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EspañolKINGDOM OF ITALY (1861–1946)
(Redirected from Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946))
The 'Kingdom of Italy' (Italian: ''Regno d'Italia'') was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia; it existed until 1946 when the Italians opted for a republican constitution. The Kingdom was the first Italian state to include the entire Italian Peninsula since the fall of the Roman Empire.
During the time of the regime of the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, the Kingdom of Italy is often referred to as 'Fascist Italy' by historians. 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 fanatical Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to a referendum in 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.
The Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdom's territory progressed under Italian unification until 1870. The state for a long period of time did not have Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige, which are in Italy today, and only received them in 1919. After the Treaties of Versailles and St Germain, the state was given Gorica, Trieste and Istria (now part of Croatia and Slovenia), and small parts of modern-day northwestern Croatia as well as a miniscule 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 also held colonies and protectorates and puppet states, such as modern-day Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia, Albania, Greece (occupied in World War II), Croatia (Italian and German puppet state in World War II), Kosovo province of Serbia (occupied in World War II), and Montenegro (occupied in World War II).
The Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy, although between 1925 and 1943 it was in fact a fascist dictatorship. 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 monarchs of the House of Savoy who led Italy were
★ 'Victor Emmanuel II' (1861–78) — Former King of Sardinia and first king of united Italy.
★ 'Umberto I' (1878–1900) — Approved the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Assasinated in 1900 by an anarchist.
★ 'Victor Emmanuel III' (1900–46) — King of Italy during the First World War and during the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
★ 'Umberto II' (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.
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of concerted efforts of Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. The last state to encompass the Italian peninsula was the Roman Empire.
After the Revolutions of 1848, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was popular amongst southern Italians and in the world was renowned for his extremely loyal followers.[1] 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'' Piedmontese 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), 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 France 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.
Cavour moved to challenge republican unification efforts by Garibaldi by organizing popular revolts in the Papal States which he used as a pretext to invade the country in spite of angering the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church from the anti-clerical republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX.[2] Despite their differences, Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860. Subsequently Cavour declared the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on February 18, 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 which was followed by political instability. Garibaldi and the republicans became increasingly revolutionary tone, his arrest in 1862, set off world-wide controversy.[3]
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In 1866 Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck 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 Germany'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 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. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Unfortunately, for Italy, Rome was an economic disaster[4], 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. In addition 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, relations between Italy and the Vatican remained sour for the next sixty years with the Popes declaring themselves to be prisoners in the Vatican. The Catholic Church frequently protested the actions of the Italian government, refused to meet with envoys from the King and urged Catholics to not vote in Italian elections.[5] It would not be until 1929, that positive relations would be restored between Italy and the Vatican.
After unification, Italy's politics favoured liberalism due to a regionally fragmented right, as conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies to appease the opposition such as the nationalization of railways. 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 depravity 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 1876 election 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 the 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 was abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.[6]
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 expeditures, advocation of expansionism,[7] and trying to win Germany's favour even by joining the Triple Alliance which included both Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882 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.[8] 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.[9]
The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873.".[10] Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy.[11] The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were swallowing up revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. There was aggravation by lower class Italians to the break-up of communal lands which benefited only landlords.[11] Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasants but short-term labourers who at best were employed for one year.[11] 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.[14]
The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively due to the mass overspending of the Depretis government that left Italy in huge debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes for their vineyards in the 1870s and 1880s when France's vineyard industry was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy during that time 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.[15]
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's first attempt to gain colonies was through entered a variety of failed negotiations with other world powers to make colonial concessions which completely failed. Another approach by Italy was investigated uncolonized undeveloped lands by sending missionaries to them. The most promising and realistic of colonizing were parts of Africa. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa in the 1830s and had entered deep into Ethiopia.[16]
On 5 February 1885, taking advantage of Egypt's conflict with Britain, Italian soldiers landed at Massawa a in present day Sudan, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum. 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 and Italy used the renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia.[17] Ethiopia gained the help of Russia, whose own interests in East Africa led Russia's government 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 Italian army, hoping to take part in the upcoming war.[18]
The Italian army failed on the battlefield, the sheer large numbers of the Ethiopian warriors forced Italy to eventually retreat into Eritrea.[19] The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy. Ethiopia would remain independent from Italy and other colonial powers until it was occupied in 1936 but then subsequently liberated four years later in World War II.
In 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Libya. The war ended only a year later, but the occupation resulted in acts of extreme discrimination towards Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands in October 1911 and by 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died due to lack of food supplies and shelter from the Italian occupation forces.[20] The annexation of Libya caused nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece as well as the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia.[21]
In 1892, Giovanni Giolitti became Prime Minister of Italy for his first term. Though his first government quickly collapsed a year later, Giolitti returned in 1903 to lead Italy's government during a fragmented reign 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 and was so because he mastered the political concept of ''trasformiso'' by manipulating, coericing 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.[22] 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.[23] Corruption was such a large problem that Giolitti himself admitted that there were places "where the law does not operate at all".[24]
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 disuade criticism by speaking about Italy's strategical achievements and inventiveness of their military in the war such as the first military use of the airship using aerial bombing on the Ottoman forces.[25] For Italian society, the war radicalized the Italian Socialist Party with anti-war revolutionaries led by future-Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini calling for violence to bring down the government. Giolitti would return as Prime Minister only briefly in 1920, but the era of liberalism was effectively over in Italy.
