PRELUDE TO WORLD WAR II
by GAETANO SALVEMINI
Classic Literature Collection World Public Library.org
Title: PRELUDE TO WORLD WAR II Author: GAETANO SALVEMINI Language: English Subject: Fiction, Literature 'LJLWDOPublisher: World Public Library Association
Copyright © 20, All Rights Reserved Worldwide by World Public Library, www.WorldLibrary.net
World Public Library The World Public Library, www.WorldLibrary.net is an effort to preserve and disseminate classic works of literature, serials, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works in a number of languages and countries around the world. Our mission is to serve the public, aid students and educators by providing public access to the world's most complete collection of electronic books on-line as well as offer a variety of services and resources that support and strengthen the instructional programs of education, elementary through post baccalaureate studies.
This file was produced as part of the "eBook Campaign" to promote literacy, accessibility, and enhanced reading. Authors, publishers, librariDQV and technologists uniteG to expand reading with eBooks.
Support online literacy by becoming a member of the World Public Library, http://www.WorldLibrary.net/Join.htm.
Copyright © 20, All Rights Reserved Worldwide by World Public Library, www.WorldLibrary.net
www.worldlibrary.net
*This eBook has certain copyright implications you should read.*
This book is copyrighted by the World Public Library. With permission copies may be distributed so long as such copies (1) are for your or others personal use only, and (2) are not distributed or used commercially. Prohibited distribution includes any service that offers this file for download or commercial distribution in any form, (See complete disclaimer http://WorldLibrary.net/Copyrights.html).
World Public Library Association P.O. Box 22687 Honolulu, Hawaii 96823
[email protected]
Copyright © 20, All Rights Reserved Worldwide by World Public Library, www.WorldLibrary.net
PRELUDE TO WORLD WAR by
GAETANO SALVEMINI
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, GARDEN CITY
NEW YORK 1954
ING.
II
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
TO
MY COLLEAGUES AND STUDENTS AT HARVARD THIS IN
BOOK
IS
DEDICATED
APPRECIATION OF THEIR GENEROSITY AND KINDNESS
PREFACE COLLECTIVE TERMS LIKE
9
"Britain", "Germany *, "France", are banned as a rale from the present book. Those and all "Italy other collective-abstract terms, like "State", * 'Church % "Bank", 33
'
9
"Union" denoting "corporate persons",
have an indispensable task to perform in juridical doctrine and practice. But in history and politics they should not hide the men, of flesh and blood, who stand behind those words. Responsibility for their decisions has to be pinned squarely on the politicians and diplomats, or at most, as lawyers say,
on the "Governments" or "Foreign Offices" that made those decisions, and not on "Britain", "Germany", "Italy", etc., or on the peoples of those countries. To be sure, "Government" also is a collective-abstract term. But it is less abstract, and less deceptive than the names of the countries. This does not mean that one man and one man alone to make use of the words Churchill used of Mussolini in December 1940 could govern a country of more than forty million men and women. He could not govern even a village. A leader needs followers who support him, and, to keep their support, he has to meet their needs and expectations he must follow his followers. But his followers need not include the whole population. The British "National" Government, from 1931 to 1935, were supported not by the whole population but by the rank and file of the Conservative Party, and by that floating section of the population who, though :
not consistently Conservative, voted Conservative in the National elections of 1931 and 1935. Moreover, the Conservative leaders had to be, more or less, in agreement with the top permanent officials of the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, the different branches of the Civil Service, the Secret Service, and with the most
newspapermen, clergymen, intellectuals, and those who form the so-called public opinion in each
influential politicians,
businessmen
country. In the case of Mussolini, he did not need such wide support as leaders need in democratic regimes. There were no free elections in Italy, and the bulk of the population had no legal channels through which to express their satisfaction or grievances. Mussolini only needed to be supported by those high military chiefs and big businessmen who had brought him to power; those politicians of the preFascist vintage who had joined the bandwagon; those high civil servants who almost all had done the same; the chieftains of the Party and the rank and file of the Fascist Militia; most of the higher clergy and those among the lower clergy who followed 7
example; newspaper editors, and journalists, and other intellectuals; and last but not Ieast the King who gave the sea! of legitimacy to MussoIIrirs decisions. All in all, less than i per cent of the population. Ail these followers were as indispensable to the Duce as he as their leader was indispensable to them. When most of the men In the highest rank of the combine lost faith in him, he collapsed like a collossus with feet of clay. Peoples also are responsible for giving their rulers a free hand, not only the peoples endowed with democratic institutions, but also those who, like the Italians,, were crushed under the heel of a dictator. But one should never forget that under parliamentary, no less than under dictatorial governments, decisions, especially on matters of foreign policy, are taken, not by the peoples themselves, but by small cliques their
y
of "experts*
3
who
often deceive their peoples: see
what happened
In
The peoples should be brought into the picture are called to pay with their blood and their money for the misdeeds of their rulers and for their own responsibility in England
In 1935.
