Italy: 1918 – 43
BestMonkey.com
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Proportional representation: coalitions
Politicians all liberal-minded: no party
No policies
Politicians acted independently - no
accountability
Trasformissimo – unstable government
Catholics boycotted all elections
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1915 Treaty of London: Tyrol, Dalmatia, Istria
June 1919: Italy ignored in negotiations
Sept 1919 Treaty of St. Germain – south Tyrol
and Trentino but not Fiume (Yugoslav)
Nationalists: disgrace ‘mutilated victory’
Occupation Fiume: September 1919
D’Annunzio led 2000 armed men
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Public humiliated and angry
Heavy losses: 650,000 killed, 1m wounded
Unemployment: 2m by 1919
Wage cuts: 25% down (1915-18)
Inflation (prices): up 400%
Middle class savings wiped out
Armaments industries profiteered from war,
Fiat and Pirelli tyres profit most
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Socialist Party membership grew:
1914 – 50,000
1919 – 200,000
Revolutionary strategy (previous reformists)
Dictatorship of the proletariat
Socialist Republic (Bolshevik revolution
Russia)
Distribute land and wealth evenly
Nov’ 1919 elections = 156 seats (biggest party)
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Treaties of Versailles & St Germain
Fiume: weak and ineffective response
National debt from 16bn(1914-1919) 85bn lira
Printed money and spending cut back
Industry suffered and went into depression
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Socialist threat: remained neutral towards socialist
strikes and farm labourers occupation
Giolitti urged industrialists to make concessions to
strikers
Land owners to give farm labourers illegally
occupied land
Collapse of law and order(due to squadrisimo)
attacking the socialist and trade unions
July 1922, general strike by socialists demanding
government stop Fasciti violence
Fasciti break up general strike
Oct 27th Fasciti march on Rome
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March 1919: first meeting of Fascists
100 attended, programme agreed
Oct 1921 Fascist Party established (PNF)
Support grew:
 Nov. 1919 – 4,000
 End 1921 – 200,000
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Supporters: small farmers, shopkeepers,
clerical workers, sharecroppers and students
Younger generation: 25% below voting age
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Authoritarian nationalism
Supports restoration of ‘Italia Irredenta’
Mussolini as dictator
Totalitarian state: abolish monarchy and
government
Electoral: respectable political party
Violence: Squadrisimo physically attacked
opposition (mainly socialists)
Party organised and run by fascists loyal to
Mussolini from Milan
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March 1919: First meeting, 100 attended
November 1919: election = 0 seats
November 1920: fascist squadrisimo active, to
smash socialist factory occupations
May 1921: election = 35 seats
November 1921: gains Catholic support
(anti-divorce)
July 1922: increased violence, crushing general
strike
Gains support from conservative industrialists,
middle-classes and land owners at crushing
socialist strike
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Ras wanted a Coup d’tat after crushing general
strike
Mussolini manages to hold them off
Uses threat of violence as blackmail
October 27th 1922: March on Rome
Facta wanted to fight fascists, but King feared
civil war and refused: Facta resigns October
28th
October 29th 1922: King appoints Mussolini as
PM
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Set up coalition government (4/14 Fascists)
November 1922: rule by degree (12 months)
December 1922: Grand Council of Fascism
January 1923: Fascist squads national militia
July 1923: Acerbo law, majority votes = 2/3
seats
April 1924: election – Fascist majority
June 1924: Murder of Matteotti  dictatorship
July 1924: Press censorship introduced
1925 Fascist Party Congress
 December 1925: Vidoni Palace Pact opposition parties and free T.U. banned
 January 1926: Mussolini make laws at will
 Parliament no longer debate laws
 Press censorship tightened: opponents
newspapers suppressed
 Cult of personality
 Fascist Party appointments made in Rome HQ
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Mussolini realised Catholics were too powerful to
abolish
Lateran Pact to secure the Pope’s support
The Lateran Pact
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State pay clergy wages
State recognised pope ownership of Vatican city
State pay 30 million in compensation for lost land
Pope accept government control of ‘Kingdom of Italy’
Recognise Mussolini as ‘Duce’
Catholic teaching compulsory in all schools
Clergy’s were not allowed to join any political party
Divorce and birth control made illegal
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Corporate states
 Fascist control of each aspect of industry
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Battle for lira
 Italy’s economic boom near end, 150 lira = £1,
Mussolini changes it back to original 90 lira = £1
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Battle for Grain (Autarky)
 To make Italy self-sufficient in a war, to help produce
more food for the soldiers and public at home
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Land Reclamation
