Italy in the First World War
At the beginning of the XX century, Italy had sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance. As many other countries in the world, what Italy did was to wait and see how the war was progressing before getting involved in it.
How were the Italian politicians seeing the IWW?
- On the one hand, neither socialists nor nacionalists wanted to take part of it.
- In October 1914, Mussolini was kicked out of the Socialist Party and he changed his mind.
In April 1915, Italy came into the war on the side of the Triple Entente which was formed by Britain, France and Russia.
So why did the government changed his mind and decided to go to war?
In 1915, Italy had signed the secret Treaty of London. In this treaty Britain had offered Italy large sections of territory in the Adriatic Sea Region. Britain and France wanted Italy to join in on their side. The plan was to split the Central Powers so that its power on the Western and Eastern was weakened. In the end Italy never took a serious part on the IWW because of its numerous defeats. The most famous one is known as the Disaster of Caporetto, Italy lost there 300.000 men.
Evaluation: By the end of 1918, 600.000 italians were dead and the government had spent too much money. High inflation and unemployment rate. The Italian government did not receive anything of assured in the Treaty of London and also almost anything from Versailles.