The Kingdom of Italy, 1900-1904: The War Land
- Location
- Finland
Excerpt from 'The Great War: a History', written by Bettino Rattazi (Napoli: 1983)
The end of the War did not end hostilities. New borders had been laid down, but not all those living within them agreed with the vision of the victorious Powers. The region of Elsass-Lothringen had been left with France after a September 1898 plebiscite showed overwhelming pro-French sentiment. This plebiscite was not accepted by Bavaria, which marched its forces across the border shortly afterwards and demanded the territory's annexation into Bavaria as a 'historically German region', a claim of dubious veracity at best. (...) France, crippled and disarmed, received no sympathy from the Central Powers; the government was bound to agree, and Elsass-Lothringen was ceded to the Bavarian invaders. (...)
The German Question was cause of other conflicts as well. The new Rhenish Confederation had not received the claimed Gelrean enclave of the Saarland when it had come into being in the Warsaw Conference. In August 1899, adventurous 'Freikorps' made up of demobilized veterans and volunteers eager to have a taste of the wartime 'glory' attacked Gelrean forces in the region, but were beaten back and eventually withdrawn by the Confederation government, which was not prepared for full-scale war. (...)
In the North, the island of Saaremaa off the Estonian coast sparked fighting in September. The Warsaw Treaty had mandated a popular plebiscite in 1900 to determine whether the island would remain part of Sweden or join Estonia. The Estonian government claimed that the Swedes planned to interfere with the vote in October 1899. The nation craved an easy victory to quiet domestic unrest, and Saaremaa looked like a likely candidate. In September 1899, Estonian forces occupied the island, and the Central Powers granted their tacit blessing by canceling the plebiscite as unnecessary. Sweden could only comply. (...)
Excerpts from 'Red Rose of Freedom: the Birth of Modern Socialism', written by Marco Francesco Scalzi (Monte Baldo: 1982)
(...) The Serbian royal regime fell in January 1900. (...) The situation in Serbia was chaotic from the beginning. The new Communist government was never able to fully extend their authority over the countryside. The revolution appeared to offer little for the peasantry; they had suffered under Wallachian rule for decades and had little desire to now toil for what appeared the old iron fist, only this time painted red. The Communist power base was in the cities and in the rank and file of the military. For the party theorists, the rural peasant was something suspect and alien - superstitious, reactionary and ungrateful. He would have to be beaten into line. The forced collectivization programmes proclaimed from the cities met with waves of resistance.
(...) Regardless, revolution was in the air all over the Balkans. The collapse of Wallachian power and the carving out of new nations from its borderlands had left the region alive with dreamers and adventurers of all stripes. The revolutionary cause had only been emboldened by the wretchedness of the Great War, which made plain the unmasked horror of the imperialist world order. (...)
Socialist revolution appeared to offer a pathway to national independence for many stateless peoples worldwide. (...) Berber nationalism at the turn of the century was increasingly intertwined with left-wing ideology. Failed uprisings and campaigns had turned the peoples of the Maghreb away from the promises of liberals and reformers. Only complete systemic change could provide autonomy and independence for the oppressed. Similar developments could be seen in Italian sub-Saharan Africa and in the Italian Indies. (...) Some of these activists should be classified more as fellow travelers or opportunists than true believers, of course. The socialist cause merely offered them the international support and funding they required to further their own nationalist aims. (...)
The situation remained precarious. In Buenos Aires, the authoritarian Communists had provoked border hostilities with the neighboring nation of Argentina. In August 1901, Argentina's liberal-democratic regime announced that it would no longer 'allow the insidious Red Scourge to grow unchecked' and mobilized for a full-scale invasion of its old rival. (...) Buenos Aires defeat was swift and humiliating. To avoid a total collapse of their own power, the Communist government pleaded with Argentina for peace. (...) The price would be the loss of central Buenos Aires and the partition of the nation into geographically isolated halves. (...)
September 1901 provided the spark for the powderkeg of Java. Pramudya Soerjo, a Javan poet and union leader, was attacked and beaten by enforcers of the Italian administration for his vocal criticism of Italian business interests on the islands. Erroneous news of Soerjo's death soon circulated in Serang to the outrage of local workers and intellectuals. Tens of thousands flooded the streets in protest and besieged administrative offices in the city centre. After local gendarmes attempted to disperse the crowds with gunfire, enraged workers rushed the shooters and lynched them on the spot. Violence broke out across the city and quickly spread into the countryside. (...) Ironically, these developments caught the leaders of the Javanese revolutionary movement unawares. The revolutionary parties now hurried to climb astride the wave of History before it passed them by, flashing the signal for long-awaited Liberation with red lanterns over the city's rooftops. (...) By the week's end, all of western Java was rising up in revolt.
