Kingdom of Italy

Kingdom of Italy Regno d'Italia
1861–1946
Flag of Italy Coat of arms
Motto: Avanti Savoia!
Anthem: "Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza" "Royal March of Ordinance"¹
The Kingdom of Italy in 1919.
Capital	Turin (1861-1864) Florence (1864–71) Rome (from 1871)
Common languages	Italian
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Government	Constitutional Monarchy
King
• 1861–78	Vittorio Emanuele II
• 1878–1900	Umberto I
• 1900–46	Vittorio Emanuele III
• 1946	Umberto II
Prime Minister
• 1861	Count di Cavour (first)
• 1922–43	Benito Mussolini
• 1945–46	Alcide De Gasperi (last)
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
History
• Established	March 17 1861
• March on Rome	October 22, 1922
• Pact of Steel	May 22, 1939
• Disestablished	June 2 1946
Area
1936	310,120 km2 (119,740 sq mi)
Population
• 1861	26,328,000
• 1911	36,921,000
• 1936	42,399,000
Currency	Italian lira
ISO 3166 code	IT
Preceded by Succeeded by Kingdom of Sardinia Two Sicilies Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia Papal States Free State of Fiume Austria-Hungary German Austria Drava Banovina Vatican City Italian Social Republic Socialist Republic of Slovenia Free Territory of Trieste Italy
1: Unofficial anthem "Giovinezza" ("The Youth") 1922–43 [1]

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 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, the kingdom was often called by nationalists and Fascists the "Italian Empire" (Italian: Impero Italiano) or the "New Roman Empire" (Italian: Nuovo Impero Romano, Latin: Novum Imperium Romanum), but these were not used officially. The name often given by historians to the Kingdom of Italy during the rule of Mussolini and the Fascists is Fascist Italy. Under fascism, the Kingdom allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943. In the remaining two years of World War II, the Kingdom of Italy switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini as Prime Minister and banning the Fascist party. The remnant fascist state that continued fighting against the Allies was a puppet state of Nazi Germany, the "Italian Social Republic", still led by Mussolini and his loyalist Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to 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 minuscule portion of the Croatian province of Dalmatia. During the second World War, the Kingdom gained more territory in Slovenia and more territory from Dalmatia. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded and the Kingdom abandoned its land claims.

The Kingdom of Italy also held colonies and protectorates and puppet states, such as modern-day Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia (occupied by Italy in 1936, and then occupied by the British in World War II), Albania, Greece (occupied in World War II), Croatia (Italian and German puppet state in World War II), Kosovo province of Serbia (occupied in World War II), and Montenegro (occupied in World War II), and a small 46 hectare section of land from China in Tianjin (see Italian concession in Tianjin).

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. Assassinated 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.

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 and was the beginning of the modern Italian state.

Italian camp during the Battle of Magenta in 1859 during the Second War of Italian Independence.

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. 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, the 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. He used these revolts as a pretext to invade the country, even though the invasion angered the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church from the anti-clerical republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX. Despite their differences, Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860. Subsequently 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. During the ensuing political instability, Garibaldi and the republicans became increasingly revolutionary in tone. Garibaldi’s arrest in 1862 set off world-wide controversy.

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 Prussia's victory allowed Italy to annex Venice. The one major obstacle to Italian unity remained Rome.

In 1870, Prussia went to war with France starting the Franco-Prussian War. To keep the large Prussian army at bay, France abandoned its positions in Rome 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. Economic conditions in the united Italy were poor:, there were no industry or transportation facilities, extreme poverty (especially in the Mezzogiorno), high illiteracy, and only a small percent of wealthy Italians had the right to vote. The unification movement had largely been dependent on the support of foreign powers and remained so afterwards.

Following the capture of Rome in 1870 from French forces of Napoleon III, 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. 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: the right was regionally fragmented, and conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies (such as the nationalization of railways) to appease the opposition. In 1876, Minghetti was ousted and replaced by liberal Agostino Depretis, who began the long Liberal Period. The Liberal Period was marked by corruption, government instability, continued poverty in southern Italy, and use of authoritarian measures by the Italian government.

Depretis began his term as Prime Minister by initiating an experimental political idea called Trasformismo (transformism). The theory of trasformismo was that a cabinet should select a variety of moderates and capable politicians from a non-partisan perspective. In practice, trasformismo was authoritarian and corrupt, Depretis pressured districts to vote for his candidates if they wished to gain favourable concessions from Depretis when in power. The results of the 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 banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands across Italy and adopting militarist policies. Depretis enacted controversial legislation for the time, such as abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.

File:Triplealliance.png

The Triple Alliance in 1913, shown in red.

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, advocacy of expansionism, and trying to win Germany's favour. Italy joined the Triple Alliance which included both Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882 and which remained officially intact until 1915. While helping Italy develop strategically, he continued trasformismo and was authoritarian, once suggesting the use of martial law to ban opposition parties. Despite being authoritarian, Crispi put through liberal policies such as the Public Health Act of 1888 and establishing tribunals for redress against abuses by the government.

The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873. Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy. The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were earning revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. Lower class Italians were hurt by the break-up of communal lands to the benefit of landlords. Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasants but short-term labourers who at best were employed for one year. Peasants without stable income were forced to live off meager food supplies, disease was spreading rapidly, plagues were reported, including a major cholera epidemic which killed at least 55,000 people.

The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively because of overspending by the Depretis government that left Italy heavily in debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes by their vineyards. In the 1870s and 1880s, France's vineyard industry was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy 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.

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 first attempted to gain colonies through negotiations with other world powers to make colonial concessions. These negotiations failed. Italy also sent missionaries to uncolonized lands to investigate the potential for Italian colonization. The most promising and realistic of these were parts of Africa. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa (in present day Eritrea) in the 1830s and had entered deep into Ethiopia.

On 5 February 1885, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum, Italy took advantage of Egypt's conflict with Britain by landing soldiers at Massawa. In 1888, Italy annexed Massawa by force, creating the colony of Italian Eritrea.

In 1895, Ethiopia led by Emperor Menelik II abandoned an agreement signed in 1889 to follow Italian foreign policy and Italy used the renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia. 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.

The Italian army failed on the battlefield, overwhelmed by the huge Ethiopian army which forced Italy to retreat into Eritrea. The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy. Ethiopia remained independent from Italy and other colonial powers until it was occupied in 1936 by Italy. It was subsequently liberated four years later in World War II.

Italian dirigibles bomb Turkish positions on Libyan Territory. The Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912 was the first in history in which air attacks (carried out here by dirigible airships) determined the outcome.

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 discrimination against Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands in October 1911. By 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died from a lack of food and shelter. The annexation of Libya led nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece and the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia.

