Italy gained a stronger social structure as thousands of formerly dandles, peasants became small landowners.
The workers’ seizure of the factoriesĮconomic troubles made the surface boil even though the country’s underlying situation was improving Lured by the high price of farm land, many of the big landowners sold oft their holdings in small pieces to the peasants. There was unemployment, and there were strikes. The government’s economic policies were confused and inadequate. There were difficulties in regaining foreign markets. Inflation came along to destroy values and sow the seeds of insecurity among the middle classes. It was one of the things that helped to bring fascism. These people deliberately kept the question of Flume open, and it became a festering sore in the Italian consciousness. Fiume became a slogan used by extreme nationalists to spread the notion that Italy was being cheated out of the fruits of victory. Under the conditions of nervous strain, moral confusion, and economic crisis that follow all great wars, however, straight thinking does not always prevail. Italy was supreme on its eastern flank no other European power had achieved as much. The war had strengthened Italy’s international position enormously. Sensible Italians recognized that Italy’s primary war aim, the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire, had been achieved beyond the fondest hopes. On that small issue came the break that turned Italy sour on the peace settlement. President Wilson refused to accept the Italian claim to Fiume as legitimate. Moreover, it was needed by the new state, Yugoslavia, as an essential outlet to the sea. To give Fiume to Italy would have meant carrying the principle of nationalities to an absurd extreme, especially since that same principle was being violated in Italy’s favor. This something more was Fiume, a little town of Italian population wholly surrounded by an area of Slavic population in territory formerly belonging to Hungary. And then the Italians went ahead and, on the principle of nationalities, asked for still more. It also promised the province of Istria with half a million Slavs. For the Treaty of London promised Italy South Tyrol with its quarter of a million Austrians south of the Brenner Pass. In the first place they stood by the treaty with the violations of the principle of nationalities which it entailed. The chief Italian delegate, Signor Orlando, and his colleagues did neither. Or they could have tossed it in and called for a new deal on the common Allied aims of a lasting peace with territorial settlements according to the wishes of the peoples involved. They could have played it for all it was worth for the treaty laid down in black and white exactly what was due Italy for its war effort. The Treaty of London was Italy’s hole card at the peace conference-and the Italian delegation fumbled it. The people of Italy, however, remained in ignorance of the treaty and fought bravely for loftier goals. By this pact the Italian government agreed to enter the war against its German and Austrian allies in return for the promise of specified territorial additions along the northern and eastern Italian borders. Some very complicated negotiations with both belligerent camps ended in the signing at London of a secret treaty with England and France in April 1915. The popular feelings and desires were not entirely reflected in the government’s diplomatic maneuvers. Some of them, in fact, wanted to join England and France a fight that would get Trento and Trieste for Italy. It was also quite agreeable to the mass of the Italian people, who wanted to stay out of the war altogether. This it was entitled to do under the terms of the alliance, because Austria was the aggressor against Serbia. Immediately on the outbreak of the first World War, Italy declared its neutrality. Italian patriots had not given up hope that some day they could be wrested away from Austria to complete the process of national unification. The Italian-populated cities of Trento and Trieste and their surrounding provinces (not all of Italian population) were still under Austrian rule. On the other hand, Austria was known among the Italian people as “the secular enemy.” Before 1870 it had long been dominant in Italian affairs, always working against unification. With France, the other “Latin sister,” all conflicts of interest that had pushed Italy into the Central Powers camp had been settled. On the one hand, friendship for England was the cornerstone of Italian foreign policy. WHEN THE WAR broke out in 1914, Italy was, and since 1882 had been, an ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
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