Essay about The Political History of Italy

In order to restore France after the Napoleonic Era, the Quadruple Alliance, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain, held a meeting called the Congress of Vienna in order to establish peace between countries. The four countries decided that creating borders within Europe and receiving compensation in the form of territory would be an effective reminder of the pain France had caused during its revolution. After decades of dealing with borders placed by the Quadruple Alliance, the inhabitants of Italy wanted a more unified peninsula. Although many leaders of Europe proposed ideas for fixing this problem, many of them such as Cavour and Napoleon III had ulterior motives. The unification of Italy took such a long time because its politicians were not being honest about what they actually wanted.

Italy’s problems started with the fact that it didn’t have one main ruler, but two people and a concept, resulting in a different approach to the unification. Gulseppe Mazzini had a radical program focusing on a centralized democratic republic based on universal suffrage and the will of the people. Vincenzo Gioberti, who was a catholic priest called for a federation of existing states

After WW II, Fascism, “Instituted in Germany by Hitler” (America a Concise History 695) created an authoritative government. Hitler was controlling the government and making people do what he said and wanted. They believed that they were the superior race. Fascism came about in Italy in the years of 1920, but developed in the countries Germany, Spain, and France (America a Concise History 695). WW I caused the rise of fascism because Italy was destroyed and took an economic downfall so Mussolini decided to take it upon himself along with Adolf Hitler to get their countries back again. As stated in Chapter 24, “fascists leaders worldwide disparaged parliamentary

Within Italy, The Great War caused many problems and a great amount of distress. As a result of this, hundreds of new fascist groups started to emerge. In October 1922, Benito Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy and contributed a lot to the nation. He developed his power by forming the Fascist National Party in 1923 and eliminating political opposition. Mussolini and his followers ruled Italy through an authoritarian dictatorship. He made it clear that the war was a turning point for Italy and the returning of combat soldiers would form a new elite and bring about a new type of state to transform Italian politics and society. Mussolini set many

Both of these political leaders took over and used the ideas of fascism as their type of government, the people gravitated towards them especially during times of need. To start, Benito Mussolini who was a newspaper editor and politician who pledged to rescue Italy during their time of desperate need. Fascism was on the rise in Italy, it was fueled by their disappointment and failure to win large territorial gains. People gravitated towards the new and vastly improving idea of Fascism. Italians wanted a leader who would take action and they found their answer in Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had vowed to provide strong leadership to the Italian people during this time. Mussolini had founded the Fascist Party in the year of 1919. When Italy’s economic problems continued to worsen, Mussolini’s power would considerably grow. Mussolini’s number one weapon during his rise to power was fear, he used the fear of people to take control over them. Soon thereafter, Mussolini and 30,000 of his Fascist supporters marched to Rome demanding the King step down and hand over his total power to Mussolini. The King gave in to their demands and gave Benito Mussolini full control over the Italian government. Mussolini became the Il Duce, or leader, and he made fascism the ruling political party in

After being separated since the fall of the Roman Empire and acting as only “a geographic expression,” Italy finally underwent the process of unification and succeeded in 1870. For hundreds of years, Italy was ruled under city-states, therefore the peninsula was unable to form a unified nation. However, through several political leaders, such as Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Cavour, helped manifest the Italian unification process to success in the 19th century. As Italy struggled for unity and national identity in the period circa 1830-1870, contrasting viewpoints emerged on what type of government should rule over the peninsula, with options such as a republic, papacy, or not unifying at all.

Later that year, Sicily and Naples became apart of the newly unified Italy. A year following, Emmanuel II became the king of Italy. “The political framework of the united Italy could not overcome these problems” (693). Although Italy had gained

Italy is an European country. Italian is its official language, and 93% of the population is native Italian speakers. Its ethnic background includes small clusters of German-Italians, French-Italians, Slovene-Italians, Albanian-Italians, and Greek-Italians. With various clusters of people come various beliefs in religion. Religion has influenced the culture, artists, and national treasures of Italy in various ways.

First, we must start out slow by talking about how Romans discovered Italy, and then the fun part starts out later. In the textbook, Western Civilization by Joshua Cole and Carol Symes, they explain to the reader that when the romans landed on Italy they met a group of people who already inhabited the land. The romans called these people Etruscans. These natives were influenced by the Greeks, such as the alphabet. The only thing that the Etruscans did not copy from the Greeks was that the Etruscans treated the women with respect, and actually gave them a certain power to the Etruscans society. Many Romans and Greeks who began to live there disagreed with the idea of women having a certain role in society. As Romans and Greeks settled into their new homes, the Greeks started to influence the Romans by copying their alphabets, arts, and beliefs (Cole,

It became the foundation of the fascist movement in Italy following World War I. Mussolini used the newspaper to spread his ideas of fascism. On June 6, 1919, an issue of Il Popolo d’Italia listed and described the goals of fascism. However, fascism did not begin to take off until October of 1922.

In 1915 Italy and Austria engaged in a gruesome war in one of the most unique and challenging battlefields - the tops of the Dolomite mountain range. The two countries were fighting to gain control of the Trentino and South Tyrol areas. Austria was allied with Germany, in an alliance called the Dual Alliance. Previously, Italy was also allied with these two countries, but when the Triple Alliance agreement ended just before WW1, Italy decided to remain neutral. Then, in 1915 Italy joined the Triple Entente which included England, France, and Russia, to fight against the Dual Alliance. One of the reasons why Italy became a member of the Triple Entente was because the Treaty of London, a secret pact between the Triple Entente and Italy, promised

The Fascists’ social and economic policies up to 1939 significantly aided their control over Italy yet may not be cited as the sole cause. The Fascist party’s social and economic policies along with other factors attributed to the overall control of Italy. Through such policies it was a certainty that the Fascist party would hold complete power over the population of Italy in each aspect of an individual’s life whether it was their leisure time through the Dopolavoro or at work under the corporate state system which was formally introduced in 1934. This complete domination of the Italian peoples’ lives could be argued to have been the instrumental factor behind the Fascists’ control over Italy up to 1939. Other factors which assisted the

The First World War had started reinforcing nationalism, and a desire of great achievements and glory for the nation. These sudden nationalist beliefs created among the Italians of the Risorgimento were made stronger by the fear of a possible socialist revolution. The conditions of growing industry of the Risorgimento had caused the growth of the socialist movement, which then helped Mussolini gain power due to his anti communist beliefs.

instability, as the nation tried to re-create the social bonds broken by the war and

After the fall of Napoleon, Italy was controlled mostly by Austria and the Habsburgs. The movement for national unification in Italy started with revolts and demanding change to the kings. Nationalists were influenced by other people in other countries that had successfully revolted, for example like in Spain in 1820. The Kingdom of Two Sicilies was conquered and convinced the king to establish a new constitution. Mazzini helped with Italian unification by creating a secret society called Young Italy. The goal of Mazzini’s new group was to promote nationalism and convince people why there should be a unified Italy. In 1848, revolutions all over Italy occurred because nationalists did not want Austria to have control over them.