page_title: Dodecanese
section_title: Italian rule
hierarchical_section_title: Dodecanese / History / Italian rule
caption_attribution_description: English: Offices of the Prefecture of the Dodecanese, former Palazzo del Governatore, in Rhodes, Greece Français&#160;: Bureaux de la préfecture du Dodécanèse (anciennement Palazzo del Governatore) à Rhodes, Grèce
context_page_description: The Dodecanese are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the wider Southern Sporades island group.
  Rhodes has been the area's dominant island since antiquity. Of the others, Kos and Patmos are historically the more important; the remaining twelve are Agathonisi, Astypalaia, Chalki, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kasos, Leipsoi, Leros, Nisyros, Symi, Tilos, and Kastellorizo. Other islands in the chain include Alimia, Arkoi, Farmakonisi, Gyali, Kinaros, Levitha, Marathos, Nimos, Pserimos, Saria, Strongyli, Syrna and Telendos.
context_section_description: After the outbreak of the Italian-Turkish war over Libya, in early 1912 Italy, in order to apply pressure on the Ottoman government closer to its metropolitan territories, occupied all the present-day Dodecanese except for Kastellorizo.
  After the end of the war according to the Treaty of Ouchy, Italy maintained the occupation of the islands as guarantee for the execution of the treaty. The occupation continued after Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire (21 August 1915) during the First World War.
  During the war, the islands became an important naval base for Britain and France; Italy was allied with both nations during World War I. The Dodecanese were used as a staging area for numerous campaigns, most famously the one at Gallipoli. Some of the smaller islands were occupied by the French and British, but Rhodes remained under Italian occupation. In 1915, the French also occupied Kastellorizo.
  Following the war, the Tittoni–Venizelos agreement, signed on 29 July 1919, called for the smaller islands to join with Greece, while Italy maintained control of Rhodes. The treaty further outlined an exchange where Italy would receive Antalya for southwest Anatolia. The Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War and the foundation of modern Turkey prevented the exchange. Italy formally annexed the Dodecanese as the Possedimenti Italiani dell'Egeo under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. Mussolini embarked on a program of Italianization, hoping to make Rhodes a modern transportation hub that would serve as a focal point for the spread of Italian culture in the Levant. The islands were overwhelmingly Greek-speaking, with a Turkish-speaking minority and an even smaller Ladino-speaking Jewish minority. Immigrant Italian speakers were a marginal language community.
  The Fascist program, in its many attempts to modernize the islands, eradicated malaria, and constructed hospitals, aqueducts, a power plant to provide Rhodes' capital with electric lighting, and established the Dodecanese Cadastre. The main castle of the Knights of St. John was also rebuilt. The concrete-dominated Fascist architectural style detracted significantly from the islands' picturesque scenery (and also reminded the inhabitants of Italian rule), and has consequently been largely demolished or remodeled, apart from the famous example of the Leros town of Lakki, which remains a prime example of the architecture.
  From 1936 to 1940 Cesare Maria De Vecchi acted as Governor of the Italian Islands of the Aegean promoting the official use of the Italian language and favoring a process of italianization, interrupted by the beginning of World War II. In the 1936 Italian census of the Dodecanese islands, the total population was 129,135, of which 7,015 were Italians.
caption: Palazzo del Governo in Rhodes (city), now the Prefecture of the Dodecanese.
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