CHAPTER L
ITALY'S RELATIONS WITH THE WARRING POWERS
After nearly ten months of kaleidoscopic changes in the diplomatic situation, which kept the outside world constantly uncertain as to her ultimate determination, Italy declared war upon Austria May 23, 1915. The bare official explanation of these negotiations gave the impression of selfish bargaining, and a broad survey of conditions on the Italian peninsula before and during the first months of the war is necessary to a proper understanding of the causes that led Italy to take sides with Great Britain, France, and Russia.
Behind these long diplomatic exchanges, their foundation rather than the result of them, lay Italy's national aspirations and a gradual crystallization of public sentiment. Officially, Italy went to war with Austria over an alleged violation of the Triple Alliance; but to most Italians the hope of the war meant the return to the Italian flag of Italians living south of the Austrian Alps, realignment of their northern and eastern frontier on better national and military principles, the possession of certain territory on the eastern shore of the Adriatic as would secure her harborless eastern coast from hostile attack, a reduction of Austrian control over Trieste, and the repatriation of thousands of Italians living in the "unredeemed" portions of southern Austria, which despite many years of Austrian domination was essentially Italian in traditions, customs, language, and loyalty.
Negotiations were prolonged, also, by the fact that at the outbreak of the war Italy was, in a military sense, quite unprepared to engage in a desperate struggle. When Italian Alpine troops finally moved out and took possession of Austrian mountain outposts, the army had undergone regeneration. In both men and munitions Italy was equipped to play a part in the war worthy of a first-class power, and befitting her wide ambitions.
Although Italy was allied with the Central Powers, her peculiar situation dictated a national policy of cordial relations with all Europe. Geographically, she forms a unified mass with Germany and Austria, but the barrier of the Alps across her northern frontier diverts her interests from the north to the south. She is essentially a Mediterranean power, the one great nation on the inland sea with a long coast line and a number of ports. Her hope of the future lay along the Mediterranean shore, but her national unity was gained almost too late to enable her to realize the aspiration of African colonies. It was the disappointment of obtaining possessions in Tunis by the establishment of French control there in 1881 that found expression in the Triple Alliance. Her antagonism against Austria and the Hapsburgs was still unmitigated, but as a practical matter of statesmanship she had to choose between two antagonists—Austria opposing her on the Adriatic, and France on the Mediterranean. Since Africa presented the larger field for expansion, she enlisted the aid of Austria and Germany against France. At the same time she became friendly with England, and largely through this understanding gained her hold upon Tripoli. Cordial relations with France were reestablished in 1903. The sum of her efforts made her a link between the rival groups of European powers. This will explain the peculiar obligations of neutrality incumbent upon the nation when the Triple Entente went to war with her associates in the Triple Alliance.
Alliance with Germany and Austria was a necessity of statesmanship and diplomacy; but at no time was it generally popular with the mass of Italian population. It gave no support to Italian aims in the Mediterranean; it failed to hold the balance between Italy and Austria in the Balkans; it seemed to promise nothing for the future, except, perhaps, immunity from Austrian attack. In fact, it is doubtful whether the alliance would have been renewed in 1912 but for an unexpected outbreak of resentment against France due to a clash over rival interests in northern Africa and increasing suspicion of French action in Tunis. At the same time Italy took offense at the attitude of France toward her position in the war with Turkey, which resulted in the Italian occupation of Tripoli.
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