(...) The response in Firenze was one of despair. Reports had just been received by the government which suggested that any attempt to deploy elements of the Army to the Indies would likely spark mass mutinies among the war-weary troops. An alarming percentage of Italian soldiers were estimated to be 'socialists or socialist-leaning'; the last thing that should be done was to give them an excuse to show their colors to a frighteningly restless home front. (...) As a result, the following year would see the Italian colonial government essentially cede almost all of Java to the rebels. Only the ominous presence of the Italian Far East Fleet on the shores of Java kept the insurgents from storming the last bastions of Italian rule. Revolutionary sympathies had not yet reached Italian sailors to any great degree, but that would change. (...)
With the rule of King and Capital falling everywhere, or so it appeared, fears of revolution did not seem unfounded. The French Communists began their uprising in November. Council republics were declared in communes across northern France, but the wartorn nation proved resistant to the charms of the Left. The reduced French Imperial Army was still capable of defending the capital and winning any pitched battles the revolutionaries were driven to. In the end, the uprising faded into a persistent campaign of guerilla warfare and civil disobedience centered mostly in the urbanized north. (...) They would soon be followed by 'Jacobin' revolutionaries seeking to create a liberal-democratic republic, as well as reactionary nationalists and separatist fighters, but for now the French state still held the reins of power. (...) France was headed for its darkest hour. (...)
Excerpts from 'The War Land: Europe in the Aftermath of the Great War', written by Lars Emil Nilsen (Kobenhavn: 1990)
(...) The constitutional crisis would likely have been settled peacefully in any other time. The post-war madness was strong in Denmark as well, however. On December 19, the King entered the Christiansborg Palace to address the parliament. Infamously, the left of the Folketing immediately began jeering and cursing at their monarch. The King's speech began half an hour late and did not proceed far before renewed shouting drowned it out. The convened representatives of the left then began chanting 'Give Up the Crown' until the defeated King was escorted out of the Palace. (...) In the morning, the government ordered royal forces out onto the streets of Copenhagen and decreed the arrest of key opposition politicians for lèse-majesté. (...)
The King and his ministers had miscalculated. Massive demonstrations gripped the city and resisted attempts by the police and military to restore order. (...) On the 22nd, the order was given to use lethal force to disperse the rioters outside the Royal Palace. For a chilling moment, the future of the nation hung in balance. Then soldiers all across the lines began throwing down their weapons and walking into the crowd. The royal gambit had failed. The common servicemen of the military were defecting to the 'enemy'. (...) Military elements loyal to the opposition arrested the royal government in the evening of the 23rd. The King, preparing for Christmas festivities, was escorted out of the Palace in a state of shock and confusion and taken into custody. (...) On Christmas Eve, 1901, the new government addressed the riotous crowds from the balcony of the Palace to proclaim the abolition of the monarchy and the foundation of the Republic of Denmark. (...)
Excerpts from the memoirs of Nandana Manola, the 'Red Marshal of Ceylon', written in 1930; describing experiences in the Ceylonese Revolution
(...) Those years were a waking dream, a constant state of delirium. The government had ceased to govern. I had resigned my commission and retired to the family home. Even in the country new ideas and new slogans rang out from every mouth, most of them anarchist, socialist, or a little bit of both. (...) We'd assumed that the peripheries of the nation were happy pieces in the great machinery of state, but these hungry and chaotic years shattered that foolish illusion. The moment our Chinese conquerors departed, the Bengal erupted in flames. The Bengali people had enough of Ceylonese rule; they fought now for nothing less than full independence. In January 1902, that's exactly what they claimed. That grand dream collapsed soon into rule by tyrants and old world backwardsness, but then the cause was just. (...)
I was back in the Party by March. In the quiet life, I'd foolishly assumed that all the talk of impending Revolution was just that - brave words and little else. I would soon discover that actions were not long behind for my comrades. Indeed, while I'd labored in irresponsible isolation, millions of my countrymen had already taken up arms for the cause. The Revolution had indeed already begun. (...)
If you had told me five years earlier that an army of hundreds of thousands would rise up on the side of the workers and triumph against royal forces, I would have called you mad - and likely reported you to the political police. Fortunately, I was no longer that spineless lackey of Crown and Church. The most rewarding time of my life began then. I was doing what I did best - the ugly business of warfare - but I did it at last for a cause I could truly believe in. Our Liberation was at hand. (...) We swept government forces before us like a tsunami. Thousands defected rather than fight us at every turn. We seemed to advance as if weightless, lifted up by the sheer joy and pride we felt in what we were accomplishing. (...)
