Kingdom of Italy

The Kingdom of Italy is a constitutional monarchy bordered to the East, South, and West by the Mediterrean Sea. To the North they are bordered by Avant-Garde France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.

History
Around the turn of the 20th Century, the Kingdom of Italy was an up-and-coming power on the world stage. It was consistently governed by one of a number of liberal parties, but no one spent more time in the seat of power than Giovanni Giolitti. Giolitti was the undisputed master of Italian politics. Though his party did not always lead the government, he remained one of the most important power brokers on the Italian political scene. He served four terms as prime minister before and during the Great War.

As the Great War ground on and the nations of Europe funneled thousands of men into the meat grinder of the trenches, Italy sat on the sidelines weighing up the two sides. To the Italian Government both the Central Powers and the Triple Entente had advantages and disadvantages. While for brief times it looked like Italy would join the Central Powers and topple the French government once and for all, it would in fact be this event that finally propelled Italy into the war on the side of the now Double Entente.

The capitulation and the seizure of French territory by Germany colonies and the occupation of French colonies by British troops gave Britain a significant negotiating tactic with Italy. Join the Double Entente and fulfill its imperial ambitions, gain the French territory that was given to the Germans and claim your Italian territory in Europe— for the Italian government this was a deal too good to refuse. And thus a few months after the French fell, the Double Entente became triple again.

Hundreds of thousands of Italian and British troops marched across the unprepared Austrian border, whose forces were busy trying to halt the Russian advance, and the Italians easily crossed the Isonzo river. Resistance would quickly begin after these advances, when German and Austrian troops halted the joint Italo-British advance, but as the Russians pushed into Austria so did the Italians. Compared to the other major powers in the Great War, Italy suffered the least and gained the most. Other than territory a new idea would be imparted to the Italian troops— a faith in democracy. Working closely with British troops on the advance was the foundation of the Italian belief in their democracy and would come to define Italy for many years to come.

The end of the war and the establishment of the Regency of Carnaro led to a new chapter in Italian history. The German and Hungarian revolutions, as well as the revolution just starting up in Russia, greatly energized and empowered the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) and other left-wing organizations. Perceiving the revolutionary threat, rightist forces in the kingdom also began to mobilize. A third force (pun intended) formed under the banner of Benito Mussolini’s “Fascism”, a mix of nationalist militarism and populist economics aimed at strengthening Italy and eliminating social divisions. These three groups quickly became two as Mussolini courted conservatives and traditionalists to his side. Other facist strongmen would arise during this period, Michele Bianchi leading the Nationals Syndicalists, and Italo Balbo and Emilo de Bono leading the right wing of the facist movement.

Both the Socialists and the Fascists believed that the Liberals, exhausted by the war and humiliated by their capitulation to D’Annunzio’s demands, would soon fall, and that only the other side posed any real threat to their eventual domination of the kingdom.

They were terribly mistaken.

Giovanni Giolitti was not a man to be taken lightly, even in the twilight years of his career. He played up his support for the Regency in the media, praising D’Annunzio’s initiative in securing Italian territory from Balkan nationalists and revolutionaries and encouraging those who sympathize with him to move there in order to consolidate Italy’s new lands. More importantly, he began to meet with leaders in the PSI, the Partito Radicale Italiano (a social liberal party with strong support in the northeast) and the Partito Popolare Italiano (a christian democrat party that was growing rapidly throughout the country). He managed to attract the reform faction of the PSI to his side, led principally by Ivanoe Bonomi, as well as the Christian socialist wing of the PPI under Luigi Sturzo. The PRI proved a somewhat harder sell.

Ever since the creation of the Regency, PRI voters felt directly threatened by the outrageous behavior of the D’Annunzio regime. Their direct experience of the Great War also led to a hardening of their resolve to protect Italian democracy. Groups of students and apprentices began to organize themselves into a paramilitary organization called the Young Democrats, who sought to oppose both Socialism and Fascism as direct threats to their natural rights. The party evolved from a consistently small minority group to a dynamic pillar of Italian politics, running on platforms of anti-extremism and political equality for all in the Kingdom’s growing overseas empire.