In the lead-up to the First World War, 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 had sparked tension and jealousy with its allies, Germany and Austria Hungary. The reaction in Munich to Italy's aggression, was the open singing of anti-Italian songs.[26] Italy's relations with France also were in bad shape, France's feeling of betrayal by Italy due to its support of Prussia, left the option open of a potential war erupting between the two countries.[27] Italy's relations with Britain had also been flustered by the Kingdom's constant demand for more recognition in the international stage following the occupation of Libya and demanding that other nations accept its spheres of influence in East Africa and the Mediterranean.[28] In the Mediterranean, Italy had also opened up the potential for aggravation in Greece in its occupation of the Greek-populated Dodecanese islands and Rhodes from the Ottoman Empire from 1912 to 1914. Italy clearly presented itself as an enemy of Greece, the two nations were in open rivalry over the desire to occupy Albania.[29]
King Emmanuel III himself was uneasy about Italy pursuing distant colonial adventures and said that Italy should prepare to take back Italian-populated land, as the "completion of the Risorgimento".[30] An idea that would clearly put Italy at odds with Austria-Hungary which held this territory.
Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 following the invasion of Serbia by Austria-Hungary, Italy remained neutral while it claimed that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes. Italy chose to defy the Triple Alliance mostly because it had territorial ambitions on the areas of Austria-Hungary. But Italy also had a secret understanding with France that had it promised not to be fully committed to the Triple Alliance. The Triple Entente in April of 1915, brokered a territorial deal with the Italian government with the London Pact offering Italy the Italian-populated lands it wanted from Austria-Hungary as well as 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 and Germany.
The outset of the campaign against Austria-Hungary looked initially in favour of Italy, with Austria-Hungary's army spread to cover its fronts with Serbia and Russia, Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian army. However, this advantage was never fully utilized as Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana that would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital of Vienna. After 11 failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian offensive campaign to take Vienna collapsed and in 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona and Padua in their Strafexpedition, but this also was also very little progress for Austria-Hungary.
In the summer of 1916, the Italian Army managed to take Gorizia from Austria, despite a number of other failed offensives, but by fall of 1917, with the Germans signing an armistice with the new state of Bolshevik Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German and Austro-Hungarian armies converged on Italy, forcing the Italians even further back. The Italian army regrouped at the Piave River.
At Piave the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies with the opposing armies repeatedly failing afterwards major battles such as Battle of Asiago and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in which the Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy upon the armistice on 11 November, 1918 which ended World War I.
By the end of the war, Italy lost 700,000 soldiers and had a budget deficit of twelve billion Lira, and Italian society had become divided during the war 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.
Even elements of the left-wing parties had become divided over Italian involvement in the war, including future leader Benito Mussolini who was ousted from the Italian Socialist Party in 1915 because of his increasingly nationalist tone. But by 1918, there was pressure by most Italians on the Italian government to pressure the Entente to ensure that Italian territorial demands were met in order to give merit to Italian sacrifices in the war.
As the war came to an end, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando went to meet with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French President Georges Clemenceau, and United States President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, who proceeded to discuss how the borders of Europe should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.
The talks came only minorly in Italy's favor, as Wilson's key promise during the peace talks of freedom of all European nationalities to form their own nation states, which caused the Treaty of Versailles to not offer Italy Dalmatia and Albania which it had been promised in the London Pact. Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German 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 and 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 traditionally pacifist during the war.
Furious over the peace settlement, Italian nationalist revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio in September 1919, led nationalists into the free state of Fiume. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called ''Il Duce'' (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the fascist movement of Mussolini. The demand for annexation of Fiume was enormous and spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's revolutionary fascists following the wave of support.[31] D'Annunzio drew Croatian nationalists to his side through his excellent speeches. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army and Egyptian nationalists.[32]
The occupation ended one year later, but Fiume later became annexed to Italy in 1924. Mussolini learned from D'Annunzio the ways to arouse patriotism in order to gain support from key revolutionary and patriotic sources such as nationalists, socialists, anarchists, and army veterans.[33]
Main articles: Italian fascism
In 1914, a well-known socialist revolutionary named Benito Mussolini 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.[34] Mussolini's nationalism allowed him to gain 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.[34] Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war which is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, though he claimed to have been wounded in battle.[34]
Following the end of the war and 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, and dividing private property held by estates.[37] 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!''. Upon 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 political movement in 1921, named the ''Partido 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.[38] 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.[39]
In 1920, Giolitti had come back as Prime Minister in an attempt to solve Italy's deadlock but already one year later Giolitti's government was 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 and decided to include fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections.[38] In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolotti'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.[41] By 1922, Mussolini through legitimate popularity, speaking talents, bribes, and intimidation, became a dominant personality in Italian politics. Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals had won him over a number of the relatives of the ancestors who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification.[42] His advocation of corporatism and futurism had won him attention by advocates of "third way".[43] But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolotti who did not condemn him for his blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.[44]
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 in the march, but had declared his intentions for power a few days earlier, saying "We want to become the state!". The Fascists demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta's resignation and for Mussolini to become Prime Minister. Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III faced a real political crisis of having to choose one of the two rival movements in Italy to form government, one being Mussolini's Fascists, the other being the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party, the King 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.
Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly after Mussolini's coalition passed the electoral Acerbo Law of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition which achieved 25% of the vote, the 1924 election was won through the help violence and intimidation, the Fascist Party achieved the 25% threshold and became the ruling political party of Italy.
Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated after calling for an annulement to elections due to irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. Mussolini in 1925 accepted responsibility for Fascist violence in 1924 and then declared a Fascist dictatorship in which he would be the unopposed Prime Minister of Italy under the King's official acceptance.
His unofficial title of ''Il Duce'' or "The Leader" became the popular title of Mussolini by his supporters. A personality cult was developed which surrounded Mussolini as he attempted to deplace the King as the object of Italians loyalty. Despite these attempts, any major official visit that Mussolini went on, had to be accompanied by King Emmanuel III as Italy's highest statesman.