only when they
applauding their
rulers. entitled to respect a people while not condoning the crimes of Its politicians, and to denounce the dishonesty of its politicians without being charged with hostility against their people. This common-sense truth must be borne in mind especially in regard to the policies of the British Foreign Office towards Mussolini. From the end of 1924 to the autumn of 1935 all British Foreign Ministers worked more or less hand In glove with Mussolini. In 1 935 and 1 936
One
is
that understanding seemed to have collapsed, but it never altogether broke down; and starting with the summer of 1936 it was reestablished, lasted until June 1940, and was finally shattered not by the British Government, but by Mussolini. Mussolini is not the only villain in this book. The present writer has never been prepared to identify Mussolini and the Italian people. He does not feel bound to make for Britain or any other country the confusion that he has always refused to make for Italy. He regards Britain as the second fatherland of freedom-loving men and women the world over. But his respect for the moral sanity and humanity of the British people, his admiration for the fortitude they showed In 1 940 during the most terrible hour of their history, Ms enthusiasm for the stupendous selfdiscipline by which they are confronting the severe post-war sacrifices, do not lead him to feel any respect, any admiration, any enthusiasm for Sir Austen. Chamberlain, Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare, Stanley Baldwin, or Neville Chamberlain. While one must admire the Russian people for producing, men like Dostoevski or Tolstoi and for -withstanding Hitler's onslaught at Stalingrad, one still need not feel pledged to act as Stalin's fellow-traveller. The author has not felt bound to abstain from moral judgment. Every time he has met a disreputable individual he has described
him
8
as disreputable.
Only
if
one has
lost all
remnants of
common
and moral
sense can one remain morally Indifferent to men who have caused death, misery, spiritual ruin to millions of other men. The writer, however, does not claim that Ms Judgments are "objective" truths: the same fact arouses different reactions in different people, since human personalities differ. Moreover, the writer must always bear In mind the personal reactions of the common man dwelling within him so that they do not usurp the place that
sense
should belong to facts. Because of the author's aversion to "corporate" abstractions, and
endeavour
definite persons, and Ms critics, no doubt, will dispose of him as "biased", "partial", "unscientific". There are certain historians and critics sincerely convinced that his
to trace the responsibility
on
frank opinions about these persons,
35
they are unbiased, impartial, "scientific , who reject as "biased" any opinion that clashes with their ovra bias: they are fools endowed with a God Almighty complex. second group consider themselves "unbiased 35 because they understand all principles and have none
A
themselves; opportunism Is no more admirable in historiography than in daily life. Then there are the wolves in sheep's clothing the prowho boast their lack of of bias. Finally, there are paganda agents those who frankly admit their bias, but do their utmost to avoid being blinded or side-tracked by it. Impartiality is either a delusion of the simple-minded, a banner of the opportunist, or the boast of the dishonest. Nobody is entitled to be unbiased towards truth or falsehood. Evidence permitting definite conclusions may be lacking, but when a conclusion has been reached, there cannot be two different truths. If one statement is true, the opposite is false. The present writer avers that he is "partial" against Mussolini and
accomplices of any denomination, Italians and non-Italians. At the same time he feels entitled to state that he has always been on guard against his own bias. He has never risked a statement without having at hand the evidence upon which it was based. At each step of the way he has asked himself the following question "If there were here at this moment an intelligent and well-informed admirer of the Italian Fascist regime to contradict me, could he give me the lie, and dn the basis of what evidence?** If I may be permitted to speak of a fact -which is of interest only for my own biography (in Itself a matter of no interest), I must state that in assembling the facts for the prehis
:
book and the conclusions to -which they led me, my opinion on Mussolini has not changed since the latter part of the First World War and the immediate post-war years. But a man like Laval, though still remaining a disreputable figure, unexpectedly benefited by a growing number of extenuating circumstances. On the other hand, sent
opinion not only of the Intelligence but also of the moral integrity of the men -who governed England in those years (as distinct from the British people) underwent a series of disastrous shocks. The author is always ready to bow to evidence proving that he has
my
9
fallen Into errors of fact or has overlooked facts that would controvert Ms interpretation. But be feels free of any obligation towards people who, without new facts or juster interpretation^ might in general terms condemn him as "biased" while they themselves are
blindly biased In some other direction, and know It. Not a few readers will think that the author has relied too heavily upon the dally Press. Tb.e dally Press they would say is but a dally deluge of misinformation. What can be its use in the writing of history ?
