A series of shifting alliances, often brokered by the papacy and ending in inconclusive battles, redraws the map of Italy during the first decades of the 16th century. Between the league of Cambrai (1508) and the treaty of Cambrai (1529), the territories of Milan, Venice, the papal states and Naples grow or shrink, and abruptly suffer changes of allegiance, according to the temporary effects of battles such as Agnadello (1509), Marignano (1515), Pavia (1525) and the sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527. The eventual result of all this mayhem is disaster for France and triumph for Spain. From 1540 Milan is directly annexed to the Spanish crown; the duchy remains a Spanish possession until the War of the Spanish Succession, after which it is transferred (in 1713) to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg family. Naples is ruled as a Spanish viceroyalty. It too goes to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1713 - but unlike Milan it subsequently reverts to Spain (at the end of the War of the Polish Succession in 1738). Among the Italian players in this game, the Medici gain and are restored, with Spanish support, to their rule in Florence. Venice, alone against all the others in 1508, is an early loser but later recovers most of its territory and retains its independence. The papacy, responsible for scheming alliances which foster so much of the conflict, appears to receive its just deserts in the sack of Rome in 1527. It emerges much strengthened later once the Catholic Reformation is under way. Rome and Spain - spiritually severe allies - are well equipped to exercise strict control over the entire peninsula except for republican Venice. The partition of Italy in the mid-16th century remains the basic pattern for more than 200 years, though the regions of Milan, Naples and Sicily continue to be pawns in Europes conflicts. The War of the Spanish Succession somewhat alters the alignment. Until 1700 the Spanish Habsburgs dominate the peninsula. Thereafter, with a new dynasty on the Spanish throne, the quarrel is between Spanish Bourbons and Austrian Habsburgs. The eventual resolution, after the peace of Vienna (1738), is that Spain has Naples and Sicily while Austria rules northern Italy. In spite of these upheavals Italy in the 18th century is a sleepy place, with Venice a pleasantly decadent offshore island - until the dramatic arrival of Napoleon. Read more: historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=3432&HistoryID=ac52>rack=pthc#ixzz3InFtP6JO Napoleon joins his army in March 1796 and finds himself in command of 37,000 demoralized, badly fed and unpaid men. During April he leads them in a series of rapid victories raising their spirits and holds out promises of loot under his energetic leadership. The allies facing Napoleon are the Austrians, committed to defending their extensive territory around Milan - and the Sardinians whose realm extends from Savoy and Nice west of the Alps to Piedmont, with its capital at Turin. (They are called Sardinians because the duke of Savoy is also the king of Sardinia, a senior title.) Napoleons strategy is to divide and to surprise his enemies. Instead of taking the obvious route along the coast, he leads his army through Alpine passes to catch the Austrians unaware. The allies are successfully prevented from joining forces against their fast-moving opponent. At the end of the month Napoleon issues a hyperbolic proclamation to his men trumpeting their achievements: Soldiers! In fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one colours and fifty-five pieces of artillery, seized several fortresses and conquered the richest parts of Piedmont. By April 28 the king of Sardinia is ready to make peace and to cede his territories of Savoy and Nice - both already occupied since 1792 by French republican forces. Napoleons conquest of Piedmont is repeated in a similar piecemeal fashion in other regions of Italy. He defeats the Austrians at Lodi on April 10 and enters Milan five days later. Subsequent campaigns lead rapidly to armistices with the dukes of Parma and Modena and with Pope Pius VI, on June 23. Ancient and enfeebled Venice is unable to offer any opposition and in May 1797 Napoleon deposes the last of the doges and sets up a provisional democracy. In all these subdued territories Napoleon has been imposing new French ways, often with the enthusiastic support of locals impatient with the remnants of feudalism. Northern and central Italy is reorganized as the Cisalpine Republic, while the territory of Genoa becomes the Ligurian Republic. By April Napoleon is secure enough to move northward against Vienna. He is two days march away from the city when the Austrian emperor agrees an armistice. By the terms of the peace Austria cedes to France the Austrian Netherlands and all