Victory gets you noticed. I was made Colonel in April, Lieutenant-General by July. I suddenly found out that I had a great deal of voice when it came to local Party business and made a foolish speech about the dangers of giving too much weight to the opinions of military personnel in matters of Revolution. Strangely enough, that stunt was the exact thing that ended up catapulting me to the attention of the Three Heroes and the Party leadership. (...) In August, we dug out the King from his hole and finally got to put him on trial. I won't waste words on that sordid business. Needless to say, the crimes were many, and they made even hardened military men sick to hear them. The lot of the royals faced a firing squad by the end of the week. The same day, we declared the Kingdom abolished, and the Union of Indian Socialist Republics as its sole and legitimate successor. (...) Every day, the world seemed to be spinning faster. I was realizing that's just how I liked it. (...)
Excerpts from 'Italy and the World: the Italian Empire in the Modern Period', written by Hugo Fourier (Firenze: 1977)
(...) The reins were slipping from Italy's grasp. In July 1902, the Chinese Empire flagrantly violated the terms of its containment by annexing Mughal Qinghai, a region it had annexed in the later stages of the Great War. Rather than stand up for its ally in Central Asia, Firenze failed to even condemn the aggressive act. Mughalistan would not acknowledge the loss of Qinghai until 1950. (...) Only four years after instituting the most ambitious geopolitical web of power the world had ever seen, Italy was spiraling towards isolationism as problems at home threatened to overwhelm the resources of the government. The economy was continuing its downwards crash, the government's heavy-handed recovery measures proving utterly ineffective against the shock of demobilization and wind-down from wartime production. (...)
In public, of course, government showed no signs of panic. Calm assurances filled every state paper. The unrest would fade away and the economy would stabilize. The people only needed to be patient. (...) Indeed, some measure of normalcy did return by 1902. The subsidization of Italian industries and businesses kept hopelessly unprofitable companies upright and millions employed, even as government profits trickled away to nothing. (...) The colonial empire came to the rescue of the metropole for once - at least for a brief time. Exotic imports and natural resource extraction in the colonies stimulated the Italian economy and resulted in a growth period at the beginning of the century.
Soon use was found for the surplus factories and shipyards of the War as well. Though the Italian Navy had dominated the seas throughout the Great War, it had made itself obsolete as well with a wide variety of advances in shipmaking, naval armaments and doctrinal refinements. As a result, the government began in 1902 construction of hundreds of new warships, chief among them heavyweight cruisers and battleships that alone accounted for tens of thousands of new jobs. (...)
1903 also saw an agreement of military alliance with the Republic of Canada in North America. This alliance was born out of a desire to expand Italian influence into the Americas as well. (...) Canada proved a difficult partner from the start. The ultranationalist Restauration Nationale party had ambitions of its own, and Italy's promises of assistance were taken at face value. (...) In August 1903, Canada declared war on the small republic of Columbia in the Pacific Northwest, publicly calling upon Italy for support. While this was of little consequence to Italy - the war against the poverty-ridden republic needed no outside assistance - but it revealed a troubling tendency in the Canadians to go off wildly on their own without consulting the Italian government. (...) A nationalist fervor and desire to redress the balance of power in North America had gripped Canada as well. Millions of young men demanded a chance to prove their mettle in battle as the millions of Europe and Asia had in the Great War. (...)
Such fervor can blind even men at the highest levels of government to what is possible and wise. On October 1903, the Republic of Canada made the stunning demand to the American ambassador that all Canadian territories were to be at once returned to the Republic, or else the Republic would consider the two nations to be in a state of war. This would have meant ceding all states that had once been part of French Canada; an outrageous demand, though one which suited the nationalistic fury raging across the globe and in the high halls of the Northern Republic. (...) Canada had modest armed forces, dwarfed even by just the US Northern Army. The Canadian government can only have expected for Italian forces to wage their war for them. The US refused and began to mobilize. Another public announcement was made by the Canadian government, this time claiming that Canada and its ally, the Kingdom of Italy, had declared war on the United States of America.
Firenze could only watch in horror. The Italian ambassador is said to have been reduced to tears when summoned by the US President in his attempts to absolve the Italian Crown of blame for the debacle. Frantic telegrams both to Canada and the US assured that Italy was not part of any war and indeed was a neutral party in any conflict on the continent. A public apology was made by the King himself. (...) Italy's humiliation before the eyes of the international community would go a long way in further weakening its hold on the 'Continental System'. Canada, for its part, fared very poorly in the 'War of Empty Promises', with peace made quickly after American forces crossed the border in November and a swift change of power to the Canadian opposition. (...)
