections during Giolitti's government, voting fraud was common, and Giolitti helped improve voting only in well-off, more supportive areas, while attempting to isolate and intimidate poor areas where opposition was strong. Southern Italy was in terrible shape prior to and during Giolitti's tenure as Prime Minister. Four-fifths of southern Italians were illiterate and the dire situation there ranged from problems of large numbers of absentee landlords to rebellion and even starvation. Corruption was such a large problem that Giolitti himself admitted that there were places "where the law does not operate at all".
In 1911, Giolitti's government sent forces to occupy Libya. While the success of the Libyan War improved the status of the nationalists, it did not help Giolitti's administration as a whole. The government attempted to discourage criticism by speaking about Italy's strategic achievements and inventiveness of their military in the war: Italy was the first country to use the airship
for military purposes, and undertook aerial bombing
on the Ottoman forces. The war radicalized the Italian Socialist Party
: anti-war revolutionaries led by future-Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
called for violence to bring down the government. Giolitti returned as Prime Minister only briefly in 1920, but the era of liberalism was effectively over in Italy.
The 1913
and 1919
elections saw gains made by Socialist, Catholic and nationalist parties at the expense of the traditionally dominant liberals and radicals
, who were increasingly fractured and weakened as a result.
, the Kingdom of Italy faced a number of short-term and long-term problems in determining its allies and objectives. Italy's recent success in occupying Libya
as a result of the Italo-Turkish War
had sparked tension with its Triple Alliance
allies, the German Empire
and Austria-Hungary
, because both countries had been seeking closer relations with the Ottoman
Turkish Empire. In Munich, Germans reacted to Italy's aggression by singing anti-Italian songs. Italy's relations with the French Third Republic
also were in bad shape: France felt betrayed by Italy’s support of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War
, opening the possibility of war erupting between the two countries. Italy's relations with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
had also been impaired by constant Italian demands for more recognition in the international stage following the occupation of Libya, and its demands that other nations accept its spheres of influence in East Africa and the Mediterranean.
In the Mediterranean, Italy’s relations with the Kingdom of Greece
were aggravated when Italy occupied the Greek-populated Dodecanese
Islands, including Rhodes
, from 1912 to 1914. These islands had been formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Italy and Greece were also in open rivalry over the desire to occupy Albania
. King Emmanuel III himself was uneasy about Italy pursuing distant colonial adventures, and said that Italy should prepare to take back Italian-populated land from Austria-Hungary
, as the "completion of the Risorgimento". This idea put Italy at odds with Austria-Hungary.
A major hindrance to Italy's decision on what to do about the war was the political instability throughout Italy in 1914. After the formation of the government of Prime Minister Antonio Salandra
in March 1914, the government attempted to win the support of nationalists and moved to the political right. At the same time the left became more repulsed by the government after the killing of three anti-militarist demonstrators in June. Many elements of the left including syndicalists, republicans
and anarchists protested against this and the Italian Socialist Party
declared a general strike
in Italy. The protests that ensued became known as "Red Week
" as leftists rioted and various acts of civil disobedience occurred in major cities and small towns such as seizing railway stations, cutting telephone wires, and burning tax-registers. However only two days later the strike was officially called off, though the civil strife continued. Militarist nationalists and anti-militarist leftists fought on the streets until the Italian Royal Army forcefully restored calm after having used thousands of men to put down the various protesting forces following the invasion of Serbia
by Austria-Hungary in 1914, World War I broke out. Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance
, she initially remained neutral, claiming that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes.
In Italy, society was divided over the war: Italian socialists generally opposed the war and supported pacificism, while nationalists militantly supported the war. Long-time nationalists Gabriele D'Annunzio
and Luigi Federzoni
and an obscure Marxist journalist and new convert to nationalist sentiment, future Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
, demanded that Italy join the war. For nationalists, Italy had to maintain its alliance with the Central Empires, in order to obtain colonial territories in expenses of France. For the liberals, the war presented Italy a long-awaited opportunity to use an alliance with the Entente
to gain certain Italian-populated and other territories from Austria-Hungary, which had long been part of Italian patriotic aims since unification. In 1915, relatives of Italian revolutionary and republican hero Giuseppe Garibaldi
died on the battlefield of France, where they had volunteered to fight. Federzoni used the memorial services to declare the importance of Italy joining the war, and to warn the monarchy of the consequences of continued disunity in Italy if it did not:
Mussolini used his new newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia
and his strong oratorical skills to urge nationalists and patriotic revolutionary leftists to support Italy's entry into the war to gain back Italian populated territories from Austria-Hungary, by saying "enough of Libya
, and on to Trent
and Trieste
". Mussolini claimed that it was in the interests of socialists to join the war to tear down the aristocratic Hohenzollern dynasty of Germany which he claimed was the enemy of all European workers. Mussolini and other nationalists warned the Italian government that Italy must join the war or face revolution and called for violence against pacifists and neutralists. Left-wing nationalism
also erupted in southern Italy, socialist and nationalist Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
saw joining the war as essential to relieving southern Italy of the rising cost of bread which had caused riots in the south, and advocated a "war of revolution".
With nationalist sentiment firmly on the side of reclaiming Italian territories of Austria-Hungary, Italy entered negotiations with the Triple Entente. The negotiations ended successfully in April 1915 when the London Pact
was brokered with the Italian government. The pact ensured Italy the right to attain all Italian-populated lands it wanted from Austria-Hungary, and even land in the Balkans
and German colonies
in Africa. The proposal fulfilled the desires of Italian nationalists and Italian imperialism, and was agreed to. Italy joined the Triple Entente in its war against Austria-Hungary.
The reaction in Italy was divided: former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti
was furious over Italy's decision to go to war against its former defence allies Austria-Hungary. He claimed that Italy would fail in the war, predicting high numbers of mutinies, Austro-Hungarian occupation of more Italian territory, and that the failure would produce a catastrophic rebellion that would destroy the liberal-democratic monarchy and the liberal-democratic secular institutions of the state.
The outset of the campaign against Austria-Hungary looked initially to favour Italy: Austria-Hungary's army was spread to cover its fronts with Serbia
and Russia
, and Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian Army
. However, this advantage was never fully utilized because Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna
insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana
. This assault would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital, Vienna
. After eleven failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian campaign to take Vienna collapsed.
Upon entering the war, geography was also a difficulty for Italy, as its border with Austria-Hungary was along mountainous terrain. In May 1915, Italian forces at 400,000 men along the border outnumbered the Austrian and Germans almost precisely four to one. However the Austrian defenses were strong even though they were undermanned and managed to hold off the Italian offensive. The battles with the Austro-Hungarian Army along the Alpine foothills in the trench warfare there were drawn-out, long engagements with little progress. Italian officers were poorly trained in contrast to the Austro-Hungarian and German
armies, Italian artillery was inferior to the Austrian machine guns and the Italian forces had dangerously low supply of ammunition, this shortage would continually hamper attempts to make advances into Austrian territory. This combined with the constant replacement of officers by Cadorna resulted in few officers gaining the experience necessary to lead military missions. In the first year of the war, poor conditions on the battlefield led to outbreaks of cholera causing a significant number of Italian soldiers to die. Despite these serious problems, Cadorna refused to back down the offensive. Naval battles occurred between the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina
) and the Austro-Hungarian Navy
. Italy's warships were outclassed by the Austro-Hungarian fleet and the situation was made more dire for Italy in that both the French Navy
and the (British) Royal Navy
were not sent into the Adriatic Sea
. Their respective governments viewed the Adriatic as far too dangerous to operate due the concentration of the Austro-Hungarian fleet there.
Morale fell among Italian soldiers who lived a tedious life when not on the front lines: they were forbidden to enter theatres or bars even when on leave. However when battles were about to occur, alcohol was made freely available to the soldiers in order to reduce tension before the battle.In order to escape the tedium after battles, some groups of soldiers worked to create improvised brothels. In order to maintain morale, the Italian army had propaganda lectures of the importance of the war to Italy, especially in order to retrieve Trento
and Trieste
from Austria-Hungary. Some of these lectures were carried out by popular nationalist war proponents such as Gabriele D'Annunzio
. D'Annunzio himself would participate in a number of paramilitary raids on Austrian positions along the Adriatic coastline during the war and lost an eye one of the battles. Prominent pro-war advocate Benito Mussolini
was prevented from giving lecture by the government, most likely because of his revolutionary socialist past.
The Italian government became increasingly aggravated in 1915 with the passive nature of the Serbian army
which had not engaged in a serious offensive against Austria-Hungary for months. The Italian government blamed Serbian military inactiveness for allowing the Austrians to muster their armies against Italy. Cadorna suspected that Serbia was attempting to negotiate an end to fighting with Austria and addressed this to foreign minister Sidney Sonnino
who himself bitterly claimed that the Serbia was an unreliable ally. Relations between Italy and Serbia became so cold that the other Entente members were forced to abandon the idea of forming a united Balkan front against Austria-Hungary. In negotiations, Sonnino remained willing to allow Bosnia
to join Serbia, but refused to discuss the fate of Dalmatia
which was claimed by Italy and Pan-Slavists
in Serbia. As Serbia fell to the Austro-Hungarian and German forces in 1915, Cadorna proposed sending 60,000 men to land in Thessaloniki
to help the Serbs now in exile in Greece and the Principality of Albania
to fight off the opposing forces, but the Italian government's bitterness to Serbia resulted in the proposal being rejected.
After 1916, the situation for Italy grew steadily worse, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona
and Padua
in their Strafexpedition. At the same time Italy faced a shortage of warships, increased attacks by submarines, soaring freight charges threatening the ability to supply food to soldiers, lack of raw materials and equipment, and Italians faced high taxes to pay for the war. Austro-Hungarian and German forces had gone deep into northern Italian territory, and finally in November 1916, Cadorna ended offensive operations and began a defensive approach. In 1917, France, the United Kingdom and the United States
offered to send troops to Italy to help it fend off the offensive of the Central Powers
, but the Italian government refused, as Sonnino did not want Italy to be seen as a client state
of the Allies
and preferred isolation as the more brave alternative. Italy also wanted to keep the Kingdom of Greece
out of the war, as the Italian government feared that should Greece join the war on the side of the Allies, it would intend to annex Albania, which Italy wanted as its own. Fortunately for Italy, the Venizelist
pro-war advocates in Greece failed to succeed in pressuring Constantine I of Greece
to bring the country into the conflict, and Italian aims on Albania remained unthreatened.
The Russian Empire
collapsed in a 1917 Russian Revolution, eventually resulting in the rise of the communist Bolshevik
regime of Vladimir Lenin
. The resulting marginalization of the Eastern Front
, allowed for more Austro-Hungarian and German forces arriving on the front against Italy. Internal dissent against the war grew with increasingly poor economic and social conditions in Italy due to the strain of the war. Much of the profit of the war was being made in the cities while rural areas were losing income. The number of men available for agricultural work had fallen from 4.8 million to 2.2 million, though through the help of women, agricultural production managed to be maintained at 90 percent of its pre-war total during the war. Many pacifist and internationalist Italian socialists turned to Bolshevism and advocated negotiations with the workers of Germany and Austria-Hungary to help end the war and bring about Bolshevik revolutions. The newspaper Avanti!
of the Italian Socialist Party
declared "Let the bourgeoisie fight its own war". Leftist women in northern Italian cities led protests demanding action against the high cost of living and demanding an end to the war. In Milan
in May 1917, communist revolutionaries organized and engaged in rioting calling for an end to the war, and managed to close down factories and stop public transportation. The Italian army was forced to enter Milan
with tanks and machine guns to face communists and anarchists who fought violently until May 23 when the army gained control of the city with almost fifty people killed (three of which were Italian soldiers) and over 800 people arrested.
After the Battle of Caporetto
in 1917, Italian forces were forced far back into Italian territory, and the humiliation led to the arrival of Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
as Prime Minister who managed to solve some of Italy's wartime problems. Orlando abandoned the previous isolationist approach to the war and increased coordination with the Allies and the use of the convoy system to fend off submarine attack, allowed Italy to be able to end food shortages from February 1918 onward, and Italy received more raw materials from the Allies. Also in 1918, began the official repression of enemy aliens and Italian socialists were increasingly repressed by the Italian government. The Italian government was infuriated with the Fourteen Points
of Woodrow Wilson
, the President of the United States, as the advocation of national self-determination
meant that Italy would not gain Dalmatia as had been promised in the Treaty of London. In the Parliament of Italy
, nationalists condemned Wilson's fourteen points as betraying the Treaty of London, while socialists claimed that Wilson's points were valid and claimed the Treaty of London was an offense to the rights of Slavs
, Greeks
, and Albanians
. Negotiations between Italy and the Allies, particularly the new Yugoslav delegation (replacing the Serbian delegation), agreed to a trade off between Italy and the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia
, which was that Dalmatia as claimed by Italy would be accepted as Yugoslav, while Istria
as claimed by the Yugoslavs would be accepted as Italian.
At the Battle of the Piave River
the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. The opposing armies repeatedly failed afterwards in major battles such as Battle of Asiago
and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto
. The Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive in the latter battle. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy with the armistice on 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.
During the war, the Italian Royal Army increased in size from 15,000 men in 1914 to 160,000 men in 1918, with 5 million recruits in total entering service during the war. This came at a terrible cost: by the end of the war, Italy had lost 700,000 soldiers and had a budget deficit of twelve billion lira. Italian society was divided between the majority pacifists who opposed Italian involvement in the war and the minority of pro-war nationalists who had condemned the Italian government for not having immediately gone to war with Austria in 1914.
As the war came to an end, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
met with British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George
, Prime Minister of France
Georges Clemenceau
, and United States President
Woodrow Wilson
in Versailles
, to discuss how the borders of Europe
should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.
The talks provided little territorial gain to Italy because Wilson, during the peace talks, promised freedom to all European nationalities to form their own nation states. As a result, the Treaty of Versailles
did not assign Dalmatia and Albania to Italy, as had been promised in the Treaty of London (1915). Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German overseas colonies into mandates of their own, with Italy receiving none of them. Despite this, Orlando signed the Treaty of Versailles, which caused uproar against his government. Civil unrest erupted in Italy between nationalists who supported the war effort and opposed the "mutilated victory" (as nationalists called it) and leftists who were opposed to the war.
Furious over the peace settlement, Italian nationalist revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio
led nationalists to form the Free State of Fiume
in September 1919. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called Il Duce (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the leadership title of "Duce" and the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the Fascist
movement of Benito Mussolini
. The demand for annexation of Fiume spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's Fascists. D'Annunzio’s stirring speeches drew Croatian nationalists to his side. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army
and Egyptian nationalists.
was forced out of the Italian Socialist Party
after calling for Italian intervention against Austria. Prior to World War I, Mussolini had opposed military conscription, protested Italy's occupation of Libya, and was the editor of the Socialist Party's official newspaper, Avanti!
. Over time, he simply called for revolution, without mentioning class struggle. Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create his own newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia
to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. France, Britain, and Russia, wanting to draw Italy to the Entente, helped finance the newspaper. This newspaper became Fascist Italy's officially-supported newspaper years later. During the war, Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war. The wound is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, although he claimed to have been wounded in battle.
Following the end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles, in 1919, Mussolini created the Fasci di Combattimento or Combat League. It was originally dominated by patriotic socialist and syndicalist veterans who opposed the pacifist
nature of the Italian Socialist Party. The Fascists initially had a platform far more inclined to the left, promising social revolution, proportional representation, women's suffrage (partly realized in 1925), and dividing private property held by estates.
On 15 April 1919, the Fascists made their debut in political violence, when a group of members from the Fasci di Combattimento attacked the offices of Avanti! Recognizing the failures of the Fascists' initial revolutionary and left-leaning policy, Mussolini moved the organization away from the left and turned the revolutionary movement into an electoral movement in 1921 named the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party
). The party copied the nationalist themes of D'Annunzio and rejected parliamentary democracy while still operating within to destroy it. Mussolini changed his original revolutionary policies, such as moving away from anti-clericalism to supporting the Catholic Church and abandoned his public opposition to the monarchy. Fascist support and violence began to grow in 1921 and Fascist-supporting army officers began taking arms and vehicles from the army to use in counterrevolutionary attacks on socialists.
In 1920, Giolitti had come back as Prime Minister in an attempt to solve Italy's deadlock. One year later, Giolitti's government had already become unstable, and a growing socialist opposition further endangered his government. Giolitti believed that the Fascists could be toned down and used to protect the state from the socialists. He decided to include Fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections. In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolitti's government failed to gather a large enough coalition to govern and offered the Fascists placements in his government. The Fascists rejected Giolitti's offers and joined with socialists in bringing down his government. A number of descendants of those who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification were won over to Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals. His advocacy of corporatism
and futurism
had attracted advocates of the "third way". But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolitti who did not condemn him for his Blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.
In October 1922, Mussolini took advantage of a general strike by workers in Italy, and announced his demands to the Italian government to give the Fascist Party political power or face a coup. With no immediate response, a small number of Fascists began a long trek across Italy to Rome which was called the March on Rome
, claiming to Italians that Fascists were intending to restore law and order. Mussolini himself did not participate until the very end of the march, with d'Annunzio at being hailed as leader of the march until it was learned he had been pushed out of a window and severely wounded in a failed assassination
attempt, depriving him of the possibility of leading an actual coup d'état orchestrated by an organization originally founded by himself. The Fascists, under the leadership of Mussolini demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta
's resignation and that Mussolini be named Prime Minister. Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III
faced a political crisis. The King was forced to choose which of the two rival movements in Italy would form the government: Mussolini's Fascists, or the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party
. He selected the Fascists.
On October 28, 1922, Victor Emmanuel III selected Mussolini to become Italian Prime Minister, allowing Mussolini and the Fascist Party to pursue their political ambitions as long as they supported the monarchy and its interests. Mussolini was a very young political leader (at the age of 39) compared to other Italian prime ministers and world leaders at the time. Mussolini was called Il Duce, or "The Leader" by his supporters, an unofficial title that was commonly used to describe Mussolini's position during the Fascist era. A personality cult was developed that portrayed him as the nation's saviour which was aided by the personal popularity he held with Italians already which would remain strong until Italy faced continuous military defeats in World War II
.
Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals, and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly: Mussolini's coalition passed the electoral Acerbo Law
of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition that achieved 25% of the vote. The Fascist Party used violence and intimidation to achieve the 25% threshold in the 1924 election, and became the ruling political party of Italy.
Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti
was assassinated after calling for an annulment of the elections because of the irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. In 1925, Mussolini accepted responsibility for the Fascist violence in 1924, and promised that dissenters would be dealt with harshly. Before the speech, Blackshirts smashed opposition presses and beat up several of Mussolini's opponents. This event is considered the onset of undisguised Fascist dictatorship in Italy, though it would be 1928 before the Fascist Party was formally declared the only legal party in the nation.
Over the next four years, Mussolini eliminated nearly all checks and balances on his power. In 1926, he passed a law that declared he was responsible only to the king and made him the sole person able to determine Parliament's agenda. Local autonomy was swept away, and appointed podestas replaced communal mayors and councils. Soon after all other parties were banned in 1928, parliamentary elections were replaced by plebiscites in which the Grand Council nominated a single list of candidates.
The result of Mussolini's takeover of the government was the creation of a diarchy
in Italy, with Mussolini wielding enormous political powers as the effective ruler of Italy, while the King remained a figurehead. He did, however, still have the right to dismiss the prime minister, albeit only on the advice of the Grand Council—at least in theory, the only check on Mussolini's power.
After rising to power, the Fascist regime set Italy on a course to becoming a one-party state and to integrate Fascism into all aspects of life. A totalitarian state as was officially declared in the Doctrine of Fascism
of 1935,
With the concept of totalitarianism, Mussolini and the Fascist regime set an agenda of improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, personal dictatorship, and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists.
Under Fascism, the definition of the Italian nationality rested on a militarist
foundation and the Fascist's "new man" ideal in which loyal Italians would rid themselves of individualism
and autonomy and see themselves as a component of the Italian state and be willing to sacrifice their lives for it. Under such a totalitarian society, only Fascists would be considered "true Italians" and membership and endorsement of the Fascist Party was necessary for people to gain "Complete Citizenship", those who did not swear allegiance to Fascism were banished from public life and could not gain employment. The Fascist regime also reached out to Italian expatriate
s living abroad to endorse the Fascist cause and identify with Italy rather than their place of residence. Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic or successful in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union
in creating a new culture.
In Fascist Italy, Mussolini was idolized as the nation's saviour. In public and in propaganda
the Fascist regime attempted to make him omnipresent in Italian society. Much of Fascism's appeal in Italy was based on the personality cult around Mussolini and his popularity. Mussolini's passionate oratory and personality cult was displayed at huge rallies and parades of his Blackshirts in Rome which served as an inspiration to Adolf Hitler
and the National Socialist German Workers Party in Germany.
The Fascist regime established propaganda in newsreels, radio broadcasting, and a few feature films deliberately endorsing Fascism. In 1926, laws were passed to require that propaganda newsreels be shown prior to all feature films in cinemas. These newsreels were more effective in influencing the Italian public than propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time. Fascist propaganda was widely present in posters and state-sponsored art of the time. Art and literature in Fascist Italy were not strictly controlled, and were only censored if they were blatantly against the state.
Relations with the Roman Catholic Church
improved significantly during Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier opposition to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini made an alliance with the pro-church Partito Popolare Italiano or Italian People's Party. Mussolini negotiated with the Pope over granting sovereignty to the territory of the Vatican as part of a "conciliazione" (conciliation) in a concordat called the Lateran Treaty to improve Italy's official relations with the Church. The negotiations however were initially tense: the Vatican and the Fascist regime engaged in bitter arguments over what such a pact would mean and how it should be interpreted. Giovanni Montini (the future Pope Paul VI
), who was involved with pro-Catholic politics in Italy, questioned the value of the concordat in ensuring Vatican sovereignty, once saying "If the liberty of the Pope cannot be guaranteed by the strong faith of a free people, and especially by the Italian people, then no territory and no treaty will be able to do so.".
The Fascist regime nevertheless proceeded with its intent to resolve the problem of Vatican sovereignty. A plebiscite was held in March 1929 in which Italians were asked to vote on the government's proposed recognition of Vatican sovereignty. Those who opposed the concordat felt intimidated by the Fascist regime: the Catholic Action
party (Azione Cattolica) instructed Italian Catholics to vote for Fascist candidates to represent them in positions in churches, Mussolini claimed that "no" votes were of those "...few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts". In the French newspaper Le Monde
, Guido Miglioni spoke of the attitude of the Fascist regime and what he saw was the nature of the Lateran pact: "These two years have witnessed the gradual but inexorable submission of the Pope to the demands of the Regime" Despite opposition to the nature of the negotiations, many Italians feared that a "no" vote would incite Fascist reprisals and attacks on the individuals who opposed the concordat. When the plebiscite was held, 8.63 million Italians or 90 per cent of the registered electorate voted. Of this number, only 135,761 voted "no". The Lateran Treaty was signed and the Vatican's sovereignty was recognized. Despite earlier troubles, relations between the Church and the regime and moreover Italy itself, improved significantly. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.
In 1933, Italy made multiple technological achievements. The Fascist government spent large sums of money on technological projects such as the construction of the new Italian ocean liner SS Rex
which in 1933 made a transatlantic sea crossing record of four days. as well as funding the development of the Macchi M.C.72
seaplane
which became the world's fastest seaplane in 1933 and retained the title in 1934. In 1933, Fascist government member Italo Balbo
, who was also an aviator made a transatlantic flight in a flying boat to Chicago for the World's Fair
called the Century of Progress
. The flight symbolized the power of Fascist leadership and the industrial and technological progress the state had made under Fascist direction.
On the issue of anti-Semitism, the Fascists were divided on what to do, especially with the rise of Adolf Hitler
in Germany. A number of Fascist members were Jewish, and Mussolini himself did not personally believe in anti-Semitism, but to appease Hitler, anti-Semitism within the Fascist party steadily increased. In 1936, Mussolini made his first written denounciation of Jews by claiming that anti-Semitism had only arisen because Jews had become too predominant in the positions of power of countries and claimed that Jews were a "ferocious" tribe who sought to "totally banish" Christians from public life. In 1937, Fascist member Paolo Orano
criticized the Zionist movement as being part of British foreign policy which designed to secure British hold of the area without respecting the Christian and Muslim presence in Palestine
. On the matter of Jewish Italians, Orano said that they "should concern themselves with nothing more than their religion" and not bother boasting of being patriotic Italians.
In 1938 under pressure from Nazi Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt a policy of anti-Semitism
, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself. As a result of the laws, the Fascist regime lost its propaganda director, Margherita Sarfatti
, who was Jewish and had been Mussolini's mistress. A minority of high-ranking Fascists were pleased with anti-Semitic policy such as Roberto Farinacci
who claimed that Jews through intrigue had taken control key positions of finance, business and schools and he noted that Jews sympathized with Ethiopia during Italy's war with it and that Jews had sympathized with Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War
. In 1938, Farinacci became the minister in charge of culture, and adopted racial laws designed to prevent racial intermixing which included anti-Semitism. Until the armistice with the Allies in September, 1943, the Italian Jewish community was protected from deportation to the Nazi death camps in the east. With the armistice, Hitler took control of the German occupied territory in the north and began an effort to liquidate the Jewish community under his control. Shortly after the entry of Italy into the war, numerous camps were established for the imprisonment of enemy aliens and Italians suspected to be hostile to the regime. In contrast to the brutality of the Nazi-run camps, the Italian camps allowed families to live together and there was a broad program of social welfare and cultural activities.
recommended that education policy should focus on indoctrination of students into Fascism, and to educate youth to respect and be obedient to authority. In 1929, education policy took a major step towards being completely taken over by the agenda of indoctrination. In that year, the Fascist government took control of the authorization of all textbooks, all secondary school teachers were required to take an oath of loyalty to Fascism, and children began to be taught that they owed the same loyalty to Fascism as they did to God. In 1933, all university teachers were required to be members of the National Fascist Party. From 1930s to 1940s, Italy's education focused on the history of Italy displaying Italy as a force of civilization during the Roman
era, displaying the rebirth of Italian nationalism
and the struggle for Italian independence and unity during the Risorgimento. In late 1930s, the Fascist government copied Nazi Germany
's education system on the issue of physical fitness, and began an agenda that demanded that Italians become physically healthy.
Intellectual talent in Italy was rewarded and promoted by the Fascist government through the Royal Academy of Italy
which was created in 1926 to promote and coordinate Italy's intellectual activity.
(OND) or "National After-work Program" in 1925. The OND was the state's largest recreational organizations for adults. The Dopolavoro was so popular that, by the 1930s, all towns in Italy had a Dopolavoro clubhouse and the Dopolavoro was responsible for establishing and maintaining 11,000 sports grounds, over 6,400 libraries, 800 movie houses, 1,200 theatres, and over 2,000 orchestras. Membership in the Dopolavoro was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature. In the 1930s under the direction of Achille Starace
the OND became primarily recreational, concentrating on sports and other outings. It is estimated that by 1936 the OND had organized 80% of salaried workers. Nearly 40% of the industrial workforce had been recruited into the Dopolavoro by 1939 and the sports activities proved popular with large numbers of workers. The OND had the largest membership of any of the mass Fascist organizations in Italy. The enormous success of the Dopolavoro in Fascist Italy was the key factor in Nazi Germany creating its own version of the Dopolavoro, the Kraft durch Freude
(KdF) or "Strength through Joy" program, which was even more successful than the Dopolavoro.
or National Security Volunteer Militia in 1923, which are commonly referred to as the Blackshirts for the colour of their uniforms. Most of the Blackshirts were members from the Fasci di Combattimento. A secret police force called the Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927. It was led by Arturo Bocchini
to crack down on opponents of the regime and Mussolini (there had been several near-miss assassination attempts on Mussolini's life in his early years in power). This force was effective, but unlike the Schutzstaffel
(SS) in Nazi Germany
or the NKVD
of the Soviet Union
, the OVRA caused far fewer deaths of political opponents. However Fascists methods of repression were cruel which included physically forcing opponents of Fascism to swallow castor oil
which would cause severe diarrhea and dehydration, leaving the victim in a painful and physically debilitated state which would sometimes would result in death.
To combat organized crime, especially the Mafia
in Sicily
and other parts of southern Italy, the Fascists gave special powers in 1925 to Cesare Mori
, the prefect of Palermo
. These powers gave him the ability to prosecute the Mafia, forcing many Mafiosi to flee abroad (many to the United States
) or risk being jailed. Mori was fired however, when he began to investigate Mafia links within the Fascist regime. He was removed from his position in 1929, and the Fascist regime declared that the threat of the Mafia had been eliminated. Mori's actions weakened the Mafia, but did not destroy them. From 1929 to 1943, the Fascist regime completely abandoned its previously aggressive measures against the Mafia, and the Mafiosi were left relatively undisturbed. http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_302.html
. Corporatism was an outgrowth of socialism into a new economic system where the means of production where nominally left in the hands of the civil sector, but directed and controlled by the State.
In 1935, the Doctrine of Fascism
was published under Mussolini's name, although it was most likely written by Giovanni Gentile
. It described the role of the state in the economy under corporatism. By this time, Fascism had been drawn more towards the support of market forces being dominant over state intervention.
Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered: the left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were opposed by industrialists and landowners who supported the party because it pledged to defend Italy from communism and socialism. As a result, corporatist policy became dominated by the industries. Throughout the Mussolini era, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantling of non-Fascist unions. While the Fascist unions could not protect workers from all economic consequences, they were responsible for the handling of social security benefits, claims for severance pay, and could sometimes negotiate contracts that benefited workers.
After the Great Depression hit the world economy in 1929, the Fascist regime followed other nations in enacting protectionist tariffs and attempted to set direction for the economy. In the 1930s, the government increased wheat production, and made Italy self-sufficient for wheat, ending imports of wheat from Canada
and the United States
. However the transfer of agricultural land to wheat production reduced the production of vegetables and fruit. Despite improving production for wheat, the situation for peasants themselves did not improve. 0.5% of the Italian population (usually wealthy), owned 42 percent of all agricultural land in Italy, and income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase. The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933. It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Italy fared better than most western nations during the Depression: its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression. Its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period. Only the United Kingdom
and the Scandinavia
n nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.
Italy's colonial expansion into Ethiopia in 1936, proved to have a negative impact on Italy's economy. The budget of the colony of Italian East Africa
in the 1936-37 fiscal year requested from Italy 19.136 billion lire to be used create the necessary infrastructure for the colony. At the time Italy's entire revenue that year was only 18.581 billion lire.
The government tried to achieve "alimentary sovereignty," or total self-sufficiency with regard to food supplies. Its new policies were highly controversial among a people who paid serious attention to their food. The goal was to reduce imports, support Italian agriculture, and encourage an austere diet based on bread, polenta, pasta, fresh produce and wine. Fascist women's groups trained women in "autarkic cookery" to work around items no longer imported. Food prices climbed in the 1930s and dairy and meat consumption was discouraged, so increasing numbers turned to the black market. The policy demonstrated that Fascists saw food—and people's behavior generally—as strategic resources that could be manipulated regardless of traditions and tastes.
in Europe
, making it a "New Roman Empire". Mussolini promised that Italy would hold power over the Mediterranean Sea
. In propaganda, Fascists used the ancient Roman "Mare Nostrum" (Latin
for "Our Sea") to describe the Mediterranean. The Fascist regime increased funding and attention to military projects, and began plans to create an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaim dominance in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea
. The Fascists considered wars to conquer Dalmatia
, Albania
and Greece
for the Italian Empire.
Colonial efforts in Africa began in the 1920s, as civil war plagued Italian North Africa
(Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI) as the Arab population there refused to accept Italian colonial rule. Mussolini sent Marshal
Rodolfo Graziani
to lead a punitive pacification campaign against the Arab nationalists. Omar Mukhtar
, led the Arab resistance movement. After a much-disputed truce on 3 January 1928, the Fascist policy in Libya increased in brutality. A barbed wire fence
was built from the Mediterranean to the oasis of Jaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterwards, the colonial administration began the wholesale deportation of the people of the Jebel Akhdar
to deny the rebels the support of the local population. The forced migration of more than 100,000 people ended in concentration camps in Suluq
and Al-'Aghela where tens of thousands died in squalid conditions. It's estimated that the number of Libyans who died - killed either through combat or starvation and disease - was at least 80,000, and up to half of the Cyrenaican population. After Al-Mukhtar's capture September 15, 1931 and his execution in Benghazi, the resistance petered out. Limited resistance to the Italian occupation crystallized round the person of Sheik Idris, the Emir of Cyrenaica.
Negotiations occurred with the British government on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya. The first negotiations began in 1925 to define the border between Libya and British-held Egypt
. These negotiations resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory. In 1934, once again the Italian government requested more territory for Libya from British-held Sudan
. Britain allowed Italy to gain some territory from Sudan to add to Libya. http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS010.pdf These concessions were probably allowed because of the relatively good relations between Italy and Britain prior to 1935.
In 1935, Mussolini believed that the time was right for Italy to invade Ethiopia
(a.k.a. Abyssinia) to make it a colony. As a result, the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
erupted.Italy invaded Ethiopia from the Italian colonies of Eritrea
and Italian Somaliland
. Italy committed atrocities against Ethiopians during the war, including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian soldiers. Ethiopia surrendered in 1936, completing Italy's revenge for its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Victor Emmanuel III
was soon proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia. The international consequences for Italy's belligerence resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations
. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust of Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany. After being condemned by the League of Nations, the Grand Council of Fascism
declared Italy's decision to leave the League on December 11, 1937 and Mussolini denounced the League as a mere "tottering temple".
After pressure was placed on Italy by Nazi Germany to promote a racist agenda, the Fascist regime moved away from its previous promotion of colonialism based on the spread of Italian culture to a directly racist colonial agenda. The Fascist regime declared that it would promote mass Italian settlements in the colonies that would in the Fascist regime's terms, "create in the heart of the African continent a powerful and homogeneous nucleus of whites strong enough to draw those populations within our economic orbit and our Roman and Fascist civilization". Fascist rule in its Italian colonies differed from region to region. Rule in Italian East Africa
(Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI), a colony including Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, was harsh for the native peoples as Fascist policy sought to destroy native culture. In February 1937, Rodolfo Graziani
ordered Italian soldiers to pillage native settlements in Addis Ababa
, which resulted in hundreds of Ethiopians being killed and their homes being burned to the ground. After the occupation of Ethiopia
, the Fascist regime endorsed racial segregation
to reduce the number of mixed offspring in Italian colonies which they claimed would "pollute" the Italian race. Marital and sexual relationships between Italians and Africans in its colonies were made a criminal offense when the Fascist regime implemented decree-law No. 880 of April 19, 1937 which gave sentences of one to five years imprisonment to Italians caught in such relationships. The law did not give any sentences to native Africans, as the Fascist government claimed that only those Italians were to blame for damaging the prestige of their race. Despite racist language used in some propaganda, the Fascist regime accepted recruitment of native Africans who wanted to join Italy's colonial armed forces and native African colonial recruits were displayed in propaganda.http://www.germaniainternational.com/images/bookgijuinit13.jpghttp://www.germaniainternational.com/images/bookgijuinit14.jpg In Italian Libya
, Mussolini downplayed racist policies as he attempted to earn the trust of Arab leaders there. Individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to Libyans by December 1934. In famous trip to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created when on March 18 Mussolini posed with Arab
dignitaries who gave him an honorary "Sword of Islam" (that had actually been made in Florence
) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim
Arab peoples there. In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party
and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor
(Associazione Musulmana del Littorio) for Muslim Libya, and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army.
