The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought

Chapter One: From before the War to the Stresa Conference

5 what attitudes prevalent in france before the war toward the Italian nation were considered as a political formation? When I was a child, I was taught that Napoleon III committed two particularly grievous faults: he allowed German unification to occur, and he created Italian unity. The nation that owed its existence, it was said, to the intervention of the French armies, had ranged itself alongside Germany in that Triple Alliance which no one doubted would someday have to enter into conflict with France.1 The purely defensive nature of Italy’s adhesion to the Triple Alliance was ignored. The progress of the Italian navy was Chapter One F rom be f or e t h e Wa r t o t h e S t r e s a C on f e r e nc e 6 | The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought viewed with concern. People also spoke about the Italian threat to Tunisia. And for all that, there were French men and women who wanted it. Resentment against Italy’s ingratitude was all the more keen because France was angry with itself for having forgotten, in a quixotic burst when Bonapartists joined with democrats, that ingratitude is the common practice of states. Scorn was added to resentment. This doubtless entailed some contradictions, but public opinion did not look at it that closely. We detested Italy because its alliance with Germany forbade us, in case of a Franco-German war, to concentrate all our forces on our eastern and northeastern borders; but at the same time, we declared that the Italians were poor soldiers, a territorial army would suffice to protect the border in the Alps. We also scorned the Italians, and this was completely ignoble, because of their poverty. I remember a caricature in which bandits threatened some people who happen to be passing by: “we are Italians,” they say; “we couldn’t have fallen on worse,” answer the bandits. The Great War arrived; the French were quick to learn the comforting news of Italy’s neutrality. Now it was a matter of getting Italy to intervene against the Central Empires. Latin brotherhood became a familiar theme in our press and Italia irredenta became another Alsace-Lorraine.2 In the spring of 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. For the largest part of French opinion, Italy’s participation in the world war is summed up in the name of Caporetto (24 October 1917).3 Nothing has been lost from memory of the impression produced in France by that Italian defeat followed by a disorderly retreat, massive surrenders, numerous desertions. The need to dispatch several French divisions in utter haste from the other side of the Alps to contribute to the stabilization of the Italian front exacerbated the resent- From before the War to the Stresa Conference | 7 ment and scorn of which we have just spoken. The Italian nation’s straightening itself out after its defeat, the Italian victories in the final months of the campaign, did not erase the impression produced by the 1917 disaster; during the deliberations that led to the peace treaties, the memory of Caporetto caused an unfavorable prejudice toward the Italian claims: for a large number of French people, the nation whose breakdown had so gravely imperiled the Entente’s cause could only hold a disadvantaged position in the division of the spoils. We can only judge that state of mind as entirely unreasonable . Why not do justice to the Italian victories that followed Caporetto? Is there any nation that does not count in its military history some resounding disaster? After the Great War, the only interesting thing was the establishment of a durable peace. But this primacy of peace could only be safeguarded at the price of a deep rejection of all the passions generating conflicts. In reflecting on such events, we better understand that political virtue presupposes the qualities that define the man of good will. To establish peace, those directing the Entente needed an unusual degree of justice, together with the lucidity that has as its proper condition the perfect disciplining of lower appetites. Were the peace treaties unjust to Italy? The importance of its urban acquisitions has been rightly emphasized. But it seems that the colonial clauses in the 1915 accords only met with insufficient satisfaction. Article 13 of the Treaty of London4 was formulated in the following terms: “In case of an...