her territory in northern Italy. In return, as a sop, Napoleon gives the emperor Venice. All this is negotiated by the young general on his own initiative. The Directory, busy with the coup détat of Fructidor, is not in position to control him. Moreover, like Napoleons troops, the government can hardly be indifferent to the material result of his success. A steady stream of money and art makes its way back to France. Exported French republicanism may be a blessing, but it does not come cheap. The papacy is ill-equipped to cope with either French revolutionary zeal or Napoleonic empire building. In 1793 a French diplomat in Rome indulges in a provocative display of the tricolour, the symbol of French anti-clerical republicanism. A Roman crowd attacks him and he dies. Four years later, when Napoleon advances on Rome, this remains a specific grievance. France holds the pope responsible and demands and receives 300,000 livres as compensation for the diplomats family. Pope Pius VI has to negotiate. The price of persuading the French intruder to head north again is a massive indemnity, the removal of many works of art from the Vatican and the surrender to France of Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna. This reduction of the papal states is only the beginning of Piuss troubles. In the last few days of 1797 a disturbance outside the French embassy in Rome results in the death of a French general. This is made the pretext for a French army to occupy Rome and to seize the pope, who is taken off to France - where he dies in 1799. During 1799 Austrian and Russian armies of the Second Coalition recover Italy as rapidly and as conclusively as Napoleon (now far away in Syria) won it. With Napoleons return to France and his new power as first consul the region again becomes one of his priorities. The French recovery of Italy is completed in stages until the entire peninsula is under control. The whole of the north Italian plain becomes the kingdom of Italy within Napoleons empire. The king is Napoleon himself, crowned in full medieval pomp in Milan cathedral in May 1805. His viceroy in the kingdom is his stepson. The kingdom of Naples, comprising the whole of southern Italy, is ruled from 1808 by Joachim Murat, the husband of Napoleons sister Caroline. Ferdinand, the legitimate king of Naples, has withdrawn to Sicily - where he survives under British protection. The papal states, together with Rome itself is the last and the most controversial piece to be set in place. The new pope, Pius VII, is at first conciliatory towards Napoleon and agrees travel to Paris in 1804 to officiate at Napoleons imperial coronation. But by 1808 the pope annoys Napoleon by refusing to sanction the annulment of his brother Jeromes marriage and by not bringing the ports of the papal states into the Continental System. The result is a French army occupies Rome in February 1808 and soon annexes all that remains of the papal states. He further announces the pope no longer has any temporal authority. The Pope responds with his spiritual authority and excommunicates Napoleon and everyone else connected with this outrage. Pius VII is immediately arrested and removed to France. The entire Italian peninsula is under French control by 1809. This situation remains unchanged until after Napoleons defeat at Leipzig in 1813 - an event followed by Austrian recovery of much of Italy and a subsequent seal of approval at the congress of Vienna. The terms agreed at the congress of Vienna return Italy almost precisely to the situation prevailing before the French intrusion. The king of Sardinia (head of the ancient house of Savoy) recovers his bloc of territory around the western Alps, comprising Savoy, Nice and Piedmont; he acquires also a valuable extension along the coast in the form of Liguria, which previously was the republic of Genoa. Austrian rule is restored in the large and rich area of northern Italy and the province of the republic of Venice is added to the Austrian empire. Rome recovers the papal states. And the whole of southern Italy, previously consisting of the two kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, reverts to its Bourbon monarch Ferdinand and merged into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Among these Italian powers Austria is by far the strongest. With Metternichs determination to preserve the royalist status quo in Europe, Austrian armies become the natural policemen on patrol in Italy for any sign of revolution. There seems to be much going on of a suspicious nature. There are many secret societies harbouring radical ideas. Army officers and civil servants, who in many cases have had first-hand experience of the modern French style of administration, are disturbed to find themselves in a reimposed version of the ancien régime. They crave independence from