Page 307 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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ActA
International relations among allies in a psychological war
operation: the ‘Allied Commission for propaganda’

(1917-1918) on the Austro-Italian front

nicola LABAnCA

or liberal Italy, united since 1861, entering the First World War meant quite a re-
F markable effort: a veritable trauma. In those years Italy, still a predominantly ag-
ricultural economy, passed the trial just like the other major and far more industrialized
European powers. But the effort was conspicuous, and the relative social and political
costs were very high; as known, immediately after the war, liberal Italy was not able to
overcome all social and political contrasts, and in 1922 Fascism came into power.
A particular impasse for the liberal ruling class was represented by the need of con-
vincing large popular masses of peasants and workers of the convenience of war inter-
vention and of the need of resisting till the end of the conflict. In this sense the First
World War involved the necessity of mass political propaganda, and therefore also of
military propaganda.
Italian military controlled the armed forces, and above all the army, more by means
of repression than by means of persuasion, more by threatening military justice and ex-
ecutions than by using patriotic press. And it must be noted that a veritable and modern
propaganda for the troops in Italy started above all at the end of 1917, after that the Ca-
poretto retreat (October 24, 1917) threatened to jeopardize the project of the liberal rul-
ing class. However the need of convincing 5.6 millions soldiers represented a necessary
target and, at the same time, a new challenge for the General Staff, for the Government
and for liberal Italy in general.
Italy substantially won this challenge, won the war and, unlike its other allies, even
defeated on the battlefield its own military adversary, Austria-Hungary (Vittorio Veneto
battle) in the last days of war. But, as previously stated, the costs were huge. The country
had to catch up with an extremely weak starting situation from an industrial, economic
and military point of view. The liberal ruling class showed all its divisions. In fact, there
were divisions between neutralist liberals (majority) and interventionist liberals (a mi-
nority which, however, prevailed). Furthermore there were divisions between nationalist
interventionists (caring only for the national interest, the “sacred egotism” of the annex-
ation of Trento and Trieste and of the surrounding areas) and democratic interventionists
(supporting a “policy of nationalities” which should have led to the destruction of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and to the increase of a hopely unitarian nationalism among
Slavic Balkan peoples). Of course there were contrasts between liberals and socialists
(the only large European reformist party, beside the Russian one, which did not vote the
military budget for the war). More in general, the ruling class of liberal Italy showed all