Giovanni Giolitti

In 1892, Giovanni Giolitti became Prime Minister of Italy for his first term. Although his first government quickly collapsed a year later, Giolitti returned in 1903 to lead Italy's government during a fragmented period that lasted until 1914. Giolitti had spent his earlier life as a civil servant, and then took positions within the cabinets of Crispi. Giolitti was the first long-term Italian Prime Minister in many years because he mastered the political concept of trasformismo by manipulating, 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. Southern Italy was in terrible shape prior to and during Giolitti's tenure as Prime Minister. Four-fifths of southern Italians were illiterate and the dire situation there ranged from problems of large numbers of absentee landlords to rebellion and even starvation. Corruption was such a large problem that Giolitti himself admitted that there were places "where the law does not operate at all".

In 1911, Giolitti's government sent forces to occupy Libya. While the success of the Libyan War improved the status of the nationalists, it did not help Giolitti's administration as a whole. The government attempted to discourage criticism by speaking about Italy's strategic achievements and inventiveness of their military in the war: Italy was the first country to use the airship for military purposes, and undertook aerial bombing on the Ottoman forces. The war radicalized the Italian Socialist Party: anti-war revolutionaries led by future-Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini called for violence to bring down the government. Giolitti returned as Prime Minister only briefly in 1920, but the era of liberalism was effectively over in Italy.

World War I and aftermath

Prelude to war, internal dilemma

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. In Munich, Germans reacted to Italy's aggression by singing anti-Italian songs. Italy's relations with France also were in bad shape: France felt betrayed by Italy’s support of Prussia, opening the possibility of war erupting between the two countries. Italy's relations with Britain had also been impaired by constant Italian demands for more recognition in the international stage following the occupation of Libya, and its demands that other nations accept its spheres of influence in East Africa and the Mediterranean.

Italy and its colonial possessions at the time of the outbreak of World War I. The area between British Egypt and the firmly held Italian territories is the region of southern Cyrenaica which was under dispute of ownership between Italy and the United Kingdom.

In the Mediterranean, Italy’s relations with Greece were aggravated when Italy occupied the Greek-populated Dodecanese Islands and Rhodes from 1912 to 1914. These islands had been formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Italy and Greece were also in open rivalry over the desire to occupy Albania.

King Emmanuel III himself was uneasy about Italy pursuing distant colonial adventures, and said that Italy should prepare to take back Italian-populated land from Austria-Hungary, as the "completion of the Risorgimento". This idea put Italy at odds with Austria-Hungary.

A major hindrance to Italy's decision on what to do about the war was the political instability throughout Italy in 1914. After the formation of the government of Prime Minister Antonio Salandra in March of 1914, the government attempted to win the support of nationalists and moved to the political right. At the same time the left became more repulsed by the government after the killing of three anti-militarist demonstrators in June. Many elements of the left including syndicalists, republicans and anarchists protested against this and the Italian Socialist Party declared a general strike in Italy. The protests that ensued became known as "Red Week" as leftists rioted and various acts of civil disobedience occurred in major cities and small towns such as seizing railway stations, cutting telephone wires, and burning tax-registers. However only two days later the strike was officially called off, though the civil strife continued. Militarist nationalists and anti-militarist leftists fought on the streets until the Italian Royal Army forcefully restored calm after having used thousands of men to put down the various protesting forces following the invasion of Serbia by Austria-Hungary in 1914, World War I broke out. Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance, she initially remained neutral, claiming that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes.

Sketch of Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio, a prominent supporter of Italy joining action in the First World War.

In Italy, society was divided over the war: Italian socialists generally opposed the war and supported pacificism, while nationalists militantly supported the war. Long-time nationalists Gabriele D'Annunzio and Luigi Federzoni and a new convert from socialism to nationalism, future dictator Benito Mussolini, demanded that Italy join the war. For the nationalists, the war presented Italy a long-awaited opportunity to use an alliance with the Entente to gain back Italian-populated territories from Austria-Hungary, which had long been part of Italian nationalist aims since unification. In 1915, relatives of Italian nationalist and republican hero Giuseppe Garibaldi died on the battlefield of France, where they had volunteered to fight. Federzoni used the memorial services to declare the importance of Italy joining the war, and to warn the monarchy of the consequences of continued disunity in Italy if it did not:

"Italy has awaited this since 1866 her truly national war, in order to feel unified at last, renewed by the unanimous action and identical sacrifice of all her sons. Today, while Italy still wavers before the necessity imposed by history, the name of Garibaldi, resanctified by blood, rises again to warn her that she will not be able to defeat the revolution save by fighting and winning her national war."

Mussolini used his new newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and his strong oratorical skills to urge nationalists and patriotic revolutionary leftists to support Italy's entry into the war to gain back Italian populated territories from Austria-Hungary, by saying "enough of Libya, and on to Trent and Trieste".

With nationalist sentiment firmly on the side of reclaiming Italian territories of Austria-Hungary, Italy entered negotiations with the Triple Entente. The negotiations ended successfully in April 1915 when the London Pact was brokered with the Italian government. The pact ensured Italy the right to attain Italian-populated lands it wanted from Austria-Hungary, and 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 reaction in Italy was divided: former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti was furious over Italy's decision to go to war against Austria-Hungary and Germany. He claimed that Italy would fail in the war, predicting high numbers of mutinies, Austro-Hungarian occupation of more Italian territory, and that the failure would produce a catastrophic rebellion that would destroy the monarchy and the liberal institutions of the state.

Italy's war campaign

Luigi Cadorna, (the man to the left of two officers to whom he is speaking) while visiting British batteries during World War I.

The outset of the campaign against Austria-Hungary looked initially to favour Italy: Austria-Hungary's army was spread to cover its fronts with Serbia and Russia, and Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian army. However, this advantage was never fully utilized because Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana. This assault would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital, Vienna. After eleven failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian campaign to take Vienna collapsed. In 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona and Padua in their Strafexpedition.

Italy's campaign faltered for several reasons:

• The constant replacement of officers by Cadorna resulted in few officers gaining the experience necessary to lead military missions.
• The battles with the Austro-Hungarian army along the Alpine foothills in the trench warfare there were drawn-out, long engagements with little progress.
• Italian soldiers lived a tedious life when not on the front lines: they were forbidden to enter theatres or bars even when on leave. However when battles were about to occur, alcohol was made freely available to the soldiers in order to reduce tension before the battle.
• In order to escape the tedium after battles, some groups of soldiers worked to create improvised brothels.

In order to maintain morale, the Italian army had propaganda lectures of the importance of the war to Italy, especially in order to retrieve Trent and Trieste from Austria-Hungary. Some of these lectures were carried out by popular nationalist war proponents such as Gabriele D'Annunzio. Prominent pro-war advocate Benito Mussolini was prevented from giving lecture by the government, most likely because of his revolutionary socialist past.