 Marshlands were drained and used for farming
 Helped kill mosquitoes and boost public morale
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The corporate state
 Would control every aspect of industry
 Each branch of industry would have a separate
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corporation
Fascist trade unions for the workers
Each corporation organise pay, production and
working conditions
Employer and employee not agree, go to labourer court
Fascist regime claimed, workers employers
cooperating, maximum efficiency
No disputes or strikes, harmony in instead
Entrepreneurs to help businesses off the ground
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Ministry of Corporations
 20 corporations in all, covering all areas by 1934
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Confindustria employers organisation
 Disliked trade unions
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Workers
 Sick pay and paid national holidays
 Employers allowed to change working hours without
consulting the worker
 Fascist trade unions tended to favour the employer’s
best interest not the employee’s
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1939 Chamber of Fasces and Corporations
 Replaced parliament, just as powerless
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Launched in 1925
Mussolini’s aim was to make Italy selfsufficient, ‘Autarky’
Farmers given state grants to:
 Buy modern machinery
 Improve framing techniques
 Buy mores seeds to produce more grains
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Successful pre-war
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Grain harvest rose from 5 million to 7.5 million tons
Grain imports decreased by 75%
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During WW2
 The farms chosen to produce grain instead of original
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produces, had climates not suited for grain
Farmers suffered heavy wage cuts, compared to
industrial workers
Grain harvest decreased because the farm labourers
had been conscripted into the army
Ended in total disaster as hunger gripped Italy
Government refused to ration food supplies,
shopkeepers raised their prices
This meant that only the middle-class could afford food
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Economic boom 1922 -25
 De Stefano appointed Treasury Minister
 Vidoni Palace Pact 1925, banning of trade unions
 Limited government spending, helped to limit inflation
 Privatised the telephone network
 Cancelled post war taxes on industries
 Cars textiles and agriculture exports doubled
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Economic boom coming to an end in Italy
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D’stefano sacked
150 Lira = £1
Exports decrease and import decrease
Mussolini atificialy restored the value of lira 90 lira = £1
 Result, exports more expensive (causing exporters depress)
 1926-28 unemployment trebled
 High tariffs on many imports
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Many companies collapsed
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Car production fell by 50%
Unemployed half million 1928 – 2 million in 1933
Government didn’t aid failing industries
Government introduced work schemes
 Unemployed improve infrastructure, roads buildings
 Helped to circulated money to boost economy, created jobs
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Fascist governments bailed out the banks in debt to investors
IRI created Jan 1933, took control of banks shares in companies
 This meant state became largest shareholder in Italy
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Also took over lending from banks
The IRI and work schemes meant that Italy was hardly affected
by the Wall street crash, Roosevelt copied Mussolini ‘New plan’
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Marsh lands were drained and made suitable
for farming
This provided more grain
The mosquitoes that lived in marshes died
Boosted public morale
Pontine marches 50 kilo metres south of Rome,
were centre of press
These farms were owned by ex-servicemen
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Education
 Male youths taught how to fight
 Female youths taught how to mother
 Female and male write essay how they love the ‘Duce’
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Health
 GUF - set up to control student leisure time
 How to fight, strategy and fitness
 ONB - Fascist youth, to control youth leisure time
 How to fight (toy guns), strategy and fitness
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Labour scheme
 unemployed would build roads and buildings to help Italy’s
infrastructure
 helped the unemployed back into the employment
 Boosted economy, more lira circulating
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Battle for births
 Women encouraged to have 5 babies each
 12 children per family rough ideal
 Women discouraged from doing work
 Women represent 36% of work force
 factories, hospitals, schools, civil service encouraged to hire
unemployed fathers, fire all females
 Women encouraged to stay at home (house wife)
 Cooking, mothering, house cleaning
 Increase the Italian population from 40 million to 60 million by 1950
 Wanted to reduce workforce to 2%
 Female cleaners and waitresses exempt from sacking
