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Kingdom of Italy - Italy and the Great War

As soon as the war broke out the Socialists of Italy began a vigorous agitation demanding that the country remain out of the war and that the alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary be repudiated. Sincere in their advocacy of neutrality, they were not by any means neutral in their feelings. Their sympathies were all on the side of the Entente Allies. At the end of July, 1914, the Socialists served notice upon Premier Salandra that any attempt to lead Italy into the war on the side of Austria would be met by revolution. ' We can assure you that, if Italy mobilizes her army and commands it to march to the direct or indirect support of the Germans against France, that very day there will be no need of any effort on our part to make the Italian people revolt.'

While from the first the Socialists of Italy sympathized with the cause of the Entente Allies and wished for the defeat of the Central Empires, they strove hard to keep their nation out of the war. Though some of the most distinguished leaders of the movement favored the entrance of the nation into the war on the side of the Entente, the party stood for neutrality. Soon after the war began, the German and Austrian Social Democrats sent a mission to Italy, ostensibly to explain their attitude but in reality to influence the Socialists of Italy in favor of the Triple Alliance.

The Italian Socialist party issued a statement which was a scathing denunciation of Germany and Austria and of the German Socialists. It described the mission as 'an offense against the dignity and independence of Italian Socialism,' and declared that by its support of the German and Austrian policy of aggression the German Social Democratic party 'forfeited the right to the title of International Socialists.' The statement proceeds: 'We express our desire that this infamous war may be concluded by the defeat of those who have provoked it - the Austrian and German Empires. For the Empires of Austria and Germany form the rampart of European reaction, even more than Russia. ... If the German and Austrian Empires emerge victorious from the war, it will mean the triumph of military absolutism in its most brutal expression. ... In this war is outlined on one side the defense of European reaction, on the other the defense of all revolutions, past and future. . . . And because of this we must affirm that there remains for us only one way of being internationalists, namely, to declare ourselves loyally in favor of whoever fights the empires of reaction, just as the Italian Socialists residing in Paris have understood that one way only remains to be anti-militarist - to arm and fight against the empires of militarism. . . . This is our answer as Italian Socialists to the German Socialists.'

It will readily be understood why the opposition which the Italian Socialists offered to the proposed entry of their nation into the war on the side of the Entente Allies, in May, 1915, while undoubtedly sincere, was not characterized by the vigor and intensity with which they had in the previous year opposed the entrance of their nation into the war as a member of the Triple Alliance. The party has been seriously split on account of the differences which have manifested themselves on the question of the policy to be followed with relation to the war.