In the summer of 1916, the Italian Army managed to take Gorizia from Austria, despite a number of other failed offensives. By fall of 1917, however, the Germans signed an armistice with the new state of Soviet Russia (RSFSR) with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and 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

Italian Carabinieri (seen in cocked hats) served in Palestine during the First World War.

At Piave the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies. The opposing armies repeatedly failed afterwards in major battles such as Battle of Asiago and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. The Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive in the latter battle. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy with the armistice on 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.

Italy also participated in the invasion of the Ottoman Empire and took up positions in areas such as the region of Anatolia and the region of Palestine.

During the war, the Italian Royal Army increased in size from 15,000 men in 1914 to 160,000 men in 1918, with 5 million recruits in total entering service during the war. This came at a terrible cost: by the end of the war, Italy had lost 700,000 soldiers and had a budget deficit of twelve billion lira. Italian society was divided between the majority pacifists who opposed Italian involvement in the war and the minority of pro-war nationalists who had condemned the Italian government for not having immediately gone to war with Austria in 1914.

Italy's territorial settlements and the reaction

Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (2nd from left) at the World War I peace negotiations in Versailles with David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson (from left)

As the war came to an end, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando met with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French President Georges Clemenceau, and United States President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, to discuss how the borders of Europe should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.

The talks provided little territorial gain to Italy because Wilson, during the peace talks, promised freedom to all European nationalities to form their own nation states. As a result, the Treaty of Versailles did not assign Dalmatia and Albania to Italy, as had been promised in the London Pact. Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German overseas colonies into mandates of their own, with Italy receiving none of them. Despite this, Orlando signed the Treaty of Versailles, which caused uproar against his government. Civil unrest erupted in Italy between nationalists who supported the war effort and opposed the "mutilated victory" (as nationalists called it) and leftists who were opposed to the war.

Fiume residents cheering Gabriele d'Annunzio and his nationalist raiders, September 1919.

Furious over the peace settlement, Italian nationalist revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio led nationalists into the free state of Fiume in September 1919. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called Il Duce (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the fascist movement of Mussolini. The demand for annexation of Fiume spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's revolutionary fascists. D'Annunzio’s stirring speeches drew Croatian nationalists to his side. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army and Egyptian nationalists.

The occupation ended one year later, but Fiume later was annexed by Italy in 1924. Mussolini learned from D'Annunzio the ways to arouse patriotism in order to gain support from nationalists, socialists, anarchists, and army veterans.

Fascism

Main article: Italian fascism

Rise of the movement

In 1914, 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. Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create his own newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. France, Britain, and Russia, wanting to draw Italy to the Entente, helped finance the newspaper. This newspaper became Fascist Italy's officially-supported newspaper years later. During the war, Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war. The wound is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, although he claimed to have been wounded in battle.

File:Czarne koszule.png

Blackshirts and Mussolini 1922

Following the end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles, in 1919, Mussolini created the Fasci di Combattimento or Combat League. It was originally dominated by patriotic socialist and syndicalist veterans who opposed the pacifist nature of the Italian Socialist Party. The Fascists initially had a platform far more inclined to the left, promising social revolution, proportional representation, women's suffrage, and dividing private property held by estates. On 15 April 1919, the Fascists made their debut in political violence, when a group of members from the Fasci di Combattimento attacked the offices of Avanti! Recognizing the failures of the Fascists' initial revolutionary and left-leaning policy, Mussolini moved the organization away from the left and turned the revolutionary movement into an electoral movement in 1921 named the 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. 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.

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. One year later, Giolitti's government had already become unstable, and a growing socialist opposition further endangered his government. Giolitti believed that the Fascists could be toned down and used to protect the state from the socialists. He decided to include Fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections. In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolitti's government failed to gather a large enough coalition to govern and offered the Fascists placements in his government. The Fascists rejected Giolitti's offers and joined with socialists in bringing down his government. By 1922, Mussolini had become a dominant personality in Italian politics: his popularity arose from his speaking talents, bribes, and intimidation. A number of descendants of those who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification were won over to Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals. His advocacy of corporatism and futurism had attracted advocates of the "third way". But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolitti who did not condemn him for his Blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.

In October 1922, Mussolini took advantage of a general strike by workers in Italy, and announced his demands to the Italian government to give the Fascist Party political power or face a coup. With no immediate response, a small number of Fascists began a long trek across Italy to Rome which was called the March on Rome, claiming to Italians that Fascists were intending to restore law and order. Mussolini himself did not participate in the march. The Fascists demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta's resignation and that Mussolini be named Prime Minister. Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III faced a political crisis. The King was forced to choose which of the two rival movements in Italy would form the government: Mussolini's Fascists, or the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party. He selected the Fascists.

Dictatorship of Il Duce

"Il Duce" (The Leader) Benito Mussolini.

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. Mussolini was a very young political leader (at the age of 39) compared to other Italian prime ministers and world leaders at the time. Mussolini was affectionately called by his supporters accorded by the unofficial title of Il Duce, or "The Leader". A personality cult was developed that portrayed him as the nation's saviour which was aided by the personal popularity he held with Italians already which would remain strong until Italy faced continuous military defeats in World War II.

Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly: Mussolini's coalition passed the electoral Acerbo Law of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition that achieved 25% of the vote. The Fascist Party used violence and intimidation to achieve the 25% threshold in the 1924 election, and became the ruling political party of Italy.

Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated after calling for an annulment of the elections because of the irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. In 1925, Mussolini accepted responsibility for the Fascist violence in 1924, and then declared a Fascist dictatorship in which he would be the unopposed Prime Minister of Italy with the assent of the King.

Culture, propaganda, society, and achievements

King Victor Emmanuel III remained the head of state of Italy under Fascism, though on his behalf, he delegated to Mussolini most of his political powers, until Mussolini's ousting in 1943.

The Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Italy under Fascism, combining both House of Savoy and Fascist symbolism.

After rising to power, the Fascist regime set Italy on a course to becoming a one-party state and to integrate Fascism into all aspects of life. A totalitarian state as was officially declared in the Doctrine of Fascism of 1935,

"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people." "

With the concept of totalitarianism, Mussolini and the Fascist regime set an agenda of improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, personal dictatorship, and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists.

Under Fascism, the definition of the Italian nationality rested on a militarist foundation and the Fascist's "new man" ideal in which loyal Italians would rid themselves of individualism and autonomy and see themselves as a component of the Italian state and be willing to sacrifice his life for it. Under such a totalitarian society, only Fascists would be considered "true Italians" and membership and endorsement of the Fascist Party was necessary for people to gain "Complete Citizenship", those who did not swear allegiance to Fascism were banished from public life and could not gain employment. The Fascist regime also reached out to Italian expatriates living abroad to endorse the Fascist cause and identify with Italy rather than their place of residence. Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic or successful in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in creating a new culture.

The word "DVCE" on tiled floor, a Romanized version of Duce, the unofficial title of Mussolini as Prime Minister. Mussolini was idolized as the nation's saviour and propaganda of him was omnipresent in Italy during the Fascist era.

