Mussolini and D'Annunzio On The Rise - Allies in Crisis Over Italy I THE GREAT WAR April 1919

it's April 1919 and the leaders of the victorious Allied powers are struggling to determine the shape of the post-war world after weeks of bitter arguing over the spoils of war there is no solution in sight on the controversial question of Italy's borders on April 24th the Italian delegation leaves Paris and the Peace Conference is plunged into crisis [Applause] hi I'm Jesse Alexander and welcome to the great war in April 1919 the Paris Peace Conference was in its third month and the peacemakers for all their efforts were facing a deadlock now one of the most difficult questions and the one that was threatening to destroy the wartime alliance of France Great Britain the u.s. and Italy was the impossible problem of Italian post-war borders now before we dive into the Italian issue if you want to get a bit more of an in-depth look at the start of the peace conference you can check out our beyond the Great War episode from February now in the meantime here's the quick and dirty version the Allied powers met in January in Paris to bring an end to the 1914-18 phase of the war not only did they plan to decide on traditional questions of worn piece like borders and reparations but they also hope to establish a new world order to prevent war in the future this was a very ambitious plan which was made even more difficult by the fact that the fighting was still raging in most of Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and the defeated nations had not even been invited to the peace conference contrary to centuries of tradition now let's fast forward from January when the conference began to April 24th by that time the crisis had become so serious that the Italians left the peace conference returning to Rome to consult the Parliament on what to do after more than three and a half years of fighting on the Allied side and the defeat of their main enemy austria-hungary why did the Italians leave the peace table now at first glance the Italians leaving might seem surprising since they gained a more significant role at the peace conference starting in late march allied leaders grew annoyed with the slow pace of progress and replaced the Council of 10 with the big for France Great Britain the United States and Italy the leaders of these foreign nations would now be the direct architects of the peace and work was not in short supply the conference had an incredible amount of decisions to make and time was passing quickly to give you a quick example just from March 31st the agenda of the big four included the following German reparations the Saar coal fields the q patient of the rhineland the situation in Poland a Channel Tunnel Belgian claims the Hungarian Revolution the Hungarian Romanian clashes the Smuts mission to Hungary French strikes and US UK naval competition the question of German peace terms was the central issue and disagreement between the French on the one side and the Americans and the British on the other slowed but did not halt the talks so in spite of all the challenges at the peace conference things finally seem to be moving ahead by April and the German terms were taking shape on April 18th the Allies invited the Germans to come to Paris to receive the terms of the peace but not to negotiate what did become the major sticking point was the issue of Italy's borders so let's take a closer look at just what Italy wanted for its part in the Great War and the debate about Italy's claims began to pick up steam in February the leaders of the delegation in Paris prime minister vittorio orlando and foreign minister Sydney so Nino submitted a memorandum outlining their demands these focused on territorial gains along the old border with Austria and included the Trentino in South Tyrol northeastern Dalmatia East RIA and the city of Trieste now these claims were mostly based on the Treaty of London which was a secret agreement signed between Italy and the Allies in April 1915 which was the basis for Italy entering the war on the Allied side but now the Italian demands went further than the 1915 agreement and added in a deeper buffer zone along the old Austrian border and the Adriatic port of fiume known as Rijeka to Croatians the Italian wish list also included issues relating to Africa and Asia Minor but it was the Adriatic borders which became the most contentious these claims posed a serious problem for the other allies first and foremost the proposed borders infringed on the claims of the kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes which we are just going to call Yugoslavia for today for simplicity's sake now the 1915 agreement alone would have placed around a quarter of a million German speakers and over 1 million Slovene and Croat speakers under Italian rule as for the flash point of fiume within city limits there was a slim Italian majority but if you included the suburb of Susak the Croatians had a slight edge all this wasn't a problem in 1915 because back then no one was thinking about self-determination in the context of 1919 the terms of the Treaty had become a bit of an embarrassment for the British and French and were even more strongly opposed by the Americans that's why the Italians did their best to frame their case in the language of Wilson's fourteen points in their February memorandum the Italian claims show such a spirit of justice rightfulness and moderation that they come entirely within the principles enunciated and approved by President Wilson and should therefore be recognized and approved by everybody so the Italians wanted to get the most out of the Allied victory but their claims had hit a roadblock in the new context of 1919 so let's take a moment to ask ourselves why Italy adopted the position and did in spite of its allies misgivings for one thing Italy had suffered terribly during the war that Orlando and Sony know themselves had supported more than 600,000 Italians had been killed in repeated attacks on well entrenched Austrian positions in the Alps and the country had nearly bankrupted itself such a sacrifice in the minds of many Italians would have to be rewarded with significant gains in territory and a more secure border farther from the coast but there were other factors at play as well