The March:
However due to the successful revolutions in Germany, Hungary and Luxembourg and the start of the Russian civil war, the Triumvirate (the group of three) of Emilo de Bono, Michele Bianchi, and Italo Balbo decided to try to anti Meanwhile Giolitti's efforts to counter the fascists and communists and to organize a coalition of democratic elements paid off and a government of National Unity was established successfully, transforming into the PUDI: the Partito Unito Democratico Italiano. This movement, a combination Giolitti, Bonomi and Sturzo’s efforts, became a big tent covering the moderate right and left democratic parties. To both the communists and fascists this was a disaster, because a unified democratic coalition could easily crush their movements. Thus it was the opportunity for the far left to rise up and for the Fascists to begin their march on Rome.

However when the fascists began their march, it was not universally accepted. Balbo had a different view of how the march would go, using it to act as a large rally, however statements closer to the march from Mussolini, hinting at a coup, put Balbo on edge, especially since he believed that the strength of the national unity government and the young democrats would stop and destroy the fascists. He believed that this clash would make communist revolution inevitable. Thus Balbo quietly split from the others before the march started, remaining silent except to tell his supporters to stay home.

As the fascists arrived in Rome, it soon became clear that the march would not be the easy victory they foresaw. As soon as they entered the city’s outskirts, communist militias and the Young Democrats clashed with each other and the fascists, turning the streets of Rome into a three-way battleground of ideologies. Giolitti's government, seeing the chaos and violence, sent in the army to crush the communists and fascists, quietly giving orders to leave the Young Democrats alone. For five days Rome was engulfed in a bloodbath, but the young democrats, supported by the army, eventually carried the battle. the turning point came on the fourth day, when Francesco Saverio Nitti himself grabbed a rifle and led the PRI parliamentary representatives into the fight on the side of the Young Democrats.

This crushing defeat for the fascists and communists split both their movements. The fascists descended into attacking each other, each clique and side blaming the other for their loss. Mussolini himself fled to Venice, and was seen boarding a gondola. He would not be seen in Italy for another ten years until he was spotted in Fiume in 1929. As Bianchi and De Bono cannibalised each others’ support and Mussolini disappears from Italian politics, Balbo, the man who withdrew from the march, remained as the most respected far right politician in the country. He was able to consolidate the facist remnants into a broad coalition of traditionalists, monarchists, conservatives and militarists known as the Lista Nazionale.

Meanwhile the far left also descend into a similar form of chaos between the ideals of continuing for revolution, or supporting reform. Unions and politicians loyal to the reform movement battle with Communist ones and when it is revealed that the leaders were getting directions from Trotsky himself, totally discredits the movement politically. With the leadership of the PCd'I becoming scattered and forced into exile within Germany. Finally, Bianchi’s left fascists, disgusted with their former comrades and desperate for support, joined with the remaining socialist revolutionaries to for the Fronte Revoluzionaria Socialista e dei Gruppi Nazionale Sindicalisti di Combattimento, the FRS e dei GNS di C.

The march on Rome was a mortal disaster for both Italian communism and the nascent fascist movement, and the crowning achievement for the Giolitti government. It strengthened the PUDI and gave their first administration a much-needed boost in legitimacy.

Italian Era of Good Feelings:
After the formation of the PUDI, Italy entered a strange period in its history. After coming history books for prior examples, Italian journalists hit upon a term from the early history of the United States: the Era of Good Feelings.

With every other party and movement either dragged into coalition with the PUDI or dragged through the mud by their failures at the Battle of Rome, Italy became a happier and more optimistic place for all. Giolitti, who was by this point an old and tired man, increasingly lost ground to Bonomi and Sturzo. Their enthusiasm allowed Italy to become a capitalist welfare state, with extensive protections for every walk of life. Workers, peasants, and politicians all agreed that things were looking up.

When Giolitti died in 1928, cracks began to appear in the regime. The old-line market-oriented liberals were totally subsumed by the social liberals and democrats, both Catholic and secular. Maintaining the trasformismi became more and more difficult, with politicians forced to resort to ever more corrupt policies in order to maintain the unity and primacy of the PUDI. When the Slump hit Italy, government action was messy and confused. When the Senussis of Libya seized this chance and broke their fragile accords with the government in 1931, Libya was plunged into a costly guerrilla war that rages on at game start, (show photo of Lybian demiliterised zone) leaving all Libyan provinces but major cities demilitarized and inaccessible. As always in history, economic hardship promotes the growth of extremist forces in Italy. Though the PUDI’s hegemony is still unshakeable, many have turned to the right and left to solve Italy’s troubles, or even the poet across the Adriatic…