In Fascist Italy, Mussolini was idolized as the nation's saviour. In public and in propaganda the Fascist regime attempted to make him omnipresent in Italian society. Much of Fascism's appeal in Italy was based on the personality cult around Mussolini and his popularity. Mussolini's passionate oratory and personality cult was displayed at huge rallies and parades of his Blackshirts in Rome which served as an inspiration to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (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 to require that propaganda newsreels be shown prior to all feature films in cinemas. These newsreels were more effective in influencing the Italian public than propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time. Fascist propaganda was widely present in posters and state-sponsored art of the time. Art and literature in Fascist Italy were not strictly controlled, and were only censored if they were blatantly against the state.

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The Italian airship N1 Norge, which carried Umberto Nobile as he conducted his first ever aerial expedition of the North Pole in 1926. Despite this achievement, Nobile would ignite controversy with Mussolini in the failed expedition two years later.

In 1926, Italy became the first country to conduct an aerial expedition of the North Pole. It was led by Umberto Nobile on the airship N1 Norge. It departed from Rome and travelled to Oslo, Norway before beginning its expedition of the North Pole. Nobile's projects and this national achievement were opposed by some Fascist party members, and by aviator Italo Balbo and airship competitors. Afterwards, Nobile attempted to gain funding from the government for the building of new airships to continue his expeditions, but the Fascist regime rejected the proposals. Nobile was forced to find independent private financing for building a new airship and for his 1927-28 expedition. The government provided essential supply ships for Nobile's expedition team when they reached the Arctic that year. The expedition ended in disaster when the airship N4 Italia crashed at the North Pole. It took weeks for Nobile and the survivors to be rescued from a floating ice patch by a Soviet icebreaker. After being rescued, Nobile was seen as a national hero by Italians, but to Mussolini and the Fascists, the 1928 expedition was a humiliation. Nobile was ordered to report to Mussolini in Rome. Nobile explained the grievances that he and the other explorers suffered, but Mussolini grew frustrated with Nobile as he and others saw Nobile as being at fault for the incident. Subsequently the Fascist regime held an inquiry that blamed Nobile for the disaster, and Nobile continued to face contempt in Italy from the government until 1931 when he left for the Soviet Union to help their airship program.

Relations with the Roman Catholic Church improved significantly during Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier opposition to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini made an alliance with the pro-church Partito Popolare Italiano or Italian People's Party. Mussolini negotiated with the Pope over granting sovereignty to the territory of the Vatican as part of a "conciliazione" (conciliation) in a concordat called the Lateran Treaty to improve Italy's official relations with the Church. The negotiations however were initially tense: the Vatican and the Fascist regime engaged in bitter arguments over what such a pact would mean and how it should be interpreted. Giovanni Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), who was involved with pro-Catholic politics in Italy, questioned the value of the concordat in ensuring Vatican sovereignty, once saying "If the liberty of the Pope cannot be guaranteed by the strong faith of a free people, and especially by the Italian people, then no territory and no treaty will be able to do so.".

Territory of Vatican City, established by the Lateran Treaty.

The Fascist regime nevertheless proceeded with its intent to resolve the problem of Vatican sovereignty. A plebscite was held in March 1929 in which Italians were asked to vote on the government's proposed recognition of Vatican sovereignty. Those who opposed the concordat felt intimidated by the Fascist regime: the Catholic Action party (Azione Cattolica) instructed Italian Catholics to vote for Fascist candidates to represent them, Mussolini claimed that "no" votes were of those "...few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts". In the French newspaper Le Monde, Guido Miglioni spoke of the attitude of the Fascist regime and what he saw was the nature of the Lateran pact: "These two years have witnessed the gradual but inexorable submission of the Pope to the demands of the Regime" Despite opposition to the nature of the negotiations, many Italians feared that a "no" vote would incite Fascist reprisals and attacks on the individuals who opposed the concordat. When the plebiscite was held, 8.63 million Italians or 90 per cent of the registered electorate voted. Of this number, only 135,761 voted "no". The Lateran Treaty was signed and the Vatican's sovereignty was recognized. Despite earlier troubles, relations between the Church and the regime and moreover Italy itself, improved significantly. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.

Poster for Italo Balbo's transatlantic flight to the Century of Progress in Chicago.

In 1933, Italy made multiple technological achievements. The Fascist government spent large sums of money on technological projects such as the construction of the new Italian ocean liner SS Rex which in 1933 made a transatlantic sea crossing record of four days. as well as funding the development of the Macchi M.C.72 seaplane which became the world's fastest seaplane in 1933 and retained the title in 1934. In 1933, Fascist government member Italo Balbo, who was also an aviator made a transatlantic flight in a flying boat to Chicago for the World's Fair called the Century of Progress. The flight symbolized the power of Fascist leadership and the industrial and technological progress the state had made under Fascist direction.

On the issue of anti-Semitism, the Fascists were divided on what to do, especially with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. A number of Fascist members were Jewish, and Mussolini himself did not personally believe in anti-Semitism, but to appease Hitler, anti-Semitism within the Fascist party steadily increased. In 1936, Mussolini made his first written denounciation of Jews by claiming that anti-Semitism had only arisen because Jews had become too predominant in the positions of power of countries and claimed that Jews were a "ferocious" tribe who sought to "totally banish" Christians from public life. In 1937, Fascist member Paolo Orano criticized the Zionist movement as being part of British foreign policy which designed to secure British hold of the area without respecting the Christian and Muslim presence in Palestine. On the matter of Jewish Italians, Orano said that they "should concern themselves with nothing more than their religion" and not bother boasting of being patriotic Italians. In 1938 under pressure from Nazi Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt a policy of anti-Semitism, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself. As a result of the laws, the Fascist regime lost its propaganda director, Margherita Sarfatti, who was Jewish and had been Mussolini's mistress. A minority of Fascists were pleased with anti-Semitic policy such as Roberto Farinacci who claimed that Jews through intrigue had taken control key positions of finance, business and schools and he noted that Jews sympathized with Ethiopia during Italy's war with it and that Jews had sympathized with Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War. In 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. Italy itself established a number of concentration and internment camps across its held territories, but these camps were not like those of Nazi Germany, as families were allowed to stay together and there no campaign of deliberate mass murder as what was happening in German held territory.[2]

Education

Map of the regions of Italy held and claimed after the unification process in 1920 in a Fascist-era textbook published in 1935. In color are the areas still "irredent": Malta in red, Corsica in purple, Dalmatia in yellow/green, Nizza and Ticino in yellow/green. This map demonstrates the expansionist intentions of the Fascist regime.