Mussolini and the Fascist regime were very interested in improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, authoritarianism, personal dictatorship, and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists.[45] Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in creating a new culture.[46]
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 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 (Nazi 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 that made newsreels with propaganda mandatory to be shown prior to all feature films shown in cinemas.[47] These newsreels were more effective in influencing the Italian public than deliberate propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time.[47] 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 it was blatantly against the state. It was only until 1937 that Fascist art became awarded by the state.[46]
Relations with the Roman Catholic Church made a major upturn under Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier inhibitions to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini had made an alliance with the pro-church ''Partito Popolare Italiano'' or Italian People's Party. Mussolini lived up to his alliance with the Church with the signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929, which recognized the Vatican's sovereignty and normalized relations between Italy and the Vatican. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.
For some time, Fascist Italy remained less repressive than other totalitarian states like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. This changed in 1938 under pressure from Nazi Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt anti-Semitism, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself (a number of its members were Jewish). As a result, the Fascist regime lost their key propaganda director, who was Mussolini's Jewish mistress, Margherita Sarfatti. In its alliance with Nazi Germany, the Fascist regime aided the Nazis in the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, labour camps, and extermination camps during the Holocaust.
A major success in social policy in Fascist Italy was the creation of the ''Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro'' (OND) or "National After-work Program" in 1925. The OND was the state's largest recreational organizations for adults.[50] 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.[50] Membership in the ''Dopolavoro'' was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature.[50] 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''.[53]
For security of the regime, Mussolini advocated complete state authority, and created the ''Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale'' 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''. Also a secret police force called the ''Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo'' (Organisation for Vigilance Against Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927 and led by Arturo Bocchini to crackdown on opponents of the regime and Mussolini which were a danger, as 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, though its methods were cruel.
Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised a new economic system to Italians called corporatism. Corporatism was the fusion of capitalism and socialism into a new economic system which would retain class hierarchy and class divisions while allowing workers to be able to negotiate on equal grounds with business owners on wages, hours of work, working conditions, etc. Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered as its left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were not appreciated 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 reign of Mussolini, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantlement 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.[54]
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 pushed and succeeded in increasing wheat production, which made Italy self-sufficient for wheat and no longer had to import wheat from Canada and the United States.[55] However this came at the cost of decrease in other production in vegetables and fruit due to land being supplied to wheat producers.[55] 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,[57] income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase.[57] The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933.[59] It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Comparatively Italy did manage to fare better than most western nations during the Depression, its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression[59] and its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period and only the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.[59]
Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised to bring Italy back as a Great power in Europe, making it a "New Roman Empire". To do this, Italy increased money and attention to military projects, and began plans to build an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaiming dominance on the Adriatic Sea by considering Dalmatia, Albania and Greece as potential war zones for colonization.
Colonial efforts in Africa began with negotiations with the British governments on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya. The first negotiations began in 1925, over defining the border between Libya and British-held Egypt, which resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory.[2] 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.[3] These concessions were probably allowed due to the relatively good relations between Italy and Britain that were held until 1935.
In 1935, the Kingdom of Italy was at the height of her international prestige and power by the mid-1930s, with Mussolini in alliance with France and Britain against aggression by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Mussolini believed that Italy should take advantage of the strategic alliance and invade long-wanted Ethiopia to make it a colony. As a result the the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (also called the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) erupted. Italy invaded the Ethiopian Empire from the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia. The native Ethiopians stood no chance at defeating the Italian Army, most of their warriors were still armed with spears and wooden shields. Italy committed a number of atrocities against Ethiopians during the war including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian warriors. Ethiopia surrendered in 1936, completing Italy's revenge for its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Victor Emanuele III was soon proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The international consequences for Italy's belligerence resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust with Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. This would be the beginning of a future alliance.
In 1936, 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 aide the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany, which was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War.
Upon the Nazi Party achieving power in Germany, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government despite ideological similarities. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy which previously had been part of Austria. Though other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona, and had attempted to befriend him earlier to no avail. Mussolini opposed Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs, for a number of fascists were Jewish including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti, the director of Fascist art and propaganda, and anti-Semitism was not an issue which Italians agreed with. 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.
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. The two nations proceeded to form the Rome-Berlin Axis, more commonly known as the Axis Pact, later signed by Japan in 1940.
With relations improved with Italy, Hitler proceeded with ''Anschluß'', the annexation of Austria in 1938 and later claimed the Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans. Mussolini, jealous over Hitler's increasing importance, sought to insure that Italy would not be a minor partner in the alliance and invaded and annexed Albania in 1939.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler as well as the ideologies of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. This was even though the two men had very different backgrounds and differing opinions and that the ideologies where different in that Nazism was racially oriented while Fascism was nationally oriented with little interest in tight racial policy until 1938.
With an increasingly belligerent and growing Germany, Mussolini decided to attempt to woo the trust of Hitler and especially other Nazis and newly integrated Austrian-Germans by initiating anti-Semitic laws in 1938, Mussolini hoped to dissolve any threats from being levelled by Nazis against Italy. These laws were extremely unpopular in Italy and this was the first of a number of decisions that would set the Italian population against Mussolini.
Upon the Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, Italy did not initially join World War II. Italy waited until the threat of France was dealt with during the Battle of France before declaring war on Britain and France on June 10 1940. Both Germany and Italy did not expect a war to come about so early. This was especially damaging to Italy which required more time to fully re-arm and organize its industries for war. Italy was largely a subordinate partner to Germany during the war.
The one advantage that Italy had compared to Germany which concerned the Allies was its navy, the ''Regia Marina'', the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British 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 pin down the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea which were forced to fight the Italian fleet to keep British forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. Over time, the British Royal Navy inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany and forced Italy to being a subordinate partner to Germany.
Early indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. 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 which was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and persecute the Serb population there in exchange for allowing Italy to have Dalmatia. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerillas and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.
Italy had been driven far back into Libya by the British Army coming from Egypt in 1940. 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 and the subordinated Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa due to its dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. Despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942 and completely collapse in 1943 with German and Italian forces fleeing North Africa to Sicily.
In 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 depend on the Wehrmacht to set foot across Italy to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition by German forces.