For all its troubles, the period saw a considerable flourishing of culture. Both radical and traditional forms of Italian art and expression gained great attention across the globe. The famed tenor Enrico Caruso's performance at the Covent Garden in London is even thought to have directly resulted in a strengthening of Italo-British relations, with British King Harold III announcing (controversially at home) that the Italians were truly 'the most cultured people on God's green Earth'. The rise of jacobinism and socialism across Europe was bringing the two monarchies closer together, with the monarchs of both nations exchanging active correspondence on the means to deal with the situation. (...) In this atmosphere, Britain also supported Italy's bid for host of the Olympic Games in 1904 - though as the 'master of Europe', this was already perhaps to be expected. (...) For Italy, the 1904 Games were not only a chance to showcase the nation's glory and athletic prowess, but also a welcome distraction from the ravages of the War and from the ever-present unrest on the streets. (...)
Demobilization and disarmament did not prevent wars, though it left them mostly in the hands of local free corps and volunteer forces. The Svealand War of 1903-1904 between Denmark and Sweden was fought with makeshift armies which only incorporated small cores of regular troops. The international community looked to Italy, the new global enforcer, to end the fighting. The conflict was too distant to nudge the government into action, however, especially as both Denmark and Sweden were merely defeated enemies and could be allowed to 'whack each other senseless' if that was what they wished. (...) The Swedish victory finally allowed relations to stabilize in Scandinavia. (...) But a crisis was coming where Italy could not simply sit and watch. (...)
The First Czechoslovak-Polish War had been fought in the final years of the Great War and ended swiftly by Italian intervention. In the years since, Czechoslovak revanchism and resentment had only grown. Though both nations remained Italian allies, Poland was by far the more valued partner in the 'Continental System'. (...) Italy's prolonged inaction emboldened the Czechoslovak military establishment. They proposed that with a 'lightning war', the matter of West Galicia could be resolved without Firenze having time to intervene. In January 1904, the government gave its blessing for the operation. Czechoslovak forces flooded over the border into West Galicia, where they met a prepared and vengeance-minded Polish defense.
This was not some overseas squabble or skirmish on the periphery. Italy's allies had began a full-scale war right across the border from Italian Austria. With Italian demands for an immediate ceasefire and negotiation falling on deaf ears, the government finally agreed to act. Czechoslovakia was the clear aggressor and had always been a troublesome friend. On January 10, 1904, Italy denounced the Czechoslovak invasion and began mobilizing forces for a 'peacekeeping operation' in Czechoslovakia. The surprised Czechoslovaks now faced a war on two fronts.
For many soldiers on both sides, it was a bitter day. Veterans who had fought side by side for years were thrown back into the grinder to murder old friends and comrades. For others, it was a chance for one last taste of glory, or for testing the new weapons from the final year of the War which had not seen true use in battle then. Even to most contemporary accounts, the War appeared a savage, senseless thing - the final proof of the death of the genteel old world, and the coming of a time of madness and death. (...)
The war effort was unsustainable for Czechoslovakia, despite its early successes against Polish forces in Galicia. (...) With the southern Czechoslovak front crumbling, Italian envoys shifted from asking for merely white peace to reparations and further demands. The chief Italian demand became the liberation of Pommerania, the small Czechoslovak satellite state on the Baltic coast - thus removing its last marginal access to the sea and suitably 'humbling' the upstart nation. (...) Instead, a pro-Italian party was to be put in power at court and a suitable Italian match found for the Duke of Pommerania. (...)
Excerpts from 'Red Rose of Freedom: the Birth of Modern Socialism', written by Marco Francesco Scalzi (Monte Baldo: 1982)
(...) Argentina's anti-Communist crusade was now fully and decisively underway. The 1904 elections in Chile saw a popular front left-wing government thrust into power. Within two days, Argentine forces were marching over the border and began to drive the Chilean Army south. (...) The crushing Santiago Accords of 1904 saw the annexation of the vast majority of the Chilean Republic's territory. These 'wars for liberty' had coincidentally created the Greater Argentina which Argentine right-wing authors had advocated for decades. In the collapse of South American socialism, the age of Argentine Hegemony was being born. (...)
in Estonia, the Winter Campaign of 1903-1904 was beginning to show results. Royal forces had defeated most of the Estonian anarcho-communist forces by March, though it would take a good decade until the last bastions of these autonomists had been pulled up and returned to government control. The Russian provinces in particular were becoming increasingly hard to govern without resorting to constant excesses of brutal force. (...) The tide of Revolution had been halted in places, but it was far from over. Indeed, its greatest victory was still to come. (...)