The
that a daily paper Is of little use as a direct historical source. But it is an invaluable Instrument of information as an indirect source. The dally paper does not give the truth, of events, but It allows us to guess what the men who control the paper want us to believe about the events; In other words., what Intentions, aims, delusions, and hopes they reveal from day to day through the channels of and of those outtheir Press. The job of a newspaperman in Italy was not toilsome in side Italy who got their "dope" from Rome Mussolini's days. All papers were edited by one man, in Rome. Since that man was responsible for whatever his newspapermen gave out, the latter are the most reliable sources of information, not about what fact
is
was actually happening, but about what Mussolini wanted people to believe and to expect. No historian, unless he is an innocent, will regard the London Morning Post y or
or Daily Afail, or the J\ ffw Tork Times? sources during the ItaloEtMopian war of 1935-36; but he will utilize those papers as valuable pointers to what the Governments of Rome, Paris, and Lonr
Observer.,
as reliable historical
don were plotting during 1935 and 1936. If documents were available in greater number, newspapers would have received less attention. Since most documents are still burled In archives, or are being destroyed, one must resort to Indirect evidence, and that furnished by the Press is precious. A reproach I certainly deserve concerns the extent to which I have weighted the narrative with quotations from documents, speeches, journalistic dispatches, and other sources, I could have greatly reduced the bulk of this book and spared the reader much fatigue had I simply related events without bringing in evidence. However, the reader must consider the fact that I had to deal with a highly controversial subject^ and one which had been obscured by emotions after convincing including my own. I have had to convince him that Mussolini was never the statesman myself great many believed him to be. I have had to show that the man "was always an irresponsible improviser, half madman, half criminal, gifted only but to the in the arts of "propaganda" and mystification. In highest degree the course of my research, I have, for Instance, arrived at the conclusion that the leaders of the Conservative Party and of the British Foreign Office deceived the English people throughout 1935 by making them believe they wished to bring Mussolini to reason while
they were in fact allowing him a free hand in Ethiopia; that none of these gentlemen ever contemplated an Immediately effective system of sanctions ; that Eden skilfully played his part in the farce, knowing perfectly well that it was a farce; that by 1936 British Conservative leaders had reached an understanding with Hitler which allowed him a free hand towards Russia provided he refrained from threatening Western Europe, thus making World War Two inevitable. I could not confront the reader with these grave conclusions without placing before him, step by step, my evidence in the most authentic form possible, even at the cost of boring him. trial in a courtroom
A
amusing than a play in a
theatre. Whoever looks for amusebetter put aside this book. Interviews, speeches, and documents may be traced in the daily Press or in official collections by reference to their dates. If I were to name all the friends who have helped me in this work, the list would be long indeed. But I am particularly indebted to Andrea Caffi, who gave me precious help in amassing the material and suggesting ideas for the period 1922-30, to Mrs. Heiene Gantarella for her affectionate, intelligent, and unswerving patience and devotion in the translation, and to Miss Isabella M. Massey for her invaluable help in the final revision of the text. The -work was made possible by the Committee of the W. F. Milton Fund and the J. H. Clark Bequest of Harvard University, to whose is less
ment had
members
I
wish to express
my
appreciation.
GAETANO SALVEMINI Cambridge (Mass.),
July 1949.
CONTENTS Preface
page
Abbreviations
j i^
PART ONE Prelude to the Prelude Italy the Malade Imaginaire :
5
Chapter
I.
II.
III.
IV. V. VI.
VII. VIII. IX.
X.
XL XII. XIII.
"Mutilated Victory " Enter Mussolini
The French Occupation of the Ruhr The Conquest of Corfu The League of Nations From Ramsay MacDonald to Sir Austen Chamberlain The Locarno Pacts The Chamberlain-Mussolini Understanding A Voyage Towards the Future Italy and France France, Germany, and Italy Albania Yugoslavia's Neighbours
19
29 37 44 52 60 66 72 78
86 96 103 1 14
PART TWO
Towards the Italo-Ethiopian War Chapter
XIV.
XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII.
XIX.
XX. XXI.
XXIL XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV. XXVI.
XXVIL
The Manchurian Crisis The Dawn of the Four-Power Pact Enter Hitler Enter Barthou and Dollfuss
123 128
Exit Dollfuss Exit Barthou; enter Laval The Laval-Mussolini Entente Enter the League of Nations
134 143 149 157 165 1 72 179
The Stresa Silences The Tana Dam
200
Enter Sir Galahad and Sir Samuel Hoare
1209
Murder
Inc.
191
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement Sir
Galahad goes
to
Rome
217 226 13
Chapter
XXY11L "I have a partner, Mr. Jorkins" XXIX. The Squaring of the Circle XXX. Ethiopia on a Silver Platter XXXI. The Peace Criminals XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIX'.
246 252 260
Enter F. D. Roosevelt Oil Bomb-shell
269 280
The
Public Opinion at
XXXV. The XXXVI.
page 237
Work
287 296 304
Grand Parade
Enter the British Fleet
PART THREE
The XXXVII. XXXVIII.
Chapter
XXXIX.
War
Italo-Ethiopian
The Beginning of the End The Suez Canal and Oil
325
Playing Hlde-and-Seek with F. D. Roosevelt
XL.
"Comparatively Mild Economic Sanctions"
XLI.
Mediterranean and Rhineland
XLIL
Sanctions and Elections Exit De Bono; enter Badoglio Mussolini runs Amok
XLIII.
XLIV.
XLV.
XLVL XLVIL
339 346 353
3% 374 385 395
The HoareLaval Plan The Tempest Enter Chucry Jacir Bey ; exit Sir Samuel
Hoare
CC
XLIX. L. LI.
LI I.
LIIL LIV,
A
401
Young Hero with no Scope
for
Heroics" Exit Laval; enter Flandin Exit the Locarno Pacts The Resurgence of the Roman Empire The Rout of the Sanctlonists Enter Leon Blum The Curtain Falls
408 421 432
439 447 455 465
EPILOGUE
Towards World War Chapter
LV. LVI.
LVII. LVIII.
LIX.
Two
Mussolini was always Right The Origins of the Rome-Berlin Axis The Breakdown of Collective Security Regional Pacts versus Collective Security France and Russia
479 486 494
Index and Bibliography
511
471
54
ABBREVIATIONS CS.