By 1943, Mussolini had lost the support of the Italian population for having led a disastrous war effort which led to a failed economy and destroyed cities. Mussolini to the world became known as the "sawdust caesar", for his aggressive flamboyant speaking which was not backed up with real political and military power. The embarrassment of Mussolini and Italy led King Victor Emmanuel III to remove Mussolini as Prime Minister and replace him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Mussolini was arrested, the Fascist Party was banned, and subsequently Italy joined the Allies in their war against Nazi Germany. The new "royalist" government of King Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio raised an Italian Co-Belligerent Army, an Italian Co-Belligerent Navy, and an Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force.
However, Mussolini's reign in Italy was not over. A German paratrooper division rescued Mussolini from the mountain hotel where he was being held under arrest. Afterwards, 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 Italian fanatics and their German Army keepers. In the end, Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans trying to escape Italy. On 28 April 1945, the communist partisans executed him. Afterwards, the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress, and about fifteen other fascists were taken to Milan where they were brutally abused and disfigured by mobs of angry Italians. The mauled bodies were then hung up on meat hooks for public display. Such was the rage of the Italian people for the misery under fascism and the subjugation of Italy by Germany. With the death of Mussolini, any remaining legitimacy to the presence of Germans in Italy evaporated. On 2 May 1945, the German Army in Italy surrendered.
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 twice, by the Germans and 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, and World War I, which in the end 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 Emmanuele III stepping down as King in 1946, the new King, Umberto II of Italy was pressured to call a referendum to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy or become a republic on 2 June 1946. The referendum came about due to the real threat of civil war coming about after the war.
The republic vote won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic, resulting in Umberto II abdicating the Italian throne, replaced by a republic with bitter resentment to the House of Savoy and banned all male members of Savoy from entering Italy in 1948. This ban was only repealed in 2002. The events are known as the Birth of the Italian Republic.
King of Italy — Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army and Navy
★ ''Regio Esercito'' (Royal Army)
★ ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy)
★ ''Regia Aeronautica'' (Royal Air Force)
★ ''Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale'' (Voluntary Militia for National Security also known as the "Blackshirts") Militia loyal to Benito Mussolini during the Fascist era
★ Italy
★ History of Italy as a monarchy and in the World Wars
★ King of Italy
★ Italian unification
★ Italian Fascism
★ Benito Mussolini
★ Birth of the Italian Republic
1. (Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472108956, p15)
2. (Smith (1997), pp23–24)
3. (Smith (1997), p61)
4. (Smith (1997), pp95–96)
5. (Smith (1997), p91)
6. (Smith (1997), pp95–107)
7. (Smith (1997), pp132–133)
8. (Smith (1997), p133)
9. (Smith (1997), p128)
10. (Smith (1997), p138)
11. (Smith (1997), p136)
12. (Smith (1997), p136)
13. (Smith (1997), p136)
14. (Smith (1997), p137)
15. (Smith (1997), p139)
16. (Smith (1997), pp115–117)
17. (Barclay (1997), p34)
18. (Barclay (1973), p33–34)
19. (Barclay (1973), p35)
20. (Bosworth, RJB (2005) ''Mussolini's Italy'', New Work: Allen Lane, ISBN 0713996978, p50)
21. (Bosworth (2005), p49)
22. (Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472108956, p199)
23. (Smith (1997), p209–210)
24. (Smith (1997), p199)
25. (Bosworth, Richard. (1983). ''Italy and the Approach of the First World War''. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, p42)
26. (Bosworth (1983), pp99–100)
27. (Bosworth (1983), p101)
28. (Bosworth (1983), p112)
29. (Bosworth (1983), pp112–114)
30. (Bosworth (1983), p119)
31. Smith (1997), p293
32. Bosworth (2005), pp112–113.
33. Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997, ISBN 0472108956, pp293–294
34. Smith (1997), p284
35. Smith (1997), p284
36. Smith (1997), p284
37. Smith (1997), pp284–286)
38. Smith (1997), p298
39. Smith (1997), p302
40. Smith (1997), p298
41. Bosworth (2005), p112
42. (Smith (1997), p312
43. Smith (1997), p312
44. Smith (1997), p315
45. Pauley, Bruce F (2003) ''Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy'', Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc., p107
46. Pauley, p108
47. Pauley, p109
48. Pauley, p109
49. Pauley, p108
50. Pauley, p113
51. Pauley, p113
52. Pauley, p113
53. Pauley, p113–114
54. Pauley, p85
55. Pauley, p86
56. Pauley, p86
57. Pauley, p87
58. Pauley, p87
59. Pauley, p88
60. Pauley, p88
61. Pauley, p88
★ Barclay, Glen St. J. (1973). ''The Rise and Fall of the New Roman Empire''. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0283978627
★ Bosworth, Richard J. B. (1983). ''Italy and the Approach of the First World War.'' London: The Macmillan Pres Ltd.
★ Bosworth, Richard J. B. (2005). ''Mussolini's Italy''. New Work: Allen Lane. ISBN 0713996978
★ Pauley, Bruce F. (2003). ''Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy''. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc.
★ Smith, Dennis Mack (1997). ''Modern Italy; A Political History''. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472108956
★ Axis History Factbook — Italy
The 'Kingdom of Italy' (Italian: ''Regno d'Italia'') was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia; it existed until 1946 when the Italians opted for a republican constitution. The Kingdom was the first Italian state to include the entire Italian Peninsula since the fall of the Roman Empire.
During the time of the regime of the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, the Kingdom of Italy is often referred to as 'Fascist Italy' by historians. 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 fanatical Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to a referendum in 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.