The end of the War did not end hostilities. New borders had been laid down, but not all those living within them agreed with the vision of the victorious Powers. The region of Elsass-Lothringen had been left with France after a September 1898 plebiscite showed overwhelming pro-French sentiment. This plebiscite was not accepted by Bavaria, which marched its forces across the border shortly afterwards and demanded the territory's annexation into Bavaria as a 'historically German region', a claim of dubious veracity at best. (...) France, crippled and disarmed, received no sympathy from the Central Powers; the government was bound to agree, and Elsass-Lothringen was ceded to the Bavarian invaders. (...)
The German Question was cause of other conflicts as well. The new Rhenish Confederation had not received the claimed Gelrean enclave of the Saarland when it had come into being in the Warsaw Conference. In August 1899, adventurous 'Freikorps' made up of demobilized veterans and volunteers eager to have a taste of the wartime 'glory' attacked Gelrean forces in the region, but were beaten back and eventually withdrawn by the Confederation government, which was not prepared for full-scale war. (...)
In the North, the island of Saaremaa off the Estonian coast sparked fighting in September. The Warsaw Treaty had mandated a popular plebiscite in 1900 to determine whether the island would remain part of Sweden or join Estonia. The Estonian government claimed that the Swedes planned to interfere with the vote in October 1899. The nation craved an easy victory to quiet domestic unrest, and Saaremaa looked like a likely candidate. In September 1899, Estonian forces occupied the island, and the Central Powers granted their tacit blessing by canceling the plebiscite as unnecessary. Sweden could only comply. (...)
***
Excerpts from 'Red Rose of Freedom: the Birth of Modern Socialism', written by Marco Francesco Scalzi (Monte Baldo: 1982)
(...) The Serbian royal regime fell in January 1900. (...) The situation in Serbia was chaotic from the beginning. The new Communist government was never able to fully extend their authority over the countryside. The revolution appeared to offer little for the peasantry; they had suffered under Wallachian rule for decades and had little desire to now toil for what appeared the old iron fist, only this time painted red. The Communist power base was in the cities and in the rank and file of the military. For the party theorists, the rural peasant was something suspect and alien - superstitious, reactionary and ungrateful. He would have to be beaten into line. The forced collectivization programmes proclaimed from the cities met with waves of resistance.
(...) Regardless, revolution was in the air all over the Balkans. The collapse of Wallachian power and the carving out of new nations from its borderlands had left the region alive with dreamers and adventurers of all stripes. The revolutionary cause had only been emboldened by the wretchedness of the Great War, which made plain the unmasked horror of the imperialist world order. (...)
Socialist revolution appeared to offer a pathway to national independence for many stateless peoples worldwide. (...) Berber nationalism at the turn of the century was increasingly intertwined with left-wing ideology. Failed uprisings and campaigns had turned the peoples of the Maghreb away from the promises of liberals and reformers. Only complete systemic change could provide autonomy and independence for the oppressed. Similar developments could be seen in Italian sub-Saharan Africa and in the Italian Indies. (...) Some of these activists should be classified more as fellow travelers or opportunists than true believers, of course. The socialist cause merely offered them the international support and funding they required to further their own nationalist aims. (...)
The situation remained precarious. In Buenos Aires, the authoritarian Communists had provoked border hostilities with the neighboring nation of Argentina. In August 1901, Argentina's liberal-democratic regime announced that it would no longer 'allow the insidious Red Scourge to grow unchecked' and mobilized for a full-scale invasion of its old rival. (...) Buenos Aires defeat was swift and humiliating. To avoid a total collapse of their own power, the Communist government pleaded with Argentina for peace. (...) The price would be the loss of central Buenos Aires and the partition of the nation into geographically isolated halves. (...)
September 1901 provided the spark for the powderkeg of Java. Pramudya Soerjo, a Javan poet and union leader, was attacked and beaten by enforcers of the Italian administration for his vocal criticism of Italian business interests on the islands. Erroneous news of Soerjo's death soon circulated in Serang to the outrage of local workers and intellectuals. Tens of thousands flooded the streets in protest and besieged administrative offices in the city centre. After local gendarmes attempted to disperse the crowds with gunfire, enraged workers rushed the shooters and lynched them on the spot. Violence broke out across the city and quickly spread into the countryside. (...) Ironically, these developments caught the leaders of the Javanese revolutionary movement unawares. The revolutionary parties now hurried to climb astride the wave of History before it passed them by, flashing the signal for long-awaited Liberation with red lanterns over the city's rooftops. (...) By the week's end, all of western Java was rising up in revolt.
