Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy Regno d'Italia | |
|---|---|
| 1861–1946 | |
_crowned.svg?lang=en) State Flag
| |
| Anthem: Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza (Royal March of Ordinance)¹ | |
 The Kingdom of Italy at the height of its power in 1940. | |
| Capital | Rome² |
| Common languages | Italian |
| Religion | Roman Catholic Church |
| Government | Constitutional monarchy |
| King | |
• 1861-1878 | Vittorio Emanuele II |
• 1878-1900 | Umberto I |
• 1900-1946 | Vittorio Emanuele III |
• 1946 | Umberto II |
| Prime Minister | |
• 1861 | Count di Cavour |
• 1876-1887 | Agostino Depretis (3 terms) |
• 1887-1891 | Francesco Crispi |
• 1892-1921 | Giovanni Giolitti (5 terms) |
• 1922-1943 | Benito Mussolini |
• 1943-1944 | Gen. Pietro Badoglio |
• 1945-1946 | Alcide De Gasperi |
| Legislature | Parliament |
| Senate | |
| Chamber of Deputies | |
| History | |
| March 17 1861 | |
| December 7 1895 | |
• March on Rome | October 22, 1922 |
• Lateran treaty | February 11, 1929 |
• Pact of Steel | May 22, 1939 |
| June 2 1946 | |
| Currency | Italian lira |
| ISO 3166 code | IT |
¹ Unofficial anthem Giovinezza (The Youth) 1922-1943 [1]. ² The capital was initially located in Turin, from 1864 in Florence and finally from 1871 in Rome. | |
The Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia) was a state forged in 1861 by the process of the Italian unification under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia (commonly called Piedmont-Sardinia) which existed until 1946. The Kingdom was the first Italian state to hold the entire Italian Peninsula since the fall of the Roman Empire. During the time period of the regime of the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini from 1922 to his ousting in 1943, the Kingdom of Italy is often referred to as Fascist Italy by historians. In the remaining two years of World War II the Kingdom of Italy fought along with Allies the newly created puppet state of Nazi Germany called the Italian Social Republic still led by Mussolini and fanatical Fascists in northern Italy. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to a referendum in 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic which is the present form of Italy today.
Risorgimento: Italian unification, 1859-1870
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of concerted efforts of Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. The last state to encompass the Italian peninsula was the Roman Empire.
After the Revolutions of 1848, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was popular amongst southern Italians and in the world was renowned for his extremely loyal followers.[1] Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification, but monarchists of regions in Italy began to look favourably upon a united Italy. This state is the direct predecessor of the modern-day Italian state. The rivalry between monarchists and republicans was an important factor in Italian politics from the Kingdom's unification in 1861 to the Kingdom's dissolution in 1946.
Monarchist unification
At the same time as there were republicans and unification societies, a strong effort for Italian unification was made by the northern Italian monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour.
Sardinia's claim to being the embodiment of a new Italian state was challenged by the fact that it had no physical connection to Rome, which was considered to be the natural capital of a united Italy. Piedmont-Sardinia attempted to end these concerns by investigating locations for an alternative capital such as their own capital of Turin or the more universally popular candidate city in the north, Milan.[2] From a strategic military standpoint, Piedmont-Sardinia was the most capable of the Italian states to be able to bring about unity. It's monarchy was stable and the longest lasting in Europe at the time and Piedmont-Sardinia challenged Austria in the Second Italian War of Independence, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule.
The Kingdom had established important alliances which helped it improve the possibility of Italian unification. Piedmont-Sardinia had participated in the Crimean War in alliance with the Second French Empire, the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire against the Russian Empire. By 1860, Cavour's commitment to an alliance with the French Empire resulted in him sacrificing territory to France. In 1860, Cavour was forced to tolerate the Expedition of the Thousand under Garibaldi, an invasion of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies which Piedmont-Sardinia did not support.
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Cavour moved to challenge republican unification efforts by Garibaldi by organizing popular revolts in the Papal States which he used as a pretext to invade the country in spite of angering the Catholics, whom he told that the invasion was an effort to protect the Roman Catholic Church from the anti-clerical republicans of Garibaldi. Only a small portion of the Papal States around Rome remained in the control of Pope Pius IX.[3]
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.