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 unification until 1870. The state for a long period of time did not have Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige, which are in Italy today, and only received them in 1919. After the Treaties of Versailles and St Germain, the state was given Gorica, Trieste and Istria (now part of Croatia and Slovenia), and small parts of modern-day northwestern Croatia as well as a miniscule 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 also held colonies and protectorates and puppet states, such as modern-day Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia, Albania, Greece (occupied in World War II), Croatia (Italian and German puppet state in World War II), Kosovo province of Serbia (occupied in World War II), and Montenegro (occupied in World War II).
Government
The Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy, although between 1925 and 1943 it was in fact a fascist dictatorship. 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.
Monarchs
The monarchs of the House of Savoy who led Italy were
★ 'Victor Emmanuel II' (1861–78) — Former King of Sardinia and first king of united Italy.
★ 'Umberto I' (1878–1900) — Approved the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Assasinated in 1900 by an anarchist.
★ 'Victor Emmanuel III' (1900–46) — King of Italy during the First World War and during the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
★ 'Umberto II' (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.
''Risorgimento'': Italian unification, 1859–1870
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of concerted efforts of Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. The last state to encompass the Italian peninsula was the Roman Empire.
After the Revolutions of 1848, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was popular amongst southern Italians and in the world was renowned for his extremely loyal followers.[1] 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'' Piedmontese 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), 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 France 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.
Count Camilo di Cavour, first Italian Prime Minister and leader of monarchist unification in northern Italy
Cavour moved to challenge republican unification efforts by Garibaldi by organizing popular revolts in the Papal States which he used as a pretext to invade the country in spite of angering the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church from the anti-clerical republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX.[2] Despite their differences, Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860. Subsequently Cavour declared the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on February 18, 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.
King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, the first King of a united Italy.
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 which was followed by political instability. Garibaldi and the republicans became increasingly revolutionary tone, his arrest in 1862, set off world-wide controversy.[3]
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Giuseppe Garibaldi, leader of the republican unification movement in southern Italy.
In 1866 Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck 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 Germany'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 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. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Unfortunately, for Italy, Rome was an economic disaster[4], 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. In addition 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, relations between Italy and the Vatican remained sour for the next sixty years with the Popes declaring themselves to be prisoners in the Vatican. The Catholic Church frequently protested the actions of the Italian government, refused to meet with envoys from the King and urged Catholics to not vote in Italian elections.[5] It would not be until 1929, that positive relations would be restored between Italy and the Vatican.
Liberal period
After unification, Italy's politics favoured liberalism due to a regionally fragmented right, as conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies to appease the opposition such as the nationalization of railways. 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 depravity 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 1876 election 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 the 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 was abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.[6]
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 expeditures, advocation of expansionism,[7] and trying to win Germany's favour even by joining the Triple Alliance which included both Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882 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.[8] 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.[9]
The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873.".[10] Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy.[11] The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were swallowing up revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. There was aggravation by lower class Italians to the break-up of communal lands which benefited only landlords.[11] Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasants but short-term labourers who at best were employed for one year.[11] 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.[14]
The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively due to the mass overspending of the Depretis government that left Italy in huge debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes for their vineyards in the 1870s and 1880s when France's vineyard industry was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy during that time 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.[15]
Early colonialism
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's first attempt to gain colonies was through entered a variety of failed negotiations with other world powers to make colonial concessions which completely failed. Another approach by Italy was investigated uncolonized undeveloped lands by sending missionaries to them. The most promising and realistic of colonizing were parts of Africa. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa in the 1830s and had entered deep into Ethiopia.[16]
On 5 February 1885, taking advantage of Egypt's conflict with Britain, Italian soldiers landed at Massawa a in present day Sudan, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum. 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 and Italy used the renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia.[17] Ethiopia gained the help of Russia, whose own interests in East Africa led Russia's government 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 Italian army, hoping to take part in the upcoming war.[18]
The Italian army failed on the battlefield, the sheer large numbers of the Ethiopian warriors forced Italy to eventually retreat into Eritrea.[19] The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy. Ethiopia would remain independent from Italy and other colonial powers until it was occupied in 1936 but then subsequently liberated four years later in World War II.
In 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Libya. The war ended only a year later, but the occupation resulted in acts of extreme discrimination towards Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands in October 1911 and by 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died due to lack of food supplies and shelter from the Italian occupation forces.[20] The annexation of Libya caused nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece as well as the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia.[21]
Giovanni Giolitti
In 1892, Giovanni Giolitti became Prime Minister of Italy for his first term. Though his first government quickly collapsed a year later, Giolitti returned in 1903 to lead Italy's government during a fragmented reign 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 and was so because he mastered the political concept of ''trasformiso'' by manipulating, coericing 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.[22] 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.[23] Corruption was such a large problem that Giolitti himself admitted that there were places "where the law does not operate at all".[24]
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 disuade criticism by speaking about Italy's strategical achievements and inventiveness of their military in the war such as the first military use of the airship using aerial bombing on the Ottoman forces.[25] For Italian society, the war radicalized the Italian Socialist Party with anti-war revolutionaries led by future-Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini calling for violence to bring down the government. Giolitti would return as Prime Minister only briefly in 1920, but the era of liberalism was effectively over in Italy.
World War I and aftermath
In the lead-up to the First World War, 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 had sparked tension and jealousy with its allies, Germany and Austria Hungary. The reaction in Munich to Italy's aggression, was the open singing of anti-Italian songs.[26] Italy's relations with France also were in bad shape, France's feeling of betrayal by Italy due to its support of Prussia, left the option open of a potential war erupting between the two countries.[27] Italy's relations with Britain had also been flustered by the Kingdom's constant demand for more recognition in the international stage following the occupation of Libya and demanding that other nations accept its spheres of influence in East Africa and the Mediterranean.[28] In the Mediterranean, Italy had also opened up the potential for aggravation in Greece in its occupation of the Greek-populated Dodecanese islands and Rhodes from the Ottoman Empire from 1912 to 1914. Italy clearly presented itself as an enemy of Greece, the two nations were in open rivalry over the desire to occupy Albania.[29]
King Emmanuel III himself was uneasy about Italy pursuing distant colonial adventures and said that Italy should prepare to take back Italian-populated land, as the "completion of the Risorgimento".[30] An idea that would clearly put Italy at odds with Austria-Hungary which held this territory.
Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 following the invasion of Serbia by Austria-Hungary, Italy remained neutral while it claimed that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes. Italy chose to defy the Triple Alliance mostly because it had territorial ambitions on the areas of Austria-Hungary. But Italy also had a secret understanding with France that had it promised not to be fully committed to the Triple Alliance. The Triple Entente in April of 1915, brokered a territorial deal with the Italian government with the London Pact offering Italy the Italian-populated lands it wanted from Austria-Hungary as well as 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 and Germany.
The outset of the campaign against Austria-Hungary looked initially in favour of Italy, with Austria-Hungary's army spread to cover its fronts with Serbia and Russia, Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian army. However, this advantage was never fully utilized as Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana that would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital of Vienna. After 11 failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian offensive campaign to take Vienna collapsed and in 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona and Padua in their Strafexpedition, but this also was also very little progress for Austria-Hungary.
In the summer of 1916, the Italian Army managed to take Gorizia from Austria, despite a number of other failed offensives, but by fall of 1917, with the Germans signing an armistice with the new state of Bolshevik Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German and Austro-Hungarian armies converged on Italy, forcing the Italians even further back. The Italian army regrouped at the Piave River.
Map of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, in which the Italian Army decisively beat the invading Austro-Hungarian army
At Piave the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies with the opposing armies repeatedly failing afterwards major battles such as Battle of Asiago and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in which the Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy upon the armistice on 11 November, 1918 which ended World War I.
By the end of the war, Italy lost 700,000 soldiers and had a budget deficit of twelve billion Lira, and Italian society had become divided during the war 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.
Even elements of the left-wing parties had become divided over Italian involvement in the war, including future leader Benito Mussolini who was ousted from the Italian Socialist Party in 1915 because of his increasingly nationalist tone. But by 1918, there was pressure by most Italians on the Italian government to pressure the Entente to ensure that Italian territorial demands were met in order to give merit to Italian sacrifices in the war.
As the war came to an end, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando went to meet with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French President Georges Clemenceau, and United States President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, who proceeded to discuss how the borders of Europe should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.
The talks came only minorly in Italy's favor, as Wilson's key promise during the peace talks of freedom of all European nationalities to form their own nation states, which caused the Treaty of Versailles to not offer Italy Dalmatia and Albania which it had been promised in the London Pact. Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German 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 and 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 traditionally pacifist during the war.
Furious over the peace settlement, Italian nationalist revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio in September 1919, led nationalists into the free state of Fiume. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called ''Il Duce'' (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the fascist movement of Mussolini. The demand for annexation of Fiume was enormous and spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's revolutionary fascists following the wave of support.[31] D'Annunzio drew Croatian nationalists to his side through his excellent speeches. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army and Egyptian nationalists.[32]
The occupation ended one year later, but Fiume later became annexed to Italy in 1924. Mussolini learned from D'Annunzio the ways to arouse patriotism in order to gain support from key revolutionary and patriotic sources such as nationalists, socialists, anarchists, and army veterans.[33]
Fascism
Main articles: Italian fascism
Rise of the movement
In 1914, a well-known socialist revolutionary named Benito Mussolini 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.[34] Mussolini's nationalism allowed him to gain 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.[34] Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war which is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, though he claimed to have been wounded in battle.[34]
Blackshirts and Mussolini 1922
Following the end of the war and 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, and dividing private property held by estates.[37] 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!''. Upon 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 political movement in 1921, named the ''Partido 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.[38] 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.[39]
The fasces emblem of the National Fascist Party
In 1920, Giolitti had come back as Prime Minister in an attempt to solve Italy's deadlock but already one year later Giolitti's government was 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 and decided to include fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections.[38] In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolotti'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.[41] By 1922, Mussolini through legitimate popularity, speaking talents, bribes, and intimidation, became a dominant personality in Italian politics. Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals had won him over a number of the relatives of the ancestors who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification.[42] His advocation of corporatism and futurism had won him attention by advocates of "third way".[43] But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolotti who did not condemn him for his blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.[44]
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 in the march, but had declared his intentions for power a few days earlier, saying "We want to become the state!". The Fascists demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta's resignation and for Mussolini to become Prime Minister. Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III faced a real political crisis of having to choose one of the two rival movements in Italy to form government, one being Mussolini's Fascists, the other being the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party, the King selected the Fascists.
Dictatorship of ''Il Duce''
Benito Mussolini, the ''de facto'' dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943
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.
Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly after Mussolini's coalition passed the electoral Acerbo Law of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition which achieved 25% of the vote, the 1924 election was won through the help violence and intimidation, the Fascist Party achieved the 25% threshold and became the ruling political party of Italy.
Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated after calling for an annulement to elections due to irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. Mussolini in 1925 accepted responsibility for Fascist violence in 1924 and then declared a Fascist dictatorship in which he would be the unopposed Prime Minister of Italy under the King's official acceptance.
His unofficial title of ''Il Duce'' or "The Leader" became the popular title of Mussolini by his supporters. A personality cult was developed which surrounded Mussolini as he attempted to deplace the King as the object of Italians loyalty. Despite these attempts, any major official visit that Mussolini went on, had to be accompanied by King Emmanuel III as Italy's highest statesman.
Culture, propaganda, and society
An example of Fascist propaganda displaying Italian art which a ''fasces'' in the background.