reactionary rulers. Some are influenced by a vision deriving from Napoleons hold on the entire peninsula - that of a united Italy. The earliest and best-known among Italys revolutionary groups are the Carbonari, meaning charcoal-burners. A secret society they first emerge around 1806. The Carbonari are anti-French, opposing in particular the royalist aspect of French rule now that Napoleon is emperor. After 1815 their quarrel is with the restored royal dynasties. Their first real success is a revolution in Naples in 1820. It causes Ferdinand to bring in a liberal constitution. But nine months later he invites an Austrian army into his kingdom and returns to absolutist rule. This pattern of Austrian involvement is repeated elsewhere. Secret societies achieve a revolution in Piedmont in 1821 leading to the abdication of the king and a brief spell of constitutional rule. Then an Austrian army marches in and restores the status quo. Similarly, when revolutionary ferment in 1830 results in unrest in the papal states the papacy regains control with the help of Austrian forces. These events prompt new policies among Italys radicals. All are agreed that the Austrians must be removed and Italy united, but it now seems clear that the Carbonari and their like are not up to the task. The first man to devote his life to a united Italy is Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1831 he founds Young Italy, an organization devoted to education and insurrection. By 1834 he is under sentence of death in Piedmont, where he has tried to provoke a popular revolution with the help of a sailor in the Sardinian navy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Both spend 1834-1848 in exile. Garibaldi takes part in several wars in Latin America and Mazzini edits inflammatory journals, mainly from London. Views differ about the Italy patriots should be eager to fight for. Mazzini is a republican obsessed with the concept of insurrection and by nature disinclined to compromise. His value to the cause in inspirational terms is considerable, but success is more likely to be achieved through a united Italy under an existing ruler. Of the four powers in restoration Italy (the king of Sardinia, the Austrian emperor, the pope, the king of the Two Sicilies) two - the Austrian Habsburgs and the Bourbons in Naples and Sicily - are foreign dynasties much hated by their subjects. By contrast the pope can expect the allegiance of most Catholics, and the king of Sardinia represents an ancient Italian dynasty. The first proposal to gain serious support is for a federal Italy ruled by the pope (in effect extending the papal states to incorporate the entire peninsula). This policy is advocated in a widely read book of 1843, Moral and civil primacy among the Italians. It is given a boost when a liberal cardinal is elected pope in 1846 - Pius IX. For the king of Sardinia to become king of Italy, is equally logical. It would merely represent the expansion of his north Italian territory in Piedmont to include the entire peninsula. Mazzini and Garibaldi hurry back to Italy to take part in the turmoil. Camillo Benso di Cavour is already taking an interest in the politics of Piedmont. An uprising in Sicily against Bourbon rule in 1848 sparks off Europes most dramatic year of political upheavals. Revolutions in the next two months in Paris and Vienna make it evident that no outside intervention is likely for the moment in Italy. Patriots in the Austrian territories take their cue and rebellion in Venice is followed by the proclamation of a revived republic. The citizens of Milan rise against their Austrian rulers and after five days of fierce fighting they expel the garrison of 12,000 troops from the city. The events in Milan tempt the king of Sardinia to declare war on Austria. Seeing a chance of extending his territory of Piedmont into rich Lombardy, he marches east from Turin to join forces with the Milanese. He is outfought by the veteran Austrian field marshal Joseph Radetsky, now aged eighty-two and Charles Albert is forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Meanwhile other rulers have been losing control throughout Italy, including even Pius IX in Rome. Pellegrino Rossi, is assassinated in November 1848 and the pope flees for safety to the fortress of Gaeta. A Roman republic is proclaimed in February 1849. This promising event is followed by the arrival of the veteran revolutionaries Mazzini and Garibaldi. Mazzini plays a major part in running the republic during its brief existence and Garibaldi fights magnificently in its defence (against an army sent by the new French republic on behalf of the pope (a measure of how much Italian affairs are intertwined with the broader issues of European politics). The Roman republic falls to the French and Pius IX is restored to his papal throne - turning