DT. GL IJ\~.
LT.
MG. MP. NTHT. NTT. PL S. J*.
When
= Corriere lella Sera Lilian daily. = Daily Telegraph^ London daily. = Giornale d Italia, Rome daily. = Idea Na&onale Rome daily. = Times, London daily. = Manchester Guardian, Manchester (England) = Morning Post, London daily. = New York Herald Tribune, New York daily. = New Tork Times, New York daily. = Popolo d* Italia, Milan daily. = Stampa, Turin daily. = Tribuna, Rome daily. 3
y
y
daily.
are quoted^ the first Arabic number means the day of the month, the Roman number the month, and the second Arabic number the year of the issue. dailies or other periodicals
PART ONE
PRELUDE TO THE PRELUDE: ITALY, THE MALADE IMAGINAIRE
CHAPTER "
I
MUTILATED VICTORY
35
VITH THE DISMEMBERMENT
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, after World War One, Italy was no longer threatened upon her eastern frontier and In the Adriatic by a hostile Power controlling 51 million subjects. Her neighbours to the east were now the Republic of Austria and newly created Yugoslavia. The former had no more than 6 million inhabitants, and was disarmed and neutralized. The latter had a population of 12 million, and was far more Interested in cultivating Italian friendship against the German-Hungarian-Bulgarian threat than in alienating Italy by a preconceived policy of hostility. If one compares France's post-war situation with Italy's, one must conclude that Italy's success in World War One outranked that of France. By eliminating the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the map of Europe, Italy had, in fact, essentially solved the problem of her security towards Central Europe. France, on the contrary, was still confronted with the compact mass of Germany the problem of her security remained unsolved. As Germany reorganized., the value of Italian friendship could only increase in the eyes of France, Germany, and the Danubian countries. Italy, which seventy years before had been a mere "geographical expression", :
had now become a Power
to
be reckoned with much more than
previously. Yet the Italian people, emerged
and *
from the war in a
state of dejection
'Bitterness.
From August
when
declared its neutrality in the war between the Central Powers and the Entente Powers, to May 1915, when it entered the war, the Italian Government had been in a most favourable bargaining position between the two fighting coalitions. 1914,
it
Foreign Minister, Sonnino, squeezed or thought he had squeezed every possible advantage from this opportunity. In the Treaty of London (April 26, 1915)., in return for pledging Italy's intervention in the war on the side of the Entente Powers against the Central Powers, he was promised that in the event of victory Italy would receive: (i) Italian-speaking Trentino; (2) the cities of Gorizia and Trieste, and Western Istria, whose inhabitants were predominantly Italian; (3) the German-speaking South Tirol (in and Italian, Alto Adige) (4) the hinterland of Gorizia, Trieste, Western Istria, inhabited by a compact Slav population; (5) a free hand in Albania; (6) a substantial slice of Dalmatia and most of the Islands off the coasts of Dalmatia inhabited by an overwhelmingly Italy's
;
19
Slav population; and acquisitions that and Africa.
(7)
"equitable" colonial compensations for any and France might make in the Near East
England
Promise 6 had been conceded with reluctance after hard bargaiiinot "equivalent") ing> and in promise 7 the word "equitable" (and was aware Sonnino could be made to mean everything or nothing. of these facts. But he had based Ms plans upon the assumption that the war would come to an end without causing either the disof Austria-Hungary or the utter defeat of Germany. If his English, French, and Russian partners failed to abide by their he liked, he would pledges, or did not give them the interpretation have grounds upon which to threaten them with joining a new Triple Alliance against them with a still formidable Germany and an Austria-
memberment
Hungary still powerful. The war brought about the total collapse of Germany and the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In addition, Yugoslavia (United Kingdom of the Serbs, Groats, and Slovenes) came into being. At the Peace Conference, Sonnino obtained without and 3 of the Treaty difficulty what he expected under headings i, 2, of London- But he had to dispute the assignation to Italy of the ItaloSIav and Slav territories by the Treaty of London, not with the the new-born Hapsburgs, who had vanished from the scene, but with Yugoslav Government. The problem of Fiume further added to Italian
difficulties.