Mussolini and the Fascist regime were very interested in improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, authoritarianism, personal dictatorship, and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists.[45] Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in creating a new culture.[46]
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 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 (Nazi 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 that made newsreels with propaganda mandatory to be shown prior to all feature films shown in cinemas.[47] These newsreels were more effective in influencing the Italian public than deliberate propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time.[47] 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 it was blatantly against the state. It was only until 1937 that Fascist art became awarded by the state.[46]
Relations with the Roman Catholic Church made a major upturn under Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier inhibitions to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini had made an alliance with the pro-church ''Partito Popolare Italiano'' or Italian People's Party. Mussolini lived up to his alliance with the Church with the signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929, which recognized the Vatican's sovereignty and normalized relations between Italy and the Vatican. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.
For some time, Fascist Italy remained less repressive than other totalitarian states like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. This changed in 1938 under pressure from Nazi Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt anti-Semitism, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself (a number of its members were Jewish). As a result, the Fascist regime lost their key propaganda director, who was Mussolini's Jewish mistress, Margherita Sarfatti. In its alliance with Nazi Germany, the Fascist regime aided the Nazis in the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, labour camps, and extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Social welfare
A major success in social policy in Fascist Italy was the creation of the ''Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro'' (OND) or "National After-work Program" in 1925. The OND was the state's largest recreational organizations for adults.[50] 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.[50] Membership in the ''Dopolavoro'' was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature.[50] 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''.[53]
Security
For security of the regime, Mussolini advocated complete state authority, and created the ''Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale'' 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''. Also a secret police force called the ''Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo'' (Organisation for Vigilance Against Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927 and led by Arturo Bocchini to crackdown on opponents of the regime and Mussolini which were a danger, as 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, though its methods were cruel.
Economic policy
Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised a new economic system to Italians called corporatism. Corporatism was the fusion of capitalism and socialism into a new economic system which would retain class hierarchy and class divisions while allowing workers to be able to negotiate on equal grounds with business owners on wages, hours of work, working conditions, etc. Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered as its left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were not appreciated 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 reign of Mussolini, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantlement 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.[54]
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 pushed and succeeded in increasing wheat production, which made Italy self-sufficient for wheat and no longer had to import wheat from Canada and the United States.[55] However this came at the cost of decrease in other production in vegetables and fruit due to land being supplied to wheat producers.[55] 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,[57] income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase.[57] The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933.[59] It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Comparatively Italy did manage to fare better than most western nations during the Depression, its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression[59] and its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period and only the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.[59]
Foreign policy
Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised to bring Italy back as a Great power in Europe, making it a "New Roman Empire". To do this, Italy increased money and attention to military projects, and began plans to build an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaiming dominance on the Adriatic Sea by considering Dalmatia, Albania and Greece as potential war zones for colonization.
Colonial efforts in Africa began with negotiations with the British governments on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya. The first negotiations began in 1925, over defining the border between Libya and British-held Egypt, which resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory.[2] 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.[3] These concessions were probably allowed due to the relatively good relations between Italy and Britain that were held until 1935.
Italian soldiers on the front lines in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War
In 1935, the Kingdom of Italy was at the height of her international prestige and power by the mid-1930s, with Mussolini in alliance with France and Britain against aggression by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Mussolini believed that Italy should take advantage of the strategic alliance and invade long-wanted Ethiopia to make it a colony. As a result the the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (also called the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) erupted. Italy invaded the Ethiopian Empire from the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia. The native Ethiopians stood no chance at defeating the Italian Army, most of their warriors were still armed with spears and wooden shields. Italy committed a number of atrocities against Ethiopians during the war including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian warriors. Ethiopia surrendered in 1936, completing Italy's revenge for its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Victor Emanuele III was soon proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The international consequences for Italy's belligerence resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust with Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. This would be the beginning of a future alliance.
In 1936, 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 aide the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany, which was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War.
Relations with Germany under Hitler
Upon the Nazi Party achieving power in Germany, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government despite ideological similarities. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy which previously had been part of Austria. Though other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona, and had attempted to befriend him earlier to no avail. Mussolini opposed Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs, for a number of fascists were Jewish including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti, the director of Fascist art and propaganda, and anti-Semitism was not an issue which Italians agreed with. 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.
Following the occupation of Ethiopia, Mussolini and Hitler improved their countries' relations
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. The two nations proceeded to form the Rome-Berlin Axis, more commonly known as the Axis Pact, later signed by Japan in 1940.
With relations improved with Italy, Hitler proceeded with ''Anschluß'', the annexation of Austria in 1938 and later claimed the Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans. Mussolini, jealous over Hitler's increasing importance, sought to insure that Italy would not be a minor partner in the alliance and invaded and annexed Albania in 1939.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler as well as the ideologies of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. This was even though the two men had very different backgrounds and differing opinions and that the ideologies where different in that Nazism was racially oriented while Fascism was nationally oriented with little interest in tight racial policy until 1938.
With an increasingly belligerent and growing Germany, Mussolini decided to attempt to woo the trust of Hitler and especially other Nazis and newly integrated Austrian-Germans by initiating anti-Semitic laws in 1938, Mussolini hoped to dissolve any threats from being levelled by Nazis against Italy. These laws were extremely unpopular in Italy and this was the first of a number of decisions that would set the Italian population against Mussolini.
World War II and the fall of Fascism
Upon the Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, Italy did not initially join World War II. Italy waited until the threat of France was dealt with during the Battle of France before declaring war on Britain and France on June 10 1940. Both Germany and Italy did not expect a war to come about so early. This was especially damaging to Italy which required more time to fully re-arm and organize its industries for war. Italy was largely a subordinate partner to Germany during the war.
The one advantage that Italy had compared to Germany which concerned the Allies was its navy, the ''Regia Marina'', the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British 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 pin down the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea which were forced to fight the Italian fleet to keep British forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. Over time, the British Royal Navy inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany and forced Italy to being a subordinate partner to Germany.
Early indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. 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 which was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and persecute the Serb population there in exchange for allowing Italy to have Dalmatia. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerillas and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.