for some the destruction of austria-hungary represented a unique chance for Italy that must be seized the Great War could become the final stage in the resource amento the unification of all Italian speaking people into the new Italian nation-state which had begun in the 1860s now some even hope that Italy would conquer much of the Mediterranean and continue the expansion it started with its 1911 war against the Ottomans now in terms of Orlando and so Nino's approach to the negotiations in Paris historians have emphasized two key points firstly both had a more traditional understanding of power politics more reminiscent of the pre na 18:14 diplomacy then the Wilsonian context of 1919 they were not very sympathetic to Wilson's new brand of idealistic politics as so Nino made clear when he said is it possible to change the world from a room through the actions of some diplomats go to the Balkans and try an experiment with the 14 points the two Italians were determined to adopt a maximalist position at the negotiating table to get as much as possible for Italy even if they knew some of their demands were not likely to be met and though they recognized they had to at least try to give lip service to the 14 points in front of Wilson they felt Italy's case warranted and exception as one Italian diplomat informed an American counterpart self-determination is applicable to many regions but not to the shores of the Adriatic but in addition to dreams of empire and nation Orlando and Sonny know also had to worry about the home front back in Italy Orlando was at the head of a fragile minority government and depended on the right to remain in power he needed to appear strong in Paris to maintain his support at home and limit the influence of a nationalist right that was in no mood for compromise the nationalist press had been screaming for an uncompromising stand elevating the town of fuming we're just twenty five thousand Italians lived to the status of a life for death symbol a two key figures on the nationalist right were decorated soldier and world-famous poet Gabriella D'Annunzio and former socialist and new fascist party leader Benito Mussolini both of them had pushed hard for Italy to end to the war in 1915 now de Nunzio had coined the term mutilated victory to represent what he felt was the danger that Italy's glorious triumph might not bring the conquests that he and other nationalists expected in March Mussolini had founded his fascist movement of War veterans and disgruntled socialists and adopted a hard nationalist stance now both men would play a public role in putting enormous pressure on the Italian delegation in Paris to take a hard-line and in the regular strikes riots and street violence playing out across the country in fact Mussolini's newspaper published a nunzio's diatribes including this one and what piece in the end will be imposed on us poor little ones of Christ a Gallic peace a British peace a star-spangled peace then no enough victorious Italy the most victorious of all the nations victorious over herself and the enemy will have on the Alps and over the sea the Pax Romana the soul peace that is fitting in one incident typical of the polarized atmosphere former government minister Leonid OB sowlaty was shouted down by a nationalist crowd while trying to give a speech on the border question in Milan visuality had earlier resigned over Italy's policy on annexations and he favoured a strict Wilsonian interpretation under which Italy would only receive Italian speaking areas including fiume but excluding Dalmatia now a dramatic scene unfolded as he was drowned out by the screams of outraged nationalists who accused him of being a closeted Croat miss alati attempted to shout over the crowd until he saw Mussolini in the front row saying simply not with this man this incident marked the end of significant public opposition to the maximalist position and has been called the first act of organized fascist violence in the country now some historians have judged that orlando and so Nino created unrealistic expectations by pandering to the Nationalists while others argue that they adopted such an uncompromising stance in order to keep the right under control and prevent civil unrest or even civil war as Orlando himself confided to the rest of the big4 in Paris in any case the Italians felt pushed aside by their more powerful allies the British diplomat Harold Nicolson recorded a conversation with his Italian counterpart Carlo plashy he told me they felt France and England had gotten everything they wanted from the war and that Italy was pushed aside and got nothing Wilson had very generously interpreted his fourteen points in favor of France and Great Britain and wanted Italy to pay the price so he could serve a fair and vog neeti that's basically French for put the toothpaste back in the tube so the Italians to the hardline position in part to maximize their gains and in part as a response to nationalist pressure back home so let's have a look at the motivations of the other allies in the Italian question from the American point of view the Italian position was a nightmare Wilson's experts maintained that legally speaking when Italy agreed to make peace on the basis of the fourteen points the Treaty of London was just no longer valid this suited his deep-seated moral convictions about the principle of self-determination as the text of the points had stipulated that a readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality the problem was these lines were not so clear in practice and didn't align with natural frontiers and defensible mountain ranges Wilson had already agreed to make an exception and allow Italy to receive german-speaking South Tirol to get support for the League of Nations and was unwilling to compromise further he also opposed the Treaty of London in principle since for him it represented the pre-1914 secret diplomacy that it brought on the war in the first place fiume had become a symbol for Wilson as well one that stood for his own resolve to hold firm against the old Machiavellian diplomacy of the past Wilson a Democrat needed to stick to his principles to have any chance of getting the peace treaty through the republican-controlled Senate back in Washington and the Italian position was a thorn in his