The Fascist regime also engaged in interventionist foreign policy in Europe. In 1923, Italian soldiers captured the Greek island of Corfu
as part of the Fascists' plan to eventually take over Greece
. Corfu was later returned to Greece and war between Greece and Italy was avoided. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a de facto protectorate
which helped Italy's stand against Greek sovereignty. Corfu was important to Italian imperialism and nationalism due to its presence in the former Republic of Venice
which left behind significant Italian cultural monuments and influence, though the Greek population there, especially youth, heavily protested the Italian occupation. Relations with France were mixed, the Fascist regime consistently had the intention to eventually wage war on France to regain Italian-populated areas of France, but with the rise of Hitler, the Fascists immediately became more concerned of Austria's independence and the potential threat of Germany to Italy, if it demanded the German-populated areas of Tyrol
. Due to concerns of German expansionism, Italy joined the Stresa Front
with France and the United Kingdom against Germany which existed from 1935 to 1936. The Fascist regime held negative relations with Yugoslavia, as they long wanted the implosion of Yugoslavia in order to territorially expand and increase Italy's power. Italy pursued espionage
in Yugoslavia, as Yugoslav authorities on multiple occasions discovered spy rings in the Italian Embassy in Yugoslavia such as in 1930. In 1929, the Fascist government accepted Croatian extreme nationalist Ante Pavelić
as a political exile to Italy from Yugoslavia. The Fascists gave Pavelić financial assistance and a training ground in Italy to develop and train his newly formed fascist militia and terrorist group, the Ustaše
. This organization later became the ruling force of the Independent State of Croatia
, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs
, Jews
and other minorities during World War II
. In 1936 in Spain, the Fascist regime made its most significant pre-war military intervention. The Spanish Republic
was divided in the Spanish Civil War
between the anticlerical socialist Republicans and the Church-supporting, monarchy-backed nationalists led by Francisco Franco
under his fascist Falange
movement. Italy sent aircraft, weapons, and a total of over 60,000 troops to aid the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. It was a success that secured Italy's naval access in and out of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and its ability to pursue its policy of Mare Nostrum without fear of opposition by Spain. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany. This was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War in the 1860s. During the 1930s, Italy built many large battleships and other warships to solidify Italy's hold on the Mediterranean.
After Germany annexed Czechoslovakia
, Mussolini decided to capture Albania
to avoid becoming second-rate member of Axis. On April 7, 1939, Italy invaded Albania
. After short campaign Albania was occupied, and its parliament crowned Victor Emmanuel III King of Albania
. The historical justification for the annexation of Albania laid in the ancient history of the Roman Empire
in which the region of Albania had been an early conquest for the Romans, even before northern Italy had been taken by Roman forces. But obviously by the time of annexation, little connection to Italy remained amongst Albanians
. In actuality, the annexation of Albania was far from a military conquest as the country had been a de facto protectorate of Italy since the 1920s and much of its army were commanded by Italian officers sent from Italy. The occupation was not appreciated by King Emmanuel III, who feared that it had isolated Italy even further than its war against Ethiopia.
When the National Socialist German Workers Party
(NSDAP, a.k.a. Nazi Party) attained power in Germany in 1933, Mussolini and the Fascist regime in public showed approval of Hitler's regime, with Mussolini saying "The victory of Hitler is our victory". The Fascist regime also spoke of creating an alliance with the new regime in Germany.
In private, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government and Mussolini had a disapproving view of Hitler despite ideological similarities. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy that previously had been part of Austrian Empire
. Although other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona, and adopted much of the symbolism of the Fascists into the Nazi Party, such as the Roman, straight-armed salute, dramatic oratory, the use of uniformed paramilitaries for political violence, and the use of mass rallies to demonstrate the power of the movement. In 1922 Hitler tried to ask for Mussolini's guidance on how to organize his own version of the March on Rome
which would be a "March on Berlin" (which came into being as the failed Beer Hall Putsch
in 1923). Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read Mein Kampf
to find out what Hitler's National Socialist movement
was but was immediately disappointed, saying that Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and remarked that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés." While Mussolini like Hitler believed in the cultural and moral superiority of whites over coloured peoples, he opposed Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs. A number of Fascists were Jewish, including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti
, the director of Fascist art and propaganda, and there was little support amongst Italians for anti-Semitism. Mussolini also did not evaluate race as being a precursor of superiority, but rather culture.
Hitler and the Nazis continued to try to woo Mussolini to their cause, and eventually Mussolini gave financial assistance to the Nazi party and allowed Nazi paramilitaries to train in Italy in the belief that despite differences, a fascist regime in Germany could be beneficial to Italy. Suspicion of the Nazis increased after 1933, Mussolini sought to ensure that Nazi Germany would not become the dominant fascist state in Europe. To do this, Mussolini opposed German efforts to annex Austria after the assassination of fascist Austrian President Engelbert Dollfuss
in 1934, and promised the Austrians military support if Germany were to interfere. This promise helped save Austria from annexation in 1934.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler and the similarities between Italian Fascism
and German National Socialism
. While both ideologies had significant similarities, the two factions were suspicious of each other, and both leaders were in competition for world influence. Hitler and Mussolini first met in June 1934, as the issue of Austrian independence was in crisis. In private, after the visit in 1934, Mussolini said that Hitler was just "a silly little monkey".
After Italy became isolated in 1936, the government had little choice but to work with Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs and reluctantly abandoned its support of Austrian independence from Germany. On October 28, 1937, Mussolini declared Italy's support of Germany regaining its colonies lost in World War I
, declaring"
With no significant opposition from Italy, Hitler proceeded with Anschluß, the annexation of Austria in 1938. Germany later claimed the Sudetenland
, a province of Czechoslovakia
inhabited mostly by Germans
. Mussolini felt he had little choice but to help Germany to avoid isolation. With the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Fascist regime began to be concerned about the majority ethnic German population in southern Tyrol, and whether they would want to join a Greater Germany
. The Fascists were also concerned about whether Italy should follow Nazi anti-Semitic policies in order to gain favour from those Nazis who had mixed feelings about Italy as an ally. In 1938, Mussolini pressured fellow Fascist members to support the enacting of anti-Semitic policies, but this was not well taken, as a number of Fascists were Jewish and anti-Semitism was not an active political concept in Italy. Nevertheless, Mussolini forced through anti-Semitic legislation even while his own son-in-law and prominent Fascist Count
Galeazzo Ciano
personally condemned such laws. In turn for enacting the extremely unpopular anti-Semitic laws, Mussolini and the Fascist government demanded a concession from Hitler and the Nazis. In 1939 the Fascists demanded from Hitler that his government willingly accept the Italian government's plan to have all Germans in south Tyrol either leave Italy or be forced to accept Italianization. Hitler agreed and thus the threat to Italy from the south Tyrol Germans was neutralized.
As war approached in 1939, the Fascist regime stepped up an aggressive press campaign against France claiming that Italian people were suffering in France. This was important to the alliance as both regimes mutually had claims on France, Germany on German-populated Alsace-Lorraine
and Italy on the mixed Italian and French populated Nice
and Corsica
. In May 1939, a formal alliance was organized. The alliance was known as the Pact of Steel
which obliged Italy to fight alongside Germany if war broke out against Germany. Mussolini felt obliged to sign the pact in spite of his own concerns that Italy could not fight a war in the near future. This obligation grew from his promises to Italians that he would build an empire for them and from his personal desire to not allow Hitler to become the dominant leader in Europe. Mussolini was repulsed by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreement where Germany and the Soviet Union
agreed to partition the Second Polish Republic
into German and Soviet zones for an impending invasion. The Fascist government saw this as a betrayal of the Anti-Comintern Pact
, but decided to remain officially silent.
on 1 September 1939 beginning World War II
, Mussolini publicly declared on September 24, 1939, that Italy had the choice of entering the war or to remain neutral which would cause the country to lose its national dignity. Nevertheless, despite his aggressive posture, Mussolini kept Italy out of the conflict for many months. Mussolini told his son in law, Count Ciano, that he was personally jealous over Hitler's accomplishments and hoped that Hitler's prowess would be slowed down by Allied counterattack. Mussolini went as far to lessen Germany's successes in Europe by giving advanced notice to Belgium
and the Netherlands
of an imminent German invasion, of which Germany had informed Italy.
In drawing out war plans, Mussolini and the Fascist regime decided that Italy would aim to annex large portions of Africa and the Middle East to be included in its colonial empire. Hesitance remained from the King and military commander Pietro Badoglio
who warned Mussolini that Italy had too few tank
s, armoured vehicles, and aircraft
available to be able to carry out a long-term war and Badoglio told Mussolini "It is suicide" for Italy to get involved in the European conflict. Mussolini and the Fascist regime took the advice to a degree and waited as France was invaded by Germany before deciding to get involved.
As France collapsed under the German Blitzkrieg
, Italy declared war on France and Britain on 10 June 1940, fulfilling its obligations of the Pact of Steel. Italy hoped to quickly conquer Savoy
, Nice
, Corsica
, and the African colonies of Tunisia
and Algeria
from the French, but this was quickly stopped when Germany signed an armistice with the French commander Philippe Petain
who established Vichy France
which retained control over Savoy, Nice, Corsica, Tunisia and Algeria. This decision by Germany angered the Fascist regime.
The one Italian strength that concerned the Allies was the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina
), the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British Royal Navy
launched a surprise air attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto
which crippled Italy's major warships. Although the Italian fleet did not inflict serious damage as was feared, it did keep significant British Commonwealth
naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea
. This fleet had to fight the Italian fleet to keep British Commonwealth forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. In 1941 on the Italian-controlled island of Kastelorizo
, off the coast of Turkey
, Italian forces succeeded in repelling British and Australian forces attempting to occupy the island during Operation Abstention
. In December 1941, a covert attack by Italian forces took place in Alexandria
, Egypt
, in which Italian divers attached explosives to British warships resulting in two British battleships being sunk. This was known as the Raid on Alexandria
. In 1942, the Italian navy inflicted a serious blow to a British convoy fleet attempting to reach Malta
during Operation Harpoon
, sinking multiple British vessels. Over time, the Allied navies inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet, and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany.
Continuing indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War
, which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. Mussolini had intended the war with Greece to prove to Germany that Italy was no minor power in the alliance, but a capable empire which could hold its own weight. Mussolini boasted to his government that he would even resign from being Italian if anyone found fighting the Greeks to be difficult. Within days of invading Greece, the Greek army pushed the Italian army back into Albania and humiliatingly put Italy on the defensive. Hitler and the German government were frustrated with Italy's failing campaigns, but so was Mussolini. Mussolini in private angrily accused Italians on the battlefield of becoming "overcome with a crisis of artistic sentimentalism and throw in the towel."
To gain back ground in Greece, Germany reluctantly began a Balkans Campaign alongside Italy which resulted also in the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
in 1941 and the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy. Mussolini and Hitler compensated Croatian nationalists by endorsing the creation of the Independent State of Croatia
under the extreme nationalist Ustaše
. In order to receive the support of Italy, the Ustaše agreed to concede the main central portion of Dalmatia
as well as various Adriatic islands to Italy, as Dalmatia held a significant number of Italians. The ceding of the Adriatic islands by Croatia was a minimal loss for their government, as in exchange for those cessions, Croatia was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina
and to persecute the Serb population there to make way for future Croat habitation there. Officially, Croatia was a kingdom and an Italian protectorate, ruled by Italian House of Savoy
member Tomislav II of Croatia, however he never personally set foot on Croatian soil, and the government was run by Ante Pavelić
, the leader of the Ustaše. Italy did however hold military control across all of Croatia's coast, which combined with Italian control of Albania and Montenegro, gave Italy complete control of the Adriatic Sea, thus completing a key part of the Mare Nostrum
policy of the Fascists. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerrillas (although they did work with them because they did not really like the Ustaše movement whom they left up to the Germans) and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito
who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.
In 1940, Italy invaded Egypt
and was soon driven far back into Libya
by British Commonwealth forces. The German army sent a detachment to join the Italian army in Libya to save the colony from the British advance. German army units in the Afrika Korps
under General Erwin Rommel
were the mainstay in the campaign to push the British out of Libya and into central Egypt in 1941 to 1942. The victories in Egypt were almost entirely credited to Rommel's strategic brilliance. The Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa
because of their dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. For a time in 1942, Italy from an official standpoint controlled large amounts of territory along the Mediterranean. With the collapse of Vichy France, Italy gained control of Corsica
(which had a mixed population of French and Italians), Nice and other portions of southwestern France. Italy also oversaw a military occupation over significant sections of southern France. But despite the official territorial achievements, the so called "Italian Empire" was a paper tiger
by 1942: it was faltering as its economy failed to adapt to the conditions of war, and Italian cities were being bombed by the Allies. Also, despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942. Complete collapse came in 1943 when German and Italian forces fled North Africa to Sicily
.
By 1943, Italy was failing on every front, by January of the year, half of the Italian forces serving on the Eastern Front had been destroyed, the African campaign had collapsed, the Balkans remained unstable, and Italians wanted an end to the war. King Victor Emmanuel III urged Count Ciano to overstep Mussolini to try to begin talks with the Allies. In mid 1943, the Allies
commenced an invasion of Sicily
in an effort to knock Italy out of the war and establish a foothold in Europe
. Allied troops landed in Sicily with little initial opposition from Italian forces. The situation changed as the Allies ran into German forces, who held out for some time before Sicily was taken over by the Allies. The invasion made Mussolini dependent on the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht
) to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition from German forces.
and even members of the Fascist Party to desire Mussolini's removal. The first stage of his ouster took place when Fascist Party's Grand Council under the direction of Fascist member Dino Grandi
voted to remove Mussolini as the party's leader. Days later, on 26 July 1943, Emmanuel III officially removed Mussolini from the post of Prime Minister and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio
. Upon removal, Mussolini was immediately arrested. The new "Badoglio government" stripped away the final elements of Fascist rule by banning the Fascist Party. Italy then signed an armistice with the Allied armed forces and the Kingdom of Italy joined the Allies
in their war against Nazi Germany
. The new Royalist
government of Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio raised an Italian Co-Belligerent Army
, an Italian Co-Belligerent Navy
, and an Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
. The Bagdolio government attempted to establish a non-partisan administration and a number of political parties were allowed to exist again after years of ban under Fascism. These ranged from liberal to communist parties which all were part of the government. Italians celebrated the fall of Mussolini and as more Italian territory was taken by the Allies, the Allies were welcomed as liberators by Italians, who opposed the German occupation.
However, Mussolini's reign in Italy was not over. A German commando unit led by Otto Skorzeny
rescued Mussolini from the mountain hotel where he was being held under arrest. Hitler instructed Mussolini to establish the Italian Social Republic
in German-held northern Italy. The Italian Social Republic was a German puppet state
. The Fascist state's armed forces were a combination of Mussolini loyalist Fascists and German armed forces. However Mussolini had little power, Hitler and the German armed forces led the campaign against the Allies and saw little interest in preserving Italy as little more than a buffer zone against an Allied invasion of Germany.
Life for Italians under German occupation was hard especially in Rome. Rome's citizens by 1943 had grown tired of the war and upon Italy signing an armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943, Rome's citizens took to the streets chanting "Viva la pace!" ("Long live the peace!) but within hours, German forces raided the city, and attacked anti-Fascists, royalists, and Jews. Roman citizens were harassed by German soldiers to provide them food and fuel and German authorities would arrest all opposition and many were sent into forced labour. Rome's citizens upon being liberated reported that during the first week of German occupation of Rome, crimes against Italian citizens took place, as German soldiers looted stores and robbed Roman citizens at gunpoint. Martial law was imposed on Rome by German authorities requiring all citizens to obey a curfew forbidding people to be out on the street after 9 p.m.
During winter of 1943, Rome's citizens were denied access to sufficient food, firewood, and coal which were taken by German authorities to be given to German soldiers housed in occupied hotels. These actions left Rome's citizens to live in the harsh cold and were on the verge of starvation. German authorities began arresting able-bodied Roman men to be conscripted into forced labour. On June 4, 1944, the German occupation of Rome came to an end as German forces retreated as the Allies advanced.
Mussolini was captured on April 27, 1945, by communist Italian partisans near the Swiss
border as he tried to escape Italy. On the next day, he was executed for high treason, as sentenced in absentia by a tribunal of the CLN
. Afterwards, the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress, and about fifteen other Fascists were taken to Milan
where they were displayed to the public. Days later on 2 May 1945, the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) in Italy surrendered.
The government of Badoglio remained in being for some nine months. On 9 June 1944 he was replaced as Prime Minister by the 70-year-old anti-fascist leader Ivanoe Bonomi
. In June 1945 Bonomi was in turn replaced by Ferruccio Parri
, who in turn gave way to Alcide de Gasperi
on 4 December 1945. It was de Gasperi who supervised the transition to a Republic following the abdication of Vittorio Emanuele III on 9 May 1946; he briefly became acting Head of State as well as Prime Minister on 18 June 1946, but ceded the former role to Provisional President Enrico de Nicola
ten days later.
The aftermath of World War II left Italy with a destroyed economy, a divided society, and anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. Anger flourished as well over Italy's embarrassment of being occupied by the Germans and then by the Allies.
Even prior to the rise of the Fascists, the monarchy was seen to have performed poorly, with society extremely divided between the wealthy north and poor south. World War I resulted in Italy making few gains and was seen as what fostered the rise of Fascism. These frustrations compacted into a revival of the Italian republican movement.
Following Victor Emmanuel III's abdication as king in 1946, his son, the new king Umberto II
, was pressured by the threat of civil war
to call a referendum
to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy
or become a republic
. On 2 June 1946, the republican side won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic.
The table of results shows some relevant differences in the different parts of Italy. The peninsula seemed to be drastically cut in two areas: the North for the republic (with 66.2%), the South for the monarchy (with 63.8%), as if they were two different, respectively homogeneous countries. Some Monarchist groups claimed that there was manipulation by Northern Republicans and Socialists. Others argued that Italy was still too chaotic in 1946 to have an accurate referendum. Regardless, to prevent civil war, Umberto II abdicated the Italian throne, and a new republic
was born with bitter resentment by the new government against the House of Savoy
. All male members of the Savoy family were barred from entering Italy in 1948, which was only repealed in 2002.
– Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Navy, and later Air Force, from 1861 to 1938 and 1943 to 1946.
First Marshal of the Empire
- Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Voluntary Militia for National Security from 1938 to 1943 during the Fascist era, held by both Victor Emmanuel III and Benito Mussolini
.
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
, which was its legal predecessor state. It existed until 1946 when the Italians opted for a republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
an constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
.