The Fascist government endorsed a stringent education policy in Italy aiming at elliminating illiteracy which was a serious problem in Italy at the time and improving loyalty of Italians to the state. To reduce drop-outs, the government changed the minimum age of leaving school from twelve to fourteen and strictly enforced attendance. The Fascist government's first minister of education from 1922 to 1924, Giovanni Gentile reccomended that education policy should focus on indoctrination of students into Fascism, and to educate youth to respect and be obedient to authority. In 1929, education policy took a major step towards being completely taken over by the agenda of indoctrination. In that year, the Fascist government took control of the authorization of all textbooks, all secondary school teachers were required to take an oath of loyalty to Fascism, and children began to be taught that they owed the same loyalty to Fascism as they did to God. In 1933, all university teachers were required to be members of the National Fascist Party. From 1930s to 1940s, Italy's education focused on the history of Italy displaying Italy as a force of civilization during the Roman era, displaying the rebirth of Italian nationalism and the struggle for Italian independence and unity during the Risorgimento. In late 1930s, the Fascist government copied Nazi Germany's education system on the issue of physical fitness, and began an agenda that demanded that Italians become physically healthy.

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. The Dopolavoro was so popular that, by the 1930s, all towns in Italy had a Dopolavoro clubhouse and the Dopolavoro was responsible for establishing and maintaining 11,000 sports grounds, over 6,400 libraries, 800 movie houses, 1,200 theatres, and over 2,000 orchestras. Membership in the Dopolavoro was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature. In the 1930s under the direction of Achille Starace the OND became primarily recreational, concentrating on sports and other outings. It is estimated that by 1936 the OND had organized 80% of salaried workers. Nearly 40% of the industrial workforce had been recruited into the Dopolavoro by 1939 and the sports activities proved popular with large numbers of workers. The OND had the largest membership of any of the mass Fascist organizations in Italy. The enormous success of the Dopolavoro in Fascist Italy was the key factor in Nazi Germany creating its own version of the Dopolavoro, the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) or "Strength through Joy" program, which was even more successful than the Dopolavoro.

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. A secret police force called the Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organisation for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927. It was led by Arturo Bocchini to crack down on opponents of the regime and Mussolini (there had been several near-miss assassination attempts on Mussolini's life in his early years in power). This force was effective, but unlike the Schutzstaffel (SS) in Nazi Germany or the NKVD of the Soviet Union, the OVRA caused far fewer deaths of political opponents, though its methods were cruel.

To combat organized crime, especially the Mafia in Sicily and other parts of southern Italy, the Fascists gave special powers in 1925 to Cesare Mori, the prefect of Palermo. These powers gave him the ability to prosecute the Mafia, forcing many Mafiosi to flee abroad (many to the United States) or risk being jailed. Mori was fired however, when he began to investigate Mafia links within the Fascist regime. He was removed from his position in 1929, and the Fascist regime declared that the threat of the Mafia had been eliminated. Mori's actions weakened the Mafia, but did not destroy them. From 1929 to 1943, the Fascist regime completely abandoned its previously aggressive measures against the Mafia, and the Mafiosi were left relatively undisturbed.[3]

Economic policy

Mussolini sitting in an Alfa Romeo racing car prior to a competition. The Fascist regime allowed considerable autonomy to industries.

Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised Italians a new economic system called corporatism. Corporatism was the fusion of capitalism and socialism into a new economic system that 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.

In 1935, the Doctrine of Fascism was published under Mussolini's name, although it was most likely written by Giovanni Gentile. It described the role of the state in the economy under corporatism. By this time, Fascism had been drawn more towards the support of market forces being dominant over state intervention.

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.

Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered: the left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were opposed by industrialists and landowners who supported the party because it pledged to defend Italy from communism and socialism. As a result, corporatist policy became dominated by the industries. Throughout the Mussolini era, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantling of non-Fascist unions. While the Fascist unions could not protect workers from all economic consequences, they were responsible for the handling of social security benefits, claims for severance pay, and could sometimes negotiate contracts that benefited workers.

After the Great Depression hit the world economy in 1929, the Fascist regime followed other nations in enacting protectionist tariffs and attempted to set direction for the economy. In the 1930s, the government increased wheat production, and made Italy self-sufficient for wheat, ending imports of wheat from Canada and the United States. However the transfer of agricultural land to wheat production reduced the production of vegetables and fruit. Despite improving production for wheat, the situation for peasants themselves did not improve. 0.5% of the Italian population (usually wealthy), owned 42 percent of all agricultural land in Italy, and income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase. The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933. It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Italy fared better than most western nations during the Depression: its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression. Its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period. Only the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.

Foreign and colonial policy

Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised to bring Italy back as a Great Power in Europe, making it a "New Roman Empire". Mussolini promised that Italy would hold power over the Mediterranean Sea. In propaganda, Fascists used the ancient Roman "Mare Nostrum" (Latin for "Our Sea") to describe the Mediterranean. The Fascist regime increased funding and attention to military projects, and began plans to create an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaim dominance in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea. The Fascists considered wars to conquer Dalmatia, Albania and Greece for the Italian Empire.

Initially the first foreign policy decision outside of Europe of the Fascist government was the concession of an Italian occupied section of Ottoman Turkey in the region of Anatolia, taken in World War I by Italian forces, which was conceded to the new Turkish government in 1923. After this, Fascist Italy would begin a series of expansionist policies. Colonial efforts in Africa began with negotiations with the British government on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya. The first negotiations began in 1925 to define the border between Libya and British-held Egypt. These negotiations resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory. In 1934, once again the Italian government requested more territory for Libya from British-held Sudan. Britain allowed Italy to gain some territory from Sudan to add to Libya.[4] These concessions were probably allowed because of the relatively good relations between Italy and Britain prior to 1935.

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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. Mussolini had placed Italy 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 Ethiopia to make it a colony. As a result, 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 Italian Somaliland. Italy committed atrocities against Ethiopians during the war, including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian soldiers. Ethiopia surrendered in 1936, completing Italy's revenge for its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Victor Emmanuel III was soon proclaimed Emperor of Abyssinia. The international consequences for Italy's belligerence resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust of Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany. This would be the beginning of a future alliance.

