Most political groups were against getting involved in the war:
most socialists
Liberals
and the Catholic party, the PPI
In favour of war were:
revolutionary syndicalists (advocating revolution through trade union activity rather than through a political party)
dissident socialists
right-wing radicals – conservative liberals and Nationalists
republicans
Futurists (an art movement as well as a political movement that rejected anything to do with the past – they admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists)
Why was intervention favoured?
Those to the Right felt it was vital for Italy’s future that it should ally itself with the forces of progress, i.e. the democracies of Britain and France
Conservatives hoped that a short victorious war would heal the divisions in Italy and create social solidarity
Conservative liberals and Nationalists hoped for territorial gain – from Austria in the north-east and around the Adriatic, as well as Middle-Eastern colonies
The revolutionary interventionists felt that participation would unleash social and political forces bringing about a new political order
The experience of war
Longer and more demanding than had been anticipated
5-6 million men had been conscripted, mostly peasants (from a total population of 35 million)
4 million actually went to war
Most of the fighting was in the Alps bordering Austria – a war of attrition
650,000 killed, 600,000 captured, a million seriously wounded, 450,000 permanently disabled
The defeat at Caporetto – in just a few weeks 10,000 Italian soldiers were killed, 300,000 were wounded and another 300,000 were captured – shocked Italian public opinion
All of this fuelled resentment against those who had sent them and against those who didn’t fight (industrial workers and wealthier farmers and even ambitious peasants who had taken the opportunity to buy more land)
The officer class, 140,000 new officers were created, developed a comradeship, identification with the expansionist war aims, and a distrust of the politicians
Economic effects
War-related industries and their workforce had profited, but at the end of the war, production dropped drastically
The economy had been distorted by war and, with peace, hardship would result
The Italian government had borrowed huge sums (from Britain and America) – the national debt had increased from 16 billion lire in 1914 to 85 billion lire by 1919
To pay off the loans, the government printed money resulting in inflation
There were a succession of overlapping crises: food shortages and shortages of raw materials for industry during 1918-19; acute inflation lasting until 1921; and rapidly rising unemployment
For the returning soldiers, all of this seemed a very poor reward
Political effects
PR was introduced for the 1919 elections, a system which allocated seats in proportion to votes leading to a multi-party parliament and the need for coalition governments
Political parties would not cooperate, however, especially the PSI and the PPI, and so a stable government could not be formed
The biennio rosso (two red years, 1918-20) saw a big rise in the membership of trade unions, strikes and occupations of factories as well as violence in the countryside
There were those amongst the middle classes and the elite who feared a Bolshevik revolution and they prepared to defend capitalism
In the wake of the experience of war and the ‘mutilated victory,’ nationalism was a strong feature in post-war Italy too
This was most famously expressed by D’Annunzio’s occupation of Fiume
D’Annunzio’s occupation defied the TofV, the LofN and the Italian government. His actions compared with the meek acceptance of the TofV by the Italian government wasembarrassing
Facism, standing opposed to socialism and in favour of a strong nation state, began to be seen by the elite and propertied classes as an attractive alternative to failed liberalism