Italy

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Foreign Policy and Expansion

After achieving both unity and independence in 1871, Italy found itself in a hostile and dangerous world. On several occasions Italy and France came close to war. In 1882 Italy had joined Prussia and its former oppressor, Austria, to form the Triple Alliance, and it remained a member until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The alliance outraged many nationalists who claimed that Italy would remain incomplete until it liberated Italian-speaking lands still under Austrian control: the Alto Adige, Trieste, and parts of Slovenia and Dalmatia. These lands were known as the Irreddenta (“Unredeemed”) territories.

To divert the nationalists, the government looked to expand Italy’s colonies in North Africa. The principal Italian settlement was in Tunis, but French Algeria blocked expansion there. In 1890 the Italians established a colony in Eritrea and then a protectorate on the Somali coast (see Somalia). In 1896, however, Italy suffered a disastrous defeat by Ethiopian troops at Ādwa . This defeat was seen in Italy as a national humiliation, and it gave rise to aggressive nationalist politics that denounced liberal democracy for its failure to turn Italy into a powerful colonial power (see Colonialism and Colonies).

After 1900 the influence of the nationalists steadily increased, and their principal target was the prime minister, Giovanni Giolitti. He argued that Italy should avoid costly overseas adventures and invest instead in modernization and welfare at home. The pope strongly supported the nationalists, claiming that Italy had a moral duty to bring the Christian faith to the nonbelievers of North Africa. The industrial and banking worlds also supported colonial expansion. In 1911 Giolitti reluctantly embarked on the invasion of the former Ottoman province of Libya in an effort to appease nationalist demands and the Vatican.

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World War I: 1914-1918

When World War I began in August 1914, the Italian government brushed aside the Triple Alliance (with Germany and Austria) and declared its neutrality. After failing to gain satisfactory terms from the alliance, Italy signed the secret Treaty of London with the Allied powers. This treaty promised Italy Italian-speaking territories in Austria and a share of the German colonies in Africa for its participation on the Allied side. In May 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary.

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The war proved difficult and arduous. The Italians won some early victories, but in May 1916 the Austrians wiped out many of those gains. A successful counterattack enabled the Italian army to occupy the important city of Gorizia, but the Italians made little progress thereafter. In October 1917 a combined Austro-German force attacked the Italian defenses, winning a dramatic victory at Caporetto in Venezia Giulia. The Italians retreated, eventually to the Piave River. There, they consolidated their defenses and were able to fight off an Austrian attack in June 1918. The Italians assumed the offensive, culminating in a victory in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto (October 24-November 4, 1918).

On November 3, 1918, the Austro-Hungarian government and the Allies signed an armistice. Italian casualties during World War I totaled more than half a million. In the treaties that followed, Italy acquired the Trentino, Trieste, and the South Tyrol, but it did not get all the territory promised in the Treaty of London—notably Dalmatia and Fiume (now see Rijeka, Croatia). In November 1920 Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) signed the Treaty of Rapallo; Fiume was established as a free state, and Italy renounced its claims to Dalmatia.

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The Postwar Years

From 1919 to 1922 Italy was torn by social and political strife, inflation, and economic problems, aggravated by the belief that Italy had won the war but lost the peace. The unions became militant, and fears of imminent revolution increased when the Socialist Party and the new Communist Party that was founded in 1922 adopted the programs of the Russian Bolsheviks. In response, armed bands with a strong nationalist bias, known as the Fascisti (see Fascism), fought the socialists and communists in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Trieste, Genoa, Parma, and elsewhere.

In an attempt to restore order, the aged Giolitti formed his final ministry from 1920 to 1921. It relied on a National Bloc of Liberals, Nationalists, and others, including Fascists. But the two largest political parties, the Socialists and the newly formed Catholic Popular Party, withheld their support, making parliament unworkable. Giolitti then resigned. His departure precipitated a period of uncertainty. Many landowners feared that their estates would be seized by the peasants; the middle class and the industrialists feared that Italy would become a Soviet-style republic; and conservative Roman Catholics worried that socialism, communism, and atheism threatened the religious order.

On October 24, 1922, the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, emboldened by the support of conservatives and former soldiers, demanded that the government be entrusted to his party. He threatened to seize power by force if his conditions were refused. As the Fascisti mobilized for a march on Rome, Prime Minister Luigi Facta resigned. On October 28 Victor Emmanuel III called on Mussolini to form a new government.

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Fascist Dictatorship: 1922-1944

Although he was given extraordinary powers to restore order, Mussolini initially governed constitutionally. He headed a coalition government in 1923 that included Liberals, Nationalists, and Catholics, as well as Fascists. But after the violence of the 1924 elections and the murder of the Socialist Party deputy Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, Mussolini moved to suspend constitutional government. He proceeded in stages to establish a dictatorship by forbidding the parliament to initiate legislation; by making himself responsible to the king alone; by ordering parliament to authorize him to issue decrees having the force of law; by establishing absolute censorship of the press; and, in 1926, by suppressing all opposition parties.

In 1928 Mussolini took further measures to transform the nation into a Fascist state. The Grand Council of the Fascist Party, under Mussolini’s control, was given power to select candidates for the Chamber of Deputies, and it was to be consulted on all important business of the government, especially the choice of an heir to the throne and successor to Mussolini. Mussolini scored one of his greatest diplomatic triumphs in 1929, when he concluded the Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Roman Catholic Church. The treaty recognized the Vatican City as an independent sovereign state and compensated the papacy for its loss of territory. In return the pope recognized the kingdom of Italy. In 1934 Italy’s economic life was reorganized with the formation of 22 corporations, or guilds, representing workers and employers in all phases of the economy. Each corporation included Fascist Party members on its governing council and had Mussolini as its president. These councils were organized into a National Council.

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Economic Measures

During the world economic depression that began in 1929, the Fascist government increasingly intervened to prevent the collapse of a number of industries. The construction of new factories or the expansion of old ones without governmental consent was prohibited. The government reorganized the iron and steel industries, expanded hydroelectric plants, and embarked on other public works projects. The military was also expanded and strengthened. Near the end of 1933, Mussolini announced that the Italian Chamber of Deputies would be called upon to legislate itself out of existence and to transfer its functions to the National Council of Corporations. This step was finally taken in 1939. The Chamber of Deputies was replaced by a Chamber of Fasci and Corporations, composed of some 800 appointive members of the National Council of Corporations. In their respective industries the corporations were entrusted with regulating prices and wages, planning economic policies, and discharging other economic functions.