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Following the unification of most of Italy, tensions between the monarchists and republicans erupted. In April 1861, Garibaldi entered the Italian parliament and challenged Cavour's leadership of the government, accusing him of dividing Italy and spoke of the threat of civil war between the Kingdom in the north and Garibaldi's forces in the south.
On June 6, 1861, the Kingdom's strongman Cavour died which was followed by political instability. A year after Cavour's death, Garibaldi went to Sicily to meet the Italian National Guard. When he was there a person among a crowd of supporters cried out "Rome or death!".[4] Garibaldi took in the feelings of the crowd and then made it a policy of his own.[5]
Garibaldi's increasingly revolutionary tone led Prime Minister Urbano Rattazzi to order the Italian fleet to move to Sicily and arrest Garibaldi, but he escaped because two captains of ships sent to capture him rejected the orders. Rattazi stopped Garibaldi's revolution to take Rome in 1862 by sending troops to break up his volunteers. Garibaldi was internationally popular and his arrest set off world-wide controversy. Garibaldi returned shortly to politics in Italy while Rattazzi was forced to resign.[6]
Third Italian War for Independence
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.
The new Prime Minister, General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora made a number of errors when starting Italy's campaign against Austria. La Marmora let the differences continue between the government and Garibaldi's revolutionaries, when Bismarck advocated a plan by Garibaldi that would involve Italian soldiers being sent across the Adriatic Sea to land on Austrian Croatia in an attempt to stir up anti-Austrian revolts.[7] La Marmora firmly rejected working with Garibaldi and did not have Italian troops land in Croatia. La Marmora refused to have joint-strategy with Prussia, and led his own individual campaign which was disasterous due to poor organization, morale and proper military equipment.[8] Nevertheless, Italy benefited from its involvement in the war against Austria with the victorious Prussians forcing Austria to cede Venice to Italy. The one major obstacle to Italian unity remained Rome.
The Takeover of Rome
In 1870, Prussia went to war with France starting the Franco-Prussian War. To keep the large Prussian army at bay, France began pulling back overseas troops to fight against the Prussians on the mainland, one of these pullouts was Rome. Despite King Emmanuel III's bitterness with having to ally with Prussia (which he wanted to wage war on)[9] Italy remained neutral and once again benefited from Prussia's victory against France by being able to take over the Papal State from French authority. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome.
Relations with the Vatican Following Unification
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 Pope technically a prisoner in the isolated Vatican City. The Vatican 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.[10] It would not be until 1929, that positive relations would be restored between Italy and the Vatican.
The "Liberal Period" 1870s to 1915
Beginning of the Liberal Period
Upon taking most of the Italian peninsula in 1870, Italy suffered from huge debt, had few natural resources, its capital Rome was an economic disaster[11], there were no industry or transportation facilities, extreme poverty (especially in the Mezzogiorno), high illiteracy, and only a small percent of wealthy Italians had the right to vote. In addition the unification movement had largely been dependent on the support of foreign powers and remained so afterwards.
Italy's politics favoured liberalism due to a regionally fragmented right, as conservative Prime Minister Marco Minghetti only held on to power by enacting revolutionary and left-leaning policies to appease the opposition such as the nationalization of railways. In 1876, Minghetti was ousted and replaced by liberal Agostino Depretis, who began the long Liberal Period. The Liberal Period was marked by corruption, government instability, continued depravity in southern Italy, and use of authoritarian measures by the Italian government.
Government under Trasformismo
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.[12] Despotic and corrupt actions are believed to be the key means in which Depretis managed to keep support in southern Italy. Depretis put through authoritarian measures, such as the banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands across Italy,[13] and adopting militarist policies.[14] Depretis enacted controversial legislation for the time, such was abolishing arrest for debt, making elementary education free and compulsory while ending compulsory religious teaching in elementary schools.
The first government of Depretis collapsed after his dismisal of his Interior Minister and resigned in 1877.[15] The second government of Depretis started in 1881. Depretis' goals included widening suffrage in 1882 and increasing the tax intake from Italians by expanding the minimum requirements of who could pay taxes and the creation of a new electoral system called which resulted in large numbers of inexperienced deputies in the Italian parliament. [16] In 1887, Depretis was finally pushed out of office after years of political decline.