Fiume
Italian majority. It had always enjoyed within the Austro-Hungarian Empire the status of a free city, analogous to
was inhabited by an
in Germany. In the Treaty of London, Sonnino had pledged that the Italian Government would leave Fiume to Croatia, because he expected Croatia to remain as an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he thought that Fiume should be left as its outlet to the sea. When the war ended with the dismemberment of the Empire and the creation of Yugoslavia, the Italian majority in the city of Fiume rebelled at the idea of being deof the prived of their traditional immunities and left to the mercy determined were Croats. All Italians, regardless of political creed., to support the Italians of Fiume on this point. Even those who were convinced that a friendly compromise should be worked out between Italians and Yugoslavs, joined the ranks of those. who demanded that the city retain at least its former autonomy under the protectorate of As an Italy. The question was of no great importance in itself. American journalist put it, the Italians were screaming for an orange, forgetful that gold-mines were available elsewhere. There was one way to solve this problem: not to exact strict observance of the Treaty of London, but to use it as a basis for negotiations in order to reach a better settlement. The British and French Foreign Offices, who were pledged by the terms of that treaty to
that of
Hamburg
assign Dalmatia. to Italy, no\y wished to assign 20
it
to Yugoslavia;
on
the other hand, Italy was pledged by the same treaty to assign Fiume to Croatia, but all Italians were averse to yielding it to Yugoslavia. The Italian negotiators should have consented to the revision of the Treaty of London, giving up Dalmatia on condition that they receive
Fiume. Such a settlement of the problem was finally agreed upon by Italy and Yugoslavia between 1920 and 1924. Sonnino and Prime Minister Orlando took, as they thought, complementary attitudes during the peace negotiations. Sonnino, as Foreign Minister, continued to demand Dalmatia, which, as already stated, had been assigned to Italy by the Treaty of London, and Orlando, appealing to the principle of nationality on behalf of all Thus, the Italians, demanded, in addition, the city of Fiume. Italian negotiators invoked the right of nationality in Fiume and ignored it in Dalmatia. Orlando's and Sonnino's attitudes were not
complementary, but contradictory. Their method was the more preposterous in that they had to square accounts at the Peace Conference not only with the English and French diplomats, who were bound by the Treaty of London, but also with President Wilson, who had not subscribed to that treaty and had no obligations towards Italy. He was ready to assign to her Trentino, South Tirol, Gorizia, Trieste, and West Istria, but he did not admit her claims to Dalmatia, Eastern Istria, or the hinterlands of Gorizia and Trieste, and favoured an autonomous Fiume. As soon as they encountered Wilson's opposition, Sonnino and Orlando unloosed a campaign of recriminations, threats, and insults against him in the Italian Press, which stiffened his resistance to the point of absurdity. During the rift which ensued between Sonnino, who was demanding the pound of flesh promised him in the Treaty of London, and Wilson, who had not signed that treaty and was not pledged to enforce it, Lloyd George and Clemenceau took up the attitude of disinterested spectators. Wilson's opposition had not been contemplated when the Treaty of London was made. This opposition concerned the Italians, and not the British or the French. Thus, the
problem of the hinterlands of Gorizia, Trieste, and Western Istria, as well as those of Fiume, Dalmatia, and Albania, remained in the air. While Italian politicians, journalists, and professors raged over Fiume, and Sonnino and Orlando were battling with Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau swallowed up 282,000 and 140,000 square miles respectively of the German colonies in Africa, and divided between themselves all the territories in the Near East not inhabited by Turkish populations. The city of Smyrna and its district, which had been promised to Italy during the war (Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne), were turned over to the Greeks. The "equitable" colonial compensations which Italy should have received were left for future negotiations. One of the compensations that Sonnino had hoped to wrest from Clemenceau and Lloyd George during the peace
negotiations was some kind of free hand in Ethiopia. London and Paris refused. 1 The British and French diplomats exploited to the full the blunders of the Italian delegates. After conquering Germany in war, they conquered Italy in peace. The diplomatic failure of Sonnino and Orlando at the Peace Conference of 1919 had disastrous moral results in Italy. In 1914, Italy-
had not been attacked on her own soil, like Belgium and France, nor had she been suddenly pitchforked into war without time for reflection, like Germany Austria-Hungary, England, and Russia. For nine months from August 1914 to May 1915 the question of whether Italy should or should not intervene in the war had been argued threadbare. A country which argues for nine months about a question of war or peace is bound to split up into conflicting factions. This happened in the United States in 1939-41. It also happened in Italy in 1914-15. All Italian parties split up into "interventionists" and "neutralists' and this division lasted throughout the war. When peace came, the very politicians who had dragged Italy into the conflict, the newspapers that had fanned the flames of 3
5
,
war,
now sang
to the people in every key that the blood of half a and half a million disabled men had been shed in vain,
million dead since the "perfidious allies"
had not given them Dalmatia, Asia Minor, Ethiopia, and who knows what else. The people had been promised that this was to be the last war, the war to end war, and that peace was to be assured to their children and their children's children. Now, after three and a half years of appalling hardship, they were told that they had "won the war but lost the peace", that 55 their victory had been "mutilated by America, England, and France, and that they must prepare to take revenge through another war for the futility of the previous one. Now that the failure of the Italian negotiators at the Peace Conference was mourned by the negotiators themselves, and freedom of speech and of the Press was restored, the politicians and newspapers that had opposed Italy s entry into the war in 1915 could boast that they had been right in trying to spare the Italian people a war from which it could reap no benefits. They had foreseen the "treachery* of the "perfidious allies". It had been for this reason that they had opposed Italy's entry into the war on the side of those allies. All those who had been in favour of the war were held responsible for the diplomatic "disaster" in which the country had been involved. The time had come when they must answer for their crime. The French Government, also, failed to obtain all that it wanted at the Peace Conference: it secured neither the detachment from Germany of the left bank of the Rhine, nor the annexation of the 5