After pressure was placed on Italy by Nazi Germany to promote a racist agenda, the Fascist regime moved away from its previous promotion of colonialism based on the spread of Italian culture to a directly racist colonial agenda. The Fascist regime declared that it would promote mass Italian settlements in the colonies that would in the Fascist regime's terms, "create in the heart of the African continent a powerful and homogeneous nucleus of whites strong enough to draw those populations within our economic orbit and our Roman and Fascist civilization. Fascist rule in its Italian colonies differed from region to region. Rule in Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland) was harsh for the native peoples as Fascist policy sought to destroy native culture. In February 1937, Rodolfo Graziani ordered Italian soldiers to pillage native settlements in Addis Ababa, which resulted in hundreds of Ethiopians being killed and their homes being burned to the ground. After the occupation of Ethiopia, Fascist policy towards marital and sexual relationships between Italians and Africans in its colonies were made a criminal offense when Mussolini pushed through decree-law No. 880 of April 19, 1937 which gave sentences of one to five years imprisonment to Italians caught in such relationships. The law did not give any sentences to native Africans, as the Fascist government claimed that only those Italians were to blame for damaging the prestige of their race. The Fascist regime supported strict racial segregation to reduce the number of mixed offspring in Italian colonies which they feared would "pollute" the Italian race. The Fascist government claimed that coloured people could not acquire moral capacity and were thereby racially inferior. The white and coloured societies of the Italian African colonies were expected by the Fascists to develop along segregated lines and were never to interconnect. In Italian Libya, Mussolini downplayed his racist policies as he attempted to earn the trust of Arab leaders there. Individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to Libyans by December 1934. In famous trip to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created when on March 18 Mussolini posed with Arab dignitaries who gave him an honourary "Sword of Islam" (that had actually been made in Florence) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim Arab peoples there. In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor (Associazione Musulmana del Littorio) for Muslim Libya, and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army.

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The Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto. The construction of the massive Vittorio Veneto class battleships was an example of Italy's increasingly belligerent stance in the Mediterrenean.

The Fascist regime also engaged in interventionist foreign policy in Europe. In 1923, Italian soldiers captured the Greek island of Corfu as part of the Fascists' plan to eventually take over Greece. Greece did not pursue war against Italy despite the loss of Corfu. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a de facto protectorate which helped Italy's stand against Greek sovereignty. Corfu was important to Italian imperialism and nationalism due to its presence in the former Republic of Venice which left behind significant Italian cultural monuments and influence, though the Greek population there, especially youth, heavily protested the Italian occupation. Relations with France were mixed, the Fascist regime consistently had the intention to eventually wage war on France to regain Italian-populated areas of France, but with the rise of Hitler, the Fascists immediately became more concerned of Austria's independence and the potential threat of Germany to Italy, if it demanded the German-populated areas of Tyrol. Due to concerns of German expansionism, Italy joined the Stresa Front with France and the United Kingdom against Germany which existed from 1935 to 1936. The Fascist regime held negative relations with Yugoslavia, as they long wanted the implosion of Yugoslavia in order to territorially expand and increase Italy's power. Italy pursued espionage in Yugoslavia, as Yugoslav authorities on multiple occasions discovered spy rings in the Italian Embassy in Yugoslavia such as in 1930. In 1929, the Fascist government accepted Croatian extreme nationalist Ante Pavelić as a political exile to Italy from Yugoslavia. The Fascists gave Pavelić financial assistance and a training ground in Italy to develop and train his newly formed fascist militia and terrorist group, the Ustaše. This organization later became the ruling force of the Independent State of Croatia, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and other minorities during World War II. In 1936 in Spain, the Fascist regime made its most significant pre-war military intervention. The Spanish Republic was divided in the Spanish Civil War between the anticlerical socialist Republicans and the Church-supporting, monarchy-backed nationalists led by Francisco Franco under his fascist Falange movement. Italy sent aircraft, weapons, and a total of over 60,000 troops to aid the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. It was a success that secured Italy's naval access in and out of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and its ability to pursue its policy of Mare Nostrum without fear of opposition by Spain. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany. This was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War in the 1860s. During the 1930s, Italy built many large battleships and other warships to solidify Italy's hold on the Mediterranean.

After Germany annexed Czechoslovakia, Mussolini decided to capture Albania to avoid becoming second-rate member of Axis. On April 7, Italy invaded Albania. After short campaign Albania was occupied, and its parliament crowned Victor Emmanuel III King of Albania. The historical justification for the annexation of Albania laid in the ancient history of the Roman Empire in which the region of Albania had been an early conquest for the Romans, even before northern Italy had been taken by Roman forces. But obviously by the time of annexation, little connection to Italy remained amongst Albanians. In actuality, the annexation of Albania was far from a military conquest as the country had been a de facto protectorate of Italy since the 1920s and much of its army were commanded by Italian officers sent from Italy and the occupation was not appreciated by King Emmanuel III, who feared that it had isolated Italy even further than its war against Ethiopia.

Relations with Germany under Hitler

When the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, a.k.a. Nazi Party) attained power in Germany in 1933, Mussolini and the Fascist regime in public showed approval of Hitler's regime, with Mussolini saying "The victory of Hitler is our victory". The Fascist regime also spoke of creating an alliance with the new regime in Germany. In private, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government despite ideological similarities and Mussolini had a disapproving view of Hitler. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy that previously had been part of Austria. Although other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona, and adopted much of the symbolism of the Fascists into the Nazi Party, such as the Roman, straight-armed salute, dramatic oratory, the use of uniformed paramilitaries for political violence, and the use of mass rallies to demonstrate the power of the movement. In 1922 Hitler tried to ask for Mussolini's guidance on how to organize his own version of the March on Rome which would be a "March on Berlin" (which came into being as the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read Mein Kampf to find out what Hitler's National Socialist movement was but was immediately dissappointed, saying that Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and claimed that Hitler's belief were "little more than commonplace clichés." While Mussolini like Hitler believed in the cultural and moral superiority of whites over coloured peoples, he opposed Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs. A number of Fascists were Jewish, including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti, the director of Fascist art and propaganda and there was little support amongst Italians for anti-Semitism. Mussolini also did not evaluate race as being a precursor of superiority, but rather culture. Mussolini viewed himself as a modern day Roman Emperor, a cultural elite and wished to "Italianise" the parts of the Italian Empire he had desired to build. A cultural superiority of Italians, rather than a view of racialism. The difference being that a culture can be learned and promoted, while a race cannot and cannot be proven to be biologically superior as demonstrated in this statment by Mussolini:

"Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. [...] National pride has no need of the delirium of race."

— Benito Mussolini, 1933.

It is important to note, that while Mussolini denied the concept of a biologically-superior race, he believed that there was such thing as a culturally and morally superior race, which he saw Italians as being compared to other races, such as Slavs (except for Catholic Croats) and Africans whom he and other Fascists saw as barbaric. In stark contrast to Nazi Germany, the Fascist regime allowed native African soldiers from its colonies to join the Italian armed forces. Mussolini and the regime would eventually promote the concept of racial superiority of Italians over other peoples, but based it largely on the concepts cultural and moral superiority, rather than biological reasons that Nazi Germany advocated.

Hitler and the Nazis continued to try to woe Mussolini to their cause, and eventually Mussolini gave financial assistance to the Nazi party and allowed Nazi paramilitaries to train in Italy in the belief that despite differences, a fascist regime in Germany could be beneficial to Italy. Suspicion of the Nazis remained among the Fascists and after 1933, Mussolini sought to insure that Nazi Germany would not become the dominant fascist state in Europe. To do this, Mussolini opposed German efforts to annex Austria after the assassination of fascist Austrian President Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934, and promised the Austrians military support if Germany were to interfere. This promise helped save Austria from annexation in 1934.