(...) The response in Firenze was one of despair. Reports had just been received by the government which suggested that any attempt to deploy elements of the Army to the Indies would likely spark mass mutinies among the war-weary troops. An alarming percentage of Italian soldiers were estimated to be 'socialists or socialist-leaning'; the last thing that should be done was to give them an excuse to show their colors to a frighteningly restless home front. (...) As a result, the following year would see the Italian colonial government essentially cede almost all of Java to the rebels. Only the ominous presence of the Italian Far East Fleet on the shores of Java kept the insurgents from storming the last bastions of Italian rule. Revolutionary sympathies had not yet reached Italian sailors to any great degree, but that would change. (...)
With the rule of King and Capital falling everywhere, or so it appeared, fears of revolution did not seem unfounded. The French Communists began their uprising in November. Council republics were declared in communes across northern France, but the wartorn nation proved resistant to the charms of the Left. The reduced French Imperial Army was still capable of defending the capital and winning any pitched battles the revolutionaries were driven to. In the end, the uprising faded into a persistent campaign of guerilla warfare and civil disobedience centered mostly in the urbanized north. (...) They would soon be followed by 'Jacobin' revolutionaries seeking to create a liberal-democratic republic, as well as reactionary nationalists and separatist fighters, but for now the French state still held the reins of power. (...) France was headed for its darkest hour. (...)
***
Excerpts from 'The War Land: Europe in the Aftermath of the Great War', written by Lars Emil Nilsen (Kobenhavn: 1990)
(...) The constitutional crisis would likely have been settled peacefully in any other time. The post-war madness was strong in Denmark as well, however. On December 19, the King entered the Christiansborg Palace to address the parliament. Infamously, the left of the Folketing immediately began jeering and cursing at their monarch. The King's speech began half an hour late and did not proceed far before renewed shouting drowned it out. The convened representatives of the left then began chanting 'Give Up the Crown' until the defeated King was escorted out of the Palace. (...) In the morning, the government ordered royal forces out onto the streets of Copenhagen and decreed the arrest of key opposition politicians for lèse-majesté. (...)
The King and his ministers had miscalculated. Massive demonstrations gripped the city and resisted attempts by the police and military to restore order. (...) On the 22nd, the order was given to use lethal force to disperse the rioters outside the Royal Palace. For a chilling moment, the future of the nation hung in balance. Then soldiers all across the lines began throwing down their weapons and walking into the crowd. The royal gambit had failed. The common servicemen of the military were defecting to the 'enemy'. (...) Military elements loyal to the opposition arrested the royal government in the evening of the 23rd. The King, preparing for Christmas festivities, was escorted out of the Palace in a state of shock and confusion and taken into custody. (...) On Christmas Eve, 1901, the new government addressed the riotous crowds from the balcony of the Palace to proclaim the abolition of the monarchy and the foundation of the Republic of Denmark. (...)
***
Excerpts from the memoirs of Nandana Manola, the 'Red Marshal of Ceylon', written in 1930; describing experiences in the Ceylonese Revolution
(...) Those years were a waking dream, a constant state of delirium. The government had ceased to govern. I had resigned my commission and retired to the family home. Even in the country new ideas and new slogans rang out from every mouth, most of them anarchist, socialist, or a little bit of both. (...) We'd assumed that the peripheries of the nation were happy pieces in the great machinery of state, but these hungry and chaotic years shattered that foolish illusion. The moment our Chinese conquerors departed, the Bengal erupted in flames. The Bengali people had enough of Ceylonese rule; they fought now for nothing less than full independence. In January 1902, that's exactly what they claimed. That grand dream collapsed soon into rule by tyrants and old world backwardsness, but then the cause was just. (...)
I was back in the Party by March. In the quiet life, I'd foolishly assumed that all the talk of impending Revolution was just that - brave words and little else. I would soon discover that actions were not long behind for my comrades. Indeed, while I'd labored in irresponsible isolation, millions of my countrymen had already taken up arms for the cause. The Revolution had indeed already begun. (...)
If you had told me five years earlier that an army of hundreds of thousands would rise up on the side of the workers and triumph against royal forces, I would have called you mad - and likely reported you to the political police. Fortunately, I was no longer that spineless lackey of Crown and Church. The most rewarding time of my life began then. I was doing what I did best - the ugly business of warfare - but I did it at last for a cause I could truly believe in. Our Liberation was at hand. (...) We swept government forces before us like a tsunami. Thousands defected rather than fight us at every turn. We seemed to advance as if weightless, lifted up by the sheer joy and pride we felt in what we were accomplishing. (...)