In 1887, Depretis cabinet minister and former Garibaldi republican Francesco Crispi became Prime Minister. Crispi's major concerns before during his reign was protecting Italy from their dangerous neighbour Austria-Hungary. To challenge the threat, Crispi worked to build Italy as a great world power though increased military expeditures, advocation of expansionism,[17] and trying to win Germany's favour even by joining the Triple Alliance which included both Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882 which remained officially intact until 1915. While helping Italy develop strategically, he continued trasformismo and was authoritarian, once suggesting the use of martial law to ban opposition parties.[18] 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.[19]
Agricultural Crisis
The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community in Italy which had been in decline since 1873.".[20]. Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture in Italy.[21] The investigation which started in 1877 and was released eight years later, showed that agriculture was not improving , that landowners were swallowing up revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to the development of the land. There was aggravation by lower class Italians to the break-up of communal lands which benefited only landlords.[22]. Most of the workers on the agricultural lands were not peasants but short-term labourers who at best were employed for one year.[23] 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.".[24]
The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively due to the mass overspending of the Depretis government that left Italy in huge debt. Italy also suffered economically as a consequence of overproduction of grapes for their vineyards in the 1870s and 1880s when France's vineyard industry was suffering from vine disease caused by insects. Italy during that time prospered as the largest exporter of wine in Europe but following the recovery of France in 1888, southern Italy was overproducing and had to cut back which caused greater unemployment and bankruptcies.".[25]
Colonialism
Upon unification, the dreams of Italian nationalists and imperialists for rebuilding a Roman Empire in the Mediterranean began to take fruition, as the Italian government sought to make the country internationally important. Already, Italy had large settlements in Alexandria, Cairo, and Tunis[26]
Italy entered a variety of failed negotiations with other world powers to make concessions in their colonial adventures such as with Portugal to concede Angola and Mozambique, Britain for the Falkland Islands and a part of Nigeria, and with Denmark and Russia over the division of the Nicobar Islands.[27]
Another approach by Italy was investigated uncolonized lands by sending a variety of missionaries to uncolonized nations such as Burma, Siam, New Guinea and parts of Africa.[28] Of the territories investigated, the most promising and realistic of colonizing were parts of Africa. Italian missionaries had already established a foothold at Massawa in the 1830s and had entered deep into Ethiopia. Then-Piedmont Prime Minister Cavour in the early 1850s had subsidized the Rubattimo shipping company and gave them ships from the Italian navy to start a trading service from Genoa to Tunis in Tunisia, which became a target of Italian colonialism.[29]
Early Colonization at Assab and Massawa
During the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt by Britain and France in the 1850s, Cavour believed that this presented an opportunity for Italian access to the East and had wanted the Italian merchant marine to take advantage of the Suez Canal's creation.[30] Following Cavour's initiative, a man named Sapeto was given permission by the Rubbatimo shipping company to use a ship to establish a station in east Africa as a means of creating a route to the east. Sapeto landed at the Bay of Assab, a part of modern-day Eritrea in 1869. One year later the land was purchased form the local Sultan there by the Rubbatimo shipping company acting on the behalf of the Italian government. In 1882, Assab officially became Italian territory making it Italy's first colony. Though Tunisia would have been a preferable target because of its close proximity to Italy, but the threat of reaction by the French made the attempt to dangerous to pursue. Italy could not afford the threat of war as its industry was not developed. Assab stood as the start of the small colonial adventures that Italy would initially undertake.[31]
On 5 February 1885, taking advantage of Egypt's conflict with Britain, Italian soldiers landed at Massawa a in present day Sudan, shortly after the fall of Egyptian rule in Khartoum. As was key in Italian foreign policy, the British backed Italy's taking of Massawa from the Egyptians as it aided their occupation efforts.[32] In 1888, Italy annexed Massawa by force, allowing it to pursue its creation of the colony of Italian Eritrea.
