Italian imperialism under fascism

Territories of the Mediterranean area occupied by Mussolini's Italy in 1942 (within green lines and dots). "Greater Italia" included most of these territories.

Greater Italia (Greater Italy) was an ambitious project of Italian fascism that aimed to develop an "Imperial Italy" in the Mediterranean area during the 1940s.

History

After his appointment as Governor of the Dodecanese in 1936, the fascist leader Cesare Maria De Vecchi started to promote inside the Fascist Party of Mussolini the idea of a new "Imperial Italy" (in Italian: "Italia Imperiale"), that should have been not only in Europe (like the Italia irredenta of the Italian Risorgimento), but even in northern Africa (the Fourth Shore or "Quarta Sponda" in Italian).

De Vecchi's dream was an Imperial Italy that included not only all the European territories wanted by the Italian Irredentism (Nice, Savoia, Ticino, Venezia Giulia, Dalmatia, Corfu, Malta and Corsica) and populated by Italian communities for many centuries, but even the north African territories (Libya and Tunisia), where Italian emigrants had created "colonies" since the last years of the nineteenth century.

After 1936 and during WWII, even the Greek Dodecanese islands were incorporated in this project "Greater Italia" (with the Ionian islands of Zante, Ithaca, etc.) and the fascist regime soon promoted a process of forced Italianization of these Greek islands .

The opinions of De Vecchi were partially accepted by Mussolini in the 1940s, when Italy entered WWII, but found opposition (and scepticism) in the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.

In 1942, with the Italian occupation of Corsica and Tunisia, the territories of the "Greater Italia" dreamed of by the fascist De Vecchi were fully in Italian hands with the exception of Malta, but the project was not politically implemented because of the war that was turning against the Axis.

First step: the Dodecanese

De Vecchi effected the first step toward an "Italia Imperiale" (or Grande Italia) when - as Italian Governor of the Dodecanese islands - he imposed in 1936 the official use of the Italian Language in those Greek islands and created a colony of 7,000 Italians in Rodi and surrounding islands. In 1940 he was appointed to the Grand Council of Fascism where later - during the Italian occupation of Greece - he proposed the inclusion in the Kingdom of Italy of the Dodecanese and the Ionian islands with the island of Chios, which had once belonged to the Republic of Genoa.

Second Step: the Fourth Shore

Another fascist leader, Italo Balbo, promoted actively the development of Italian communities in coastal Libya, after the country was pacified from an arab guerrilla war. Balbo called Tripolitania and Cyrenaica the Quarta Sponda (Fourth Shore) of Italy in reference to the other three shores (the western, the Adriatic and the southern) of the Italian peninsula.

One of the initial Italian objectives in Libya, indeed, had been the relief of overpopulation and unemployment in Italy through emigration to the undeveloped colony. With security established, systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by King Victor Emmanuel III's government. A project initiated by Libya's governor, Italo Balbo, brought the first 20,000 settlers--the "Ventimilli"--to Libya in a single convoy in October 1938. More settlers followed in 1939, and by 1940 there were approximately 110,000 Italians in Libya, constituting about 12 percent of the total population.

Plans envisioned an Italian colony of 500,000 settlers by the 1960s: so, the Italians would be 2/3 of the population in coastal Libya by then. Libya's best land was allocated to the settlers to be brought under productive cultivation, primarily in olive groves. Settlement was directed by a state corporation, the "Libyan Colonization Society", which undertook land reclamation and the building of model villages and offered a grubstake and credit facilities to the settlers it had sponsored.

In November 1942 even Tunisia was included in the "Quarta Sponda" (with nearly 100,000 Tunisian Italians), but a few months later was conquered by the Allies.

File:Map of ndh.jpg

The dotted black line inside fascist Croatia - from Slovenia to Crna Gora (Montenegro) - was the planned eastern limit of "Greater Italia" in the North-Western Balkans. In light green the Italian Governatorato di Dalmazia.

Third step: the Western Balkans

In spring 1941 Mussolini - with the help of the German Army - finally defeated Greece and conquered coastal Yugoslavia.

General Vittorio Ambrosio, the Commander of the Italian Army during the conquest of yugoslavian Dalmatia, created a military line of occupation from Lubiana to northern Montenegro that successively was to be considered as the future border of the "Greater Italy" in the North-Western Balkans.

