Editing History of Italy (section)

==Liberal period (1861–1922)==
{{Main|Kingdom of Italy}}
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| footer   = [[Victor Emmanuel II of Italy|Victor Emmanuel II]] (left) and [[Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour]] (right), leading figures in the Italian unification, became respectively the [[King of Italy|1st king]] and [[Prime Minister of Italy|1st Prime Minister]] of unified Italy.
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[[Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy|Italy became a nation-state]] on 17 March 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula were united under king [[Victor Emmanuel II of Italy|Victor Emmanuel II]]. The architects of Italian unification were [[Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour]], and [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]]. 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 victory against Austria allowed Italy to annex Venice. In 1870, France started the [[Franco-Prussian War]] and brought home its soldiers in Rome; Italy marched in to take over the Papal State. Italian unification was completed, and the capital was moved from Florence to Rome.{{Efn|The [[Vatican City]] by the [[Lateran Treaty]] of 1929 became an independent country, an enclave surrounded by Italy.}}

Some of the states that had been targeted for unification (''[[Italian irredentism|terre irredente]]''), [[Trentino-Alto Adige]] and [[Julian March]], did not join the Kingdom of Italy until 1918 after Italy defeated [[Austria-Hungary]] in the [[First World War]]. For this reason, historians sometimes describe the unification period as reaching completion only with the [[Armistice of Villa Giusti]] on 4 November 1918.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Arnaldi |first=Girolamo |title=Italy and Its Invaders |date=2005 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-6740-1870-2 |page=194}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Museo Centrale del Risorgimento di Roma |url=http://www.risorgimento.it/index.php?section=museo |access-date=6 July 2018 |website=Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano |language=it}}</ref>

Parliamentary democracy developed considerably in the 19th century. The Sardinian [[Statuto Albertino]] of 1848, extended to the whole [[Kingdom of Italy]] in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but the electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. Italy's political arena was sharply divided between broad camps of left and right which created frequent deadlock and attempts to preserve governments. [[Marco Minghetti]] lost power in 1876 and was replaced by the [[Liberalism and radicalism in Italy|Democrat]] [[Agostino Depretis]], who began a period of political dominance in the 1880s, but continued attempts to appease the opposition to hold power.

Depretis began his term 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, resulting in only four representatives from the right being elected in 1876. Depretis put through authoritarian measures, such as banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands, 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.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|pages=95–107}} The first government of Depretis collapsed after his dismissal of his Interior Minister, and ended with his resignation in 1877. 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.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|page=123}} In 1887, Depretis was finally pushed out of office after years of political decline.

[[Francesco Crispi]] was prime minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896. Historian R.J.B. Bosworth says of his foreign policy that Crispi "pursued policies whose openly aggressive character would not be equaled until the days of the Fascist regime... His policies were ruinous, both for Italy's trade with France, and, more humiliatingly, for colonial ambitions in East Africa."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bosworth |first=R. J. B. |title=Italy and the Wider World: 1860–1960 |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-1347-8088-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VL1vjYQRR-0C&pg=PA29 29]}}</ref> Crispi's major concerns during 1887–91 was protecting Italy from Austria-Hungary. Crispi worked to build Italy as a great world power through increased military expenditures, advocation of expansionism, and trying to win Germany's favor even by joining the [[Triple Alliance (1882)|Triple Alliance]]. 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.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith |1997|pages=128–32}}

The overwhelming attention paid to foreign policy alienated the agricultural community which needed help. Both radical and conservative forces in the Italian parliament demanded that the government investigate how to improve agriculture.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|pages=136–38}} The investigation showed that agriculture was not improving, that landowners were swallowing up revenue from their lands and contributing almost nothing to development of the land. There was aggravation by lower class Italians to the break-up of communal lands which benefited only 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.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|page=137}} The Italian government could not deal with the situation effectively due to the mass overspending that left Italy in huge debt. Italy also suffered economically because of overproduction of grapes in the 1870s and 1880s when France's vineyard industry was suffering from vine disease. 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 split in two which caused greater unemployment and bankruptcies.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|page=139}}
[[File:Piazza Venezia - Il Vittoriano (cropped).jpg|thumb|The [[Victor Emmanuel II Monument]] in Rome, a [[National symbols of Italy|national symbol of Italy]] celebrating the first king of the unified country, and resting place of the [[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Italy)|Italian Unknown Soldier]] since the end of World War I. It was inaugurated in 1911, on the occasion of the 50th [[Anniversary of the Unification of Italy]].]]