side he also wanted to ensure the political and economic survival of the new Yugoslav state he feared that satisfying Italian demands would lead to future conflict if he gave in he wrote at the very outset we shall have followed the fatal error of making Italy's nearest neighbors on her East her enemies nursing just such a sense of injustice as has disturbed the Peace of Europe for generations together with playing no small part in bringing on the dreadful conflict through which we have just passed not only with the Yugoslav resent the borders they would also be deprived of economically vital port and rail facilities on the Adriatic now it did not help relations between Italy in the u.s. that in February the Italians blocked American food shipments to Yugoslavia Czechoslovakia and Austria which made the hunger problem in those areas even worse in response the u.s. froze a 50 million dollar Support Package and threatened to end its aid shipments to Italy this forced Italy to let the food through to its neighbours but did not bode well for future discussions but the tension took its toll on the French and British relationship with the Italians as well claim also was dismissive of Italian desires and reminded them of their crushing defeat at Caporetto 1917 at one point during the discussions he simply exclaimed my god my god Italy our Yugoslavia the blonde or the brunette the British had better relations with the Italians but were annoyed that the Adriatic question was holding up the entire conference and did not appreciate the hard-nosed style of the Italians Lord Bowser summed up the British delegations exasperation when he wrote the Italians must somehow be mollified and the only question is how to mollify them at the smallest cost to mankind so Italy's allies which had come to its aid after the defeat of Caporetto and had a different concept of the basis for peacemaking now had little sympathy for its maximalist territorial demands the table was set for a dramatic showdown and it came in late April as the conference continued and an agreement remained out of reach Lloyd George claim also and Wilson continued to be frustrated with what they saw as an unreasonable position on the Italians part they complained that Orlando took little interest in contributing to any aspect of the peace settlement which did not directly concern Italy and accused him of delaying progress now there was some truth to this as the Italians consistently opposed diplomatic recognition of the Yugoslav Kingdom and provided weapons to the Hungarian Soviet republic so they could better fight against French allies Czechoslovakia and Romania they even armed their old Austrian enemies who were fighting the Yugoslavs over border issues now by mid-april Orlando refused to proceed with the crucial discussions of the German peace terms until Italy's demands had been resolved several compromised ideas were floated and both so Nino and Orlando proved to be more flexible behind closed door but an agreement could not be reached in public Orlando maintained the maximalist position demanding for Italy the natural frontier that God has given her and after one especially emotional meeting on April 20th in a breach of social norms for the time Orlando wept openly and threatened to leave the conference of Italy's demands were not met by this point Wilson had reached the limit of his patience he decided to make his case directly to the public and published a statement in a French paper in his view Fuyumi was critical to the economic well-being of its Yugoslav hinterland Dalmatia should not belong to Italy and minority rights in Italy and Yugoslavia should be guaranteed this was an unprecedented step since up until this point very little information had made it into the press and the negotiations were carried out behind closed doors orlando was outraged and announced he was leaving the conference the next day so he could consult with the Parliament in Rome he and so Nino were cheered everywhere they went for having stood their ground Wilson had overplayed his hand and though he had been saluted by the crowds during his January visit to Rome he was now pilloried in the press and on the streets an angry crowd of Italian nationalists in fiume marched through the streets shouting down with Wilson down with the Redskins the newspaper lopaka asked rhetorically how could he for a moment think that at his bidding the Italian people would rise against their government and force it to accept a program dictated by a foreigner shut up in an ivory tower of his own abstractions in addition to nationalist outrage in Italy another consequence of Wilson going public was that the opposing views were now out in the open with the result that neither side could back down without appearing to lose face a deal with Italy was now farther out of reach than ever before and time was pressing as the Germans were on their way to Paris and the Allies worried they might be able to exploit divisions among the victors the crisis then got even worse as the Belgians and Japanese also threatened to leave now the Belgians were angry because they felt that their country's suffering was not be properly compensated and that day as Germany's first victim had been overlooked a typical Belgian headline that spring screamed Belgium deserted and humiliated by its allies but the big three were not particularly sympathetic to the Belgian threat Lord George recalled a harsh comment of his to the Belgian Prime Minister I had to tell him quite plainly that the Belgians lost comparatively few men in the war and that when all was said Belgium had not made greater sacrifices than Great Britain during one session Belgian foreign minister paul Herman's showed his frustration saying I wish there was something I could do for Belgium an impatient claim I so simply responded the best you could do for Belgium is die or resign in the end Belgium would simply have to take what it could get now the Japanese threatened to leave the conference over the question of their influence in China they wanted to get control over the Shandong Peninsula which had been controlled by Germany until Japan occupied it in 1914 the Chinese delegation wanted it back since despite internal instability China had declared war on Germany and sent a labor court to Europe