The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 (4 page)

1 
The gulf between past and present was measured when Yugoslavia fell apart amid bloodshed and lies in the early 1990s. Faced with the savage, nation-building politics of their grandparents’ day, Europe’s leaders denied the evidence of their eyes, trying to douse the fire with conference minutes and multilateral resolutions.

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The story of Italy’s third war of independence is told in the Appendix. 

3 
In fact, Friuli developed on both sides of the border after 1866, as even Italian nationalist historians acknowledged. On the Austrian side, vines and fruit orchards were planted, and groves of mulberry trees fed the silkworms that supplied the textile industry. Gorizia flourished as ‘the Nice of Austria’ and Grado, with its shining lagoons and sandy beaches, became central Europe’s favourite seaside resort. Land reclamation schemes created rich farmland near Monfalcone. 

TWO

‘We Two Alone’

It is always the case that the one who is not
your friend will request your neutrality, and
that the one who is your friend will request
your armed support.
     M
ACHIAVELLI
,
The Prince
(1532)

How the Government Plotted against Peace

Italy was pulled into the First World War by two whiskery men in frock coats and an anxious, weak-willed king. They were not alone: interventionist passion surged around the higher echelons of society, making up in noise what they lacked in popular support. Yet, without a conspiracy in the highest places, Italy would have stayed neutral.

Prime Minister Antonio Salandra and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino were like-minded conservatives and old friends who knew they were backed by an élite of northern industrialists and politicians which supported rearmament and military expansion around the Adriatic Sea. When Salandra finally let parliament debate the international situation, in December 1914, deputies were not allowed to query the government’s foreign policy or the army’s readiness. The cabinet was not informed about the twin-track negotiations with London and Vienna until 21 April 1915. Five days later, without forewarning parliament, the Prime Minister committed Italy to fight. The deputies rubber-stamped his decision after the fact. With the King’s support, he had carried out a coup d’état in all but name.

This process, without parallel in other countries, split the country. Many nationalists believed the war would heal this rift. Instead the fractures widened under the pressure of terrible carnage, undermining morale in the army and on the home front. There would be no equivalent of the French
union sacrée
. Parliament too was damaged. After granting the government decree powers, the Chamber of Deputies became a cipher. The Socialists, who tried to preserve a watchdog role, could be cowed or sidestepped when the need arose. Historian Mario Isnenghi argues that the interventionist campaign of 1914–15 created a new political force, the ‘war party’, cutting across traditional loyalties, scornful of institutions and elected majorities, convinced that they alone represented the nation’s true identity and interests. This force proved to be durable; parliamentary life had scarcely revived in 1922 when Mussolini’s accession – overwhelmingly supported by the chamber – subverted and then destroyed Italy’s liberal institutions. In short, the events of spring 1915 struck a blow from which the country would not recover for 30 years.

Early in 1914, Prime Minister Giolitti resigned when part of his coalition crumbled away. Still the most powerful leader in parliament, he persuaded the King to replace him with Antonio Salandra, a lawyer from a rich landowning family in Puglia. Giolitti meant Salandra to be a stopgap while he reshuffled the pack of his actual and potential supporters. His legendary skill at manipulating the blocs of deputies into viable majorities gave every reason to expect his swift return to power. Yet the lawyer from Puglia was more resolute and devious than Giolitti realised.

The constitution gave the monarch overarching power. He appointed and dismissed government ministers; summoned and dissolved parliament; retained ultimate authority over foreign policy; and commanded the armed forces. He could issue decrees with the force of law, and declare war without consulting parliament. But Victor Emanuel III was reluctant to wield this power. Very short in stature and ill-favoured, he did not cut a regal or martial figure. One of his cruel nicknames was
sciaboletta
, or ‘little sabre’; he could not wear a full-length sword, and cartoonists drew the tip of his scabbard resting on a little trolley. When the war started, he wanted to cut the figure of a soldier king, but really preferred coin-collecting and photography. One close observer thought he was ‘too modern’; in ordinary life he would have been a republican or socialist by temperament, for he had little faith in the future of the monarchy. Insecure and naïve, he was easily led by forceful personalities. Making matters worse, he was in a nervous depression in 1914, precipitated by fear of losing his adored wife’s love. Rumour had it that he was considering abdication.