5
De la Pradelle, Le conflit Italo-Ethiopim, pp. 1 1 1 flf. In the official documents, the term "Ethiopia" designated the totality of the territories having Addis Ababa as their capital city. In European languages, they were more commonly referred to as "Abyssinia". 1
Saar, nor the dismemberment of Germany. Notwithstanding this, the French people did not pass through a crisis of despair like that which made so many Italians lose their heads completely. Poincare, Clemenceau, and Foch did not go to the people clamouring that France had been robbed of her victory, that she was ruined, that she had to prepare to make war on her allies in order to seize what those What would have happened in France if allies had refused her. nearly all the newspapers, deputies, and ministers who had been responsible for the war or who had advocated war had started a campaign of wild recrimination like that which was indulged in by Orlando, Sonnino, the General Staffs of the Army and Navy, the Press, and the politicians in Italy? Would the French soldiers have returned quietly to their homes, or would they have slain the ministers, deputies, journalists, and professors who had brought about the war and who now announced that the Vital interests" of the nation had gone to rack and ruin because of it? The Italian people, even under such insane treatment, did not massacre those responsible for the war, irrespective of creed or party. Instead they fell into a state of morbid irritation. Pride of victory was superseded by the gloomy pessimism of defeat. The Italians alone among the victorious peoples experienced after the victory a crisis of dejection not unlike that of the defeated countries. Borgese has described with a master hand the disease -which gnawed at the soul of the Italian intelligentsia from 1870 to World War One. This was the Roman-Imperial cancer: the memory of and with a nostalgia for the grandeur of the Roman Empire, coupled restless urge for impossible achievements engendering disappointment, bitterness, and self-vilification. Instead of comparing their their present with their immediate past and realizing the strides Italian inthe people were making through silent and heroic labour, with the memories of past telligentsia contrasted present conditions no greatness or with dreams of impossible primacies. Consequently words had them. measure of progress could satisfy only to They lament the mediocrity, incapacity, dishonesty, and shortcomings of certain amount of their politicians. Italy was crushed by her past. to all national smugintelligent self-criticism is a useful corrective ness it has been aptly described as that "divine discontent" which '
A
:
leads
men to ever greater improvements. But absurd expectations and
ceaseless self-abasement are poisonous drugs which create persecution mania and make for unhappiness and blunders. Never was this Italian disease so widespread and violent as in the years following
,World
War One.
miracle of psychopathic alchemy had been performed. Italy, or at least the intellectual and political lite to which an evil destiny had entrusted Italy, had transubstantiated a victory into a * The nation, masochism-stricken, exulted in frustration.'* disaster.
"An unprecedented .
.
.
1
Borgese, Goliath, p. 149.
23
One
of the noisiest manifestations of that paroxysm of despair was D'Annunzio's raid on Fiume (September 1919). In order to prevent that city from being garrisoned by British and French troops, D'Annunzio, at the head of a regiment of the regular army, occupied it. This was a "private war * against England, France, and the United States, captained by a poet destitute of both moral and common sense: a medieval pageant, which did not end in tragedy only because nobody outside Italy took it seriously. Anyone who wishes to understand the unrest of the post-war years in Italy, must bear in mind not only the physical exhaustion produced by three and a half years of suffering, but also and above all the poisonous propaganda to which the Italian people were subjected in 1919. The social unrest and political disturbances in Italy during this period appear in their true light only when set against this 3 psychological background of "mutilated victory* When all this has been said, the fact remains that neither the blunders of the Italian negotiators, nor the bad faith of Lloyd George and Glemenceau, nor the lack of understanding on Wilson's part actually jeopardized the essential welfare of the Italian nation. The failure to annex Dalmatia to Italy was not to be regretted. Possession of Dalmatia would not have increased either Italy's wealth or her security. It Is a poor and rocky country, peopled by more than half a million wildly nationalistic Slavs. There was an Italian majority only in the city of Zara, and outside Zara not more than 20,000 Italians were scattered over small islands in a Slavic sea. Racial 5
.
minorities unwillingly annexed can scarcely constitute a gain for any country. Had she conquered Dalmatia, Italy would have had to maintain a considerable part of her army there on a permanent war footing in order to hold down the Slav population. In the event of another European war Involving Italy 3 she would have been obliged to immobilize Important military forces in that province to protect that possession against an attack from the Slavonic hinterland. Such an army of occupation could be used to greater advantage in the protection of more vital Italian frontiers those towards France or Central Europe or in withstanding an attack upon the peninsula from the sea. Dalmatia would not have given Italy mastery of the Adriatic. In this narrow sea it is sufficient if the most powerful naval force can rely on a single well-organized naval base. Numerous naval bases can add nothing. They neither move nor fight. The experience of the war of 1915-18 showed that control by the Austrian navy of the magnificent naval bases of the Eastern Adriatic did not permit the Austrians to undertake any important naval action, because their naval forces were weaker than those of the Entente. Even had Italy annexed Dalmatia the naval base of Gattaro on the eastern coast of the Adriatic would have remained beyond Italian control. In a sea as small as the Adriatic, Gattaro alone provided it were buttressed by a powerful fleet of its own would have sufficed to hold 24