the clock safely back, in a pattern which becomes common almost everywhere during 1849. The Venetian republic succumbs in August 1849 to the Austrians, who are also now securely back in Milan. Ferdinand II, the Bourbon king, reasserts control in Naples and Sicily. The response by the authorities to these upheavals is increased repression. Pius IX concludes with some justification that liberalism is not in the papal interest. In the initial panic of the various rulers many liberal constitutions were hurriedly introduced in the states of Italy. All but one are repealed in the restoration. The exception is Piedmont. Alberts son Victor Emmanuel II, resists the general trend back towards repression and his kingdom of Piedmont is gradually transformed into one which Italian nationalists approve of due to Camillo Benso di Cavour. Cavour is the most influential journalist in Piedmont. He founded his newspaper in 1847 under the title The Resurgence. In June 1848 he is elected to parliament under the new constitution and by 1852 he is prime minister. A new Italy will not emerge from uncoordinated uprisings in different states and the Italians require foreign allies if they are to confront successfully the might of Austria. Cavour needs to present Piedmont as a kingdom which radicals from all over Italy will be prepared to support. Abroad he needs to find an ally of Austrias stature. His problem internally is that Piedmont-Sardinia has been a typical reactionary monarchy of the post-Napoleonic period. He therefore takes steps to liberalize the government, though he is instinctively conservative. He welcomes political refugees from other Italian states. Mazzinis views remain too radical, but Garibaldis support is successfully enlisted and he is given the Piedmontese rank of general. Daniele Manin, leader of the Venetian republic declares in 1856 (when he is in exile in Paris) that he supports royal Piedmont in the cause for a united Italy. Piedmonts attempt to cut a dash on the international stage begins with a small part in the Crimean War as the ally of France and Britain. The advantage is that Cavour takes part in the peace talks in Paris in 1856, where he is able to give the impression that Piedmont somehow represents Italy. In the search for an ally against Austria, he first approaches Britain without success. He has a romantic interest in driving Austria from Italy, as his uncle did twice and in avenging the humiliation suffered by the Napoleonic cause at the congress of Vienna. In July 1858 Napoleon III and Cavour meet secretly in France and agree that Cavour will foment unrest in Austrian territories in north Italy so as to entice Austria into making the first military move. An allied French and Piedmontese army will then respond by invading Lombardy and Venetia. At the end of the operation these north Italian provinces will be merged with Piedmont. In return the two regions belonging to Piedmont on the French side of the Alps (Savoy and Nice) will be ceded to France. The alliance is to be confirmed in the old-fashioned way by the marriage of a cousin of Napoleon III to a daughter of Victor Emmanuel II. The war begins much as Napoleon III and Cavour have planned, though Napoleon has cold feet in the interim - until an aggressive move by Austria against Piedmont makes intervention inevitable. The French and Piedmontese army, assisted by Garibaldi and his volunteers, has a rapid success. On June 8 Napoleon III enters Milan. Two weeks later there is an extremely savage encounter at Solferino, with very heavy casualties on both sides. The carnage leads directly to the formation of the Red Cross. It also appals Napoleon III (who lacks his uncles familiarity with battlefields) and contributes perhaps to his sudden abandonment of his pact with Cavour. Without informing his Piedmontese allies, Napoleon makes peace with the Austrians. Whatever the impact of Solferino, there are also political reasons for this sudden change of heart. Cavours notion of a future Italy seems to be diverging from Napoleons. Cavour, busy encouraging revolutions within the states of central Italy, has clear ambitions to merge them within the kingdom of Piedmont. But Napoleon supports the concept of a federal Italy ruled by the pope. Nevertheless the terms of Villafranca have considerable advantages for Piedmont. Venetia, not yet reached by the allied armies, will remain Austrian. But Lombardy is now ceded to Piedmont. Moreover Savoy and Nice have not yet been transferred to France. These two regions soon prove of diplomatic value. Uprisings against the Austrians in Parma, Modena and Tuscany, and against papal rule in the Romagna, are followed by plebiscites. All these regions vote to be merged with Piedmont-Sardinia. This is contrary to Napoleons policy, but Savoy and Nice do the trick. The treaty of Turin