Mutilated victory

Mutilated victory (Italian: vittoria mutilata) is a term coined by Gabriele D'Annunzio at the end of World War I, used by a part of Italian nationalists to denounce the partial infringement (and request the full application) of the 1915 Treaty of London concerning territorial rewards for Kingdom of Italy.

In the 1915 treaty, Italy had agreed to join the powers of the Triple Entente in their war against Austria-Hungary and the German Empire in exchange for the Entente powers’ recognition of Italy’s control over Southern Tyrol, the Austrian Littoral and territories in Dalmatia. These lands were inhabited by Italians—alongside Austrian Germans (Tyroleans) and Slavs (Slovenes and Croats)—but had not become part of the Kingdom upon Italian unification in the late 19th century. Additionally, Italy was assured ownership of the Dodecanese, possessions in Albania, and a sphere of influence around the Turkish city of Antalya, alongside a possible enlargement of its colonial presence in Africa.

At the end of the war, the United Kingdom and France initially intended to remain faithful to the pact, but the United States saw these provisions as inconsistent with the concept of self-determination spelled out by President Wilson in his Fourteen Points. Eventually, the British and French supported the U.S. position, and some of the promises made in 1915 were retracted. Italy annexed the provinces of Trento and Trieste—additions regarded as the completion of Italian unification—and also gained South Tyrol, Istria and some colonial compensations. However Dalmatia, with the exception of the city of Zara, was awarded to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Fiume, a city with a sizeable Italian population, although not included in the Pact of London, was occupied for a year by volunteers led by D'Annunzio, leading to an international crisis.

Together with the rise of political violence and the social turmoil ensuing from the end of wartime mobilization, the partial infringement of the treaty is generally believed to have fuelled the propaganda of the National Fascist Party. However, given the Italian annexation of many territories, numerous scholars question the extent of the "mutilated victory", viewing it as a largely political myth; historians such as Emilio Gentile and Paolo Soave also argue that the concept had a minor role in the genesis of Fascism.

Italy joined World War I in 1915 on the side of the Allies, after negotiating the secret Treaty of London with the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia). According to the secret pacts of London, the following territories were promised to Italy in case of victory: Trentino and South Tyrol, the Austrian Littoral (Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, and Istria), territories in Dalmatia, possessions in Albania (Vlora and Saseno), and compensations in case of a colonial partition of the Central Powers' empires. The content of the pact of London was made public in 1917 by the Russians, following their withdrawal from the War after the communist revolution, in order to criticize the "old diplomacy" of the capitalist European powers. While France and Britain remained bound by the treaty of London, the US president Woodrow Wilson (who joined the Allies in 1917) opposed it and presented on January 8, 1918 Fourteen Points to redraw the map of Europe on the basis of nationality and ethnicity. During the decisive Italian offensive, the nationalist poet Gabriele D'Annunzio coined the term mutilated victory by publishing an article in the Corriere della Sera dated October 24, 1918 and titled "Our victory will not be mutilated".

Italy's prime minister Vittorio Orlando, one of the Big Four of World War I, and his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino, an Anglican of British origins, arrived at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 in order to secure most of the London pacts. Considerable results were achieved with the treaties and agreements signed in 1919 and 1920. Most importantly, Trent-South Tyrol and the Austrian Littoral (Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, and Istria) became part of the Italian regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The colonial compensations obtained by Italy were: the recognition and enlargement of the Italian Islands of the Aegean; the enlargement of the Italian possessions in Libya and in the Horn of Africa; and the establishment of an Italian sphere of influence over the Ottoman area of Antalya, later abandoned with the independence of Turkey. Italy also received the province of Zadar with some islands in Dalmatia and set up a protectorate over Albania with the occupation of Vlora, which lasted until 1920 when domestic opposition within the Italian Armed Forces and the Vlora war led Italy to voluntarily abandon Albania; with the treaty of Tirana, Italy retained the island of Saseno and recognition of Albania as being within its sphere of influence (which was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1921). Finally, the disintegration of its two main rival powers (Austria-Hungary in Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean) and the entrance in the League of Nations' security council as a permanent member, cemented Italy's status as a great power.

Therefore, most of the criticism directed against the Allies and the government focused on Dalmatia and the city of Fiume (which was later occupied by a contingent led by Gabriele D'Annunzio). A more substantial transfer of Dalmatian territories to Italy (favoured by Sonnino) was complicated to achieve because of its Slavic population, whereas Fiume was ethnically an Italian city (and as such proposed by Orlando as an alternative), but not included in the Pact of London. Wilson vetoed these proposals on the ground that already many Germanophones and Slavs were to be placed under Italian administration. This led Orlando and Sonnino to temporarily abandon the conference in protest. Orlando had refused to see the outcome of the war as a mutilated victory and once replied to calls for greater expansion that "Italy today is a great state... on par with the great historic and contemporary states. This is, for me, our main and principal expansion." But the disgruntled climate ultimately forced Orlando to resign, and the treaties he had negotiated were signed by his successors Francesco Saverio Nitti and Giovanni Giolitti.

From a contemporary historical point of view, it has sometimes been observed how much of Benito Mussolini's foreign policy was presented as an attempt to amend the injustices lamented as stemming from the mutilated victory: Fiume was taken in 1924, Albania was turned into a client state under Zog I and merged into the Kingdom in 1939, and Dalmatia was annexed during the occupation of Yugoslavia—events that have been sporadically accused of prolonging Italy's participation in World War II. Some historians have at times seen the actions carried by the Fascist government on the subject as part of a larger imperialist project that brought Italy to descend into foreign affairs, by intervening in Spain, conquering Ethiopia, and occupying southern France and Tunisia. For historian Gaetano Salvemini "Fascism originated, grew, triumphed, and ultimately died, on the myth of mutilated victory". Conversely, attempts to include in the Italian nation state the detached lands populated by Italophones have also been lauded and supported, with subjects failing to recognize said urgency being decried by poet Gabriele D’Annunzio as "insane and vile".