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Italia Irredenta (Unredeemed Italy) was an Italian patriotic opinion movement that emerged after Italian unification. It advocated irredentism among the Italian people as well as other nationalities who were willing to become Italian and as a movement is also known as Italian irredentism. Not a formal organization, it was just an opinion movement that claimed that Italy had to reach its "natural borders". Similar patriotic and nationalistic ideas were common in Europe in the 19th century. Italian irredentism obtained an important result after World War I, when Italy gained Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and the city of Zara.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Agitation 3 Consequences of Irredentism 4 Political figures in the Italian irredentist movement 5 References

Origins

The movement had for its avowed purpose the emancipation of all Italian lands still subject to foreign rule after Italian unification. The Irredentists took language as the test of the alleged Italian nationality of the countries they proposed to emancipate, which were Trentino, Trieste, Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, Ticino, Nizza (Nice), Corsica and Malta. Austria-Hungary promoted Croatian interests in Dalmatia and Istria to weaken Italian claims in the western Balkans.

Agitation

On July 21, 1878, a noisy public meeting was held at Rome with Menotti Garibaldi, the son of unification leader Giuseppe Garibaldi, as chairman of the forum, and a clamour was raised for the formation of volunteer battalions to conquer the Trentino. Benedetto Cairoli, then Prime Minister of Italy, treated the agitation with tolerance. It was, however, mainly superficial, for the mass of the Italians had no wish to launch on a dangerous policy of adventure against Austria, and still less to attack France for the sake of Nice and Corsica, or Britain for Malta.

One consequence of the Irredentist ideas outside of Italy was the assassination plot organized against the Emperor Francis Joseph in Trieste in 1882, which was detected. Guglielmo Oberdan (a Triestine and thus Austrian citizen) was executed. When the Irredentist movement became troublesome to Italy through the activity of Republicans and Socialists, it was subject to effective police control by Agostino Depretis.

Irredentism faced a setback when the French occupation of Tunis in 1881 started a crisis in French–Italian relations. The government entered into relations with Austria and Germany, which took shape with the formation of the Triple Alliance in 1882.

Consequences of Irredentism

Italy signed the London Pact and entered World War I with the intention of gaining those territories perceived as being Italian under foreign rule; several Austro-Hungarian citizens of Italian ethnicity fought within the Italian forces against Austria-Hungary to free their lands. Some, such as Cesare Battisti, Nazario Sauro, Damiano Chiesa, Fabio Filzi, were captured and executed. The outcome of the First World War and the consequent settlement of the Treaty of Saint-Germain ensured Italy some of its claims, in accordance with the Treaty of London of 1915, including many (but not all) of the aims of the Italia irredenta party, incorporating Trento, Trieste and Istria. In Dalmatia, despite the treaty of London, only the city of Zara was assigned to Italy.

The ethnically Italian city of Fiume was the subject of claim and counter-claim (see Italian Regency of Carnaro, Treaty of Rapallo, 1920 and Treaty of Rome, 1924).

The stand taken by Gabriele D'Annunzio, which briefly led him to become an enemy of the Italian state, was meant to provoke a nationalist revival through Corporatism (first instituted during his rule over Fiume), in front of what was widely perceived as state corruption engineered by governments such as Giovanni Giolitti's. Moreover, Fascism made effort to seem as the natural outcome of war heroism, against a "betrayed Italy" that had not been awarded all it deserved, as well as appropriating the image of Arditi soldiers.

Political figures in the Italian irredentist movement

• Guglielmo Oberdan
• Cesare Battisti
• Nazario Sauro
• Damiano Chiesa
• Fabio Filzi
• Carmelo Borg Pisani

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Colonel von Haymerle, Italicae res, Vienna, 1879 - the early history of Irredentists.
• Večerina, Duško, Talijanski Iredentizam ( Italian Irredentism ), ISBN 953-98456-0-2, Zagreb, 2001
• Vivante, Angelo, Irredentismo adriatico (The Adriatic Irredentism), 1984
• Slovene - Italian relations between 1880-1918
• Irredentists