His views on the national question were moderate, like Giolitti’s; he thought Italy should have part of the south Tyrol and Friuli as far as the River Isonzo, but not Bolzano or Gorizia, let alone Trieste. He would probably have accepted a peaceful solution with Austria if Salandra had not panicked him into believing that the alternative to war was revolution. The real revolution was Salandra’s own.

When the Habsburg heir was assassinated in Bosnia at the end of June, Salandra was distracted by the aftermath of workers’ protests, known as ‘red week’, in which strikers paralysed most of Italy’s cities and were attacked by troops and police. His foreign minister, Antonio di San Giuliano, was a Sicilian aristocrat who felt little hostility to Austria. He knew Giolitti had warned the Austrians that Italy would not support an attack on Serbia, something that looked increasingly likely as Vienna blamed Belgrade for the assassination. Neither Austria nor Germany involved their ally in their summits. Italy was not invited to the all-important talks at Potsdam on 5 July, when Kaiser Wilhelm gave Vienna the fatal ‘blank cheque’, promising to back any action against Serbia. When they prepared an ultimatum to Belgrade, setting conditions intended to be unacceptable, they kept the text secret from Italy. This violated the letter of the Triple Alliance.

San Giuliano told Vienna on 10 July that Italy would expect all of Italian-speaking south Tyrol as ‘compensation’ for the slightest Austrian gain in the Balkans. Although they ignored the warning, the Central Powers were confident of getting Italian support. Inside the bubble of their belligerence, the élites in Vienna and Berlin missed a crucial change in Italy during July: the opinion-making classes ceased to accept the idea of fighting alongside Germany and Austria. Several factors encouraged wishful thinking. San Giuliano’s ambassadors in Berlin and Vienna exaggerated their government’s loyalty to the Alliance. The coincidental call-up of three Italian classes during July was probably misinterpreted. The German general staff did not understand that their opposite numbers in Italy were under civilian control, so may have overrated the pledge by Italy’s new chief of the general staff, General Luigi Cadorna, to respect the army’s existing commitments. This mightily reassured the Germans, because Cadorna’s predecessor, General Pollio, had been a zealot for the Alliance. He even wanted the three allied armies to agree on joint operations and planning, and called on the Allies to ‘act as a single state’ – a goal none of them would dream of embracing.

In 1912, the demands of the Libyan campaign led Pollio to rescind Italy’s old commitment to send six corps and three cavalry divisions to Germany if France attacked. A year later he partly restored the pledge, offering two corps. The following April, he stunned the German attaché in Rome by raising the commitment to three corps. This force, he said, would tie down as many French troops as possible while German forces were engaged further north. Then he mused whether Italy should send a separate force to help Vienna, if Serbia attacked Austria when France (perhaps backed by Russia) attacked Germany. While the attaché reeled at the thought of Italian troops fighting for the Habsburg empire, Pollio added an even more heretical thought. ‘Is it not more logical for the Alliance to discard false humanitarian sentiment, and start a war which will be imposed on us anyway?’ Field Marshal Moltke and General Conrad von Hötzendorf, Pollio’s opposite numbers in Berlin and Vienna, could not have expressed the Central Powers’ catastrophic fatalism more pithily.

‘I almost fell off my seat,’ reported the attaché. ‘How times have changed!’ He wondered if Pollio was too good to be true; maybe he was really angling for Trento and Trieste? But there was no ulterior motive. Giolitti and Salandra might also have fallen off their seats if they had been in the room. Whether Pollio had cleared his proposals with the minister of war – his superior in peacetime – is unclear. The wretched communications between the government and general staff would not improve under his successor.

In addition to the usual veneration of Prussia, Pollio had married an Austrian countess. There was even something Viennese about the man himself: handsome, charming, cultured, the author of well-received military histories. He was no genius; his plan to occupy Libya in 1911 took no account of the Arab population, and assumed the Turkish garrison would head for home rather than retreat to the trackless interior. These were grievous mistakes; the Libyan campaign cost almost 8,000 casualties and soaked up half the gross domestic product that year, and not much less in 1912. Yet he had a penetrating and unorthodox mind. Immune to anti-Habsburg feeling, he believed the Alliance was in Italy’s best interest and wanted it to work. Moltke had assured Conrad, whose suspicion of Italians matched his loathing of Serbs, that Pollio should be trusted. Even so, they chose not to inform him fully about Germany’s plans for a lightning strike against France and Russia.