the Italian fleet at bay, unless Italy had occupied the whole of the eastern coast as far as the Albanian frontier. This would have obliged the Italian army to protect a treacherous line extending over vast merchant marine would have been more than 350 miles. needed to transport from Italy to Dalmatia the supplies indispensable to the army stationed in this barren and hostile country, and a strong navy would have been required to protect the lines of communication between that army and its bases in Italy. These forces would have had to be deflected to the Adriatic from Italy's life-lines in the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas. In short, even from the strategic one might say especially from the strategic standpoint standpoint the conquest of Dalmatia would have been a gross blunder. It Is also true that at the Peace Conference Clemenceau, Lloyd
A
George, and Wilson snatched Smyrna away from Orlando and Sonnino and turned it over to Greece. But if ever a bad turn resolved itself Into a piece of good luck, it was this. The English and French diplomats had assigned to themselves all the territories in the Near East occupied by non-Turkish populations, to whom they presented themselves as liberators from the Turkish yoke. On the other hand, they had reserved for Italy the choice morsel of Smyrna and its environs, In the very heart of Turkish strength. To establish her control, Italy would have had to sustain a long and arduous war against the Turks on their native soil. By drawing the Turkish forces against itself in a difficult war, the Italian army in Asia Minor would have assumed, at its own risk and at the expense of the Italian people, the burden of guaranteeing the security of the French and English "mandates" in the Near East. The Greeks would have been wiser not to step into the shoes of the Italians and to ask the French and
keep the gift of Smyrna for themselves. They would thereby have avoided the disaster of 1922. Finally, it is true that when the former German colonial possessions in Africa were divided among the victors, the Italian diplomats were excluded from sharing in the spoils and did not succeed in ob-
British to
taining the right to expand in Ethiopia. Colonies are regarded as badges of superiority and every country aspiring to greatness must have them, just as every millionaire must deck his wife or his mistress with jewels. Moreover, colonial possessions appeal irresistibly to the Imagination of a people crowded in a land insufficient to their needs.
There can be no doubt that, by their short-sighted policy, Italy's allies sowed seeds of ill-will which were bound to bear bitter
former fruit.
The fact remains, however,
that the failure to obtain a free
hand
in has even a rudi-
Ethiopia was not a real loss for Italy. Anyone who mentary knowledge of the climatic conditions of that country knows that it is unfit for the absorption of white labour, and consequently could be of no help to Italy in the solution of her problem of surplus population. Intensification of soil cultivation could have been 25
natives under the direction of possible there through the work of have been European teclinicai experts. But billions of dollars would of mounchaos needed to build roads and bridges in that endless billions would have been tains, canyons, peaks, and cliffs; still more needed to bring the ground under cultivation, without counting the vast sums squandered in military conquest. To furnish the huge
in Ethiopia the Italian capital necessary for large-scale developments Government would have had to bleed the mother country white. The conquest of Ethiopia, far from remedying the lack of balance between population and resources in Italy, would have aggravated
had crops of coffee, rubber, sugar, and other products been raised in Ethiopia, one would have had to measure the cost of its produce through developing the country and of transporting As for the fabled markets. world the deserts against their value on oil-fields and the gold- and coal-mines, nobody has ever been able to locate them. Had the Italian Government obtained a free hand in war that Ethiopia in 1919 from France and Britain, the senseless earlier. broke out in 1935 would have broken out several years The problem which Orlando and Sonnino had tangled during the Peace Conference began to unravel itself as soon as they went out of
it.
And when
office (July 1919).
In September 1919, Prime Minister Nitti concluded with the Paris Cabinet a Labour Treaty which guaranteed to Italian immithat received by French grants in France treatment analogous to workers. This treaty was far more valuable to the Italian people than unany colonial conquest in Africa. Italian immigration assumed the largest outlet for precedented importance, and France became Italian labour when the United States, Canada, and Australia closed their doors.
As regards the colonial compensations that the French Government owed Italy in return for the German colonies France had obtained in Africa, it offered no more than a few wretched tracts of desert land south of the Tunisian territory and to the east of the Fezzan, including the caravan road from Ghadames to Ghat. The Italian negotiators asked for more deserts towards Lake Tchad. But
much
bethen extend Italy's actual control in Tripolitania did not yond the coastline. The Italians accepted, for the time being, the
by France, but declared that these dry bones were not sufficient. The dispute was left open. It was at this time September 1919 that the British Government agreed to turn over to Italy the oasis of Djarabub in Cyrenaica and Djubaland on the shores of the Indian Ocean. In April 1920, the boundaries of the latter territory were more definitely fixed by rectification of the frontier as offered
the Milner-Scialoja accord (April 10-13, 1920). In the summer of 1920, the Italian Government managed to extricate itself from a predicament which at that moment might have had serious consequences in internal politics. Italy had established a sort 26
of protectorate over Albania during the war. No dispute arose on this score at the Peace Conference. However, many men and much money would have been needed to make the protectorate effective over the unruly mountain tribes. When a revolt broke out in June 1920, the Government decided to dispatch troops. regiment,
A
leaving for Albania, mutinied at
