Download Empire Total War [ITA] Torrent - 16
Floriana Monterroza
During World War II, Italy allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940 and it also occupied British Somaliland, western Egypt, much of Yugoslavia, Tunisia, parts of south-eastern France and most of Greece; however, it then lost those conquests and its African colonies to the invading Allied forces by 1943. In 1947, Italy officially relinquished claims on its former colonies. In 1950, former Italian Somaliland, then under British administration, was turned into the Trust Territory of Somaliland until it became independent in 1960.
Imperialism in Italy dates back to ancient Rome, and the Latin notion of mare nostrum ("Our Sea", referring to the Mediterranean) has historically been the basis for Italian imperialism, especially during the fascist era.[7] During the Middle Ages and the modern period, the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa controlled networks of "colonies" in the Mediterranean region known as the Venetian Empire and the Genoese Empire respectively. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian explorers contributed to the colonial enterprises of other European countries in the Americas: Cristopher Columbus from Genoa served Spain, Amerigo Vespucci from Florence served Portugal, the Cabot brothers from Venice served England, and Giovanni da Verrazzano from Florence served France. However, no Italian power took an active role in the scramble for the Americas, with the notable exception of the Pope who acted as an arbiter between European colonial powers during the Renaissance. The geographical position of Italy, located in the center of an internal sea, without an open free access to the ocean, contributed to this purely Mediterranean policy. Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made the only Italian attempt to create a colony in the Americas, in what is now French Guiana, organizing in 1608 an expedition to explore the north of Brazil and the Amazon river in 1608 under the command of the English captain Robert Thornton. However, Thornton, on his return from the preparatory expedition in 1609, found Ferdinand I dead and his successor, Cosimo II, was not interested in the project. In 1651, Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Italian nobleman and Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller of Malta (at the time a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily), possessed four Caribbean islands: Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthlemy, and Saint Croix, which were colonized from 1651 until 1665.[8][9] No other colonial attempt in the ocean was made and, by 1797, the Venetian and Genoese possessions in the Mediterranean were lost.
Once unified as a nation-state in the late 19th century, Italy intended to compete with the other European powers for the new age of European colonial expansion. It saw its interests in the Mediterranean and in the Horn of Africa, a region yet to be colonized and with access to the ocean. Italy had arrived late to the colonial race and its status as the least of the Great Powers, a position of relative weakness in international affairs, meant that it was dependent on the acquiescence of Britain, France and Germany towards its empire-building.[10] Italy had long considered the Ottoman province of Tunisia, where a large community of Tunisian Italians lived, within its economic sphere of influence. It did not consider annexing it until 1879, when it became apparent that Britain and Germany were encouraging France to add it to its colonial holdings in North Africa.[11] A last-minute offer by Italy to share Tunisia between the two countries was refused, and France, confident in German support, ordered its troops in from French Algeria, imposing a protectorate over Tunisia in May 1881 under the Treaty of Bardo.[12] The shock of the "Slap of Tunis", as it was referred to in the Italian press, and the sense of Italy's isolation in Europe, led it into signing the Triple Alliance in 1882 with Germany and Austria-Hungary.[13]
While attempts were made to buy the Nicobar Islands from Denmark in 1864 and 1865,[14] the genesis of the Italian colonial empire was the purchase in 1869 of Assab Bay on the Red Sea by an Italian navigation company which intended to establish a coaling station at the time the Suez Canal was being opened to navigation.[15] This was taken over by the Italian government in 1882, becoming modern Italy's first overseas territory.[16]
In 1898, in the wake of the acquisition of leased territories by Germany, Russia, Britain and France in China earlier that year, the Italian government, as a matter of national prestige and to assert Italy's great power status, demanded the cession of Sanmen Bay to serve as a coaling station. Aware that Italy did not have sufficient naval power in Asian waters to back up its demand, the Chinese imperial government rejected the ultimatum and all subsequent requests, arguing that Italy had no real political or economic interests in China. This national humiliation, which for Italy's main newspaper made the country appear "like a third or fourth-rate power", provoked the fall of the Italian government. This prompted Italy to take part in the international expedition in Beijing at the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion the following year, and resulted in the acquisition of a concession in Tianjin in 1901, the only example of Italian colonialism in Asia.[25] [26] The concession was administered by the Italian consul in Tianjin.
