Italian Colonial Empire
The Italian colonial empire was created after Italy joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas during the "scramble for Africa". Italy as a unified state had only existed since 1861, by which time Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, and France had already carved out large empires over several hundred years, and one of the last remaining areas open to colonisation was on the African continent. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Italy had annexed Eritrea and Somalia, and had wrested control of portions of the Ottoman Empire, including Libya, though it was defeated in its attempt to conquer Ethiopia. The Fascist government under Mussolini which came to power in 1922 sought to increase the size of the empire further, looking to rekindle the glories of the Roman Empire, which it saw as Italy's previous incarnation. Italy's European borders were enlarged by force or threat of force, and Ethiopia was successfully taken, four decades after the previous failure. Italy sided with Nazi Germany during World War II and initially enjoyed successes. However, Allied forces eventually captured Italian overseas colonies and by the time Italy itself was invaded in 1943, its empire had all but ceased to exist.
Italian Nationalism and The Scramble for Africa
From 1889 to 1912, Italy proceeded on a course of colonialism in the remaining uncolonized portions of Africa which led it to taking Eritrea, creating the colony of Italian Somalia in the early years of its colonization of Africa. Italy failed in the First Italo-Abyssinian War in the 1880s in which it attempted to take Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia) as a colony.
In the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 to 1912, Italy gained the former Ottoman African territories of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, which would later merge into the Italian colony of Libya, and the islands of the Dodecanese. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne gave international recognition to the continued Italian administration over the islands.
Mussolini and the "Italian Empire"
From the end of World War I through the era of Italian Fascism, Italy quickly expanded its colonial holdings. Italy had gained a minuscule portion of Dalmatia from the former Austria-Hungary as well as a number of Adriatic islands along the coast of present-day Croatia. In 1923, Italian forces invaded and occupied the Greek island of Corfu and in 1934, Italian North Africa was simplified by merging Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan into Italian Libya (Libia Italiana).
After 1929, imperial expansion became a favourite theme of Mussolini's speeches. He argued that colonial settlements were a demographic and economic necessity for a country like Italy and promised that he would make Italy become a true empire, equivalent in power to that of the Roman Empire.
(1935)
In 1935, the Second Italo-Abyssinian War occurred in which Italy captured Ethiopia in 1936, and merged Italian Eritrea, Italian Somalia and newly captured Ethiopia into Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, A.O.I.). The invasion had the tacit approval of France and Great Britain, who did not wish to alienate Italy as a potential ally against Nazi Germany.[citation needed] Victory was announced on 9 May 1936, and the Italian King Victor Emanuel III proclaimed himself Emperor of Ethiopia. Benito Mussolini dreamed of sending millions of Italian settlers to Italian East Africa, and Italians had high hopes of turning the area into an economic asset. However, by overrunning Ethiopia, a member of the League of Nations, Italy attracted widespread international hostility.
In 1934 Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were united to form the colony of Libya, a name previously used 1500 years earlier by Diocletian to refer to the area. Many Italians were sent to colonize Libya between 1934 and 1939: the Italians in Libya were 108.419 (12,37% of the total population) when was done the 1939 census. They were concentrated in the coast around the city of Tripoli (they were 37% of the city's population) and Bengasi (31%). The coastal areas of Libya were called Fourth Shore (in Italian: "Quarta Sponda") and were projected to be included in Mussolini's Greater Italia.
In 1939, Italy invaded and captured Albania and made it a protectorate. The region of modern-day Albania had been an early part of the Roman Empire, which had actually been held before northern parts of Italy had been taken by the Romans, but had long since been populated by Albanians, even though Italy had retained strong links with the Albanian leadership and considered it firmly within its sphere of influence.[citation needed] It is possible the Italian dictator simply wanted a spectacular success over a smaller neighbour to match Germany's absorption of Austria and Czechoslovakia.[citation needed] Italian King Victor Emmanuel III took the Albanian crown, and a fascist government under Shefqet Verlaci was established. The Albanian armed forces were subsumed into Italian units. Resistance to the Italian occupation grew rapidly at the end of 1942 and in 1943. By the summer of 1943, most of the mountainous interior was controlled by resistance fighters. The German Army and Albanian collaborators completed the seizure of Albania by the end of September 1943, three weeks after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies.
With the capture of Albania in 1939, Mussolini declared the official creation of the Italian Empire as a political entity which was led by King Victor Emmanuel III of the Kingdom of Italy and ruler of the various Italian dependent territories (Emmanuel III was never officially proclaimed emperor of Italy).