Italy declared war on Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in alliance with Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
in 1866: despite an unsuccessful campaign, it received the region of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
following Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
's victory. Italian troops entered Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy accepted Bismarck's proposal to enter in a Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance (1882)
The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
with Germany and Austria in 1882, following strong disagreements with France about the respective colonial expansions. However, even if relations with Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
became very friendly, the alliance with Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
remained purely formal. So, in 1915, Italy accepted the British invitation to join the Allies in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
because the western allies promised territorial compensation (at the expense of Austria-Hungary) for participation that were more generous than Vienna's offer in exchange for Italian neutrality. Victory in the war gave Italy the status of a major power
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
, with a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
During the time of the regime of the National Fascist Party
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
from 1922 to its ousting in 1943, under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, the name often given by some historians to the Kingdom of Italy during this period is "Fascist Italy". Under fascism, the Kingdom allied with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in World War II until 1943. In the remaining two years of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Kingdom of Italy switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini as Prime Minister and banning the Fascist party. The remnant fascist state that continued fighting against the Allies was a puppet state of Nazi Germany, the "Italian Social Republic
Italian Social Republic
The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
", still led by Mussolini and his loyalist Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, which is the present form of Italy today.
Territory
The Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdom's territory progressed under Italian unificationItalian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
until 1870. The state for a long period of time did not have Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Treaties of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
and St Germain, the state was granted Gorizia
Gorizia
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...
, Trieste and Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
(now part of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
), and small parts of modern-day northwestern Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
as well as a tiny portion of the Croatian province of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
. During the second World War, the Kingdom gained more territory in Slovenia and more territory from Dalmatia. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded and the Kingdom abandoned its land claims.
The Kingdom of Italy also held colonies and protectorates and puppet states, such as modern-day Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, Ethiopia (occupied by Italy in 1936, and then occupied by the British in World War II), Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
(occupied in World War II), Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
(Italian and German puppet state in World War II), Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
(occupied in World War II), and Montenegro
Kingdom of Montenegro (1941-1944)
The Kingdom of Montenegro or the Independent State of Montenegro existed from 1941 to 1943 as a puppet protectorate of Fascist Italy, a component of the envisioned Italian Empire...
(occupied in World War II), and a small 46 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
section of land from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
(see Italian concession in Tianjin).
Government
The Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchyConstitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
. Executive power belonged to the monarch
King of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...
, as executed through appointed
Prime minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...
ministers
Council of Ministers of Italy
The Cabinet of Italy is a principal organ of the Government of Italy...
. Two chambers of parliament
Parliament of Italy
The Parliament of Italy is the national parliament of Italy. It is a bicameral legislature with 945 elected members . The Chamber of Deputies, with 630 members is the lower house. The Senate of the Republic is the upper house and has 315 members .Since 2005, a party list electoral law is being...
restricted the monarch's power– an appointive Senate
Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...
and an elective Chamber of Deputies
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
. The kingdom's constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
was the Statuto Albertino
Statuto Albertino
The Statuto Albertino or Albertine Statute was the constitution that King Charles Albert conceded to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in Italy on 4 March 1848...
, the former governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were solely responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system
Plurality voting system
The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...
elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, to be elected on the first round of balloting. If not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies.
After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
into large, regional, multi-seat electoral constituencies, was introduced after World War I. Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government into a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
and classical liberals
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
. Elections took place in 1919, 1921 and 1924: in this last occasion, Mussolini abolished the PR replacing it with a block voting system on national bases, which gave to the Fascist Party the absolute majority of the Chamber seats.
Between 1925 and 1943, Italy was quasi-de-jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....
Fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
dictatorship, as the constitution formally remained in effect without alteration by the Fascists, though the monarchy also formally accepted Fascist policies and Fascist institutions. Changes in politics occurred, consisting of the establishment of the Grand Council of Fascism
Grand Council of Fascism
The Grand Council of Fascism was the main body of Mussolini's Fascist government in Italy. A body which held and applied great power to control the institutions of government, it was created as a party body in 1923 and became a state body on 9 December 1928....
as a government body in 1928, which took control of the government system, and the Chamber of Deputies being replaced with the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations
Chamber of Fasci and Corporations
Chamber of Fasci and Corporations was the official name of the Italian Chamber of Deputies established on January 19, 1939, to replace the Chamber of Deputies during the 30th legislature of Italy. The Chamber was vested with legislative power from March 23, 1939 to August 2, 1943, during the...
as of 1939.
Monarchs
The monarchs of the House of SavoyHouse of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
who led Italy were
- Victor Emmanuel IIVictor Emmanuel II of ItalyVictor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...
(1861–78) – Former King of Sardinia and first king of united Italy. - Umberto IUmberto I of ItalyUmberto I or Humbert I , nicknamed the Good , was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his death. He was deeply loathed in far-left circles, especially among anarchists, because of his conservatism and support of the Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan...
(1878–1900) – Approved the Triple AllianceTriple Alliance (1882)The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
with GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria-HungaryAustria-HungaryAustria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. Assassinated in 1900 by an anarchist. - Victor Emmanuel IIIVictor Emmanuel III of ItalyVictor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
(1900–46 )– King of Italy during the First World War and during the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. - Umberto IIUmberto II of ItalyUmberto II, occasionally anglicized as Humbert II was the last King of Italy for slightly over a month, from 9 May 1946 to 12 June 1946. He was nicknamed the King of May -Biography:...
(1946) – The last King of Italy who was pressured to call a referendum on whether Italy would retain the monarchy, in which Italians voted for a republic.
History
Unification process (1848–1870)
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of concerted efforts of Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of SavoyHouse of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula
Italian Peninsula
The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...
.
After the Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
. He was popular amongst southern Italians and in the world was renowned for his extremely loyal followers. Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification in southern Italy, but the northern Italian monarchy of the House of Savoy
House of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
in the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
, a de facto Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
ese state, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state. Though the kingdom had no physical connection to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
(deemed the natural capital of Italy, but still capital of the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
), the kingdom had successfully challenged Austria
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
in the Second Italian War of Independence
Second Italian War of Independence
The Second War of Italian Independence, Franco-Austrian War, Austro-Sardinian War, or Austro-Piedmontese War , was fought by Napoleon III of France and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859...
, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule. The kingdom also had established important alliances which helped it improve the possibility of Italian unification, such as Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and the Second French Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
. Sardinia was dependent on France being willing to protect it and in 1860, Sardinia was forced to cede territory to France to maintain relations, including Garibaldi's birthplace Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
.
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
. He used these revolts as a pretext to invade the country, even though the invasion angered the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
from the anti-clerical secularist nationalist republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
. Despite their differences, Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860. Subsequently the Parliament declared the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on February 18, 1861 (officially proclaiming it on March 17, 1861
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
) composed of both Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
and Southern Italy. King Victor Emmanuel II
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...
of Piedmont-Sardinia
Piedmont-Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia or Sardinia, also Piedmont-Sardinia, Sardinia-Piedmont or Piemonte, refers to the states of the House of Savoy from 1720 or 1723 onwards, following the award of the crown of Sardinia to King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy under the Treaty of The Hague...
from the House of Savoy
House of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
was then declared King of Italy
King of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...
. This title had been out of use since the abdication of Napoleon I of France
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
on April 6, 1814.
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, Minister President of Prussia offered Victor Emmanuel II an alliance with the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
in the Austro-Prussian War
Austro-Prussian War
The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...
. In exchange Prussia would allow Italy to annex Austrian-controlled Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. King Emmanuel agreed to the alliance and the Third Italian War of Independence
Third Italian War of Independence
The Third Italian War of Independence was a conflict which paralleled the Austro-Prussian War, and was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire.-Background:...
began. Italy fared poorly in the war with a badly organized military against Austria, but Prussia's victory allowed Italy to annex Venice. The one major obstacle to Italian unity remained Rome.
In 1870, Prussia went to war with France starting the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. To keep the large Prussian Army
Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army was the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.The Prussian Army had its roots in the meager mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War...
at bay, France abandoned its positions in Rome - which protected the remnants of the Papal States and Pius IX - in order to fight the Prussians. Italy benefited from Prussia's victory against France by being able to take over the Papal States from French authority. Rome was captured by the kingdom of Italy after several battles and guerilla-like warfare by Papal Zouaves
Papal Zouaves
The Papal Zouaves were an infantry force formed in defence of the Papal States.-Origin:The Zouaves evolved out of a unit formed by Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière...
and official troops of the Holy See against the Italian invaders. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Economic conditions in the united Italy were poor:, there were no industry or transportation facilities, extreme poverty (especially in the Mezzogiorno
Mezzogiorno
The Midday is a wide definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the southern half of the Italian state, encompassing the southern section of the continental Italian Peninsula and the two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia, in addition to a large number of minor islands...
), high illiteracy, and only a small percent of wealthy Italians had the right to vote. The unification movement had largely been dependent on the support of foreign powers and remained so afterwards.
Following the capture of Rome in 1870 from French forces of Napoleon III
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
, Papal troops, and Zouaves, relations between Italy and the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
remained sour for the next sixty years with the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
s declaring themselves to be prisoners in the Vatican
Prisoner in the Vatican
A prisoner in the Vatican or prisoner of the Vatican is how Pope Pius IX described himself following the capture of Rome by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870. Part of the process of Italian unification, the city's capture ended the millennial temporal rule of the popes...
. The Catholic Church frequently protested the actions of the secular and anticlerical-influenced Italian governments, refused to meet with envoys from the King and urged Catholics not to vote in Italian elections. It would not be until 1929, that positive relations would be restored between the Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican after the signing of the Lateran Pacts.
Liberal period (1870–1914)
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
: the Liberal-conservative right (Destra storica or Historical right) was regionally fragmented, and Liberal-conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti
Marco Minghetti
Marco Minghetti was an Italian economist and statesman.-Biography:Minghetti was born at Bologna, then part of the Papal States....
only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies (such as the nationalization of railways) to appease the opposition. In 1876, Minghetti was ousted and replaced by Liberal Agostino Depretis
Agostino Depretis
Agostino Depretis was an Italian statesman.-Biography:Depretis was born at Mezzana Corte, near Stradella, in the province of Pavia ....
, who began the long Liberal Period. The Liberal Period was marked by corruption, government instability, continued poverty in southern Italy, and use of authoritarian measures by the Italian government.
Depretis began his term as Prime Minister by initiating an experimental political idea called Trasformismo
Trasformismo
Trasformismo was the method of making a flexible, centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics after the unification but before the rise of Benito Mussolini and Fascism. One of the more successful politicians was Giovanni Giolitti who...
(transformism). The theory of trasformismo was that a cabinet should select a variety of moderates and capable politicians from a non-partisan perspective. In practice, trasformismo was authoritarian and corrupt, Depretis pressured districts to vote for his candidates if they wished to gain favourable concessions from Depretis when in power. The results of the Italian general election of 1876 resulted in only four representatives from the right being elected, allowing the government to be dominated by Depretis. Despotic and corrupt actions are believed to be the key means in which Depretis managed to keep support in southern Italy. Depretis put through authoritarian measures, such as banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands across Italy and adopting militarist policies. Depretis enacted controversial legislation for the time, such as abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.
In 1887, Francesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...
became Prime Minister and began focusing government efforts on foreign policy. Crispi worked to build Italy as a great world power though increased military expenditures, advocacy of expansionism, and trying to win the favour of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. Italy joined the Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance (1882)
The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
which included both Germany and Austria–Hungary in 1882 and which remained officially intact until 1915. While helping Italy develop strategically, he continued trasformismo and was authoritarian, once suggesting the use of martial law to ban opposition parties. Despite being authoritarian, Crispi put through liberal policies such as the Public Health Act of 1888 and establishing tribunals for redress against abuses by the government.
Culture and society
Italian society after unification and throughout most of the Liberal Period was sharply divided along class, linguistic, regional, and social lines.Common cultural traits in Italy in this time were social conservative
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
in nature, including a strong belief in the family as an institution and patriarchal values. In other areas, Italian culture was divided. Aristocratic
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
, noble
Nobility of Italy
The Nobility of Italy consisted of individuals and their families of Italy recognized by sovereigns, such as the Holy Roman Emperor, the Holy See, Kings of Italy or certain other Italian kings and sovereigns as members of a class of persons officially enjoying hereditary privileges which...
, and upper middle class
Upper middle class
The upper middle class is a sociological concept referring to the social group constituted by higher-status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term "lower middle class", which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle class stratum, and to the broader term "middle...
families in Italy at this time were highly traditional in nature, with the upper middle-class even being known to often settle differences between each other by duels. After unification, a number of descendents of former royal nobility became residents of Italy, numbering at 7,387 nobile families upon unification. Many of Italy's elites were wealthy landowners who maintained a feudal society in regards to their agricultural system's utilization of large numbers of peasants. Italian society in this period remained highly divided along regional and local sub-societies which often had historical rivalries with each other.
Upon unifying, Italy effectively did not have a single national language; Tuscan (which would be then known as Italian) was only used in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
while outside, regional languages were dominant. Even the kingdom's first king, Victor Emmanuel II
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...
was known to speak almost entirely in Piedmontese and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, even to his cabinet ministers. In addition to this, literacy was extremely poor in this era with an 1871 census indicating that 61.9 percent Italian men were illiterate and 75.7 percent of women were illiterate. This illiteracy rate was far higher than that of western European countries in the same time period. Some historians have claimed that census at this time for literacy were very lax as they only rated whether someone could write their own name and read a single passage, which may indicate that literacy in Italy was worse than what census projected. The level of illiteracy was compounded by the fact that Italy had very few public schools upon unification and no popular press was available across Italy due to the language division of the regional dialects. The Italian government in the Liberal Period attempted to reduce illiteracy by establishing state-funded schools to teach the official Italian language. Literacy and illiteracy variated in levels in the different regions of Italy where there were different levels of quality of public education, with the worst being in Southern Italy at the time which received minimal funding.
Living standards were low during the Liberal Period, especially in southern Italy due to various diseases such as malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and epidemics that occurred during the period. As a whole, there was initially a high death rate in 1871 at 30 people dying per 1000 people, though this reduced to 24.2 per 1000 by the 1890s. In addition, the mortality rate of children dying in their first year after birth in 1871 was 22.7 percent while the number of children dying before reaching their fifth birthday was very high at 50 percent. The mortality rate of children dying in their first year after birth decreased to an average of 17.6 percent in the time period of 1891 to 1900.
Economy
With unification, the new kingdom faced serious economic problems and economic division along political, social, and regional lines. In the Liberal Period, Italy remained highly economically dependent on foreign trade and the international price of coal and grain.Upon unifying, Italy had a predominantly agrarian society as 60 percent of the active population worked in agriculture. Advances in technology, the sale of vast Church estates, foreign competition along with export opportunities rapidly transformed the agricultural sector in Italy shortly after unification . However these developments did not benefit all of Italy in this period, as southern Italy’s agriculture suffered from hot summers and aridity damaged crops while the presence of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
prevented cultivation of low-lying areas along Italy’s Adriatic
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
coast.
The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873. Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy. The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were earning revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. Lower class Italians were hurt by the break-up of communal lands to the benefit of landlords. Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s but short-term labourers ("braccianti") who at best were employed for one year. Peasants without stable income were forced to live off meager food supplies, disease was spreading rapidly, plagues were reported, including a major cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic which killed at least 55,000 people.
The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively because of overspending by the Depretis
Agostino Depretis
Agostino Depretis was an Italian statesman.-Biography:Depretis was born at Mezzana Corte, near Stradella, in the province of Pavia ....
government that left Italy heavily in debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes by their vineyards. In the 1870s and 1880s, France's vineyard industry
History of French wine
The history of French wine spans a period of at least 2600 years dating to the founding of Massalia in the 6th century BC by Phocaeans with the possibility that viticulture existed much earlier...
was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy prospered as the largest exporter of wine
Italian wine
Italian wine is wine produced in Italy, a country which is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. Italy is the world's largest wine producer, responsible for approximately one-fifth of world wine production in 2005. Italian wine is exported largely around the world and has...
in Europe. But following the recovery of France in 1888, southern Italy was overproducing and had to cut back, which caused greater unemployment and bankruptcies.
The Italian government invested heavily in developing railways in the 1870s, more than doubling the existing length of railway line
History of Railways in Italy
The railways in Italy are one of the most important infrastructure in the country, with c. of track.-Origins:Railways were introduced in Italy when it was still a divided country....
between 1870 and 1890.
Italy’s population remained severely divided between wealthy elites and impoverished workers especially on regional lines. An 1881 census found that over 1 million southern day-labourers were chronically under-employed and were very likely to become seasonal emigrants in order to economically sustain themselves. Southern peasants as well as small landowners and tenants often were in a state of conflict and revolt throughout the late 19th century. There were exceptions to the generally poor economic condition of agricultural workers of the south, as some regions near cities such as Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
as well as along the Tyrrhenian coast. The 1910 Commission of Inquiry into the South indicated that the Italian government thus far had failed to ameliorate the severe economic differences and the limitation of voting rights only to those with sufficient property allowed rich landowners to exploit the poor.
Francesco Crispi and the rise of Italian colonialism
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, and Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
. Italy first attempted to gain colonies through negotiations with other world powers to make colonial concessions. These negotiations failed. Italy also sent missionaries to uncolonized lands to investigate the potential for Italian colonization. The most promising and realistic of these were parts of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa
Massawa
Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa (Ge'ez ምጽዋዕ , formerly ባጽዕ is a city on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. An important port for many centuries, it was ruled by a succession of polities, including the Axumite Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate,...
(in present day Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
) in the 1830s and had entered deep into the Ethiopian Empire
Ethiopian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire also known as Abyssinia, covered a geographical area that the present-day northern half of Ethiopia and Eritrea covers, and included in its peripheries Zeila, Djibouti, Yemen and Western Saudi Arabia...
.
On 5 February 1885, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...
, Italy landed soldiers at Massawa. In 1888, Italy annexed Massawa by force, creating the colony of Italian Eritrea.
In 1895, Ethiopia led by Emperor Menelik II abandoned an agreement signed in 1889 to follow Italian foreign policy. Italy used this renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia. Ethiopia gained the help of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, whose own interests in East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
led the government of Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
to sent large amounts of modern weaponry to the Ethiopians to hold back an Italian invasion. In response, Britain decided to back the Italians to challenge Russian influence in Africa and declared that all of Ethiopia was within the sphere of Italian interest. On the verge of war, Italian militarism and nationalism reached a peak, with Italians flocking to the Royal Italian Army
Royal Italian Army
The Regio Esercito was the army of the Kingdom of Italy from the unification of Italy in 1861 to the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946...
, hoping to take part in the upcoming war.
The Italian army failed on the battlefield and were overwhelmed by a huge Ethiopian army at the Battle of Adwa. Italy was forced to retreat into Eritrea. The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy.
Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose military forces intervened in China to suppress the anti-foreign Boxers and relieve the siege of the diplomatic legations in Beijing .- Events :The...
forces during the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. On September 7, 1901, a concession in Tientsin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
was ceded to the Italy by the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. On June 7, 1902, the concession was taken into Italian possession and administered by an Italian consul
Consul (representative)
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...
.
In 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and invaded Tripolitania
Tripolitania
Tripolitania or Tripolitana is a historic region and former province of Libya.Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934...
, Fezzan
Fezzan
Fezzan is a south western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.-Name:...
, and Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it was part of the Creta et Cyrenaica province during the Roman period, later divided in Libia Pentapolis and Libia Sicca...
. These provinces together formed what became known as Libya
Italian Libya
Italian Libya was a unified colony of Italian North Africa established in 1934 in what represents present-day Libya...
. The war ended only a year later, but the occupation resulted in acts of discrimination against Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands
Tremiti Islands
The Isole Tremiti are an archipelago in the Adriatic Sea, north of the Gargano Peninsula. They constitute a comune of Italy's Province of Foggia and form part of the Gargano national park...
in October 1911. By 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died from a lack of food and shelter. The annexation of Libya led nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
by occupying the Kingdom of Greece
Kingdom of Greece
The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
and the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
.
Giovanni Giolitti
In 1892, Giovanni GiolittiGiovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th Prime Minister of Italy between 1892 and 1921. A left-wing liberal, Giolitti's periods in office were notable for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms which improved the living standards of...
became Prime Minister of Italy for his first term. Although his first government quickly collapsed a year later, Giolitti returned in 1903 to lead Italy's government during a fragmented period that lasted until 1914. Giolitti had spent his earlier life as a civil servant, and then took positions within the cabinets of Crispi. Giolitti was the first long-term Italian Prime Minister in many years because he mastered the political concept of trasformismo
Trasformismo
Trasformismo was the method of making a flexible, centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics after the unification but before the rise of Benito Mussolini and Fascism. One of the more successful politicians was Giovanni Giolitti who...
by manipulating, coercing and bribing officials to his side. In elections during Giolitti's government, voting fraud was common, and Giolitti helped improve voting only in well-off, more supportive areas, while attempting to isolate and intimidate poor areas where opposition was strong. Southern Italy was in terrible shape prior to and during Giolitti's tenure as Prime Minister. Four-fifths of southern Italians were illiterate and the dire situation there ranged from problems of large numbers of absentee landlords to rebellion and even starvation. Corruption was such a large problem that Giolitti himself admitted that there were places "where the law does not operate at all".
In 1911, Giolitti's government sent forces to occupy Libya. While the success of the Libyan War improved the status of the nationalists, it did not help Giolitti's administration as a whole. The government attempted to discourage criticism by speaking about Italy's strategic achievements and inventiveness of their military in the war: Italy was the first country to use the airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
for military purposes, and undertook aerial bombing
Strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...
on the Ottoman forces. The war radicalized the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
: anti-war revolutionaries led by future-Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
called for violence to bring down the government. Giolitti returned as Prime Minister only briefly in 1920, but the era of liberalism was effectively over in Italy.
The 1913
Italian general election, 1913
The Italian general election of 1913, the first election with male universal suffrage took place on 26 October 1913.The Liberals, that is to say the governing coalition , narrowly retained the absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, while the Radicals came second with their best tally so far...
and 1919
Italian general election, 1919
The Italian general election of 1919, the first after World War I and the electoral reform that introduced proportional representation, took place on 16 November 1919....
elections saw gains made by Socialist, Catholic and nationalist parties at the expense of the traditionally dominant liberals and radicals
Italian Radicals (disambiguation)
Italian Radicals is a political party of Italy.Italian Radicals may also refer to:* Radical Party , a far left/left-liberal parliamentary group, 1877–1922...
, who were increasingly fractured and weakened as a result.
Prelude to war, internal dilemma
In the lead-up to the World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Kingdom of Italy faced a number of short-term and long-term problems in determining its allies and objectives. Italy's recent success in occupying Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
as a result of the Italo-Turkish War
Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912.As a result of this conflict, Italy was awarded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and...
had sparked tension with its Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance (1882)
The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
allies, the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, because both countries had been seeking closer relations with the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
Turkish Empire. In Munich, Germans reacted to Italy's aggression by singing anti-Italian songs. Italy's relations with the French Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
also were in bad shape: France felt betrayed by Italy’s support of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, opening the possibility of war erupting between the two countries. Italy's relations with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
had also been impaired by constant Italian demands for more recognition in the international stage following the occupation of Libya, and its demands that other nations accept its spheres of influence in East Africa and the Mediterranean.
Kingdom of Greece
The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
were aggravated when Italy occupied the Greek-populated Dodecanese
Dodecanese
The Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...
Islands, including Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, from 1912 to 1914. These islands had been formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Italy and Greece were also in open rivalry over the desire to occupy Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
. King Emmanuel III himself was uneasy about Italy pursuing distant colonial adventures, and said that Italy should prepare to take back Italian-populated land from Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, as the "completion of the Risorgimento". This idea put Italy at odds with Austria-Hungary.
A major hindrance to Italy's decision on what to do about the war was the political instability throughout Italy in 1914. After the formation of the government of Prime Minister Antonio Salandra
Antonio Salandra
Antonio Salandra was a conservative Italian politician who served as the 33rd Prime Minister of Italy between 1914 and 1916...
in March 1914, the government attempted to win the support of nationalists and moved to the political right. At the same time the left became more repulsed by the government after the killing of three anti-militarist demonstrators in June. Many elements of the left including syndicalists, republicans
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and anarchists protested against this and the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
declared a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
in Italy. The protests that ensued became known as "Red Week
Red Week
Red Week was the name given to a week of unrest which occurred in June, 1914. Over these seven days, Italy saw widespread rioting and large-scale strikes throughout the Italian provinces of Romagna and the Marche.-Origins of the 'Red Week':...
" as leftists rioted and various acts of civil disobedience occurred in major cities and small towns such as seizing railway stations, cutting telephone wires, and burning tax-registers. However only two days later the strike was officially called off, though the civil strife continued. Militarist nationalists and anti-militarist leftists fought on the streets until the Italian Royal Army forcefully restored calm after having used thousands of men to put down the various protesting forces following the invasion of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
by Austria-Hungary in 1914, World War I broke out. Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance (1882)
The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
, she initially remained neutral, claiming that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes.
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
and Luigi Federzoni
Luigi Federzoni
Luigi Federzoni was a twentieth-century Italian nationalist and later Fascist politician....
and an obscure Marxist journalist and new convert to nationalist sentiment, future Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, demanded that Italy join the war. For nationalists, Italy had to maintain its alliance with the Central Empires, in order to obtain colonial territories in expenses of France. For the liberals, the war presented Italy a long-awaited opportunity to use an alliance with the Entente
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
to gain certain Italian-populated and other territories from Austria-Hungary, which had long been part of Italian patriotic aims since unification. In 1915, relatives of Italian revolutionary and republican hero Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
died on the battlefield of France, where they had volunteered to fight. Federzoni used the memorial services to declare the importance of Italy joining the war, and to warn the monarchy of the consequences of continued disunity in Italy if it did not:
Mussolini used his new newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia , was an Italian newspaper founded by Benito Mussolini on November 15, 1914, as a result of his split with the Italian Socialist Party. Il Popolo d'Italia ran until July 24, 1943 and became the foundation for the Fascist movement in Italy after World War I...
and his strong oratorical skills to urge nationalists and patriotic revolutionary leftists to support Italy's entry into the war to gain back Italian populated territories from Austria-Hungary, by saying "enough of Libya
Italian North Africa
Italian North Africa was the aggregate of territories and colonies controlled by Italy in North Africa from 1911 until World War II...
, and on to Trent
Trento
Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...
and Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
". Mussolini claimed that it was in the interests of socialists to join the war to tear down the aristocratic Hohenzollern dynasty of Germany which he claimed was the enemy of all European workers. Mussolini and other nationalists warned the Italian government that Italy must join the war or face revolution and called for violence against pacifists and neutralists. Left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism describes a form of nationalism officially based upon equality, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination. It has its origins in the Jacobinism of the French Revolution. Left-wing nationalism typically espouses anti-imperialism...
also erupted in southern Italy, socialist and nationalist Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
saw joining the war as essential to relieving southern Italy of the rising cost of bread which had caused riots in the south, and advocated a "war of revolution".
With nationalist sentiment firmly on the side of reclaiming Italian territories of Austria-Hungary, Italy entered negotiations with the Triple Entente. The negotiations ended successfully in April 1915 when the London Pact
London Pact
London Pact , or more correctly, the Treaty of London, 1915, was a secret pact between Italy and Triple Entente, signed in London on 26 April 1915 by the Kingdom of Italy, Great Britain, France and Russia....
was brokered with the Italian government. The pact ensured Italy the right to attain all Italian-populated lands it wanted from Austria-Hungary, and even land in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and German colonies
German colonial empire
The German colonial empire was an overseas domain formed in the late 19th century as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884...
in Africa. The proposal fulfilled the desires of Italian nationalists and Italian imperialism, and was agreed to. Italy joined the Triple Entente in its war against Austria-Hungary.
The reaction in Italy was divided: former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th Prime Minister of Italy between 1892 and 1921. A left-wing liberal, Giolitti's periods in office were notable for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms which improved the living standards of...
was furious over Italy's decision to go to war against its former defence allies Austria-Hungary. He claimed that Italy would fail in the war, predicting high numbers of mutinies, Austro-Hungarian occupation of more Italian territory, and that the failure would produce a catastrophic rebellion that would destroy the liberal-democratic monarchy and the liberal-democratic secular institutions of the state.
Italy's war effort
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
and Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, and Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian Army
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...
. However, this advantage was never fully utilized because Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna
Luigi Cadorna
Luigi Cadorna GCB was an ItalianField Marshal, most famous for being thechief of staff of the Italian army during the first part of World War I.-Biography:...
insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
. This assault would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. After eleven failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian campaign to take Vienna collapsed.
Upon entering the war, geography was also a difficulty for Italy, as its border with Austria-Hungary was along mountainous terrain. In May 1915, Italian forces at 400,000 men along the border outnumbered the Austrian and Germans almost precisely four to one. However the Austrian defenses were strong even though they were undermanned and managed to hold off the Italian offensive. The battles with the Austro-Hungarian Army along the Alpine foothills in the trench warfare there were drawn-out, long engagements with little progress. Italian officers were poorly trained in contrast to the Austro-Hungarian and German
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
armies, Italian artillery was inferior to the Austrian machine guns and the Italian forces had dangerously low supply of ammunition, this shortage would continually hamper attempts to make advances into Austrian territory. This combined with the constant replacement of officers by Cadorna resulted in few officers gaining the experience necessary to lead military missions. In the first year of the war, poor conditions on the battlefield led to outbreaks of cholera causing a significant number of Italian soldiers to die. Despite these serious problems, Cadorna refused to back down the offensive. Naval battles occurred between the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina
Regia Marina
The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...
) and the Austro-Hungarian Navy
Austro-Hungarian Navy
The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....
. Italy's warships were outclassed by the Austro-Hungarian fleet and the situation was made more dire for Italy in that both the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
and the (British) Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
were not sent into the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
. Their respective governments viewed the Adriatic as far too dangerous to operate due the concentration of the Austro-Hungarian fleet there.
Morale fell among Italian soldiers who lived a tedious life when not on the front lines: they were forbidden to enter theatres or bars even when on leave. However when battles were about to occur, alcohol was made freely available to the soldiers in order to reduce tension before the battle.In order to escape the tedium after battles, some groups of soldiers worked to create improvised brothels. In order to maintain morale, the Italian army had propaganda lectures of the importance of the war to Italy, especially in order to retrieve Trento
Trento
Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...
and Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
from Austria-Hungary. Some of these lectures were carried out by popular nationalist war proponents such as Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
. D'Annunzio himself would participate in a number of paramilitary raids on Austrian positions along the Adriatic coastline during the war and lost an eye one of the battles. Prominent pro-war advocate Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
was prevented from giving lecture by the government, most likely because of his revolutionary socialist past.
The Italian government became increasingly aggravated in 1915 with the passive nature of the Serbian army
Military history of Serbia
The military history of Serbia spans over 1100 years on the Balkan peninsula during the various forms of the Serbian state and Serbian army.-Wars, military campaigns and battles:Medieval Serbia* Bulgarian-Serbian Wars** Battle of Velbazhd...
which had not engaged in a serious offensive against Austria-Hungary for months. The Italian government blamed Serbian military inactiveness for allowing the Austrians to muster their armies against Italy. Cadorna suspected that Serbia was attempting to negotiate an end to fighting with Austria and addressed this to foreign minister Sidney Sonnino
Sidney Sonnino
Baron Sidney Costantino Sonnino was an Italian politician.Sonnino was born in Pisa to an Italian father of Jewish heritage and a Welsh mother...
who himself bitterly claimed that the Serbia was an unreliable ally. Relations between Italy and Serbia became so cold that the other Entente members were forced to abandon the idea of forming a united Balkan front against Austria-Hungary. In negotiations, Sonnino remained willing to allow Bosnia
Bosnia (region)
Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...
to join Serbia, but refused to discuss the fate of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
which was claimed by Italy and Pan-Slavists
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
in Serbia. As Serbia fell to the Austro-Hungarian and German forces in 1915, Cadorna proposed sending 60,000 men to land in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
to help the Serbs now in exile in Greece and the Principality of Albania
Principality of Albania
The Principality of Albania refers to the short-lived monarchy in Albania, headed by William, Prince of Albania and to the state after the First World War, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1925, when Albania was declared a republic.-Principality:The Principality was established on February...
to fight off the opposing forces, but the Italian government's bitterness to Serbia resulted in the proposal being rejected.
After 1916, the situation for Italy grew steadily worse, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
and Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
in their Strafexpedition. At the same time Italy faced a shortage of warships, increased attacks by submarines, soaring freight charges threatening the ability to supply food to soldiers, lack of raw materials and equipment, and Italians faced high taxes to pay for the war. Austro-Hungarian and German forces had gone deep into northern Italian territory, and finally in November 1916, Cadorna ended offensive operations and began a defensive approach. In 1917, France, the United Kingdom and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
offered to send troops to Italy to help it fend off the offensive of the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
, but the Italian government refused, as Sonnino did not want Italy to be seen as a client state
Client state
Client state is one of several terms used to describe the economic, political and/or military subordination of one state to a more powerful state in international affairs...
of the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
and preferred isolation as the more brave alternative. Italy also wanted to keep the Kingdom of Greece
Kingdom of Greece
The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
out of the war, as the Italian government feared that should Greece join the war on the side of the Allies, it would intend to annex Albania, which Italy wanted as its own. Fortunately for Italy, the Venizelist
Venizelism
Venizelism was one of the major political movements in Greece from the 1900s until the mid 1970s.- Ideology :Named after Eleftherios Venizelos, the key characteristics of Venizelism were:*Opposition to Monarchy...
pro-war advocates in Greece failed to succeed in pressuring Constantine I of Greece
Constantine I of Greece
Constantine I was King of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. He was commander-in-chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Greece won Thessaloniki and doubled in...
to bring the country into the conflict, and Italian aims on Albania remained unthreatened.
The Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
collapsed in a 1917 Russian Revolution, eventually resulting in the rise of the communist Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
regime of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. The resulting marginalization of the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
, allowed for more Austro-Hungarian and German forces arriving on the front against Italy. Internal dissent against the war grew with increasingly poor economic and social conditions in Italy due to the strain of the war. Much of the profit of the war was being made in the cities while rural areas were losing income. The number of men available for agricultural work had fallen from 4.8 million to 2.2 million, though through the help of women, agricultural production managed to be maintained at 90 percent of its pre-war total during the war. Many pacifist and internationalist Italian socialists turned to Bolshevism and advocated negotiations with the workers of Germany and Austria-Hungary to help end the war and bring about Bolshevik revolutions. The newspaper Avanti!
Avanti! (Italian newspaper)
Avanti! is an Italian daily newspaper, born as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since December 25, 1896. It took its name from its German counterpart Vorwärts.-History:...
of the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
declared "Let the bourgeoisie fight its own war". Leftist women in northern Italian cities led protests demanding action against the high cost of living and demanding an end to the war. In Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in May 1917, communist revolutionaries organized and engaged in rioting calling for an end to the war, and managed to close down factories and stop public transportation. The Italian army was forced to enter Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
with tanks and machine guns to face communists and anarchists who fought violently until May 23 when the army gained control of the city with almost fifty people killed (three of which were Italian soldiers) and over 800 people arrested.
After the Battle of Caporetto
Battle of Caporetto
The Battle of Caporetto , took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid , on the Austro-Italian front of World War I...
in 1917, Italian forces were forced far back into Italian territory, and the humiliation led to the arrival of Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando was an Italian diplomat and political figure. He was born in Palermo, Sicily. His father, a landed gentleman, delayed venturing out to register his son's birth for fear of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1,000 patriots who had just stormed into Sicily on the first leg of their march...
as Prime Minister who managed to solve some of Italy's wartime problems. Orlando abandoned the previous isolationist approach to the war and increased coordination with the Allies and the use of the convoy system to fend off submarine attack, allowed Italy to be able to end food shortages from February 1918 onward, and Italy received more raw materials from the Allies. Also in 1918, began the official repression of enemy aliens and Italian socialists were increasingly repressed by the Italian government. The Italian government was infuriated with the Fourteen Points
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a speech given by United States President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe...
of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, the President of the United States, as the advocation of national self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
meant that Italy would not gain Dalmatia as had been promised in the Treaty of London. In the Parliament of Italy
Parliament of Italy
The Parliament of Italy is the national parliament of Italy. It is a bicameral legislature with 945 elected members . The Chamber of Deputies, with 630 members is the lower house. The Senate of the Republic is the upper house and has 315 members .Since 2005, a party list electoral law is being...
, nationalists condemned Wilson's fourteen points as betraying the Treaty of London, while socialists claimed that Wilson's points were valid and claimed the Treaty of London was an offense to the rights of Slavs
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, and Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
. Negotiations between Italy and the Allies, particularly the new Yugoslav delegation (replacing the Serbian delegation), agreed to a trade off between Italy and the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, which was that Dalmatia as claimed by Italy would be accepted as Yugoslav, while Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
as claimed by the Yugoslavs would be accepted as Italian.