Failure in Ethiopia
In 1885, Italy offered Britain military support for the occupation of Egyptian Sudan, but the British decided that they did not need Italian support to crush the remainder of Egypt as the forces of Sudanese Muslim rebel Muhammad Ahmad called the Mahdist army in Sudan already had crushed remaining Egyptian forces and Ethiopia's (then called Abyssinia) intervention in Sudan also aided the British.[33] Italy's earlier intervention in Assab set off tensions with Ethiopia which had territorial aims on Assab and Italy's official annexation of Ethiopian-claimed Massawa in 1888 increased tensions further.
In 1889, Ethiopia's Emperor Yohannes IV died in battle in Sudan, Menelik II replaced Yohannes as Emperor. Menelik believed he could negotiate with Italy to avoid war and in error allowed Italy's claim to Massawa. Menelik made another serious blunder when he signed an agreement which declared that Ethiopia would work alongside the King of Italy in its dealings with foreign powers, which The Italians interpreted to declare that Ethiopia had in effect made itself a protectorate of Italy.[34] Menelik opposed the Italian interpretation and the differences between the two states grew.
In October 1889, Menelik met with a Russian officer who was sent to discuss merging the Russian and Abyssinian orthodox churches, but Menelik was more concerned over Italy's massing army in Eritrea. [35] The meeting was used by Menelik to show unity between Ethiopia and Russia against Italian interests in the area. [36]
Russia's 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.[37] 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.[38] 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.[39]
In 1895, Ethiopia abandoned its agreement to follow Italian foreign policy and Italy used the renunciation as a reason to invade Ethiopia.[40] The Italian army failed miserably on the battlefield, despite having superior weaponry, the shear large numbers of the Ethiopian warriors forced Italy to eventually retreat into Eritrea. [41]
The failed Ethiopian campaign was an international embarrassment to Italy, whose citizens had had grown used to earlier colonial victories at Assab and Massawa. Ethiopia would remain independent from Italy and other colonial powers until it was occupied in 1936 but then subsequently liberated four years later in World War II.
Libya
In order to quell tensions arising in Italy, in 1911, the Italian government declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Libya, and conquered it in 1912. The occupation resulted in acts of extreme discrimination towards Libyans such as the forced deportation of Libyans to the Tremiti Islands in October 1911 and by 1912, a third of these Libyan refugees had died due to lack of food supplies and shelter from the Italian occupation forces.[42]
The invasion of Libya marked a turn in direction for the opposition to the Italian government, revolutionaries became divided, some adopting nationalist lines, while others retaining socialist lines.[43] The annexation of Libya caused nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece as well as the adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia.[44]
World War I
Despite Italy's official alliance to the German Empire and in the Triple Alliance at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 following the invasion of Serbia by Austria-Hungary, Italy remained neutral while it claimed that the Triple Alliance was only for defensive purposes.
Italy chose to defy the Triple Alliance mostly because it had territorial ambitions on the areas of Austria-Hungary. But Italy also had a secret understanding with France that had it promised not to be fully committed to the Triple Alliance. The Triple Entente in April of 1915, brokered a territorial deal with the Italian government with the London Pact offering Italy lands in the Balkans and German colonies in Africa.
The outset of the campaign against Austria-Hungary looked initially in favour of Italy, with Austria-Hungary's army spread to cover its fronts with Serbia and Russia, Italy had a numerical superiority against the Austro-Hungarian army.
However, this advantage was never fully utilized as Italian military commander Luigi Cadorna insisted on a dangerous frontal assault against Austria-Hungary in an attempt to occupy the Slovenian plateau and Ljubljana that would put the Italian army not far away from Austria-Hungary's imperial capital of Vienna. After 11 failed offensives with enormous loss of life, the Italian offensive campaign to take Vienna collapsed and in 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army managed to push the Italian Army back into Italy as far as Verona and Padua in their Strafexpedition, but this also was also very little progress for Austria-Hungary.
In the summer of 1916, the Italian Army managed to take Gorizia from Austria, despite a number of other failed offensives, but by fall of 1917, with the Germans signing an armistice with the new state of Bolshevik Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German and Austro-Hungarian armies converged on Italy, forcing the Italians even further back. The Italian army regrouped at the Piave River.