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Failures
 By 1939 the population had only increased from 40 million to 47.5
million, instead of planned 55 million by that year
 Mussolini calculated 15 divisions lost, he blamed the women for a ‘lack
of patriotic Italian mothers’
 Only 3% decrease of women in work force, now 33% by 1939
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Fascist teachers association (to control teachers)
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Teach
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Made to
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How Mussolini was the saviour of Italy, how he is a genius and a
god
How they should all love the ‘Duce’ (students had to write essay
every day)
Swear allegiance to Fascism and The ‘Duce’
Hang a picture of the ‘Duce’ on every classroom
Reasons for firing
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If suspected of teaching anti fascist, would be kicked out of FTO
and not allowed to teach again in any other school
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Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) created 1926
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Organise youth movements
1930’s membership made compulsory from age 8
1937, 7 million members
Activities
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Military training
Military fitness
Fascist ideoligy
Sport
Parades
Summer camps
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Girls: sewing, singing, childcare
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GUF (university)
 Fascist ideas, sport and military training
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Dopolavoro (leisure activities for workers)
 Created in 1925
 Controlled in 1930’s
 All soccer clubs, 1350 theatres, 2000 drama societies, 3000
brass bands, 8000 libraries
 Membership
 4 million members in 1939 at its peak
 Many joined without need to persuade
 Very little Fascist propaganda
 1937 fascist salute replaces handshake
 1938 ‘lei’ replaced by formal ‘voi’
 Fashion, make up and trousers condemned for women
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Key concern for Mussolini: Great power
1923 Corfu incident
1924 Pact of Rome
1925 Locarno Treaties
1926 Treaty of Friendship
1933-4 Austrian conflict
1935 Ethiopian invasion
1936 troops  Spain to support Franco
1936 Rome-Berlin Axis formed
1939 Italian invasion of Albania
1939 Pact of Steel
1940 June Italy enter WW2
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Mussolini knew that Italy was not ready for ww2
 Sent two letters to Hitler requesting 3 more years and Italy
would be ready, one in 1938, and the other in 1939
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Italy had spent 11.8 billion lira on rearmament
 Most was spent on outdated weapons
 The other half spent on officers quarters (lavished)
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1500 armoured cars and tanks
 This was very little compared to Germany
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Commanders weren’t properly trained
 Lead to many defeats
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Autarky failed
The two campaigns failed in Greece and Northern Italy
 Italy were pushed back and requested aid from Germany
 This embarrassed Mussolini
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Italian morale was low prices soared
 petrol, food clothing to a point when they were
unobtainable
 Military defeats shattered dream of quick cheap victory
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Political parties started to regroup and emerge
 Not fully organised
Fascist support decreased
 Industries went out of business
 Strikes took place
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 Further reduced pay and longer working hours
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The socialist and communist parties began to
re-emerge in 1942
 They weren’t as organised as before
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Anti-fascist newspapers were reproduced
‘Down with the War, Down with Mussolini’
Fascist politicians now turned against
Mussolini
Opened negotiations with the allies behind
Mussolini’s back
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Mussolini sacked by king
Power restored to government
Mussolini imprisoned
German paratroopers rescue Mussolini
Italian Social Republic, puppet of Germany
Mussolini made dictator
German forces occupy northern Italy
Local partisans use guerrilla tactics to attack
German occupiers
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Mussolini now the puppet dictator of ISR
7100 Italian Jews sent to concentration camps
Anti-Semitic German policies now carried out
Mussolini ruled by Hitler’s orders
Had no support from public in ISR
Italy was close to complete annexation
Allies would not accept Mussolini as ruler
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Mussolini flees with his SS bodyguard
Claims he still has 8,000 Blackshirts ready to continue
fight against allies
Only 8
Mussolini and family don German uniforms and flee
with German convoy
Is stopped by Italian partisans, recognised Mussolini
Take to a local barnyard
A partisan drives him 1 mile stops the car and shoots
Mussolini and his family
They are later hung by their feet in the centre of Rome
for all to mock