That border included to the south all the Fascist Montenegro, the Greater Albania and the Principality of Pindus in Epirus.

De Vecchi promoted the inclusion in the "Greater Italia" of Corfu (with the community of the Corfiot Italians), the Ionian islands and the southern Aegean islands that belonged to the Republic of Venice, in order to form an "arch" that stretched toward the Dodecanese and the "genoese" Chios.

In this De Vecchi project all Western Balkans from southern Slovenia to Chameria would be Italian, reflecting in a small scale the much bigger project of a Greater Germany in Eastern Europe with the "living space" (Lebensraum) for German people.

A project that never materialized

De Vecchi in the 1940s wanted an "Imperial Italy" stretching: a) in Europe from Nizza to the Governatorato di Dalmazia in Dalmatia and possibly included Greater Albania (see map), the Ionian islands, the Principality of Pindus in Epirus (northern Greece), the Dodecanese with Chios; b) in northern Africa from Tunisia to the coast of Libya (the Fezzan of Libya was to be considered Colony of the Empire).

South of the "Quarta Sponda" (Fourth Shore) in coastal Libya, the fascist leaders dreamed of an Empire that starting in the Fezzan would include Egypt, Sudan and reach the "Africa Orientale Italiana" (Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia).

The outcome of WWII destroyed all these projects and dreams.

Italian populations in "Greater Italia"

Map of the Regions claimed by the Irredentism after WWI. Fascism claimed even Savoia, Corfu, the "Fourth Shore" in norther Africa, and the Dodecanese islands.

Territories around Italy claimed as Irredent by nationalistic organizations (In clockwise order from north):
Istria-Venezia Giulia (now in Slovenia and Croatia)
Dalmatia (Croatia and Montenegro)
Ionian islands (Greece)
Malta (Malta)
Corsica (France)
Nizzardo (France)
Savoia (France)
Ticino (Switzerland)

The presence of huge Italian communities in territories around the Kingdom of Italy was used as a justification for the project "Greater Italia" .

During the 1940s there were the following Italian populations in the territories claimed by De Vecchi and the Fascism of Mussolini:

• Nizzardo Italians in the County of Nice: 4,000
• Savoia Italians in Savoia: less than one hundred
• Ticino Italians in Switzerland: 430,000
• Istrian Italians in Venezia Giulia: 270,000
• Dalmatian Italians in Dalmatia: 40,000
• Corfiot Italians in Corfu and Ionian islands: 500
• Greater Albania in Albania: a few thousands
• Principality of Pindus in northern Greece: --
• Dodecanese Italians in Greece: 7,015 (in 1936)
• Maltese Italians in Malta: 70,000
• Corsican Italians in Corsica: 40,000
• Libyan Italians in coastal Libya: 108,419 (in 1939)
• Tunisian Italians in Tunisia: 89,216 (in 1937)

Bibliography

• Baioni, Massimo. Risorgimento in camicia nera. Carocci. Arezzo, 2006.
• Blitzer, Wolf. Century of War. Friedman/Fairfax Publishers. New York, 2001 ISBN 1-58663-342-2
• Chapin Metz, Helen. Libya: A Country Study. GPO for the "Library of Congress". Washington, 1987.
• De Felice, Renzo Interpretations of Fascism (translated by Brenda Huff Everett). Harvard University Press. Cambridge, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
• De Felice, Renzo. Mussolini l'Alleato: Italia in guerra 1940-1943. Rizzoli Ed. Torino, 1990.
• Del Boca, A. Le guerre coloniali del fascismo Laterza. Roma, 1991
• Galeotti, Carlo. Credere obbedire combattere - I catechismi fascisti Stampa Alternativa. Milano, 1996.
• Lamb, Richard. Mussolini as Diplomat. Fromm International Ed. London, 1999 ISBN 088064244-0
• Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisc., 1995 ISBN 0-299-14874-2
• Rosselli, Alberto. Storie Segrete. Operazioni sconosciute o dimenticate della seconda guerra mondiale Iuculano Editore. Pavia, 2007

See Also

• Italia irredenta
• Cesare Maria De Vecchi
• Italian Mare Nostrum
• Fourth Shore
• World War 2
• Libya
• The Libyan resistance movement
• Greater Albania
• Greater Croatia
• Greater Bulgaria
• The People's Liberation Army of Macedonia‎
• The Roman Empire