Victory gets you noticed. I was made Colonel in April, Lieutenant-General by July. I suddenly found out that I had a great deal of voice when it came to local Party business and made a foolish speech about the dangers of giving too much weight to the opinions of military personnel in matters of Revolution. Strangely enough, that stunt was the exact thing that ended up catapulting me to the attention of the Three Heroes and the Party leadership. (...) In August, we dug out the King from his hole and finally got to put him on trial. I won't waste words on that sordid business. Needless to say, the crimes were many, and they made even hardened military men sick to hear them. The lot of the royals faced a firing squad by the end of the week. The same day, we declared the Kingdom abolished, and the Union of Indian Socialist Republics as its sole and legitimate successor. (...) Every day, the world seemed to be spinning faster. I was realizing that's just how I liked it. (...)
***
Excerpts from 'Italy and the World: the Italian Empire in the Modern Period', written by Hugo Fourier (Firenze: 1977)
(...) The reins were slipping from Italy's grasp. In July 1902, the Chinese Empire flagrantly violated the terms of its containment by annexing Mughal Qinghai, a region it had annexed in the later stages of the Great War. Rather than stand up for its ally in Central Asia, Firenze failed to even condemn the aggressive act. Mughalistan would not acknowledge the loss of Qinghai until 1950. (...) Only four years after instituting the most ambitious geopolitical web of power the world had ever seen, Italy was spiraling towards isolationism as problems at home threatened to overwhelm the resources of the government. The economy was continuing its downwards crash, the government's heavy-handed recovery measures proving utterly ineffective against the shock of demobilization and wind-down from wartime production. (...)
In public, of course, government showed no signs of panic. Calm assurances filled every state paper. The unrest would fade away and the economy would stabilize. The people only needed to be patient. (...) Indeed, some measure of normalcy did return by 1902. The subsidization of Italian industries and businesses kept hopelessly unprofitable companies upright and millions employed, even as government profits trickled away to nothing. (...) The colonial empire came to the rescue of the metropole for once - at least for a brief time. Exotic imports and natural resource extraction in the colonies stimulated the Italian economy and resulted in a growth period at the beginning of the century.
Soon use was found for the surplus factories and shipyards of the War as well. Though the Italian Navy had dominated the seas throughout the Great War, it had made itself obsolete as well with a wide variety of advances in shipmaking, naval armaments and doctrinal refinements. As a result, the government began in 1902 construction of hundreds of new warships, chief among them heavyweight cruisers and battleships that alone accounted for tens of thousands of new jobs. (...)
1903 also saw an agreement of military alliance with the Republic of Canada in North America. This alliance was born out of a desire to expand Italian influence into the Americas as well. (...) Canada proved a difficult partner from the start. The ultranationalist Restauration Nationale party had ambitions of its own, and Italy's promises of assistance were taken at face value. (...) In August 1903, Canada declared war on the small republic of Columbia in the Pacific Northwest, publicly calling upon Italy for support. While this was of little consequence to Italy - the war against the poverty-ridden republic needed no outside assistance - but it revealed a troubling tendency in the Canadians to go off wildly on their own without consulting the Italian government. (...) A nationalist fervor and desire to redress the balance of power in North America had gripped Canada as well. Millions of young men demanded a chance to prove their mettle in battle as the millions of Europe and Asia had in the Great War. (...)
Such fervor can blind even men at the highest levels of government to what is possible and wise. On October 1903, the Republic of Canada made the stunning demand to the American ambassador that all Canadian territories were to be at once returned to the Republic, or else the Republic would consider the two nations to be in a state of war. This would have meant ceding all states that had once been part of French Canada; an outrageous demand, though one which suited the nationalistic fury raging across the globe and in the high halls of the Northern Republic. (...) Canada had modest armed forces, dwarfed even by just the US Northern Army. The Canadian government can only have expected for Italian forces to wage their war for them. The US refused and began to mobilize. Another public announcement was made by the Canadian government, this time claiming that Canada and its ally, the Kingdom of Italy, had declared war on the United States of America.
Firenze could only watch in horror. The Italian ambassador is said to have been reduced to tears when summoned by the US President in his attempts to absolve the Italian Crown of blame for the debacle. Frantic telegrams both to Canada and the US assured that Italy was not part of any war and indeed was a neutral party in any conflict on the continent. A public apology was made by the King himself. (...) Italy's humiliation before the eyes of the international community would go a long way in further weakening its hold on the 'Continental System'. Canada, for its part, fared very poorly in the 'War of Empty Promises', with peace made quickly after American forces crossed the border in November and a swift change of power to the Canadian opposition. (...)