From 1901 to 1914, Italian history and politics was dominated by [[Giovanni Giolitti]]. He first confronted the wave of widespread discontent that Crispi's policy had provoked: no more authoritarian repression, but acceptance of protests and therefore of strikes, as long as they are neither violent nor political, with the (successful) aim of bringing the socialists in the political life of the country.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Giolitti, Giovanni |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-giolitti_%28Enciclopedia-dei-ragazzi%29 |access-date=23 November 2021 |language=it}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Alexander |first=J. |title=The hunchback's tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and liberal Italy from the challenge of mass politics to the rise of fascism, 1882-1922 |date=2001 |publisher=Greenwood}}</ref> Giolitti's most important interventions were social and labor legislation, universal male suffrage, the nationalization of the railways and insurance companies, the reduction of state debt, and the development of infrastructure and industry. In foreign policy, there was a movement away from Germany and Austria-Hungary and toward the [[Triple Entente]] of France, Britain and Russia.

Starting from the late 19th century, Italy developed its own colonial Empire. It took control of [[Italian Somaliland|Somalia]]. Its attempt to occupy Ethiopia failed in the [[First Italo–Ethiopian War]] of 1895–1896. In 1911, Giolitti's government sent forces to occupy Libya and declared war on the [[Ottoman Empire]]. Italy soon annexed Libya (then divided in [[Italian Tripolitania|Tripolitania]] and [[Italian Cyrenaica|Cyrenaica]]) and the [[Italian Islands of the Aegean|Dodecanese Islands]] after the [[Italo-Turkish War]]. Nationalists advocated Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece as well as the Adriatic coastal region of [[Dalmatia]] but no attempts were made.{{Sfnp|Bosworth|2005|page=49}} In June 1914 the left became repulsed by the government after the killing of three anti-militarist demonstrators. The [[Italian Socialist Party]] declared a general strike in Italy. The protests that ensued became known as "[[Red Week (Italy)|Red Week]]", as leftists rioted and various acts of civil disobedience occurred such as seizing railway stations, cutting telephone wires and burning tax-registers.

===World War I and crisis of the Liberal state===
{{See also|Italian entry into World War I|Italian Front (World War I)|Military history of Italy during World War I|Italian Campaign (World War I)}}
[[File:Italian empire 1914.png|thumb|left|Italy and its [[Italian Empire|colonial possessions]] in 1914]]

Italy entered into the [[First World War]] on 24 May 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, it is also considered the [[Fourth Italian War of Independence]],<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 March 2015 |title=Il 1861 e le quattro Guerre per l'Indipendenza (1848-1918) |url=http://www.piacenzaprimogenita150.it/index.php?it%2F176%2Fil-1861-e-le-quattro-guerre-per-lindipendenza-1848-1918 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319075828/http://www.piacenzaprimogenita150.it/index.php?it%2F176%2Fil-1861-e-le-quattro-guerre-per-lindipendenza-1848-1918 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |access-date=12 March 2021 |language=it}}</ref> in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the [[unification of Italy]].<ref name="ReferenceB">{{Cite web |title=La Grande Guerra nei manifesti italiani dell'epoca |url=http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Contenuti/MibacUnif/Eventi/visualizza_asset.html_1239896580.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923183754/http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Contenuti/MibacUnif/Eventi/visualizza_asset.html_1239896580.html |archive-date=23 September 2015 |access-date=12 March 2021 |language=it}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Genovesi |first=Piergiovanni |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_LntMIUOXngC&q=%22quarta+guerra+d%27indipendenza%22&pg=PA41 |title=Il Manuale di Storia in Italia, di Piergiovanni Genovesi |date=11 June 2009 |publisher=FrancoAngeli |isbn=978-8-8568-1868-0 |language=it |access-date=12 March 2021}}</ref>