At the Battle of the Piave River
Battle of the Piave River
The Battle of the Piave River , known in Italy as Battaglia del Solstizio , Battaglia di Mezzo Giugno , or Seconda Battaglia del Piave , was a decisive victory for the Italian Army during World War...
the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. The opposing armies repeatedly failed afterwards in major battles such as Battle of Asiago
Battle of Asiago
The Battle of Asiago ' or the Trentino Offensive , nicknamed Strafexpedition by the Austrians, was a counteroffensive launched by the Austro-Hungarians on the Italian Front on 15 May 1916, during World War I...
and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto
Battle of Vittorio Veneto
The Battle of Vittorio Veneto was fought between 24 October and 3 November 1918, near Vittorio Veneto, during the Italian Campaign of World War I...
. The Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive in the latter battle. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy with the armistice on 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.
Italy's territorial settlements and the reaction
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando was an Italian diplomat and political figure. He was born in Palermo, Sicily. His father, a landed gentleman, delayed venturing out to register his son's birth for fear of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1,000 patriots who had just stormed into Sicily on the first leg of their march...
met with British Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, Prime Minister of France
Prime Minister of France
The Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
, and United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
in Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, to discuss how the borders of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.
The talks provided little territorial gain to Italy because Wilson, during the peace talks, promised freedom to all European nationalities to form their own nation states. As a result, the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
did not assign Dalmatia and Albania to Italy, as had been promised in the Treaty of London (1915). Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German overseas colonies into mandates of their own, with Italy receiving none of them. Despite this, Orlando signed the Treaty of Versailles, which caused uproar against his government. Civil unrest erupted in Italy between nationalists who supported the war effort and opposed the "mutilated victory" (as nationalists called it) and leftists who were opposed to the war.
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
led nationalists to form the Free State of Fiume
Free State of Fiume
The Free State of Fiume was an independent free state which existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of comprised the city of Fiume and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy.-History:Fiume gained autonomy for the first time in 1719 when it was proclaimed...
in September 1919. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called Il Duce (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the leadership title of "Duce" and the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the Fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
movement of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
. The demand for annexation of Fiume spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's Fascists. D'Annunzio’s stirring speeches drew Croatian nationalists to his side. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
and Egyptian nationalists.
Rise of Fascism into power
In 1914, Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
was forced out of the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
after calling for Italian intervention against Austria. Prior to World War I, Mussolini had opposed military conscription, protested Italy's occupation of Libya, and was the editor of the Socialist Party's official newspaper, Avanti!
Avanti! (Italian newspaper)
Avanti! is an Italian daily newspaper, born as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since December 25, 1896. It took its name from its German counterpart Vorwärts.-History:...
. Over time, he simply called for revolution, without mentioning class struggle. Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create his own newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia , was an Italian newspaper founded by Benito Mussolini on November 15, 1914, as a result of his split with the Italian Socialist Party. Il Popolo d'Italia ran until July 24, 1943 and became the foundation for the Fascist movement in Italy after World War I...
to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. France, Britain, and Russia, wanting to draw Italy to the Entente, helped finance the newspaper. This newspaper became Fascist Italy's officially-supported newspaper years later. During the war, Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war. The wound is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, although he claimed to have been wounded in battle.
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
nature of the Italian Socialist Party. The Fascists initially had a platform far more inclined to the left, promising social revolution, proportional representation, women's suffrage (partly realized in 1925), and dividing private property held by estates.
On 15 April 1919, the Fascists made their debut in political violence, when a group of members from the Fasci di Combattimento attacked the offices of Avanti! Recognizing the failures of the Fascists' initial revolutionary and left-leaning policy, Mussolini moved the organization away from the left and turned the revolutionary movement into an electoral movement in 1921 named the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
). The party copied the nationalist themes of D'Annunzio and rejected parliamentary democracy while still operating within to destroy it. Mussolini changed his original revolutionary policies, such as moving away from anti-clericalism to supporting the Catholic Church and abandoned his public opposition to the monarchy. Fascist support and violence began to grow in 1921 and Fascist-supporting army officers began taking arms and vehicles from the army to use in counterrevolutionary attacks on socialists.
In 1920, Giolitti had come back as Prime Minister in an attempt to solve Italy's deadlock. One year later, Giolitti's government had already become unstable, and a growing socialist opposition further endangered his government. Giolitti believed that the Fascists could be toned down and used to protect the state from the socialists. He decided to include Fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections. In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolitti's government failed to gather a large enough coalition to govern and offered the Fascists placements in his government. The Fascists rejected Giolitti's offers and joined with socialists in bringing down his government. A number of descendants of those who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification were won over to Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals. His advocacy of corporatism
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
and futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
had attracted advocates of the "third way". But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolitti who did not condemn him for his Blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.
In October 1922, Mussolini took advantage of a general strike by workers in Italy, and announced his demands to the Italian government to give the Fascist Party political power or face a coup. With no immediate response, a small number of Fascists began a long trek across Italy to Rome which was called the March on Rome
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
, claiming to Italians that Fascists were intending to restore law and order. Mussolini himself did not participate until the very end of the march, with d'Annunzio at being hailed as leader of the march until it was learned he had been pushed out of a window and severely wounded in a failed assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempt, depriving him of the possibility of leading an actual coup d'état orchestrated by an organization originally founded by himself. The Fascists, under the leadership of Mussolini demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta
Luigi Facta
Luigi Facta was an Italian politician, journalist and last Prime Minister of Italy before the leadership of Benito Mussolini....
's resignation and that Mussolini be named Prime Minister. Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
faced a political crisis. The King was forced to choose which of the two rival movements in Italy would form the government: Mussolini's Fascists, or the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
. He selected the Fascists.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals, and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly: Mussolini's coalition passed the electoral Acerbo Law
Acerbo Law
The Acerbo Law was an Italian electoral law proposed by Baron Giacomo Acerbo and passed by the Italian Parliament in 1924. The purpose of it was to give Mussolini's fascist party a majority of deputies.-Background:...
of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition that achieved 25% of the vote. The Fascist Party used violence and intimidation to achieve the 25% threshold in the 1924 election, and became the ruling political party of Italy.
Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Fascists committed fraud in the recently held elections, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes...
was assassinated after calling for an annulment of the elections because of the irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. In 1925, Mussolini accepted responsibility for the Fascist violence in 1924, and promised that dissenters would be dealt with harshly. Before the speech, Blackshirts smashed opposition presses and beat up several of Mussolini's opponents. This event is considered the onset of undisguised Fascist dictatorship in Italy, though it would be 1928 before the Fascist Party was formally declared the only legal party in the nation.
Over the next four years, Mussolini eliminated nearly all checks and balances on his power. In 1926, he passed a law that declared he was responsible only to the king and made him the sole person able to determine Parliament's agenda. Local autonomy was swept away, and appointed podestas replaced communal mayors and councils. Soon after all other parties were banned in 1928, parliamentary elections were replaced by plebiscites in which the Grand Council nominated a single list of candidates.
The result of Mussolini's takeover of the government was the creation of a diarchy
Diarchy
Diarchy , from the Greek δι- "twice" and αρχια, "rule", is a form of government in which two individuals, the diarchs, are the heads of state. In most diarchies, the diarchs hold their position for life and pass the responsibilities and power of the position to their children or family when they...
in Italy, with Mussolini wielding enormous political powers as the effective ruler of Italy, while the King remained a figurehead. He did, however, still have the right to dismiss the prime minister, albeit only on the advice of the Grand Council—at least in theory, the only check on Mussolini's power.
Culture and society
Doctrine of Fascism
"The Doctrine of Fascism" is an essay written by Giovanni Gentile, but credit is given to Benito Mussolini. It was first published in the Enciclopedia Italiana of 1932, as the first section of a lengthy entry on "Fascismo"...
of 1935,
With the concept of totalitarianism, Mussolini and the Fascist regime set an agenda of improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, personal dictatorship, and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists.
Under Fascism, the definition of the Italian nationality rested on a militarist
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
foundation and the Fascist's "new man" ideal in which loyal Italians would rid themselves of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
and autonomy and see themselves as a component of the Italian state and be willing to sacrifice their lives for it. Under such a totalitarian society, only Fascists would be considered "true Italians" and membership and endorsement of the Fascist Party was necessary for people to gain "Complete Citizenship", those who did not swear allegiance to Fascism were banished from public life and could not gain employment. The Fascist regime also reached out to Italian expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
s living abroad to endorse the Fascist cause and identify with Italy rather than their place of residence. Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic or successful in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in creating a new culture.
In Fascist Italy, Mussolini was idolized as the nation's saviour. In public and in propaganda
Propaganda of Fascist Italy
Propaganda of Fascist Italy was the material put forth by Italian Fascism to justify its authority and programs and encourage popular support.-Use:...
the Fascist regime attempted to make him omnipresent in Italian society. Much of Fascism's appeal in Italy was based on the personality cult around Mussolini and his popularity. Mussolini's passionate oratory and personality cult was displayed at huge rallies and parades of his Blackshirts in Rome which served as an inspiration to Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the National Socialist German Workers Party in Germany.
The Fascist regime established propaganda in newsreels, radio broadcasting, and a few feature films deliberately endorsing Fascism. In 1926, laws were passed to require that propaganda newsreels be shown prior to all feature films in cinemas. These newsreels were more effective in influencing the Italian public than propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time. Fascist propaganda was widely present in posters and state-sponsored art of the time. Art and literature in Fascist Italy were not strictly controlled, and were only censored if they were blatantly against the state.
Relations with the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
improved significantly during Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier opposition to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini made an alliance with the pro-church Partito Popolare Italiano or Italian People's Party. Mussolini negotiated with the Pope over granting sovereignty to the territory of the Vatican as part of a "conciliazione" (conciliation) in a concordat called the Lateran Treaty to improve Italy's official relations with the Church. The negotiations however were initially tense: the Vatican and the Fascist regime engaged in bitter arguments over what such a pact would mean and how it should be interpreted. Giovanni Montini (the future Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
), who was involved with pro-Catholic politics in Italy, questioned the value of the concordat in ensuring Vatican sovereignty, once saying "If the liberty of the Pope cannot be guaranteed by the strong faith of a free people, and especially by the Italian people, then no territory and no treaty will be able to do so.".
Azione Cattolica
The Azione Cattolica Italiana, or Azione Cattolica for short, is a widespread lay Roman Catholic association in Italy.-History:...
party (Azione Cattolica) instructed Italian Catholics to vote for Fascist candidates to represent them in positions in churches, Mussolini claimed that "no" votes were of those "...few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts". In the French newspaper Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, Guido Miglioni spoke of the attitude of the Fascist regime and what he saw was the nature of the Lateran pact: "These two years have witnessed the gradual but inexorable submission of the Pope to the demands of the Regime" Despite opposition to the nature of the negotiations, many Italians feared that a "no" vote would incite Fascist reprisals and attacks on the individuals who opposed the concordat. When the plebiscite was held, 8.63 million Italians or 90 per cent of the registered electorate voted. Of this number, only 135,761 voted "no". The Lateran Treaty was signed and the Vatican's sovereignty was recognized. Despite earlier troubles, relations between the Church and the regime and moreover Italy itself, improved significantly. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.
In 1933, Italy made multiple technological achievements. The Fascist government spent large sums of money on technological projects such as the construction of the new Italian ocean liner SS Rex
SS Rex
The SS Rex was an Italian ocean liner launched in 1931. It held the westbound Blue Riband between 1933 and 1935. Originally built for the Navigazione Generale Italiana as the SS Guglielmo Marconi, its state-ordered merger with the Lloyd Sabaudo line meant that the ship sailed for the newly created...
which in 1933 made a transatlantic sea crossing record of four days. as well as funding the development of the Macchi M.C.72
Macchi M.C.72
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Cowin, Hugh W. The Risk Takers, A Unique Pictorial Record 1908-1972: Racing & Record-setting Aircraft . London: Osprey Aviation, 1999. ISBN 1-85532-904-2....
seaplane
Seaplane
A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...
which became the world's fastest seaplane in 1933 and retained the title in 1934. In 1933, Fascist government member Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo was an Italian Blackshirt leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force , Governor-General of Libya, Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa , and the "heir apparent" to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.After serving in...
, who was also an aviator made a transatlantic flight in a flying boat to Chicago for the World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
called the Century of Progress
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation...
. The flight symbolized the power of Fascist leadership and the industrial and technological progress the state had made under Fascist direction.
On the issue of anti-Semitism, the Fascists were divided on what to do, especially with the rise of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in Germany. A number of Fascist members were Jewish, and Mussolini himself did not personally believe in anti-Semitism, but to appease Hitler, anti-Semitism within the Fascist party steadily increased. In 1936, Mussolini made his first written denounciation of Jews by claiming that anti-Semitism had only arisen because Jews had become too predominant in the positions of power of countries and claimed that Jews were a "ferocious" tribe who sought to "totally banish" Christians from public life. In 1937, Fascist member Paolo Orano
Paolo Orano
Paolo Orano was an Italian psychologist and syndicalist politician and writer who later became a leading figure within the National Fascist Party.-Syndicalism:...
criticized the Zionist movement as being part of British foreign policy which designed to secure British hold of the area without respecting the Christian and Muslim presence in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. On the matter of Jewish Italians, Orano said that they "should concern themselves with nothing more than their religion" and not bother boasting of being patriotic Italians.
In 1938 under pressure from Nazi Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt a policy of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself. As a result of the laws, the Fascist regime lost its propaganda director, Margherita Sarfatti
Margherita Sarfatti
Margherita Sarfatti was a Jewish Italian journalist, art critic, patron, collector, socialite, and one of Benito Mussolini's mistresses.-Biography:...
, who was Jewish and had been Mussolini's mistress. A minority of high-ranking Fascists were pleased with anti-Semitic policy such as Roberto Farinacci
Roberto Farinacci
Roberto Farinacci was a leading Italian Fascist politician, and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II, and one of its ardent anti-Semitic proponents.-Early life:...
who claimed that Jews through intrigue had taken control key positions of finance, business and schools and he noted that Jews sympathized with Ethiopia during Italy's war with it and that Jews had sympathized with Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. In 1938, Farinacci became the minister in charge of culture, and adopted racial laws designed to prevent racial intermixing which included anti-Semitism. Until the armistice with the Allies in September, 1943, the Italian Jewish community was protected from deportation to the Nazi death camps in the east. With the armistice, Hitler took control of the German occupied territory in the north and began an effort to liquidate the Jewish community under his control. Shortly after the entry of Italy into the war, numerous camps were established for the imprisonment of enemy aliens and Italians suspected to be hostile to the regime. In contrast to the brutality of the Nazi-run camps, the Italian camps allowed families to live together and there was a broad program of social welfare and cultural activities.
Education
The Fascist government endorsed a stringent education policy in Italy aiming at eliminating illiteracy which was a serious problem in Italy at the time and improving loyalty of Italians to the state. To reduce drop-outs, the government changed the minimum age of leaving school from twelve to fourteen and strictly enforced attendance. The Fascist government's first minister of education from 1922 to 1924, Giovanni GentileGiovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
recommended that education policy should focus on indoctrination of students into Fascism, and to educate youth to respect and be obedient to authority. In 1929, education policy took a major step towards being completely taken over by the agenda of indoctrination. In that year, the Fascist government took control of the authorization of all textbooks, all secondary school teachers were required to take an oath of loyalty to Fascism, and children began to be taught that they owed the same loyalty to Fascism as they did to God. In 1933, all university teachers were required to be members of the National Fascist Party. From 1930s to 1940s, Italy's education focused on the history of Italy displaying Italy as a force of civilization during the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
era, displaying the rebirth of Italian nationalism
Italian nationalism
Italian nationalism refers to the nationalism of Italians or of Italian culture. It claims that Italians are the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic descendants of the ancient Romans who inhabited the Italian Peninsula for centuries. The origins of Italian nationalism have been traced to the...
and the struggle for Italian independence and unity during the Risorgimento. In late 1930s, the Fascist government copied Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's education system on the issue of physical fitness, and began an agenda that demanded that Italians become physically healthy.
Intellectual talent in Italy was rewarded and promoted by the Fascist government through the Royal Academy of Italy
Royal Academy of Italy
The Royal Academy of Italy was an organization of Italian academians, intellectuals, and cultural figures created on 7 January 1926 by the Fascist government of the Kingdom of Italy by a royal decree, and effectively dissolved in 1943....
which was created in 1926 to promote and coordinate Italy's intellectual activity.
Social welfare
A major success in social policy in Fascist Italy was the creation of the Opera Nazionale DopolavoroOpera Nazionale Dopolavoro
The National Recreational Club was the Italian Fascist leisure and recreational organization.- History:...
(OND) or "National After-work Program" in 1925. The OND was the state's largest recreational organizations for adults. The Dopolavoro was so popular that, by the 1930s, all towns in Italy had a Dopolavoro clubhouse and the Dopolavoro was responsible for establishing and maintaining 11,000 sports grounds, over 6,400 libraries, 800 movie houses, 1,200 theatres, and over 2,000 orchestras. Membership in the Dopolavoro was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature. In the 1930s under the direction of Achille Starace
Achille Starace
Achille Starace was a prominent leader of Fascist Italy prior to and during World War II.-Early life and career:Starace was born in Gallipoli in southern Italy near Lecce. He was son of a wine and oil merchant....
the OND became primarily recreational, concentrating on sports and other outings. It is estimated that by 1936 the OND had organized 80% of salaried workers. Nearly 40% of the industrial workforce had been recruited into the Dopolavoro by 1939 and the sports activities proved popular with large numbers of workers. The OND had the largest membership of any of the mass Fascist organizations in Italy. The enormous success of the Dopolavoro in Fascist Italy was the key factor in Nazi Germany creating its own version of the Dopolavoro, the Kraft durch Freude
Kraft durch Freude
Kraft durch Freude was a large state-controlled leisure organization in Nazi Germany. It was a part of the German Labour Front , the national German labour organization at that time...
(KdF) or "Strength through Joy" program, which was even more successful than the Dopolavoro.