At Piave the Italian army managed to hold off the Austro-Hungarian and German armies with the opposing armies repeatedly failing afterwards major battles such as Battle of Asiago and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in which the Italian Army crushed the Austrian offensive. Austria-Hungary ended the fighting against Italy upon the armistice on 11 November, 1918 which ended World War I.
By the end of the war, Italy lost 700,000 soldiers and had a budget deficit of twelve billion Lira, and Italian society had become divided during the war between the majority pacifists who opposed Italian involvement in the war and the minority of pro-war nationalists who had condemned the Italian government for not having immediately gone to war with Austria in 1914.
Even elements of the left-wing parties had become divided over Italian involvement in the war, including future leader Benito Mussolini who was ousted from the Italian Socialist Party in 1915 because of his increasingly nationalist tone. But by 1918, there was pressure by most Italians on the Italian government to pressure the Entente to ensure that Italian territorial demands were met in order to give merit to Italian sacrifices in the war.
"Mutilated Victory"
As the war came to an end, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando went to meet with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French President Georges Clemenceau, and United States President Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, who proceeded to discuss how the borders of Europe should be redefined to help avoid a future European war.
The talks came only minorly in Italy's favor, as Wilson's key promise during the peace talks of freedom of all European nationalities to form their own nation states, which caused the Treaty of Versailles to not offer Italy Dalmatia and Albania which it had been promised in the London Pact. Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German colonies into mandates of their own, with Italy receiving none of them. Despite this, Orlando signed the Treaty of Versailles which caused uproar against his government and civil unrest erupted in Italy between nationalists who supported the war effort and opposed the "mutilated victory" (as nationalists called it) and leftists who were traditionally pacifist during the war.
The Rise of Fascism
In 1914, a well-known socialist revolutionary named Benito Mussolini was forced out of the Italian Socialist Party after calling for Italian intervention against Austria. Prior to World War I, Mussolini had opposed military conscription, protested Italy's occupation of Libya,[45] and was the editor of the Socialist Party's official newspaper, Avanti!. Mussolini over time, dropped his Marxist tones and simply called for revolution, without mentioning class struggle.[46] By 1914, nationalist forces in Italy had consolidated as the pro-war advocates while the socialists remained pacifist. Mussolini's revolutionary and militant nature may have been a reason for his and other socialists' betrayal from the pacifist socialism prevailing in Italy. Most historians believe Mussolini's adoption of nationalism was done out of political opportunism.
Mussolini's nationalism allowed him to gain funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create his own newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia to woe Italian socialists and revolutionaries to the war effort.[47] Mussolini served in the Italian army and was wounded once during the war which is widely believed to be the result of an accident in grenade practice, though he claimed to have been wounded in battle.[48]
Following the end of the war and Versailles, in 1919, Mussolini created the Fasci di Combattimento or Combat League. It was originally dominated by patriotic socialist veterans who opposed the pacifism. 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.[49] 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!.