Ancona. This was a demonstration of what might have happened if conquests had been undertaken at that time in Asia Minor or in Ethiopia. The Government had the good sense to understand that it was impossible to embark upon a new war even only a "colonial" war before the blood shed in the recent War had grown cold. On August 3, 1920, in an accord at Tirana with the Albanian chieftains, the Rome Foreign Office recognized the Government which had been formed at Lushna. The accord was followed (September 2, 1920) by the withdrawal of Italian troops from Albanian territory. But Italy retained possession of the island of Saseno at the entrance to the bay of Valona which stripped it of all military value so that it would not serve as a base of operations either for Italy or against her. On December 1 7, 1920, Albania was admitted to the League of Nations. However, London and Paris agreed in 1921 that "violation of the frontier and any attempt against the independence of Albania would constitute a threat to Italian security". In case this danger should manifest itself, the restoration of the frontiers would be entrusted to Italy. The League of Nations should never have allowed one of its members to be dealt with as another member's sphere of influence. It should have refused to recognize that agreement. It recognized it. This was a "capitulation" to wrong-doers the first of a long series. The most acute problem of foreign policy that of I talo-Yugoslav relations in the Adriatic was courageously faced by Foreign Minister Sforza and given a sensible solution through the Treaty of Rapallo (December 1920). By this treaty, the Belgrade Government agreed that Italy should annex the cities of Gorizia and Trieste, their hinterland, and the whole of Istria as far as the doors of Fiume. The Rome Government left to Yugoslavia all Dalmatia except the city of Zara, which was allotted to Italy. Fiume was to remain an autonomous city-state, and a joint corporation of Fiumans, Italians, and Yugoslavs was to administer its maritime interests. In December, this t treaty was approved by an overwhelming majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate. D'Annunzio, in Fiume, protested that he would die rather than surrender. When he realized that the Government meant business, he declared that Italy "was not worthy that he should die for her", and vanished. No serious disturbance occurred in Italy on his account. In January 1921, a "Pact of Guarantee" was signed in which Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Italy agreed never to allow the restoration of the Hapsburgs either in Austria or in Hungary. The way was being opened for the Italian Government to 27
Governments that had fallen heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and those of Hungary and Bulgaria, in order to modify, little by Iittle the too drastic provisions of the peace treaties. Italy was in a position to wield valuable moral and political influence in the Balkan peninsula and in the Danube basin
serve as mediator between the
3
" without being suspected of "Machiavellianism" or imperialism *. As regards Italian territorial ambitions in Asia Minor, Sforza was the first among Western statesmen to recognize that Turkey was no longer pre-war Turkey, compelled to scatter her forces to keep in subjection Christian populations in the Balkan peninsula and Arab peoples in the Near East. She had acquired solid national compactness, and was henceforth to be reckoned with. Sforza therefore relinquished all territorial claims in Asia Minor, obtained from the Turks a most favourable commercial treaty, and left the English, the French, and the Greeks to fight it out with the Turks. The other colonial questions were shelved for the time being. Until the country solved the post-war crisis, it could iU afford to indulge 5
in de luxe oversea adventures.
The
Fiume remained unsettled despite the Treaty of Rapallo. Abandoned to itself during the first half of 1921, the city soon became the scene of violent struggles not only between Italians and Slavs, but also between the Italians who accepted the status of a free city and those who wanted outright annexation to Italy. In the summer of 1921, the Italian Government sent troops to occupy the city. The Belgrade Government did not protest. The problem had lost the artificial animus that had characterized it in 1919 and 1920. Since the Italian Government showed itself ready to identify the status of
country with those of peace, it obtained without difficulty naval parity with France for dreadnoughts at the Washington Conference in 1921. When the first international conference was called in April 1922, at which the representatives of the Entente and those of Russia and Germany were to meet, the Italian city of Genoa was chosen as the seat of conference. Italy, more than any other country, had wiped out the rancours of war. She seemed the most appropriate "hostess" for both victors and vanquished. In post-war Europe, Italy adjoined on the Continent a pacified Yugoslavia, a neutralized Austria, and a Switzerland and France that had no demands to make of her. In the Mediterranean, neither France nor England was interested in provoking her if she did not make trouble. She was not engaged, like France and England, in costly conflicts in the Near East. She had abstained from all intervention in Russia on the side of the White generals. Italy emerged from World War One with her vital organs tired but unimpaired. She was like Moli&re's malacte imaginaire. She was unhappy about ailments she did not have. She needed no more than wisdom and a rest cure. She had little wisdom, and instead of the rest cure, she got interests of its
Mussolini. 28
CHAPTER
II
ENTER MUSSOLINI WHEN WORLD WAR ONE broke out in the
summer
of 1914,
Benlto Mussolini was an anti-patriotic revolutionary Socialist, and chief editor of the daily newspaper Avanti, official organ of the Italian Socialist Party. During the months of July, August, and September 1914, he maintained, in accordance with Marxist doctrine, that war must be stopped by social revolution. To stir up the proletariat in Italy against war, he exploited the general feeling of hostility against Austria and Germany while there was any danger that the Italian Government would decide to intervene on their side. But his target was moribund capitalistic society. He shared Lenin's attitude: the 'proletariat" should not allow itself to become involved in the war; instead of being led astray by the so-called "defence of the fatherland", it should push itself like a wedge into the "crisis of capitalistic society" and promote social revolution. On August 1 3, he wrote *
:
"In time of war the bourgeoisie confronts the proletariat with the tragic dilemma: either insurrection, easily drowned in blood, or cooperation in joint butchery. This second alternative of the dilemma is cloaked under words of Fatherland, duty, territorial integrity, etc. Yet the root of the matter never changes. Here is the real reason why we hate war."
On
August