Police state
For security of the regime, Mussolini advocated complete state authority, and created the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza NazionaleBlackshirts
The Blackshirts were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II...
or National Security Volunteer Militia in 1923, which are commonly referred to as the Blackshirts for the colour of their uniforms. Most of the Blackshirts were members from the Fasci di Combattimento. A secret police force called the Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927. It was led by Arturo Bocchini
Arturo Bocchini
Arturo Bocchini was Chief of Police under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. From 1926 until his death in 1940, Bocchini headed both the regular police and the secret political police ....
to crack down on opponents of the regime and Mussolini (there had been several near-miss assassination attempts on Mussolini's life in his early years in power). This force was effective, but unlike the Schutzstaffel
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
(SS) in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
or the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the OVRA caused far fewer deaths of political opponents. However Fascists methods of repression were cruel which included physically forcing opponents of Fascism to swallow castor oil
Castor oil
Castor oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the castor bean . Castor oil is a colorless to very pale yellow liquid with mild or no odor or taste. Its boiling point is and its density is 961 kg/m3...
which would cause severe diarrhea and dehydration, leaving the victim in a painful and physically debilitated state which would sometimes would result in death.
To combat organized crime, especially the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
and other parts of southern Italy, the Fascists gave special powers in 1925 to Cesare Mori
Cesare Mori
Cesare Mori was a prefect before and during the Fascist period in Italy. He is known in Italy as the Iron Prefect because of his iron-fisted campaigns against the Mafia on Sicily in the second half of the 1920s.- Early years :Mori was born in Pavia and grew up in an orphananage and was only...
, the prefect of Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
. These powers gave him the ability to prosecute the Mafia, forcing many Mafiosi to flee abroad (many to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) or risk being jailed. Mori was fired however, when he began to investigate Mafia links within the Fascist regime. He was removed from his position in 1929, and the Fascist regime declared that the threat of the Mafia had been eliminated. Mori's actions weakened the Mafia, but did not destroy them. From 1929 to 1943, the Fascist regime completely abandoned its previously aggressive measures against the Mafia, and the Mafiosi were left relatively undisturbed. http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_302.html
Economy
Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised Italians a new economic system called corporatismCorporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
. Corporatism was an outgrowth of socialism into a new economic system where the means of production where nominally left in the hands of the civil sector, but directed and controlled by the State.
In 1935, the Doctrine of Fascism
Doctrine of Fascism
"The Doctrine of Fascism" is an essay written by Giovanni Gentile, but credit is given to Benito Mussolini. It was first published in the Enciclopedia Italiana of 1932, as the first section of a lengthy entry on "Fascismo"...
was published under Mussolini's name, although it was most likely written by Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
. It described the role of the state in the economy under corporatism. By this time, Fascism had been drawn more towards the support of market forces being dominant over state intervention.
Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered: the left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were opposed by industrialists and landowners who supported the party because it pledged to defend Italy from communism and socialism. As a result, corporatist policy became dominated by the industries. Throughout the Mussolini era, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantling of non-Fascist unions. While the Fascist unions could not protect workers from all economic consequences, they were responsible for the handling of social security benefits, claims for severance pay, and could sometimes negotiate contracts that benefited workers.
After the Great Depression hit the world economy in 1929, the Fascist regime followed other nations in enacting protectionist tariffs and attempted to set direction for the economy. In the 1930s, the government increased wheat production, and made Italy self-sufficient for wheat, ending imports of wheat from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. However the transfer of agricultural land to wheat production reduced the production of vegetables and fruit. Despite improving production for wheat, the situation for peasants themselves did not improve. 0.5% of the Italian population (usually wealthy), owned 42 percent of all agricultural land in Italy, and income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase. The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933. It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Italy fared better than most western nations during the Depression: its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression. Its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period. Only the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.
Italy's colonial expansion into Ethiopia in 1936, proved to have a negative impact on Italy's economy. The budget of the colony of Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...
in the 1936-37 fiscal year requested from Italy 19.136 billion lire to be used create the necessary infrastructure for the colony. At the time Italy's entire revenue that year was only 18.581 billion lire.
Women
The fascists paid special attention to the role of women, from elite society women to factory workers and peasants. Fascist leaders sought to "rescue" women from experiencing emancipation even as they trumpeted the advent of the "new Italian woman" (nuova italiana). The policies revealed a deep conflict between modernity and traditional patriarchal authority, as Catholic, Fascist and commercial models of conduct competed to shape women's perceptions of their roles and their society at large. The Fascists celebrated violent "virilist" politics and exaggerated its machismo while also taxing celibate men to pay for child welfare programs. Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and the resulting League of Nations sanctions shaped the tasks assigned to women within the Fascist Party. The empire and women's contribution to it became a core theme in Fascist propaganda. Women in the party were mobilized for the imperial cause both as producers and as consumers, giving them new prominence in the nation. The Fascist women's groups expanded their roles to cover such new tasks as running training courses on how to fight waste in housework. Young Italian women were prepared for a role in Italy's "place in the sun" through special courses created to train them for a future as colonial wives.The government tried to achieve "alimentary sovereignty," or total self-sufficiency with regard to food supplies. Its new policies were highly controversial among a people who paid serious attention to their food. The goal was to reduce imports, support Italian agriculture, and encourage an austere diet based on bread, polenta, pasta, fresh produce and wine. Fascist women's groups trained women in "autarkic cookery" to work around items no longer imported. Food prices climbed in the 1930s and dairy and meat consumption was discouraged, so increasing numbers turned to the black market. The policy demonstrated that Fascists saw food—and people's behavior generally—as strategic resources that could be manipulated regardless of traditions and tastes.
Fascist foreign politics
Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised to bring Italy back as a Great PowerGreat power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, making it a "New Roman Empire". Mussolini promised that Italy would hold power over the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. In propaganda, Fascists used the ancient Roman "Mare Nostrum" (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for "Our Sea") to describe the Mediterranean. The Fascist regime increased funding and attention to military projects, and began plans to create an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaim dominance in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
. The Fascists considered wars to conquer Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
for the Italian Empire.
Italian North Africa
Italian North Africa was the aggregate of territories and colonies controlled by Italy in North Africa from 1911 until World War II...
(Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI) as the Arab population there refused to accept Italian colonial rule. Mussolini sent Marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli , was an officer in the Italian Regio Esercito who led military expeditions in Africa before and during World War II.-Rise to prominence:...
to lead a punitive pacification campaign against the Arab nationalists. Omar Mukhtar
Omar Mukhtar
Omar Mukhtar , of the Mnifa, was born in the small village of Janzour, near Tobruk in eastern Barqa in Libya. Beginning in 1912, he organized and, for nearly twenty years, led native resistance to Italian colonization of Libya. The Italians captured and hanged him in 1931...
, led the Arab resistance movement. After a much-disputed truce on 3 January 1928, the Fascist policy in Libya increased in brutality. A barbed wire fence
Frontier Wire (Libya)
The Frontier Wire was a obstacle in Italian Libya, along the with border of Egypt, running from El Ramleh down to Jaghbub. It was built by Italian forces—under the command of General Rodolfo Graziani—in the winter of 1931/1932 due the Italian's struggle with Omar Mukhtar's Senussi resistors...
was built from the Mediterranean to the oasis of Jaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterwards, the colonial administration began the wholesale deportation of the people of the Jebel Akhdar
Jebel Akhdar (Libya)
The Jebel Akhdar is a heavily forested, fertile upland area in northeastern Libya. It is located in the modern Shabiyahs or Districts of Derna, Jabal al Akhdar, and Marj.-Geography:...
to deny the rebels the support of the local population. The forced migration of more than 100,000 people ended in concentration camps in Suluq
Suluq
Suluq is a town in the Benghazi District of the Cyrenaica region in northeastern Libya. It is located about 53 kilometers to the south-east of Benghazi.-Italian Libya:...
and Al-'Aghela where tens of thousands died in squalid conditions. It's estimated that the number of Libyans who died - killed either through combat or starvation and disease - was at least 80,000, and up to half of the Cyrenaican population. After Al-Mukhtar's capture September 15, 1931 and his execution in Benghazi, the resistance petered out. Limited resistance to the Italian occupation crystallized round the person of Sheik Idris, the Emir of Cyrenaica.
Negotiations occurred with the British government on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya. The first negotiations began in 1925 to define the border between Libya and British-held Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. These negotiations resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory. In 1934, once again the Italian government requested more territory for Libya from British-held Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
. Britain allowed Italy to gain some territory from Sudan to add to Libya. http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS010.pdf These concessions were probably allowed because of the relatively good relations between Italy and Britain prior to 1935.
In 1935, Mussolini believed that the time was right for Italy to invade Ethiopia
Ethiopian Empire
The Ethiopian Empire also known as Abyssinia, covered a geographical area that the present-day northern half of Ethiopia and Eritrea covers, and included in its peripheries Zeila, Djibouti, Yemen and Western Saudi Arabia...
(a.k.a. Abyssinia) to make it a colony. As a result, the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
erupted.Italy invaded Ethiopia from the Italian colonies of Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Italian Somaliland
Italian Somaliland
Italian Somaliland , also known as Italian Somalia, was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy from the 1880s until 1936 in the region of modern-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate, the territory was later acquired by Italy through various...
. Italy committed atrocities against Ethiopians during the war, including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian soldiers. Ethiopia surrendered in 1936, completing Italy's revenge for its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Victor Emmanuel III
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
was soon proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia. The international consequences for Italy's belligerence resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust of Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany. After being condemned by the League of Nations, the Grand Council of Fascism
Grand Council of Fascism
The Grand Council of Fascism was the main body of Mussolini's Fascist government in Italy. A body which held and applied great power to control the institutions of government, it was created as a party body in 1923 and became a state body on 9 December 1928....
declared Italy's decision to leave the League on December 11, 1937 and Mussolini denounced the League as a mere "tottering temple".
After pressure was placed on Italy by Nazi Germany to promote a racist agenda, the Fascist regime moved away from its previous promotion of colonialism based on the spread of Italian culture to a directly racist colonial agenda. The Fascist regime declared that it would promote mass Italian settlements in the colonies that would in the Fascist regime's terms, "create in the heart of the African continent a powerful and homogeneous nucleus of whites strong enough to draw those populations within our economic orbit and our Roman and Fascist civilization". Fascist rule in its Italian colonies differed from region to region. Rule in Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...
(Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI), a colony including Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, was harsh for the native peoples as Fascist policy sought to destroy native culture. In February 1937, Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli , was an officer in the Italian Regio Esercito who led military expeditions in Africa before and during World War II.-Rise to prominence:...
ordered Italian soldiers to pillage native settlements in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...
, which resulted in hundreds of Ethiopians being killed and their homes being burned to the ground. After the occupation of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, the Fascist regime endorsed racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
to reduce the number of mixed offspring in Italian colonies which they claimed would "pollute" the Italian race. Marital and sexual relationships between Italians and Africans in its colonies were made a criminal offense when the Fascist regime implemented decree-law No. 880 of April 19, 1937 which gave sentences of one to five years imprisonment to Italians caught in such relationships. The law did not give any sentences to native Africans, as the Fascist government claimed that only those Italians were to blame for damaging the prestige of their race. Despite racist language used in some propaganda, the Fascist regime accepted recruitment of native Africans who wanted to join Italy's colonial armed forces and native African colonial recruits were displayed in propaganda.http://www.germaniainternational.com/images/bookgijuinit13.jpghttp://www.germaniainternational.com/images/bookgijuinit14.jpg In Italian Libya
Italian Libya
Italian Libya was a unified colony of Italian North Africa established in 1934 in what represents present-day Libya...
, Mussolini downplayed racist policies as he attempted to earn the trust of Arab leaders there. Individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to Libyans by December 1934. In famous trip to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created when on March 18 Mussolini posed with Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
dignitaries who gave him an honorary "Sword of Islam" (that had actually been made in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Arab peoples there. In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor
Muslim Association of the Lictor
The Muslim Association of the Lictor was created in 1939 as the Muslim branch of the National Fascist Party of Italy found largely in Italian Libya....
(Associazione Musulmana del Littorio) for Muslim Libya, and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army.
The Fascist regime also engaged in interventionist foreign policy in Europe. In 1923, Italian soldiers captured the Greek island of Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
as part of the Fascists' plan to eventually take over Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Corfu was later returned to Greece and war between Greece and Italy was avoided. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a de facto protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
which helped Italy's stand against Greek sovereignty. Corfu was important to Italian imperialism and nationalism due to its presence in the former Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
which left behind significant Italian cultural monuments and influence, though the Greek population there, especially youth, heavily protested the Italian occupation. Relations with France were mixed, the Fascist regime consistently had the intention to eventually wage war on France to regain Italian-populated areas of France, but with the rise of Hitler, the Fascists immediately became more concerned of Austria's independence and the potential threat of Germany to Italy, if it demanded the German-populated areas of Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
. Due to concerns of German expansionism, Italy joined the Stresa Front
Stresa Front
The Stresa Front was an agreement made in Stresa, a town on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy, between French foreign minister Pierre Laval, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini on April 14, 1935...
with France and the United Kingdom against Germany which existed from 1935 to 1936. The Fascist regime held negative relations with Yugoslavia, as they long wanted the implosion of Yugoslavia in order to territorially expand and increase Italy's power. Italy pursued espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
in Yugoslavia, as Yugoslav authorities on multiple occasions discovered spy rings in the Italian Embassy in Yugoslavia such as in 1930. In 1929, the Fascist government accepted Croatian extreme nationalist Ante Pavelić
Ante Pavelic
Ante Pavelić was a Croatian fascist leader, revolutionary, and politician. He ruled as Poglavnik or head, of the Independent State of Croatia , a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia...
as a political exile to Italy from Yugoslavia. The Fascists gave Pavelić financial assistance and a training ground in Italy to develop and train his newly formed fascist militia and terrorist group, the Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
. This organization later became the ruling force of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and other minorities during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In 1936 in Spain, the Fascist regime made its most significant pre-war military intervention. The Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
was divided in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
between the anticlerical socialist Republicans and the Church-supporting, monarchy-backed nationalists led by Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
under his fascist Falange
Falange
The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....
movement. Italy sent aircraft, weapons, and a total of over 60,000 troops to aid the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. It was a success that secured Italy's naval access in and out of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and its ability to pursue its policy of Mare Nostrum without fear of opposition by Spain. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany. This was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War in the 1860s. During the 1930s, Italy built many large battleships and other warships to solidify Italy's hold on the Mediterranean.
After Germany annexed Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Mussolini decided to capture Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
to avoid becoming second-rate member of Axis. On April 7, 1939, Italy invaded Albania
Italian invasion of Albania
The Italian invasion of Albania was a brief military campaign by the Kingdom of Italy against the Albanian Kingdom. The conflict was a result of the imperialist policies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini...
. After short campaign Albania was occupied, and its parliament crowned Victor Emmanuel III King of Albania
King of Albania
While the medieval Angevin Kingdom of Albania was a monarchy, it did not encompass the entirety of the modern state of Albania. The latter has been a kingdom on two occasions. The first time was after it was declared independent in 1912...
. The historical justification for the annexation of Albania laid in the ancient history of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in which the region of Albania had been an early conquest for the Romans, even before northern Italy had been taken by Roman forces. But obviously by the time of annexation, little connection to Italy remained amongst Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
. In actuality, the annexation of Albania was far from a military conquest as the country had been a de facto protectorate of Italy since the 1920s and much of its army were commanded by Italian officers sent from Italy. The occupation was not appreciated by King Emmanuel III, who feared that it had isolated Italy even further than its war against Ethiopia.
When the National Socialist German Workers Party
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
(NSDAP, a.k.a. Nazi Party) attained power in Germany in 1933, Mussolini and the Fascist regime in public showed approval of Hitler's regime, with Mussolini saying "The victory of Hitler is our victory". The Fascist regime also spoke of creating an alliance with the new regime in Germany.
In private, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government and Mussolini had a disapproving view of Hitler despite ideological similarities. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy that previously had been part of Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
. Although other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona, and adopted much of the symbolism of the Fascists into the Nazi Party, such as the Roman, straight-armed salute, dramatic oratory, the use of uniformed paramilitaries for political violence, and the use of mass rallies to demonstrate the power of the movement. In 1922 Hitler tried to ask for Mussolini's guidance on how to organize his own version of the March on Rome
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
which would be a "March on Berlin" (which came into being as the failed Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
in 1923). Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
to find out what Hitler's National Socialist movement
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
was but was immediately disappointed, saying that Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and remarked that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés." While Mussolini like Hitler believed in the cultural and moral superiority of whites over coloured peoples, he opposed Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs. A number of Fascists were Jewish, including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti
Margherita Sarfatti
Margherita Sarfatti was a Jewish Italian journalist, art critic, patron, collector, socialite, and one of Benito Mussolini's mistresses.-Biography:...
, the director of Fascist art and propaganda, and there was little support amongst Italians for anti-Semitism. Mussolini also did not evaluate race as being a precursor of superiority, but rather culture.
Hitler and the Nazis continued to try to woo Mussolini to their cause, and eventually Mussolini gave financial assistance to the Nazi party and allowed Nazi paramilitaries to train in Italy in the belief that despite differences, a fascist regime in Germany could be beneficial to Italy. Suspicion of the Nazis increased after 1933, Mussolini sought to ensure that Nazi Germany would not become the dominant fascist state in Europe. To do this, Mussolini opposed German efforts to annex Austria after the assassination of fascist Austrian President Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
in 1934, and promised the Austrians military support if Germany were to interfere. This promise helped save Austria from annexation in 1934.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler and the similarities between Italian Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and German National Socialism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. While both ideologies had significant similarities, the two factions were suspicious of each other, and both leaders were in competition for world influence. Hitler and Mussolini first met in June 1934, as the issue of Austrian independence was in crisis. In private, after the visit in 1934, Mussolini said that Hitler was just "a silly little monkey".