transfers them to France and the central Italian territories to the kingdom of Sardinia. Garibaldi is profoundly displeased by Cavours transfer of his birthplace to France. While remaining loyal to Victor Emmanuel II, he prefers now to revert to his earlier style of revolution - taking his volunteers wherever they may best aid the cause of Italian nationhood. An uprising in Sicily attracts his attention in May 1860. With about 1000 men, many of them wearing red shirts (with the result that they become known as the thousand redshirts), he sails from Genoa. Landing at Marsala he proclaims himself dictator of Sicily - liberating the island from Neapolitan rule in the name of Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi has rapid success in Sicily. After three days of street fighting Palermo surrenders. A week later 20,000 Neapolitan troops lay down their arms. By July 20 there is no further resistance in the island. With a much increased army Garibaldi crosses to the mainland and by September 7 he is in Naples. This striking success alarms the conservative Cavour, who responds with a bold move of his own. Ostensibly to prevent Garibaldi from invading Rome, Cavour sends a Piedmontese army to occupy the papal states. His troops meet little opposition. Towards the end of October they join up with Garibaldis volunteers in Neapolitan territory. On November 7 Victor Emmanuel II makes a triumphal entry into Naples with Garibaldi by his side. The last Neapolitan stronghold, the fortress of Gaeta, falls to the Italians in February 1861. Parliament in Turin annexes the kingdom of the Two Sicilies together with the papal states (apart from Rome itself and the surrounding Campagna). . Victor Emmanuel is proclaimed monarch on 17 March 1861 of the kingdom of Italy. Garibaldi and others would wish him to be Victor Emmanuel I, inaugurating the new Italy, but Cavour insists that he is Victor Emmanuel II - king of a much enlarged Sardinia-Piedmont. Only Rome and Venetia remain outside his realm. The kingdom of Italy now wins Venetia through a brief alliance with Prussia. The Prussian prime minister Bismarck, in planning war against Austria in 1866, makes a treaty with Italy committing the Italians to come in on Prussias side should there be a conflict with Austria. Victor Emmanuel needs little persuading, with the prospect on offer of possibly driving the Austrians from Venetia. In the event the Austrian army in Italy and the Austrian navy in the Adriatic win the only encounters between the two nations during the exceptionally brief Seven Weeks War. Italy therefore proves to be an irrelevant factor in Prussias crushing victory over the Austrian empire. Nevertheless in the treaty of Vienna, in October 1866, Venetia is ceded by the Austrians - to the neutral French emperor, for face-saving reasons, on the understanding that he will present the province to the king of Italy. He does so after a plebiscite has confirmed the wishes of the Venetians. This leaves only the problem of Rome, where France is also involved. A French garrison has been stationed there since 1849 to protect the pope. In 1870 Prussia helps the Italian cause. The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war means that the French garrison is withdrawn from Rome. The French defeat at Sedan in September is immediately followed by the deposing of the emperor Napoleon III. Troops break in through the Porta Pia on September 20. In October a plebiscite in Rome and the surrounding Campagna results in a vote for union with the kingdom of Italy. Pius IX refuses to accept this act of force majeure and remains in his palace, describing himself as a prisoner in the Vatican. The provisional capital of Italy since 1865 has been Florence, in an attempt to appease those nationalists who resent the usurping of their cause by the northern kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. In 1871, the Italian government moves to the banks of the Tiber. Victor Emmanuel instals himself in the Quirinale Palace. Rome for the first time in thirteen centuries is the capital city of a united Italy. It is unusual among capital cities only in that it contains a powerful figure and a small parcel of land (the pope in the Vatican) beyond national control. This anomaly is not formally resolved until 1929. Internal politics The early decades of democratic rule, conducted from Rome as a restored capital city, establish a pattern of politics which remains characteristic of Italy a century later in the years after World War II. Governments are remarkably brief, rarely lasting as much as three years. But the names of the same leading politicians recur again and again as coalitions and cabinets form, dissolve and regroup. This political system acquires a name, trasformismo (transformism), implying that the leading politicians transform their