January 22, 1941. Australian soldiers regroup on the south side of Tobruk harbour after penetrating Italian outer defences and anti-aircraft positions. (Photographer: Frank Hurley)
Italy had been driven far back into Libya by the British Army coming from Egypt in 1940. 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 and the subordinated Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa due to its dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. Despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942 and completely collapse in 1943 with German and Italian forces fleeing North Africa to Sicily.
In 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 depend on the Wehrmacht to set foot across Italy to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition by German forces.
By 1943, Mussolini had lost the support of the Italian population for having led a disastrous war effort which led to a failed economy and destroyed cities. Mussolini to the world became known as the "sawdust caesar", for his aggressive flamboyant speaking which was not backed up with real political and military power. The embarrassment of Mussolini and Italy led King Victor Emmanuel III to remove Mussolini as Prime Minister and replace him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Mussolini was arrested, the Fascist Party was banned, and subsequently Italy joined the Allies in their war against Nazi Germany. The new "royalist" government of King Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio raised an Italian Co-Belligerent Army, an Italian Co-Belligerent Navy, and an Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force.
However, Mussolini's reign in Italy was not over. A German paratrooper division rescued Mussolini from the mountain hotel where he was being held under arrest. Afterwards, 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 Italian fanatics and their German Army keepers. In the end, Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans trying to escape Italy. On 28 April 1945, the communist partisans executed him. Afterwards, the bodies of Mussolini, his mistress, and about fifteen other fascists were taken to Milan where they were brutally abused and disfigured by mobs of angry Italians. The mauled bodies were then hung up on meat hooks for public display. Such was the rage of the Italian people for the misery under fascism and the subjugation of Italy by Germany. With the death of Mussolini, any remaining legitimacy to the presence of Germans in Italy evaporated. On 2 May 1945, the German Army in Italy surrendered.
Dissolution of the Kingdom of Italy
1946 referendum ballot
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 twice, by the Germans and 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, and World War I, which in the end 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 Emmanuele III stepping down as King in 1946, the new King, Umberto II of Italy was pressured to call a referendum to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy or become a republic on 2 June 1946. The referendum came about due to the real threat of civil war coming about after the war.
The republic vote won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic, resulting in Umberto II abdicating the Italian throne, replaced by a republic with bitter resentment to the House of Savoy and banned all male members of Savoy from entering Italy in 1948. This ban was only repealed in 2002. The events are known as the Birth of the Italian Republic.
Military structure
King of Italy — Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army and Navy
★ ''Regio Esercito'' (Royal Army)
★ ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy)
★ ''Regia Aeronautica'' (Royal Air Force)
★ ''Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale'' (Voluntary Militia for National Security also known as the "Blackshirts") Militia loyal to Benito Mussolini during the Fascist era
See also
★ Italy
★ History of Italy as a monarchy and in the World Wars
★ King of Italy
★ Italian unification
★ Italian Fascism
★ Benito Mussolini
★ Birth of the Italian Republic
Notes
1. (Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472108956, p15)
2. (Smith (1997), pp23–24)
3. (Smith (1997), p61)
4. (Smith (1997), pp95–96)
5. (Smith (1997), p91)
6. (Smith (1997), pp95–107)
7. (Smith (1997), pp132–133)
8. (Smith (1997), p133)
9. (Smith (1997), p128)
10. (Smith (1997), p138)
11. (Smith (1997), p136)
12. (Smith (1997), p136)
13. (Smith (1997), p136)
14. (Smith (1997), p137)
15. (Smith (1997), p139)
16. (Smith (1997), pp115–117)
17. (Barclay (1997), p34)
18. (Barclay (1973), p33–34)
19. (Barclay (1973), p35)
20. (Bosworth, RJB (2005) ''Mussolini's Italy'', New Work: Allen Lane, ISBN 0713996978, p50)
21. (Bosworth (2005), p49)
22. (Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472108956, p199)
23. (Smith (1997), p209–210)
24. (Smith (1997), p199)
25. (Bosworth, Richard. (1983). ''Italy and the Approach of the First World War''. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, p42)
26. (Bosworth (1983), pp99–100)
27. (Bosworth (1983), p101)
28. (Bosworth (1983), p112)
29. (Bosworth (1983), pp112–114)
30. (Bosworth (1983), p119)
31. Smith (1997), p293
32. Bosworth (2005), pp112–113.
33. Smith, Dennis Mack (1997) ''Modern Italy; A Political History'', Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997, ISBN 0472108956, pp293–294
34. Smith (1997), p284
35. Smith (1997), p284
36. Smith (1997), p284
37. Smith (1997), pp284–286)
38. Smith (1997), p298
39. Smith (1997), p302
40. Smith (1997), p298
41. Bosworth (2005), p112
42. (Smith (1997), p312
43. Smith (1997), p312
44. Smith (1997), p315
45. Pauley, Bruce F (2003) ''Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy'', Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc., p107
46. Pauley, p108
47. Pauley, p109
48. Pauley, p109
49. Pauley, p108
50. Pauley, p113
51. Pauley, p113
52. Pauley, p113
53. Pauley, p113–114
54. Pauley, p85
55. Pauley, p86
56. Pauley, p86
57. Pauley, p87
58. Pauley, p87
59. Pauley, p88
60. Pauley, p88
61. Pauley, p88
References
★ Barclay, Glen St. J. (1973). ''The Rise and Fall of the New Roman Empire''. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0283978627
★ Bosworth, Richard J. B. (1983). ''Italy and the Approach of the First World War.'' London: The Macmillan Pres Ltd.
★ Bosworth, Richard J. B. (2005). ''Mussolini's Italy''. New Work: Allen Lane. ISBN 0713996978
★ Pauley, Bruce F. (2003). ''Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy''. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc.
★ Smith, Dennis Mack (1997). ''Modern Italy; A Political History''. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472108956
External links
★ Axis History Factbook — Italy
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