After Italy became isolated in 1936, the government had little choice but to work with Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs and reluctantly abandoned its support of Austrian independence from Germany. On October 28, 1937, Mussolini declared Italy's support of Germany regaining its colonies lost in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, declaring"
With no significant opposition from Italy, Hitler proceeded with Anschluß, the annexation of Austria in 1938. Germany later claimed the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
, a province of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
inhabited mostly by Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
. Mussolini felt he had little choice but to help Germany to avoid isolation. With the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Fascist regime began to be concerned about the majority ethnic German population in southern Tyrol, and whether they would want to join a Greater Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The Fascists were also concerned about whether Italy should follow Nazi anti-Semitic policies in order to gain favour from those Nazis who had mixed feelings about Italy as an ally. In 1938, Mussolini pressured fellow Fascist members to support the enacting of anti-Semitic policies, but this was not well taken, as a number of Fascists were Jewish and anti-Semitism was not an active political concept in Italy. Nevertheless, Mussolini forced through anti-Semitic legislation even while his own son-in-law and prominent Fascist Count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
Galeazzo Ciano
Galeazzo Ciano
Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini under pressure from Nazi Germany.-Early life:Ciano was born in...
personally condemned such laws. In turn for enacting the extremely unpopular anti-Semitic laws, Mussolini and the Fascist government demanded a concession from Hitler and the Nazis. In 1939 the Fascists demanded from Hitler that his government willingly accept the Italian government's plan to have all Germans in south Tyrol either leave Italy or be forced to accept Italianization. Hitler agreed and thus the threat to Italy from the south Tyrol Germans was neutralized.
As war approached in 1939, the Fascist regime stepped up an aggressive press campaign against France claiming that Italian people were suffering in France. This was important to the alliance as both regimes mutually had claims on France, Germany on German-populated Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
and Italy on the mixed Italian and French populated Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
and Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
. In May 1939, a formal alliance was organized. The alliance was known as the Pact of Steel
Pact of Steel
The Pact of Steel , known formally as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was an agreement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed on May 22, 1939, by the foreign ministers of each country and witnessed by Count Galeazzo Ciano for Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop...
which obliged Italy to fight alongside Germany if war broke out against Germany. Mussolini felt obliged to sign the pact in spite of his own concerns that Italy could not fight a war in the near future. This obligation grew from his promises to Italians that he would build an empire for them and from his personal desire to not allow Hitler to become the dominant leader in Europe. Mussolini was repulsed by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreement where Germany and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
agreed to partition the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
into German and Soviet zones for an impending invasion. The Fascist government saw this as a betrayal of the Anti-Comintern Pact
Anti-Comintern Pact
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....
, but decided to remain officially silent.
World War II and the fall of Fascism
When Germany invaded PolandInvasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
on 1 September 1939 beginning World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Mussolini publicly declared on September 24, 1939, that Italy had the choice of entering the war or to remain neutral which would cause the country to lose its national dignity. Nevertheless, despite his aggressive posture, Mussolini kept Italy out of the conflict for many months. Mussolini told his son in law, Count Ciano, that he was personally jealous over Hitler's accomplishments and hoped that Hitler's prowess would be slowed down by Allied counterattack. Mussolini went as far to lessen Germany's successes in Europe by giving advanced notice to Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
of an imminent German invasion, of which Germany had informed Italy.
In drawing out war plans, Mussolini and the Fascist regime decided that Italy would aim to annex large portions of Africa and the Middle East to be included in its colonial empire. Hesitance remained from the King and military commander Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino was an Italian soldier and politician...
who warned Mussolini that Italy had too few tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s, armoured vehicles, and aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
available to be able to carry out a long-term war and Badoglio told Mussolini "It is suicide" for Italy to get involved in the European conflict. Mussolini and the Fascist regime took the advice to a degree and waited as France was invaded by Germany before deciding to get involved.
As France collapsed under the German Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
, Italy declared war on France and Britain on 10 June 1940, fulfilling its obligations of the Pact of Steel. Italy hoped to quickly conquer Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
, Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, and the African colonies of Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
from the French, but this was quickly stopped when Germany signed an armistice with the French commander Philippe Petain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
who established Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
which retained control over Savoy, Nice, Corsica, Tunisia and Algeria. This decision by Germany angered the Fascist regime.
The one Italian strength that concerned the Allies was the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina
Regia Marina
The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...
), the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
launched a surprise air attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto
Battle of Taranto
The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, flying a small number of obsolescent biplane torpedo bombers from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea...
which crippled Italy's major warships. Although the Italian fleet did not inflict serious damage as was feared, it did keep significant British Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. This fleet had to fight the Italian fleet to keep British Commonwealth forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. In 1941 on the Italian-controlled island of Kastelorizo
Kastelorizo
Kastelorizo, , is a Greek island and municipality located in the southeastern Mediterranean. It lies roughly off the south coast of Turkey, about 570 km southeast of Athens and east of Rhodes, almost halfway between Rhodes and Antalya and to Cyprus...
, off the coast of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Italian forces succeeded in repelling British and Australian forces attempting to occupy the island during Operation Abstention
Operation Abstention
Operation Abstention was the code name given to the British invasion of the Italian island of Kastelorizo, off Turkey, during the Second World War, on late February 1941...
. In December 1941, a covert attack by Italian forces took place in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, in which Italian divers attached explosives to British warships resulting in two British battleships being sunk. This was known as the Raid on Alexandria
Raid on Alexandria (1941)
The Raid on Alexandria was carried out on 19 December 1941 by Italian Navy forces attacking Royal Navy forces in the harbour of Alexandria.-Background:...
. In 1942, the Italian navy inflicted a serious blow to a British convoy fleet attempting to reach Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
during Operation Harpoon
Operation Harpoon (1942)
Not to be confused with Operation Harpoon Operation Harpoon was one of two simultaneous Allied convoys sent to supply Malta in the Axis-dominated Mediterranean Sea in mid-June 1942, during the Second World War. One convoy, Operation Vigorous, left Alexandria. The other, Operation Harpoon, travelled...
, sinking multiple British vessels. Over time, the Allied navies inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet, and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany.
Continuing indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War
Greco-Italian War
The Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
, which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. Mussolini had intended the war with Greece to prove to Germany that Italy was no minor power in the alliance, but a capable empire which could hold its own weight. Mussolini boasted to his government that he would even resign from being Italian if anyone found fighting the Greeks to be difficult. Within days of invading Greece, the Greek army pushed the Italian army back into Albania and humiliatingly put Italy on the defensive. Hitler and the German government were frustrated with Italy's failing campaigns, but so was Mussolini. Mussolini in private angrily accused Italians on the battlefield of becoming "overcome with a crisis of artistic sentimentalism and throw in the towel."
To gain back ground in Greece, Germany reluctantly began a Balkans Campaign alongside Italy which resulted also in the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
in 1941 and the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy. Mussolini and Hitler compensated Croatian nationalists by endorsing the creation of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
under the extreme nationalist Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
. In order to receive the support of Italy, the Ustaše agreed to concede the main central portion of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
as well as various Adriatic islands to Italy, as Dalmatia held a significant number of Italians. The ceding of the Adriatic islands by Croatia was a minimal loss for their government, as in exchange for those cessions, Croatia was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
and to persecute the Serb population there to make way for future Croat habitation there. Officially, Croatia was a kingdom and an Italian protectorate, ruled by Italian House of Savoy
House of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
member Tomislav II of Croatia, however he never personally set foot on Croatian soil, and the government was run by Ante Pavelić
Ante Pavelic
Ante Pavelić was a Croatian fascist leader, revolutionary, and politician. He ruled as Poglavnik or head, of the Independent State of Croatia , a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia...
, the leader of the Ustaše. Italy did however hold military control across all of Croatia's coast, which combined with Italian control of Albania and Montenegro, gave Italy complete control of the Adriatic Sea, thus completing a key part of the Mare Nostrum
Mare Nostrum
Mare Nostrum may refer to:*Mare Nostrum, the Roman term for the Mediterranean Sea, adopted by Italian nationalists and fascists.*Mare Nostrum , a Spanish-language novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez...
policy of the Fascists. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerrillas (although they did work with them because they did not really like the Ustaše movement whom they left up to the Germans) and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.
Kingdom of Egypt
The Kingdom of Egypt was the first modern Egyptian state, lasting from 1922 to 1953. The Kingdom was created in 1922 when the British government unilaterally ended its protectorate over Egypt, in place since 1914. Sultan Fuad I became the first king of the new state...
and was soon driven far back into Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
by British Commonwealth forces. The German army sent a detachment to join the Italian army in Libya to save the colony from the British advance. German army units in the Afrika Korps
Afrika Korps
The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
under General Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....
were the mainstay in the campaign to push the British out of Libya and into central Egypt in 1941 to 1942. The victories in Egypt were almost entirely credited to Rommel's strategic brilliance. The Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
because of their dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. For a time in 1942, Italy from an official standpoint controlled large amounts of territory along the Mediterranean. With the collapse of Vichy France, Italy gained control of Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
(which had a mixed population of French and Italians), Nice and other portions of southwestern France. Italy also oversaw a military occupation over significant sections of southern France. But despite the official territorial achievements, the so called "Italian Empire" was a paper tiger
Paper tiger
Paper tiger is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐlǎohǔ , meaning something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but is really harmless. This Chinese colloquialism is similar to the English phrase "its bark is worse than its bite"....
by 1942: it was faltering as its economy failed to adapt to the conditions of war, and Italian cities were being bombed by the Allies. Also, despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942. Complete collapse came in 1943 when German and Italian forces fled North Africa to Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.
By 1943, Italy was failing on every front, by January of the year, half of the Italian forces serving on the Eastern Front had been destroyed, the African campaign had collapsed, the Balkans remained unstable, and Italians wanted an end to the war. King Victor Emmanuel III urged Count Ciano to overstep Mussolini to try to begin talks with the Allies. In mid 1943, the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
commenced an invasion of Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...
in an effort to knock Italy out of the war and establish a foothold in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Allied troops landed in Sicily with little initial opposition from Italian forces. The situation changed as the Allies ran into German forces, who held out for some time before Sicily was taken over by the Allies. The invasion made Mussolini dependent on the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
) to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition from German forces.
Civil war (1943–1945)
By 1943, Mussolini had lost the support of the Italian population for having led a disastrous war effort. To the world, Mussolini was viewed as a "sawdust caesar" for having led his country to war with ill-equipped and poorly trained armed forces which failed in battle. The embarrassment of Mussolini to Italy led King Victor Emmanuel IIIVictor Emmanuel III of Italy
Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
and even members of the Fascist Party to desire Mussolini's removal. The first stage of his ouster took place when Fascist Party's Grand Council under the direction of Fascist member Dino Grandi
Dino Grandi
Dino Grandi , Conte di Mordano, was an Italian Fascist politician, minister of justice, minister of foreign affairs and president of parliament.- Early life :...
voted to remove Mussolini as the party's leader. Days later, on 26 July 1943, Emmanuel III officially removed Mussolini from the post of Prime Minister and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino was an Italian soldier and politician...
. Upon removal, Mussolini was immediately arrested. The new "Badoglio government" stripped away the final elements of Fascist rule by banning the Fascist Party. Italy then signed an armistice with the Allied armed forces and the Kingdom of Italy joined the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
in their war against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The new Royalist
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...
government of Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio raised an Italian Co-Belligerent Army
Italian Co-Belligerent Army
The Italian Co-Belligerent Army , or the Army of the South , was the army of the Italian Royalist forces fighting on the side of the Allies during World War II....
, an Italian Co-Belligerent Navy
Italian Co-Belligerent Navy
The Italian Co-Belligerent Navy , or Navy of the South or Royal Navy , was the navy of the Italian royalist forces fighting on the side of the Allies in southern Italy after the Allied armistice with Italy in September 1943...
, and an Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
The Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force , or Air Force of the South , was the air force of the Royalist "Badoglio government" in southern Italy during the last years of World War II. The ACI was formed in southern Italy in October 1943 after the Italian Armistice in September...
. The Bagdolio government attempted to establish a non-partisan administration and a number of political parties were allowed to exist again after years of ban under Fascism. These ranged from liberal to communist parties which all were part of the government. Italians celebrated the fall of Mussolini and as more Italian territory was taken by the Allies, the Allies were welcomed as liberators by Italians, who opposed the German occupation.
However, Mussolini's reign in Italy was not over. A German commando unit led by Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
rescued Mussolini from the mountain hotel where he was being held under arrest. Hitler instructed Mussolini to establish the Italian Social Republic
Italian Social Republic
The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
in German-held northern Italy. The Italian Social Republic was a German puppet state
Puppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
. The Fascist state's armed forces were a combination of Mussolini loyalist Fascists and German armed forces. However Mussolini had little power, Hitler and the German armed forces led the campaign against the Allies and saw little interest in preserving Italy as little more than a buffer zone against an Allied invasion of Germany.
Life for Italians under German occupation was hard especially in Rome. Rome's citizens by 1943 had grown tired of the war and upon Italy signing an armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943, Rome's citizens took to the streets chanting "Viva la pace!" ("Long live the peace!) but within hours, German forces raided the city, and attacked anti-Fascists, royalists, and Jews. Roman citizens were harassed by German soldiers to provide them food and fuel and German authorities would arrest all opposition and many were sent into forced labour. Rome's citizens upon being liberated reported that during the first week of German occupation of Rome, crimes against Italian citizens took place, as German soldiers looted stores and robbed Roman citizens at gunpoint. Martial law was imposed on Rome by German authorities requiring all citizens to obey a curfew forbidding people to be out on the street after 9 p.m.
Mussolini was captured on April 27, 1945, by communist Italian partisans near the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
border as he tried to escape Italy. On the next day, he was executed for high treason, as sentenced in absentia by a tribunal of the CLN
National Liberation Committee
The National Liberation Committee was the underground political entity of Italian Partisans during the German occupation of Italy in the last years of the Second World War. It was a multi-party entity, whose members were united by their anti-fascism...
. Afterwards, the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress, and about fifteen other Fascists were taken to Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
where they were displayed to the public. Days later on 2 May 1945, the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) in Italy surrendered.
The government of Badoglio remained in being for some nine months. On 9 June 1944 he was replaced as Prime Minister by the 70-year-old anti-fascist leader Ivanoe Bonomi
Ivanoe Bonomi
Ivanoe Bonomi was an Italian politician and statesman before and after World War II.Bonomi was born in Mantua. He was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1909, representing Mantua as a member of the Italian Socialist Party...
. In June 1945 Bonomi was in turn replaced by Ferruccio Parri
Ferruccio Parri
Ferruccio Parri was an Italian partisan and politician who served as the 43rd Prime Minister of Italy for several months in 1945. During the resistance he was known as Maurizio.-Biography:...
, who in turn gave way to Alcide de Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics...
on 4 December 1945. It was de Gasperi who supervised the transition to a Republic following the abdication of Vittorio Emanuele III on 9 May 1946; he briefly became acting Head of State as well as Prime Minister on 18 June 1946, but ceded the former role to Provisional President Enrico de Nicola
Enrico De Nicola
Enrico Roberto De Nicola was an Italian jurist, journalist, politician, and the first provisional Head of State of the newborn republic of Italy from 1946 to 1948.-Biography:...
ten days later.
Birth of Italian Republic (1946)
Even prior to the rise of the Fascists, the monarchy was seen to have performed poorly, with society extremely divided between the wealthy north and poor south. World War I resulted in Italy making few gains and was seen as what fostered the rise of Fascism. These frustrations compacted into a revival of the Italian republican movement.
Following Victor Emmanuel III's abdication as king in 1946, his son, the new king Umberto II
Umberto II of Italy
Umberto II, occasionally anglicized as Humbert II was the last King of Italy for slightly over a month, from 9 May 1946 to 12 June 1946. He was nicknamed the King of May -Biography:...
, was pressured by the threat of civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
to call a referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
or become a republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
. On 2 June 1946, the republican side won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic.
The table of results shows some relevant differences in the different parts of Italy. The peninsula seemed to be drastically cut in two areas: the North for the republic (with 66.2%), the South for the monarchy (with 63.8%), as if they were two different, respectively homogeneous countries. Some Monarchist groups claimed that there was manipulation by Northern Republicans and Socialists. Others argued that Italy was still too chaotic in 1946 to have an accurate referendum. Regardless, to prevent civil war, Umberto II abdicated the Italian throne, and a new republic
Birth of the Italian Republic
The Italian constitutional referendum which officially took place on 2 June 1946, is a key event of Italian contemporary history. Until 1946, Italy was a kingdom ruled by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy since the Risorgimento and previously rulers of Savoy...
was born with bitter resentment by the new government against the House of Savoy
House of Savoy
The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
. All male members of the Savoy family were barred from entering Italy in 1948, which was only repealed in 2002.
Military structure
King of ItalyKing of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...
– Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Navy, and later Air Force, from 1861 to 1938 and 1943 to 1946.
First Marshal of the Empire
First Marshal of the Empire
First marshal of the empire was a military rank established by the Italian Parliament on March 30, 1938. The highest rank in the Italian Military, it was only granted to Benito Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel III...
- Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Voluntary Militia for National Security from 1938 to 1943 during the Fascist era, held by both Victor Emmanuel III and Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
.
- Regio EsercitoRoyal Italian ArmyThe Regio Esercito was the army of the Kingdom of Italy from the unification of Italy in 1861 to the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946...
(Royal Army) - Regia MarinaRegia MarinaThe Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...
(Royal Navy) - Regia AeronauticaRegia AeronauticaThe Italian Royal Air Force was the name of the air force of the Kingdom of Italy. It was established as a service independent of the Royal Italian Army from 1923 until 1946...
(Royal Air Force) - Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza NazionaleBlackshirtsThe Blackshirts were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II...
(Voluntary Militia for National Security also known as the "Blackshirts") Militia loyal to Benito Mussolini during the Fascist era, abolished in 1943.
See also
- Benito MussoliniBenito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
- Birth of the Italian RepublicBirth of the Italian RepublicThe Italian constitutional referendum which officially took place on 2 June 1946, is a key event of Italian contemporary history. Until 1946, Italy was a kingdom ruled by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy since the Risorgimento and previously rulers of Savoy...
- History of Italy as a monarchy and in the World WarsHistory of Italy as a monarchy and in the World WarsThis articles covers the history of Italy as a monarchy and in the World Wars.-Italian unification :Modern Italy became a nation-state during the Risorgimento on March 17, 1861 when most of the states of the Italian Peninsula and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were united under king Victor...
- Italian FascismItalian FascismItalian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
- Italian unificationItalian unificationItalian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
- ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
- King of ItalyKing of ItalyKing of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...
- Military history of Italy during World War IIMilitary history of Italy during World War IIDuring World War II , the Kingdom of Italy had a varied and tumultuous military history. Defeated in Greece, France, East Africa and North Africa, the Italian invasion of British Somaliland was one of the only successful Italian campaigns of World War II accomplished without German support.In...