World War II
Mussolini entered World War II on Hitler's side with plans to enlarge Italy's territorial holdings: he had designs on an area of southern France, Corsica, Malta, Tunisia, part of Algeria, an Atlantic port in Morocco, French Somaliland and British Egypt and Sudan.[1]
On June 10, 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France, which had been at war with Nazi Germany since the prior year. Mussolini's troops invaded southern France, but an armistice was soon signed between France and Germany, and Italian troops pressed no further. Two days later, a separate agreement between France and Italy ceded Nice and parts of the Savoy to Italy.[2] In October that year, keen to emulate the successes that Hitler was enjoying, Mussolini ordered the invasion of Greece, but his troops were soon pushed into retreat by Greek forces and the invasion had to be rescued by Germany. German forces were also forced to come to Italy's aid in North Africa, where the British Army had fended off an attempt by Italian General Rodolfo Graziani to capture the Suez Canal.[3]
Italy lost control of Libya when German and Italian forces withdrew from Tunisia in 1943.
Two days after the Italian Government reached an armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943, German forces attacked the Italians on Rhodes, forcing a surrender the next day. Despite the landing of British troops, the Germans seized Kos on October 4 after a day of fighting, and Leros fell to the Germans on November 16 after five days of fighting. With the loss of Leros, Italian and British forces on the other islands of the Dodecanese escaped.
The southern area of Slovenia was subjected to Italian military occupation, but on May 1941 it was formally annexed by the Kingdom of Italy under the name of "Provincia di Lubiana". The province was created as a specific administration unit within Italy, until Sepember 1943 when was occupied by German troops.
In 1941, Montenegro was reestablished as a constitutional monarchy (with a vacant throne, after it was refused by the Titular King of Montenegro and a prince of Romanov dynasty) and declared an Italian protectorate.
From April 1941 to September 1943 Italy occupied all the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. Most of Dalmatia was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy as the Governatorato di Dalmazia. The western half of the fascist Croatia of Ante Pavelic was under Italian control.
End of Empire
The Italian Empire effectively came to an end by fall 1943. The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 7, 1943 led King Victor Emmanuele III to plot the downfall of Mussolini, who was arrested on July 25. The new government began secret negotiations with the Allies, and on the eve of the American landings at Salerno, Italy announced an armistice with the Allies. In Albania and the Dodecanese, Germany's successful attacks on its erstwhile Italian allies ended Italy's rule.
Italy formally lost all her overseas possessions as a result of the Treaty of peace with Italy (1947). In November 1949 Italian Somaliland was made a United Nations Trust Territory under Italian administration until July 1, 1960 when it was granted its independence along with British Somaliland to form Somalia.
Idea of a New Roman Empire
The New Roman Empire (Italian: "Nuovo Impero Romano", Latin: "Novum Imperium Romanum") was the new "state" created by Mussolini to describe the Italian colonial empire, especially following Italy's occupation of Ethiopia. Historians like Davide Cologno ([1]) state that it was born during the height of Italian nationalism in the pre-WWII days, and contained references to the Roman period:
- The Adriatic Sea was called "Mare Nostro" (Italian for "Our Sea") after the Italians invaded Albania and thus gained almost complete control over the Adriatic. It is a direct reference to the Roman name for the Mediterranean, which was called "Mare Nostrum" as the Romans had complete control over the sea.
- Mussolini hinted at the creation of an Italian Mare Nostrum during WWII, in reference to the Italian control (directly and indirectly) on most of the Mediterranean shores in 1942.
- The name of the Italian regime's politics — "Fascism", comes from the Italian word Fascio, literally a bundle of reeds around an axe, used by the Romans as a symbol of office and power.[4]
- The capital of the Italian state was Rome, just as in the early and middle Roman Empire, before power had shifted to Ravenna.
- King Victor Emmanuel III was crowned emperor (albeit of Ethiopia, and he never had the title of "Caesar").
See also
- Italian Tunisian
- Venetian empire
- Genoese empire
- Italian Mare Nostrum
- Italian conquest of British Somaliland
- Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia
- Italian empire style in Decorative arts
- Cabiria (film considered to glorify Italian Imperialism)
- Greater Italia
References
Bibliography
- Calvocoressi, Peter (1999). The Penguin History of the Second World War. Penguin.
- Killinger, Charles (2002). The History of Italy. Greenwood Press.