For all its troubles, the period saw a considerable flourishing of culture. Both radical and traditional forms of Italian art and expression gained great attention across the globe. The famed tenor Enrico Caruso's performance at the Covent Garden in London is even thought to have directly resulted in a strengthening of Italo-British relations, with British King Harold III announcing (controversially at home) that the Italians were truly 'the most cultured people on God's green Earth'. The rise of jacobinism and socialism across Europe was bringing the two monarchies closer together, with the monarchs of both nations exchanging active correspondence on the means to deal with the situation. (...) In this atmosphere, Britain also supported Italy's bid for host of the Olympic Games in 1904 - though as the 'master of Europe', this was already perhaps to be expected. (...) For Italy, the 1904 Games were not only a chance to showcase the nation's glory and athletic prowess, but also a welcome distraction from the ravages of the War and from the ever-present unrest on the streets. (...)
Demobilization and disarmament did not prevent wars, though it left them mostly in the hands of local free corps and volunteer forces. The Svealand War of 1903-1904 between Denmark and Sweden was fought with makeshift armies which only incorporated small cores of regular troops. The international community looked to Italy, the new global enforcer, to end the fighting. The conflict was too distant to nudge the government into action, however, especially as both Denmark and Sweden were merely defeated enemies and could be allowed to 'whack each other senseless' if that was what they wished. (...) The Swedish victory finally allowed relations to stabilize in Scandinavia. (...) But a crisis was coming where Italy could not simply sit and watch. (...)
The First Czechoslovak-Polish War had been fought in the final years of the Great War and ended swiftly by Italian intervention. In the years since, Czechoslovak revanchism and resentment had only grown. Though both nations remained Italian allies, Poland was by far the more valued partner in the 'Continental System'. (...) Italy's prolonged inaction emboldened the Czechoslovak military establishment. They proposed that with a 'lightning war', the matter of West Galicia could be resolved without Firenze having time to intervene. In January 1904, the government gave its blessing for the operation. Czechoslovak forces flooded over the border into West Galicia, where they met a prepared and vengeance-minded Polish defense.
This was not some overseas squabble or skirmish on the periphery. Italy's allies had began a full-scale war right across the border from Italian Austria. With Italian demands for an immediate ceasefire and negotiation falling on deaf ears, the government finally agreed to act. Czechoslovakia was the clear aggressor and had always been a troublesome friend. On January 10, 1904, Italy denounced the Czechoslovak invasion and began mobilizing forces for a 'peacekeeping operation' in Czechoslovakia. The surprised Czechoslovaks now faced a war on two fronts.
For many soldiers on both sides, it was a bitter day. Veterans who had fought side by side for years were thrown back into the grinder to murder old friends and comrades. For others, it was a chance for one last taste of glory, or for testing the new weapons from the final year of the War which had not seen true use in battle then. Even to most contemporary accounts, the War appeared a savage, senseless thing - the final proof of the death of the genteel old world, and the coming of a time of madness and death. (...)
The war effort was unsustainable for Czechoslovakia, despite its early successes against Polish forces in Galicia. (...) With the southern Czechoslovak front crumbling, Italian envoys shifted from asking for merely white peace to reparations and further demands. The chief Italian demand became the liberation of Pommerania, the small Czechoslovak satellite state on the Baltic coast - thus removing its last marginal access to the sea and suitably 'humbling' the upstart nation. (...) Instead, a pro-Italian party was to be put in power at court and a suitable Italian match found for the Duke of Pommerania. (...)
***
Excerpts from 'Red Rose of Freedom: the Birth of Modern Socialism', written by Marco Francesco Scalzi (Monte Baldo: 1982)
(...) Argentina's anti-Communist crusade was now fully and decisively underway. The 1904 elections in Chile saw a popular front left-wing government thrust into power. Within two days, Argentine forces were marching over the border and began to drive the Chilean Army south. (...) The crushing Santiago Accords of 1904 saw the annexation of the vast majority of the Chilean Republic's territory. These 'wars for liberty' had coincidentally created the Greater Argentina which Argentine right-wing authors had advocated for decades. In the collapse of South American socialism, the age of Argentine Hegemony was being born. (...)
in Estonia, the Winter Campaign of 1903-1904 was beginning to show results. Royal forces had defeated most of the Estonian anarcho-communist forces by March, though it would take a good decade until the last bastions of these autonomists had been pulled up and returned to government control. The Russian provinces in particular were becoming increasingly hard to govern without resorting to constant excesses of brutal force. (...) The tide of Revolution had been halted in places, but it was far from over. Indeed, its greatest victory was still to come. (...)