One of Moltke’s advisors, tasked to study the Italian situation, reported in May that Pollio was an excellent fellow, ‘a great mind and a trustworthy man’, but he faced internal resistance. The King would be led by his government; France still had many friends in Italy; the historic feud with Austria was not forgotten, and Italy’s ambitions in the Adriatic were still lively. ‘How long will his influence last?’ Death answered the question a mere month later. On 28 June, Pollio boarded a train to Turin where a new field mortar was to be tested. Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been shot in Sarajevo a few hours earlier; when Pollio was told, early next morning, he showed no concern. Next day, he was taken ill with myocarditis and died early on 1 July, carried off by a heart attack. His demise seemed so uncannily timed to harm the Central Powers that Germany suspected foul play. While the Italian officer corps generally supported the Triple Alliance, none of the senior generals shared Pollio’s dedication. The Germans knew this, and from mid-July urged the Austrians to reach an understanding with Italy over territory. In vain.

When Cadorna became chief of staff at the end of July, Berlin’s relief was short-lived. Rome’s signals were being received at last. On 30 July, Austria’s ambassador in Berlin reported that a ‘state of nervousness’ was palpable for the first time, due to fear ‘that Italy in the case of a general conflict would not fulfil its duty as an ally’. By August, the German high command was putting the best face on a bad situation. Moltke told the government in Berlin that a demonstration of Alliance unity mattered more than Italy’s material contribution. A token force would be enough. Yet Berlin would not lean on Rome, judging that it would be counterproductive unless the Austrians made a positive gesture. The Austrians still deluded themselves that resolute action against Serbia would bring Italy to heel. Italy wanted Austria’s promise of ‘compensation’ before it would consider supporting the Central Powers, while Austria wanted proof of support before it would consider giving any territory – and even then, the south Tyrol was out of the question.

By this point, Italian forces were concentrating towards the French border in accordance with Pollio’s plans. On 31 July, Cadorna sent the King a memorandum on the deployment towards France and ‘the transport of the largest possible force to Germany’. Meanwhile San Giuliano told the cabinet that, in present conditions, Italy could not fight. No one told the King, who approved Cadorna’s memo the following day. By now the Austrians knew they had sparked a European war, and they told the Italians that they could expect compensation if they supported their allies. Conrad cabled Cadorna to ask how he intended to co-operate. Too late! It was 1 August, and the wider conflict had begun. Next day, without even informing Cadorna, the government declared neutrality. It was five days after Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, two days after Russia mobilised, and one day after Germany declared war on Russia.

When he heard the news, Cadorna went to Salandra, who confirmed that fighting France was out of the question. ‘So what should I do?’ the Chief of Staff asked. Salandra said nothing. ‘Prepare for war against Austria?’ ventured Cadorna.

‘That’s right,’ said the Prime Minister.

Cadorna began a massive re-deployment to the north-east. The switch had to remain low-key, or the Austrians might lash out preemptively – or so Salandra claimed to fear, even though Austria’s border with Italy was practically undefended and the Austrians were in no position to divert forces from Serbia and Galicia.

San Giuliano’s case for not joining Austria and Germany was solid. Apart from the matter of compensation, the Alliance was a defensive treaty and Austria was the aggressor against Serbia. (Austria’s 23 July ultimatum was, he said grandly, ‘incompatible with the liberal principles of our public law’.) Moreover, Austria and Germany had violated the Alliance by excluding Italy from their discussions. These objections could have been finessed if the public had roared support for the Triple Alliance, but opinion was broadly anti-Austrian. The government and industry feared the effects of a British naval blockade if Italy joined the Central Powers. Italy depended on Britain and France for raw materials and foodstuffs, and almost all of Italy’s coal arrived with other imports through routes controlled by the British navy.

For these reasons, and out of respect for British military power, as well as a feeling that Britain’s position on the sidelines during July was like Italy’s own, the Italians wanted to see which way London would jump. Britain’s entry into the war on 4 August calmed those senior figures who had wondered if it was rash not to support the Central Powers. Looking further ahead, the government feared that whether or not the Powers defeated the Allies, Italy was unlikely to get what it wanted. San Giuliano summed up the conundrum: if Austria fails to win convincingly, it will not be able to compensate us, and, if it does win, it will have no motive to do so. The best course was to wait and watch.