The war forced the decision whether to honour the alliance with Germany and Austria. For six months, Italy remained neutral, as the [[Triple Alliance (1882)|Triple Alliance]] was only for defensive purposes. Italy took the initiative in entering the war in spring 1915, despite strong popular and elite sentiment in favour of neutrality. Italy was, since its unification, the [[least of the great powers]]: a relatively large, but only partialy industrialized country, whose political system was chaotic; its finances were heavily strained, and its army had not been prepared for a long conflict.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Renzi |first=William A. |title=In the Shadow of the Sword: Italy's Neutrality and Entrance into the Great War, 1914–1915 |date=1987}}</ref> The Triple Alliance meant little either to Italians or Austrians. Prime Minister [[Antonio Salandra]] and Foreign Minister [[Sidney Sonnino]] negotiated with both sides in secret for the best deal, and got one from the Entente, which was quite willing to promise large slices of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including the [[History of Tyrol|Tyrol]] and [[Trieste]], as well as making [[Albania]] a protectorate. Russia vetoed giving Italy [[Dalmatia]]. Britain was willing to pay subsidies and loans to get 36 million Italians as new allies who threatened the southern flank of Austria.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lowe |first=C. J. |date=1969 |title=Britain and Italian Intervention 1914–1915 |journal=Historical Journal |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=533–548 |doi=10.1017/s0018246x00007275 |s2cid=162738142}}</ref>
[[File:Promised Borders of the Tready of London.png|thumb|Territories promised to Italy by the 
[[Treaty of London (1915)]], i.e. [[Trentino-Alto Adige]], the [[Julian March]] and [[Dalmatia]] (tan), and the [[Snežnik (plateau)|Snežnik Plateau]] area (green). Dalmatia, after the WWI, however, was not assigned to Italy but to [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]]]]

When the [[Treaty of London (1915)|Treaty of London]] was announced in May 1915, there was an uproar from antiwar elements. Reports from around Italy showed the people feared war, and cared little about territorial gains. Pro-war supporters mobbed the streets. The fervor for war represented a bitterly hostile reaction against politics as usual, and the failures, frustrations, and stupidities of the ruling class.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Martin |title=Modern Italy: 1871–1995 |date=1996 |publisher=Longman |edition=2nd |pages=180–185}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mack Smith |first=Denis |title=Italy: A Modern History |date=1969 |pages=292–305}}</ref> [[Benito Mussolini]] created the newspaper ''[[Il Popolo d'Italia]]'', which at first attempted to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gregor |first=Anthony James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DTZ_holEfS0C&pg=PA200 |title=Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism |date=1979 |publisher=U. of California Press |isbn=978-0-5200-3799-1 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=DTZ_holEfS0C&pg=PA200 200]}}</ref> The [[Allies of World War I|Allied Powers]], eager to draw Italy to the war, helped finance the newspaper.{{Sfnp|Clark|1996|p=183}} Later, after the war, this publication would become the official newspaper of the Fascist movement.
[[File:Liberazione di Trieste.jpg|thumb|Italian troops landing in [[Trieste]], 3 November 1918]]
[[File:Trento 3 novembre 1918.jpg|thumb|Italian cavalry in [[Trento]] on 3 November 1918, after the victorious [[Battle of Vittorio Veneto]]]]
[[File:Sacrario militare di Redipuglia agosto 2014.JPG|thumb|The [[Redipuglia War Memorial]] of [[Fogliano Redipuglia|Redipuglia]], with the tomb of [[Prince Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Aosta (1869–1931)|Prince Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Aosta]] in the foreground]]

Italy entered the war with an army of 875,000 men, but the Austrians had terrain advantage and superior artillery and machine guns. Italy's war supplies had also been depleted in [[Italo-Turkish War|the war of 1911–12]] against Turkey. Italy fought a long trench warfare, with fighting raging for three years on front along the [[Alps]] and the [[Battles of the Isonzo|Isonzo River]], and later on the [[Piave river]]. In 1916, Italy declared war on Germany. Some 650,000 Italian soldiers died and 950,000 were wounded, while the economy required large-scale Allied funding to survive.{{Sfnp|Clark|1996|pp=185–194}}{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1969|pp=307–313}}

Before the war the government had ignored labor issues, but now it had to intervene to mobilize war production. With the main working-class Socialist party reluctant to support the war effort, strikes were frequent and cooperation was minimal, especially in the Socialist strongholds of Piedmont and Lombardy. The government imposed high wage scales, as well as collective bargaining and insurance schemes.<ref>Luigi Tomassini, "Industrial Mobilization and the labour market in Italy during the First World War," ''Social History'', (1991), 16#1 pp 59–87</ref> Many large firms expanded dramatically. Inflation doubled the cost of living. Industrial wages kept pace but not wages for farm workers. Discontent was high in rural areas since so many men were taken for service, industrial jobs were unavailable, wages grew slowly and inflation was just as bad.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=Spencer C. |title=European Powers in the First World War |pages=375–376}}</ref>