alliances and even their policies in order to remain in power. In practical terms this means balancing a cabinet by including a mix of politicians from both right and left of the political spectrum. It is a political system pioneered from 1876 by Agostino Depretis. Depretis forms a succession of administrations, with few periods out of office, in the eleven years up to his death in 1887. He is himself on the liberal wing of politics. His measures include extending the franchise and educational reform. He is followed, as premier in 1887 and subsequently as the dominant figure in Italian politics, by a far less conciliatory figure, Francesco Crispi. Crispi has begun his political career as a radical republican, but an admiration for Bismarck accompanies a gradual move towards monarchy and autocracy as political principles. When Victor Emmanuel II dies, in 1878, Crispi is minister for the interior in Depretis cabinet. He secures the succession of Umberto I, whose prime minister he becomes nine years later. Crispi takes an unprecedented degree of power into his own hands, keeping for himself both the home and foreign portfolios in his cabinet. His early measures are in keeping with his radical past (they include the abolition of the death penalty and reforms in prisons and public health policy), but he soon develops a dictatorial streak, reducing the power of parliament and stifling opposition. When he dies, in 1901, he has a fervent admirer in an 18-year old Italian; Mussolini later reveres Crispi as the father of fascism. But Crispis years in power are disastrous for Italy. Crispis hostility to France, Italys main trading partner, has dire effects on the economy. His Ethiopian policy brings shame and humiliation to Italy. A peasant uprising in Sicily in 1893 is met with drastic repression rather than any attention to the genuine grievances and poverty underlying it. Meanwhile Crispi is constantly on the verge of being engulfed in a banking scandal which is first exposed in 1892. In spite of his best efforts to suppress any enquiry, the judiciary in 1897 recommends that he should be prosecuted. A commission clears him of personal embezzlement but reveals his protection of his friends in shady deals. The Ethiopian disaster has already forced his resignation as premier (in 1896). In 1897 Crispi retires from political life. Giovanni Giolitti, the third dominant figure in this period of Italian politics, is like Crispi heavily implicated in the banking scandal but survives. Becoming prime minister five times between 1891 and 1921, he is as adept as any of his predecessors at forming the shifting coalitions which keep him in power. His policies are mainly reformist. In 1909 he is only narrowly defeated in his attempt to introduce a progressive income tax. In 1911 he brings in universal male suffrage and a national insurance act. Giolittis foreign policy is as aggressive as Crispis and brings Italy almost as little real benefit. But a declaration of war against a weakened Turkey does deliver, in 1912, a much desired Mediterranean colony in the form of Libya. Until 1871 the main preoccupation of Italian politicians has been, first, the establishment of a nation and then the addition to the new nation of Venice and Rome. During this same period the main priority of foreign policy has been to remain free of fixed alliances, enabling the fledgling state to play off the European powers against each other as the situation may require. But new circumstances bring new ambitions. If Italy is to take her place as a leading European nation, she must - or so it seems to the politicians - engage in the diplomatic game of alliances. Similarly she should compete for the spoils of empire. The scramble for Africa gathers pace in the 1880s, but several years before this Italy is already closely involved in Tunisia. From 1869 she shares jointly, with France and Britain, responsibility for Tunisian finances. Of the three nations Italy has the best claim, in terms of investment, to become the colonial power. But France and Britain do a deal behind Italys back, and France secures control of Tunisia with a sudden coup in 1881. The resulting sense of outrage in Italy has a profound effect on the nations foreign policy. Abandoning Italys non-aligned stance, the government of Agostino Depretis opens negotiations with Germany and Austria. The result is a Triple Alliance, signed in May 1882, by which the three nations agree to support each other if attacked by foreign powers and to maintain a benevolent neutrality if any of the three has to declare war. The alliance with Austria is seen as particularly beneficial to Italy. It protects Venice from Austrian claims and gives a seal of approval to Italys seizing of Rome. An underlying theme of the alliance, Italian antagonism to France, is further developed when Crispi