to gain influence with the Allies Wilson was sympathetic to the Chinese position but political considerations held him back he was afraid that an alliance of Germany Soviet Russia and Japan might take shape if Japan's demands were not met and he desperately wanted Japan to join the League of Nations in the end Japan got its way but Wilson held out hope that the League of Nations would someday rule in China's favor which it eventually did in 1922 with the Belgian and Japanese issues resolved the conference made ready for a German peace without Italy until on may 6th the day before the Germans were to receive the peace terms the Italians returned the Italian gamble had not paid off Wilson had not given in and several important questions including the distribution of German colonies and final drafting of the wording of the Treaty of Versailles had proceeded uninterrupted without the Italians the Allied victory proved a double-edged sword for the Italians as they no longer had the leverage they enjoyed from nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen as a necessary ally in the fight against the central powers Orlando had overestimated Italy's influence and underestimated Wilson's resolved to protect the new state of Yugoslavia and in this case at least stick to the principles of self-determination and anti-imperialism during subsequent negotiations in May and early June Orlando began to take a softer stance though he still would go back and forth between flexibility and firmness Wilson's frustration with the Italian leader remained and he at one point observed of Orlando his mind seems to me completely unstable now the conference had been saved but the Italian question remained Orlando's government eventually fell on June 19th leaving the festering problem of Fumi and the Italian Yugoslav border unresolved a spring gave way to summer 1919 the public discourse in Italy bubbled with rage journalist Giuseppe Borghese wrote later Italy or at least the intellectual and political elite to which an evil destiny had entrusted Italy had transubstantiated a victory into a disaster the nation masochism stricken exalted in frustration Fiamma continued to be seen by many as a symbol of injustice and betrayal of Italian sacrifice during the war the crisis at the peace conference had weakened Italy's democracy and bread and extreme nationalism based on victimhood in addition to providing fodder for Mussolini's growing new fascist movement the future was uncertain and angry the peace of 1919 had not even been made when the nationalist poet Gabriella DiNunzio wrote down there on the roads of istria on the roads of Dalmatia do you not hear the footsteps of a marching army now that we've absorbed the drama surrounding the crisis in Paris it's time for a roundup segment where we take a look at what else is going on in April 1919 let's start in Europe or on April 7th in Munich local socialist revolutionaries founded the Bavarian Soviet republic which would last a mere three weeks before being crushed by government and phicorp forces you can find out more about the Bavarians Soviet in a previous episode on the 10th in Paris the inter-allied Women's Conference came to an end after three months of lobbying the Peace Conference on women's issues one result of their work appeared in article 7 of the League of Nations covenant which stipulated that all positions in the League of Nations would be open to both men and women on the same day in Ireland the Irish parliament adopted a policy of socially ostracizing the members of the British police force in Ireland the Royal Irish Constabulary on the 15th workers striking against British policy in Limerick declared the Limerick Soviet which would govern the town for the next two weeks on April 16th the Romanian army invaded the Hungarian Soviet republic followed by the czechoslovaks and the Serbs and the French you can find out more about this conflict in our March episode on the 18th revolutionary coup attempt in Vienna supported by the Hungarian communists was foiled by police and Social Democrat militiamen in the former Russian Empire on April 2nd the Battle of Bashir as your key ended in stalemate this was the last major action involving British American and polish interventionist forces in North Russia on the 21st Polish forces captured the city of Vilno from the Bolsheviks after a three-day battle and the very next day Polish head of state Joseph Pilsudski issued his proclamation to the inhabitants of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania his call for federation uniting Lithuania and Poland was met with harsh criticism by nationalists on both sides on the 22nd the Red Army stopped a major white offensive on the Eastern Front just east of the city of Samara and on April 30th the Red Army completed its occupation of the Crimea and established the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic now throughout the entire month heavy fighting took place in the Donbass region of Ukraine pitting the whites against the combined forces of the Red Army and their temporary allies of the black anarchist army of nestor makhno in international news on April 10th troops loyal to Mexican President venustiano carranza killed his former co revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata who had fought for land reform in the province of Morelos and finally on April 13th troops of the British Indian Army acting on the orders of the British officer Reginald Dyer fired indiscriminately into a crowd of thousands of unarmed civilians at least 379 were killed and hundreds more wounded in what became known as the amazon massacre which further stoked the growing Indian independence movement as usual you can find all our sources for this episode in the video description including links to our amazon stores in this month's supporter podcast we talked to dr. Vonda Wilcox and historian specializing in World War 1 Italy to get access to all our podcast episodes with expert interviews and other perks you can support us on patreon or you can support us by clicking on the join button below I'm Jesse Alexander and this is the Great War in 1919 a production of real time history and the only YouTube History Channel that thinks Georges Clemenceau was the best stand-up comedian in Paris in 1919 you