A wave of nationalism that swept Italy at the turn of the 20th century led to the founding of the Italian Nationalist Association, which pressed for the expansion of Italy's empire. Newspapers were filled with talk of revenge for the humiliations suffered in Ethiopia at the end of the previous century, and of nostalgia for the Roman era.
Libya, it was suggested, as an ex-Roman colony, should be "taken back" to provide a solution to the problems of Southern Italy's population growth. Fearful of being excluded altogether from North Africa by Britain and France, and mindful of public opinion, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti ordered the declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire, of which Libya was part, in October 1911.[27]
In 1914 Italy remained neutral and did not join its ally Germany in World War I. The Allies made promises and in 1915 Italy joined them. It was promised territorial spoils mainly from Austria and Turkey.[29]
Prior to direct intervention in World War I, Italy occupied the Albanian port of Vlor in December 1914.[3] In the fall of 1916, Italy started to occupy southern Albania.[3] In 1916, Italian forces recruited Albanian irregulars to serve alongside them.[3] Italy, with permission of the Allied command, occupied Northern Epirus on 23 August 1916, forcing the neutralist Greek Army to withdraw its occupation forces from there.[3] In June 1917, Italy proclaimed central and southern Albania as a protectorate of Italy while Northern Albania was allocated to the states of Serbia and Montenegro.[3] By 31 October 1918, French and Italian forces expelled the Austro-Hungarian Army from Albania.[3] However, in 1920, an Albanian rebellion led the Italians to agree to return the occupied regions to Albania, with the exception of Sazan Island.
At the concluding Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Italy received less in Europe than had been promised and none overseas mandate except for a promise of colonial compensations made on 7 May 1919 during the partition of Germany's colonies between France and Britain. To satisfy this promise, France and Britain directly or indirectly gave Italy, from 1919 to 1935, a number of territories to expand Libya (Cufra, Sarra, Giarabub, the Aouzou strip, other lands in the Sahara), Somalia (Jubaland), the Dodecanese (Kastellorizo), and Eritrea (Raheita, the Hanish islands). In April 1920, it was agreed between the British and Italian foreign ministers that Jubaland would be Italy's first compensation from Britain, but London held back on the deal for several years, aiming to use it as leverage to force Italy to cede the Dodecanese to Greece.[33]
In 1922, the leader of the Italian fascist movement, Benito Mussolini, became Prime Minister and dictator. Mussolini resolved the question of sovereignty over the Dodecanese at the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which formalized Italian administration of both Libya and the Dodecanese Islands, in return for a payment to Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, though he failed in an attempt to extract a mandate of a portion of Iraq from Britain.
The month following the ratification of the Lausanne treaty, Mussolini ordered the invasion of the Greek island of Corfu after the Corfu incident. The Italian press supported the move, noting that Corfu had been a Venetian possession for four hundred years. The matter was taken by Greece to the League of Nations, where Mussolini was convinced by Britain to evacuate Italian troops, in return for reparations from Greece. The confrontation led Britain and Italy to resolve the question of Jubaland in 1924, which was merged into Italian Somaliland.[34]
During the late 1920s, imperial expansion became an increasingly favoured theme in Mussolini's speeches.[35] Amongst Mussolini's aims were that Italy had to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean that would be able to challenge France or Britain, as well as attain access to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.[35] Mussolini alleged that Italy required uncontested access to the world's oceans and shipping lanes to ensure its national sovereignty.[36] This was elaborated on in a document he later drew up in 1939 called "The March to the Oceans", and included in the official records of a meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism.[36] This text asserted that maritime position determined a nation's independence: countries with free access to the high seas were independent; while those who lacked this, were not. Italy, which only had access to an inland sea without French and British acquiescence, was only a "semi-independent nation", and alleged to be a "prisoner in the Mediterranean":[36]
In the Balkans, the Fascist regime claimed Dalmatia and held ambitions over Albania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vardar Macedonia, and Greece based on the precedent of previous Roman dominance in these regions.[37] Dalmatia and Slovenia were to be directly annexed into Italy while the remainder of the Balkans was to be transformed into Italian client states.[38] The regime also sought to establish protective patron-client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria.[37]
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