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Following the occupation of Ethiopia, Mussolini and Hitler improved their countries' relations, though in private, personal and political tensions would remain.

Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler and the similarities between Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. While both ideologies had significant similarities, the two factions were suspicious of each other, held a degree of hostility to each other, and the leaders were in competition for world influence. Hitler and Mussolini first met in June 1934, as the issue of Austrian independence was in crisis. In private, after the visit in 1934, Mussolini evaluated himself as remaining the dominant leader of fascism and Hitler in comparison as just "a silly little monkey".

After Italy became isolated in 1936, the government had little choice but to work with Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs and reluctantly abandoned its support of Austrian independence from Germany.

With no significant opposition from Italy, Hitler proceeded with Anschluß, the annexation of Austria in 1938. Mussolini was personally bitter over the move, and in private asked the Pope to excommunicate Hitler. [5] Germany later claimed the Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans. Mussolini felt he had little choice but to help Germany to avoid isolation.

With the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Fascist regime began to be concerned about the majority ethnic German population in southern Tyrol, and whether they would want to join a Greater Germany. The Fascists were also concerned about whether Italy should follow Nazi anti-Semitic policies in order to gain favour from those Nazis who had mixed feelings about Italy as an ally. In 1938, Mussolini pressured fellow Fascist members to support the enacting of anti-Semitic policies, but this was not well taken, as a number of Fascists were Jewish and anti-Semitism was not an active political concept in Italy. Nevertheless, Mussolini forced through anti-Semitic legislation even while his own son-in-law and prominent Fascist Count Galeazzo Ciano personally condemned such laws. In turn for enacting the extremely unpopular anti-Semitic laws, Mussolini and the Fascist government demanded a concession from Hitler and the Nazis. In 1939 the Fascists demanded from Hitler that his government willingly accept the Italian government's plan to have all Germans in south Tyrol either leave Italy or be forced to accept Italianization. Hitler agreed and thus the threat to Italy from the south Tyrol Germans was neutralized.

As war approached in 1939, the Fascist regime stepped up an aggressive press campaign against France claiming that Italian people were suffering in France. This was important to the alliance as both regimes mutually had claims on France, Germany on German-populated Alsace-Lorraine and Italy on the mixed Italian and French populated Savoy and Corsica.

In May 1939, a formal alliance was organized. The alliance was known as the Pact of Steel which obliged Italy to fight with Germany if war broke out against Germany. Mussolini felt obliged to sign the pact in spite of his own concerns that Italy could not fight a war in the near future. This obligation grew from his promises to Italians that he would build an empire for them and from his personal desire to not allow Hitler to become the dominant leader in Europe. Mussolini was repulsed by the Molotov-Ribentrop agreement where Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to partition Poland into German and Soviet zones for an impending invasion. The Fascist government saw this as a betrayal of the Anti-Comintern Pact, but decided to remain officially silent.

World War II and the fall of Fascism

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 beginning World war II, Italy did not initially join the German side. Italy waited until the threat of France was dealt with during the Battle of France before declaring war on Britain and France on 10 June 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. From the start, Italy was largely a subordinate partner to Germany during the war.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Mussolini publicly declared on September 24, 1939, that Italy had the choice of entering the war or to remain neutral which would cause the country to lose its national dignity. Nevertheless, despite his aggressive posture, Mussolini kept Italy out of the conflict for many months. Mussolini told his son in law, Count Ciano, that he was personally jealous over Hitler's accomplishments and hoped that Hitler's prowess would be slowed down by Allied counterattack. Mussolini went as far to lessen Germany's successes in Europe by giving advanced notice to Belgium and the Netherlands of an imminent German invasion, as had been informed to Italy by Germany.

In drawing out war plans, Mussolini and the Fascist regime decided that Italy would aim to annex large portions of Africa and the Middle East to be included in its colonial empire. Hesitance remained from the King and military commander Pietro Badoglio who warned Mussolini that Italy had too few tanks, armoured vehicles, and aircraft available to be able to carry out a long-term war and Badoglio told Mussolini "It is suicide" for Italy to get involved in the European conflict. Mussolini and the Fascist regime took the advice to a degree and waited as France was invaded by Germany before deciding to get involved.

As France collapsed under the German Blitzkrieg, Italy declared war on France, bringing it into conflict with the other Allied powers and fulfilling its obligations of the Pact of Steel. Italy hoped to quickly conquer Savoy, Nice,Corsica, and the African colony of Tunisia from the French, but this was quickly stopped when Germany signed an armistice with the French commander Philippe Petain who established the puppet state of Vichy France which retained control over Savoy, Nice, Corsica, and Tunisia. This angered the Fascist regime, as this decision singlehandedly destroyed the irredentist reasons for Italy joining the war and showed early signs of Italy's subordination to Germany.

Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto firing upon British ships during the Battle of Cape Spartivento.

The one Italian strength that concerned the Allies was the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina), the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British Royal Navy launched a surprise air attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto which crippled Italy's major warships. Although the Italian fleet did not inflict serious damage as was feared, it did keep significant British Commonwealth naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea. This fleet had to fight the Italian fleet to keep British Commonwealth forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. Over time, the Allied navies inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet, and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany.

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Italian artillery shelling Greek positions.

Italian Fiat BR.20 bombers over Yugoslavia.

Continuing indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War, which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. Mussolini had intended the war with Greece to prove to Germany that Italy was no minor power in the alliance, but a capable empire which could hold its own weight. Mussolini boasted to his government that he would even resign from being Italian if anyone found fighting the Greeks to be difficult. Within days of invading Greece, the Greek army pushed the Italian army back into Albania and humiliatingly put Italy on the defensive. Hitler and the German government were frustrated with Italy's failing campaigns, but so was Mussolini. Mussolini in private angrily accused Italians on the battlefield of becoming "overcome with a crisis of artistic sentimentalism and throw in the towel."

To gain back ground in Greece, Germany reluctantly began a Balkans Campaign alongside Italy which resulted also in the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 and the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy. Mussolini and Hitler compensated Croatian nationalists by endorsing the creation of the Independent State of Croatia under the extreme nationalist Ustaše. In order to receive support the support of Italy, the Ustaše agreed to concede the main central portion of Dalmatia as well as various Adriatic islands to Italy as Dalmatia held a significant number of Italians and the ceding of Adriatic islands by Croatia was a minimal loss for their government as in exchange for Croatia was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and to persecute the Serb population there to make way for future Croat habitation there. Officially, Croatia was a kingdom and an Italian protectorate, ruled by Italian House of Savoy member Tomislav II of Croatia, however he never personally set foot on Croatian soil, and the government was run by Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Ustaše. Italy did however hold military control across all of Croatia's coast, which combined with Italian control of Albania and Montenegro, gave Italy complete control of the Adriatic Sea, thus completing a key part of the Mare Nostrum policy of the Fascists. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerrillas and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.