D'Annunzio and Fiume
Italian nationalist revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio in September 1919, led nationalists into the free state of Fiume. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called Il Duce (The Leader) and he used blackshirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume, the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later become synonymous with the fascist movement of Mussolini. The demand for annexation of Fiume was enormous and spread to all sides of the political spectrum, including Mussolini's revolutionary fascists following the wave of support.[50] D'Annunzio drew Croatian nationalists to his side through his excellent speeches. He also kept contact with the Irish Republican Army and Egyptian nationalists. [51]
The occupation ended one year later, but Fiume later became annexed to Italy in 1924. Mussolini learned from D'Annunzio the ways to arouse patriotism in order to gain support from key revolutionary and patriotic sources such as nationalists, socialists, anarchists, and army veterans.[52]
The Fascist Party
Upon recognizing the failures of the Fascists' initial revolutionary and left-leaning policy, Mussolini moved the organization away from the left and turned the revolutionary movement into an electoral political movement in 1921, named the Partido Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party). The party copied the nationalist themes of D'Annunzio and rejected parliamentary democracy while still operating within to destroy it. Mussolini changed his original revolutionary policies, such as moving away from anti-clericalism to supporting the Catholic Church and abandoned his public opposition to the monarchy.[53] 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.[54]
In 1921, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolotti's government was unstable and a growing socialist opposition further endangered his government. Giolotti believed that the fascists could be toned down and used to protect the state from the socialists and decided to include fascists on his electoral list for the 1921 elections.[55]. In the elections, the Fascists did not make large gains, but Giolotti's government failed to gather a large enough coalition to govern and offered the Fascists placements in his government. The Fascists rejected Giolotti's offers and joined with socialists in bringing down his government.[56]
By 1922, Mussolini through legitimate popularity, speaking talents, bribes, and intimidation, became a dominant personality in Italian politics. Mussolini's nationalist revolutionary ideals had won him over a number of the relatives of the ancestors who had served Garibaldi's revolutionaries during unification.[57] His advocation of corporatism and futurism had won him attention by advocates of "third way".[58]. But most importantly he had won over politicians in Italy like Facta and Giolotti who did not condemn him for his blackshirts' mistreatment of socialists.[59]
March on Rome
In October 1922, Mussolini took advantage of a general strike by workers in Italy and announced his demands to the Italian government to give the Fascist Party political power or face a coup. With no immediate response, a small number of Fascists began a long trek across Italy to Rome which was called the March on Rome, claiming to Italians that Fascists were intending to restore law and order. Mussolini himself did not participate in the march, but had declared his intentions for power a few days earlier, saying "We want to become the state!". The Fascists demanded Prime Minister Luigi Facta's resignation and for Mussolini to become Prime Minister.
Although the Italian Army was far better armed than the Fascist paramilitaries, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy faced a real political crisis of having to choose one of the two rival movements in Italy to form government, one being Mussolini's Fascists, the other being the anti-monarchist Italian Socialist Party. On October 28, 1922, Victor Emmanuel III selected Mussolini to become Italian Prime Minister, allowing Mussolini to pursue his political ambitions as long as he supported the monarchy.
Fascist Italy
Establishing the Dictatorship of Il Duce
Upon taking power, Mussolini formed a legislative coalition with nationalists, liberals and populists. However goodwill by the Fascists towards parliamentary democracy faded quickly after Mussolini's coalition to passed the electoral Acerbo Law of 1923, which gave two thirds of the seats in parliament to the party or coalition which achieved 25% of the vote, the 1924 election was won through the help violence and intimidation, the Fascist Party achieved the 25% threshold and became the ruling political party of Italy.
Following the election, Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated after calling for an annulement to elections due to irregularities. Following the assassination, the Socialists walked out of parliament, allowing Mussolini to pass more authoritarian laws. Mussolini in 1925 accepted responsibility for Fascist violence in 1924 and then declared a Fascist dictatorship in which he would be the unopposed Prime Minister of Italy under the King's official acceptance.
Security and Secret Police
For security of the regime, Mussolini advocated complete state authority, and created the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale or National Security Volunteer Militia in 1923, which are commonly referred to as the Blackshirts for the colour of their uniforms. Most of the Blackshirts were members from the Fasci di Combattimento. Also a secret police force called the Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organisation for Vigilance Against Anti-Fascism) or OVRA was created in 1927 and led by Arturo Bocchini to crackdown on opponents of the regime. 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.
Economic Policy of Corporatism
Upon coming to power, Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised a new economic system to Italians called corporatism. Corporatism was the fusion of capitalism and socialism into a new economic system which would retain class hierarchy and class divisions while allowing workers to be able to negotiate on equal grounds with business owners on wages, hours of work, working conditions, etc. Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time.
The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered as its left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were not appreciated by industrialists and landowners who supported the party because it pledged to defend Italy from communism and socialism. As a result, corporatist policy became dominated by the industries. Throughout the reign of Mussolini, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws and dismantlement of non-fascist unions.
Lateran Treaty
Relations with the Roman Catholic Church made a major upturn under Mussolini's regime. Despite earlier inhibitions to the Church, after 1922, Mussolini had made an alliance with the pro-church Partito Popolare Italiano or Italian People's Party. Mussolini lived up to his alliance with the Church in 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929 which normalized relations between Italy and the Vatican and recognized the Vatican's sovereignty. The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day and is considered the most popular achievement of Mussolini.