The Italian victory,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burgwyn |first=H. James |title=Italian foreign policy in the interwar period, 1918–1940 |date=1997 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=0-2759-4877-3 |page=4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schindler |first=John R. |title=Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War |date=2001 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=0-2759-7204-6 |page=303}}</ref>{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1982|p=31}} which was announced by the ''[[Bollettino della Vittoria]]'' and the ''[[Bollettino della Vittoria Navale]]'', marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]] and was chiefly instrumental in [[Armistice with Germany|ending]] the First World War less than two weeks later. More than 651,000 Italian soldiers died on the battlefields.<ref name="Mortara">{{Cite book |last=Mortara |first=Giorgio |title=La Salute pubblica in Italia durante e dopo la Guerra |date=1925 |publisher=G. Laterza & figli |pages=28–29, 165 |lang=it}}</ref> The Italian civilian deaths were estimated at 589,000 due to malnutrition and food shortages.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hersch |first=Liebmann |author-link=Liebmann Hersch |title=La mortalité causée par la guerre mondiale |date=1927 |publisher=The International Review of Statistics |pages=52–59 |language=fr}}</ref> In November 1918, after the surrender of Austria-Hungary, Italy occupied militarily [[Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol|Trentino Alto-Adige]], the [[Julian March]], [[Istria]], the [[Kvarner Gulf]] and [[Dalmatia]], all Austro-Hungarian territories. On the Dalmatian coast, Italy established the [[Governorate of Dalmatia#The first Governorate of Dalmatia|Governorate of Dalmatia]], which had the provisional aim of ferrying the territory towards full integration into the Kingdom of Italy, progressively importing national legislation in place of the previous one. The administrative capital was [[Zadar|Zara]]. The Governorate of Dalmatia was evacuated following the Italo-Yugoslav agreements which resulted in the [[Treaty of Rapallo (1920)]], although Zara was annexed.

As the war came to an end, [[Italian Prime Minister]] [[Vittorio Emanuele Orlando]] met with [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]] [[David Lloyd George]], [[Prime Minister of France]] [[Georges Clemenceau]] and [[President of the United States|United States President]] [[Woodrow Wilson]] in [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] to discuss how the borders of Europe should be redefined to help avoid a future European war. The talks provided considerable territorial gains to Italy, but not all those promised in the Treaty of London, as Wilson championed freedom to all European nationalities to form their nation-states. As a result, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] did not assign [[Dalmatia]] (inhabited by a Slavic majority) to Italy as had been promised. Furthermore, the British and French decided to divide the German and Ottoman overseas possessions into their mandates, with Italy receiving only some colonial compensations. Despite this, Orlando agreed to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which caused the uproar of nationalists against his government. The [[Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)]] and the [[Treaty of Rapallo (1920)]] allowed the annexation of [[Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol|Trentino Alto-Adige]], [[Julian March]], [[Istria]], [[Kvarner Gulf|Kvarner]] as well as the [[Dalmatia]]n city of [[Zadar|Zara]].
[[Image:Fiume cheering D'Annunzio.jpg|thumb|Residents of [[Fiume]], now Rijeka, Croatia, cheering the arrival of [[Impresa di Fiume|Gabriele D'Annunzio and his ''Legionari'']] in September 1919, when Fiume had 22,488 (62% of the population) Italians in a total population of 35,839 inhabitants.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Fiume-question|title=Fiume question|publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]|access-date=8 May 2025}}</ref>]]

Furious over the peace settlement, the Italian nationalist poet [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]] led disaffected war veterans and nationalists to form the [[Free State of Fiume]] in September 1919. His popularity among nationalists led him to be called ''[[Il Duce]]'' ("The Leader"), and he used black-shirted paramilitary in his assault on Fiume. The leadership title of ''Duce'' and the blackshirt paramilitary uniform would later be adopted by the [[Italian fascism|fascist]] movement of [[Benito Mussolini]]. The demand for the Italian annexation of Fiume spread to all sides of the political spectrum.{{Sfnp|Mack Smith|1997|p=293}}

The subsequent [[Treaty of Rome (1924)]] led to the annexation of the city of [[Fiume]] to Italy. Italy's lack of territorial gain led to the outcome being denounced as a ''[[mutilated victory]]''. The rhetoric of ''mutilated victory'' was adopted by Mussolini and led to the [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|rise of]] [[Italian fascism]], becoming a key point in the [[propaganda of Fascist Italy]]. Historians regard ''mutilated victory'' as a "political myth", used by fascists to fuel [[Italian imperialism]] and obscure the successes of [[liberal Italy]] in the aftermath of World War I.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sabbatucci |first=G. |title=Miti e storia dell'Italia unita |date=1999 |publisher=Il Mulino |editor-last=AA.VV. |location=Bologna |pages=101–106 |chapter=La vittoria mutilata |lang=it}}</ref> Italy also gained a permanent seat in the [[League of Nations]]'s executive council.