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Italian tanks moving through British Somaliland in 1940, the conquering of was Italy's only victory that did not involve German military assistance.

In 1940, Italy invaded Egypt and was soon driven far back into Libya by British Commonwealth forces. The German army sent a detachment to join the Italian army in Libya to save the colony from the British advance. German army units in the Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel were the mainstay in the campaign to push the British out of Libya and into central Egypt in 1941 to 1942. The victories in Egypt were almost entirely credited to Rommel's strategic brilliance. The Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa because of their dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. During the Battle of El Alamein in 1942 however, Italian forces of the Folgore Parachute Brigade were reported to have performed excellently on the battlefield. The Folgore brigade repeatedly held off British and French advances which was enough for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to declare in a speech on November 21, 1942: "We really must bow in front of the rest of those who have been the 'LIONS' of the Folgore Division". For a time in 1942, Italy from an official standpoint controlled large amounts of territory along the Mediterranean. With the collapse of Vichy France, Italy gained control of Corsica (which had a mixed population of French and Italians), Nice and other portions of southwestern France. Italy also oversaw a military occupation over significant sections of southern France. But despite the official territorial achievements, the so called "Italian Empire" was a paper tiger by 1942: it was faltering as its economy failed to adapt to the conditions of war, Italian cities were being bombed by the Allies, and since 1940, Italy had not won a single battle on its own and always required the aide of Germany to do so. Also, despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942. Complete collapse came in 1943 when German and Italian forces fled North Africa to Sicily.

Greatest extent of Italian control of Mediterranean areas (within green line & dots) in summer/fall 1942. In red the British areas. In spite of its appearance, the so-called "Italian Empire" by this time was largely a paper tiger, the territories were largely gained and maintained through the help of German armed forces.

By 1943, Italy was failing on every front, by January of the year, half of the Italian forces serving on the Eastern Front had been destroyed,, the African campaign had collapsed, the Balkans remained unstable, and Italians wanted an end to the war. King Emmanuel III, urged Count Ciano to overstep Mussolini to try and try to begin talks with the Allies. In mid 1943, the Allies commenced an invasion of Sicily in an effort to knock Italy out of the war and establish a foothold in Europe. Allied troops landed in Sicily with little initial opposition from Italian forces. The situation changed as the Allies ran into German forces, who held out for some time before Sicily was taken over by the Allies. The invasion made Mussolini dependent on the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition from German forces.

"Badoglio government"

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Italian resistance movement partisans parading in Milan in 1945 after the liberation of the city from German and Fascist forces by the Allies.

By 1943, Mussolini had lost the support of the Italian population for having led a disastrous war effort. To the world, Mussolini was now openly seen as a fool and as a "sawdust caesar" for having led his country to war with ill-equipped and poorly trained armed forces which failed in battle. The embarrassment of Mussolini and Italy led King Victor Emmanuel III and even members of the Fascist Party to desire Mussolini's removal. The first stage of his ouster took place when Fascist Party's Grand Council under the direction of Fascist member Dino Grandi voted to remove Mussolini as the party's leader. Days later, Emmanuel III officially removed Mussolini from the post of Prime Minister and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Upon resigning, Mussolini was immediately arrested. The new "Badoglio government" stripped away the final elements of Fascist rule by banning the Fascist Party. Italy then signed an armistice with the Allied armed forces and the Kingdom of Italy joined the Allies in their war against Nazi Germany. The new Royalist government of Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio raised an Italian Co-Belligerent Army, an Italian Co-Belligerent Navy, and an Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force. Italians celebrated the fall of Mussolini and as more Italian territory were taken by the Allies, the Allies were welcomed as liberators of Italy from the Germans.

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. Hitler instructed Mussolini to establish the Italian Social Republic in German-held northern Italy. The Italian Social Republic was a German puppet state. The Fascist state's armed forces were a combination of Mussolini loyalist Fascists and their German Army keepers. However Mussolini had little power, Hitler and the German armed forces led the campaign against the Allies and saw little interest in preserving Italy as little more than a buffer zone against an Allied invasion of Germany.

The Bagdolio government attempted to establish a non-partisan administration and a number of political parties were allowed to exist again after years of ban under Fascism. These ranged from liberal to communist parties which all were part of the government.

Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans while 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 in reaction to the misery of the Italian people 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 (Wehrmacht Heer) in Italy surrendered.

Dissolution of the Kingdom of Italy

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Umberto II of Italy, the Kingdom's last King in 1946.

The aftermath of World War II left Italy with a destroyed economy, a divided society, and anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. Anger flourished as well over Italy's embarrassment of being occupied by the Germans and then by the Allies.

Even prior to the rise of the Fascists, the monarchy was seen to have performed poorly, with society extremely divided between the wealthy north and poor south. World War I resulted in Italy making few gains and was seen as what fostered the rise of Fascism. These frustrations compacted into a revival of the Italian republican movement.

Following Victor Emmanuel III's abdication as king in 1946, his son, the new king Umberto II, was pressured by the threat of civil war to call a referendum to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy or become a republic. On 2 June 1946, the republican side won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic. Umberto II abdicated the Italian throne, and a new republic was born with bitter resentment against the House of Savoy. All male members of the Savoy family were barred from entering Italy in 1948. This ban was only repealed in 2002.

Military structure

King of Italy — Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Navy, and later Air Force, from 1861 to 1938 and 1943 to 1946

First Marshal of the Empire - Supreme commander of the Italian Royal Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Voluntary Militia for National Security from 1938 to 1943, held by both Victor Emmanuel III and Benito Mussolini.

• 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, abolished in 1943.

See also

• Italy
• King of Italy
• Italian unification
• History of Italy as a monarchy and in the World Wars
• Italian Fascism
• Benito Mussolini
• Birth of the Italian Republic

References

• Barclay, Glen St. J. 1973. The Rise and Fall of the New Roman Empire. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
• 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.
• Clark, Martin. 1984. Modern Italy: 1871-1982. London and New York: Longman Group UK Limited.
• de Grazia, Victoria. 1981. The Culture of Consent: Mass Organizations of Leisure in Fascist Italy. Cambridge.
• Gentile, Emilio. 2003. The Struggle For Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism and Fascism. Westport, CT: Praeger.
• Glenny, Misha. Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999. New York, USA: Penguin Books, 2001.
• Mussolini, Benito. 1935. Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions. Rome: Ardita Publishers.
• Pauley, Bruce F. 2003. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc.
• Pollard, John F. 1985. The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-32. Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• Sarti, Roland. 1974. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action. New York: New Viewpoints.
• Smith, Dennis Mack. 1997. Modern Italy; A Political History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
• Thayer, John A. 1964. Italy and the Great War. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconson Press.

External links

• Axis History Factbook — Italy