Rommel's Great War by Gordon Corrigan

Author:Gordon Corrigan [Corrigan, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2016-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

4: The Italian Front

Italy had become an independent Kingdom only in 1861 – although Rome did not become her capital until 1870 – and the Vatican City (the seat of the Papacy) and San Merino remained independent. In 1882 Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of Prussia and architect of German unification, had put together the secret ‘Triple Alliance’ between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, under which each signatory agreed to support each other in the event of an attack on any. There were some exceptions: Italy registered that she would not go to war against Britain (and as the Mediterranean was a British lake this was a sensible provision) and in the event of a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia she would remain neutral. The treaty was renewed in 1902 but it was never popular with the Italian people who had long resented Austrian occupation of what they thought should be part of Italy, and it was true that parts of the Austrian Tyrol contained a large number of Italian speakers. Trieste was a particular point of dispute, being historically inhabited by Italian speakers but long a free port of the Austrian Empire and annexed by Austria at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. Austrians were puzzled by what seemed to be an excessive interest in opera by the inhabitants, who took to daubing ‘Verdi’ on walls and shouting ‘Verdi, Verdi, Verdi’ at uniformed government officials. They seemed to be unaware that for the Italians Verdi stood not for Giuseppe Verdi the nineteenth century composer, but was short for ‘Victor Emmanuel Re d’Italia’ (Victor Emmanuel III of the House of Savoy was king of Italy from July 1900).

When war broke out in 1914 Italy stayed on the sidelines, remaining neutral and negotiating with both sides to see what she might get. From the German point of view Italy as an ally had nothing very much to offer – another front against France along the Peiedmontese coast or through the Alps was not a realistic option – but the Germans were very well aware that to the Allies Italian participation would divert Austro Hungarian troops from Russia and could be used as a base for operations against Turkey. There was nothing that the Germans could offer Italy to remain neutral or to declare for them – any suggestion of appeasing irredentist ambitions by promising territory belonging to Austria was unacceptable to the latter, but the Allies’ largesse was almost boundless. Not only would they promise Italy Trieste and the South Tyrol, but they could also bestow large chunks of Dalmatia and British support in the event of insurgency in their Libyan colony, taken from the Ottoman Empire in 1911. Italy declared war against Austria-Hungary and Turkey in May 1915 (but not against Germany until August 1916) a move that was hugely popular with the Italian masses who had long resented Austrian occupation of areas that they saw as rightfully theirs, and with the king who was unashamedly pro Allies.

By 1917 the Italian

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