Channel: The Great War

Views: 183,473

Keywords: History, World War 1, WW1, First World War, Documentary, Documentary Series, The Great War, Indy Neidell, 1919, Interwar Period, 1920s, Educational, Russian Civil War, Revolution, Interbelum, Benito Mussolini, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Paris Peace Conference, Italy, Fiume, Rijeka, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Peace, Versailles, self determination

Id: g9cCtniFIXU

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/flobota]

On this day 1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed, one of the big peace treaties between the Allies and the Central Powers. If you want to learn more about how this new world order came to be, have a look at our extensive playlist which covers the Paris Peace Conference (where the treaties were negotiated), each of the 4 European treaties (Versailes, St. Germain, Neuilly and Trianon) as well as the effects on the Middle East and Africa.

PS Maybe a great compilation for you history teachers out there ;)

[u/GreatDario]

Thanks, Amazing episodes, although there is still the Treaty of Lausanne to get through

[u/diggerhistory]

THe whole Great War series and the Between the Wars series are great teaching aids and have helped to bring little known events to the fore. The problem with many other docos is that they are far too scholarly for secondary school students. These are pitched at a level that 14 - 16-year-olds can access and understand. THANK YOU.

I am also enjoying the WW2 series and use the Cold War videos for my 16-year-old (Yr10) classes.

Keep up the good work. A happy Australian history teacher.