Expanionism and Interventionism
Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised to bring Italy back as a Great power in Europe, making it a "New Roman Empire". To do this, Italy increased money and attention to military projects, and began plans to build an Italian Empire in Africa, and reclaiming dominance on the Adriatic Sea by eying Dalmatia, Albania and Greece as potential war zones for colonization. Italy was at the height of her international prestige and power by the mid-1930s, with Mussolini in alliance with France and Britain against aggression by Hitler's Nazi Germany. Mussolini believed that Italy should take advantage of the strategic alliance and invade the long-wanted large African nation Ethiopia to make it a colony.
Second Italo-Ethiopian War
Colonial efforts began with the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (also called the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) (October, 1935 - May, 1936). Italy invaded the Ethiopian Empire from the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia. The native Ethiopians stood no chance at defeating the Italian Army, most of their warriors were still armed with spears and wooden shields. Italy committed a number of atrocities against Ethiopians during the war including the use of aircraft to drop poison gas on the defending Ethiopian warriors.
Ethiopia subsequently surrendered in 1936, with Italy taking it as a colony. Thus completing its failed colonial conquest of the 1880s. King Emanuele III was soon proclaimed Emperor of Absynnia (Ethiopia).
The international consequences for Italy's beligerance resulted in its isolation at the League of Nations. France and Britain quickly abandoned their trust with Mussolini. The only nation to back Italy's aggression was Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. This would be the beginning of a future alliance.
Intervention in Spanish Civil War
In 1936, the Spanish Republic was divided in the Spanish Civil War between the anticlerical socialist Republicans and the Church-supporting, Monarchy-backed nationalists led by Francisco Franco under his fascist Falange movement. Italy sent aircraft, weapons, and a total of over 60,000 troops to aide the Spanish nationalists. The war helped train the Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Nazi Germany, which was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Austro-Prussian War.
Albania
The last military adventure by Italy prior to the outbreak of war was the invasion and annexation of Albania in 1939, largely seen as a means to compete with the rising power of their ally Nazi Germany.
Rome-Berlin Axis: Mussolini and Hitler
Adolf Hitler had idolized Mussolini since the March on Rome in 1922 and attempted to befriend the Fascist leader for some time to no avail or interest of Mussolini in the past. Mussolini and the Italian Fascists distrusted Hitler's Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy which previously had been part of Austria, a suspicion only worsened by the fact that Hitler was an Austrian. Mussolini also did not share Hitler's anti-Semitic beliefs, a number of fascists were Jewish including Mussolini's mistress Margherita Sarfatti, the director of Fascist art and propaganda.
Mussolini had initially 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. But being isolated in 1936, Italy had little choice but to work with Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs. The two nations proceeded to form the Rome-Berlin Axis, more commonly known as the Axis Pact, later signed by Japan in 1940.
With relations improved with Italy, Hitler proceeded with Anschluss, the annexation of Austria in 1938 and later claimed the Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans. Mussolini, jealous over Hitler's increasing importance, sought to insure that Italy would not be a minor partner in the alliance and invaded and annexed Albania in 1939.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler as well as the ideologies of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. This was even though the two men had very different backgrounds and differing opinions.
Adoption of Anti-Semitism by Italy
With an increasingly belligerent and growing Germany, Mussolini decided to attempt to woo the trust of Hitler and especially other Nazis and newly integrated Austrian-Germans by initiating anti-Semitic laws in 1938, Mussolini hoped to dissolve any threats from being levelled by Nazis against Italy. These laws were extremely unpopular in Italy and this was the first of a number of decisions that would set the Italian population against Mussolini.
World War II
Upon the Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, Italy did not initially join World War II. Italy waited until the threat of France was dealt with during the Battle of France before proceeding. 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.
Battles in the Mediterranean
The one advantage that Italy had compared to Germany which concerned the Allies was its navy, the Regia Marina, the fourth largest navy in the world at the time. In 1940, the British launched a surprise air attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto which crippled Italy's major warships. Although the Italian fleet did not inflict serious damage as was feared, it did pin down the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea which were forced to fight the Italian fleet to keep British forces in Egypt and the Middle East from being cut off from Britain. Over time, the British Royal Navy inflicted serious damage to the Italian fleet and ruined Italy's one advantage to Germany and forced Italy to being a subordinate partner to Germany.