comes into power in 1887. Instinctively anti-French, and a fervent admirer of Bismarck, he repudiates in 1888 a commercial treaty with France. The result harms Italy very much more than France, which until now has taken 40% of Italys exports. The French can find these supplies elsewhere. But the Italian economy suffers a severe dip. Crispi is equally aggressive on the imperial front. With Italy foiled in the Mediterranean over Tunisia, he attempts to make gains on the Red Sea. Italian shipping firms have been developing the coast of Eritrea from 1869. During the 1880s Italian merchants and troops press further inland. In 1889 Crispi builds on this success, using it to sign a treaty with the emperor of neighbouring Ethiopia. Overstating the terms of the treaty (at any rate according to the Ethiopian interpretation of what has been signed) Crispi declares to the world that Ethiopia is now an Italian protectorate. Ethiopia immediately denies this and in 1893 repudiates the entire treaty. The result is a war which ends in humiliating disaster for Italy. The Italian defeat at Aduwa in 1896 leads to the resignation of Crispi. Italys final attempt at imperialism is more successful, though achieved at a heavy cost. By the first decade of the 20th century Italian ambitions in Africa are focused on Libya, still ostensibly part of the enfeebled Ottoman empire. In 1911 Italy claims the right to station troops there, to protect Italian citizens, and immediately follows this announcement with a declaration of war on Turkey. In the autumn of 1912 the Turks, distracted by troubles closer to home in the Balkans, cede much of Libya to Italy. The rest of the province is soon seized by Italian troops. But the entire campaign has been conducted against strenuous opposition from the local tribesmen. Libya never settles down in its brief period under Italian rule. The three decades until the Italians are driven out of Libya see two world wars and the rise and fall of fascism. World War I A battlefield of trench warfare becomes established along the Isonzo river. As many as half a million Italians die here with little to show. A brief success with the capture of the city of Gorizia prompts Italy to declare war on Germany. October 1917 brings a major setback when the Austrians push southwest almost as far as Venice. It is a full year before Italy recovers this territory. With the tide of war now clearly against the Central powers, an Italian advance in October 1918 prompts a rapid Austrian request for an armistice. It is signed on November 3. Eight days later Germany too signs an armistice with the Allies. Italy gets less from the postwar treaty than was promised in London, since the northeastern coast of the Adriatic goes to the newly created state of Yugoslavia. But Italy achieves her most important requirements: a border which reaches north to all the Alpine passes (bringing within Italy many German-speakers in the Brenner region), together with the important city of Trieste. Nevertheless the more nationalist elements in the country feel frustrated, and the mood of unrest is aggravated by the economic damage done to the country in the war. In the aftermath of the Russian revolution extremism is the mood of the times. A turbulent postwar period seems inevitable in Italian politics. Italian right-wing nationalism is first seen, in miniature and slightly comic form, in the crisis over Fiume. This port has been allotted by the peace treaty to Yugoslavia but it has a mainly Italian population. Within two days of the signing of the treaty, Fiume is seized by a force of some 300 Italian volunteers led by the flamboyant poet Gabriele dAnnunzio. The European powers are not pleased, but much of Italian opinion is delighted - with the result that the government declines to act. For many months dAnnunzio is left in peace to mouth bombastic speeches in his self-proclaimed role as Italian regent. In June 1920 the veteran politician Giolitti forms the last of his five administrations, and he at last takes the necessary steps. On Christmas Day 1920 Italian troops bombard the poets headquarters. Within days he leaves Fiume without putting up any resistance. DAnnunzios example has not gone unnoticed. An ambitious 33-year-old Italian politician takes note of what can be achieved with a small measure of force and a sufficient dash of bravado. He is Benito Mussolini, a failed candidate for parliament but leader since March 1919 of a political party with a marked tendency to violence. He vigorously supports dAnnunzios swashbuckling adventure and later sees him as a precursor of Fascism. Read more: historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=3432&HistoryID=ac52>rack=pthc#ixzz3InFtP6JO
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 17:17:43 +0000
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