Greece and Yugoslavia
Early indications of Italy's subordinate nature to Germany arose during the Greco-Italian War which was disastrous for the poorly armed Italian Army. To gain back ground in Greece, Germany reluctantly began a Balkans Campaign alongside Italy which resulted also in the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 and the ceding of Dalmatia to Italy. Mussolini and Hitler compensated Croatian nationalists by endorsing the creation of the Independent State of Croatia under the extreme nationalist Ustaše which was allowed to annex all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and persecute the Serb population there in exchange for allowing Italy to have Dalmatia. The Ustaše movement proved valuable to Italy and Germany as a means to counter Royalist Chetnik guerillas and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito who opposed the occupation of Yugoslavia.
North Africa
Italy had been driven far back into Libya by the British Army coming from Egypt in 1940. Once again to the displeasure of Hitler, the German army sent a detachment to join the Italian army in Libya to save the colony from the British advance. German army units in the Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel were the mainstay in the campaign to push the British out of Libya and into central Egypt in 1941 to 1942. The victories in Egypt were almost entirely credited to Rommel's strategic brilliance and the subordinated Italian forces received little media attention in North Africa due to its dependence on the superior weaponry and experience of Rommel's forces. Despite Rommel's advances in 1941 and early 1942, the campaign in North Africa began to collapse in late 1942 and completely collapse in 1943 with German and Italian forces fleeing North Africa.
Allied Invasion of Italy
In 1943, the Allies commenced an invasion of Sicily in an effort to knock Italy out of the war and establish a foothold in Europe. Allied troops landed in Sicily with little initial opposition from Italian forces. The situation changed, as the Allies ran into German forces, who held out for some time before Sicily was taken over by the Allies. The invasion made Mussolini depend on the Wehrmacht to set foot across Italy to protect his regime. The Allies steadily advanced through Italy with little opposition from demoralized Italian soldiers, while facing serious opposition by German forces.
Fall of Mussolini and Fascism
Public anger against Mussolini's failed war effort and embarrassment of Italy led to Victor Emmanuel III removing Mussolini as Prime Minister and putting him under arrest. The Fascist Party was banned and subsequently Italy joined the Allies in their war against Nazi Germany.
This was not the end of Mussolini's reign however, a German paratrooper division managed to rescue Mussolini from the mountain hotel where he was being held under arrest, afterwards Hitler instructed the now-vassal Mussolini to establish the Italian Social Republic. The remnant fascist state's armed forces were a combined force of the German Army and fanatical Fascists. Mussolini was captured escaping Italy to Germany in 1945 by communist partisans and was later executed. Afterwards the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were brutally attacked and disfigured by mobs of angry Italians and put up on meat hooks in a display of Italians' rage against Italy's misery under fascism and subjugation by Germany. After Mussolini's death, any remaining legitimacy to the presence of the German army in Italy had evaporated. Italy and the Allies fought against Germany until its surrender in 1945.
Dissolution of the Kingdom of Italy
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 embarassment of being occupied twice, by the Germans and the Allies.
Even prior to the rise of the Fascists, the monarchy was seen to have performed poorly, with society extremely divided between the wealthy north and poor south, and a miserable, embarassing war effort in World War I, which in the end resulted in Italy making few gains and was seen as what fostered the rise of Fascism. These frustrations compacted into a revival of the Italian republican movement
Following Emmanuele III stepping down as King in 1946, the new King, Umberto II of Italy was pressured to call a referendum to decide whether Italy should remain a monarchy or become a republic on 2 June, 1946. The referendum came about due to the real threat of civil war coming about after the war.
The republic vote won 54% of the vote and Italy officially became a republic, resulting in Umberto II abdicating the Italian throne, replaced by a republic with bitter resentment to the House of Savoy and banned all male members of Savoy from entering Italy in 1948. This ban was only repealed in 2002. The events are known as the Birth of the Italian Republic.
References
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