page_title: Italian irredentism
section_title: Fascism and World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Italian irredentism / Fascism and World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: THE INHABITANTS OF FIUME CHEERING D'ANNUNZIO AND HIS RAIDERS THE NEW FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM was published in New York in 1920, making this image public domain in the U.S.
context_page_description: Italian irredentism was a nationalist movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Italy with irredentist goals which promoted the unification of geographic areas in which indigenous peoples considered to be ethnic Italians and/or Italian-speaking individuals formed a majority, or substantial minority, of the population.
  Originally, the movement promoted the annexation to Italy of territories inhabited by an Italian indigenous population, but retained by the Austrian Empire after Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. These included Trentino and Trieste, but also multilingual and multiethnic areas within the northern Italian region encompassed by the Alps, with German, Italian, Slovene, Croatian, Ladin and Istro-Romanian population, such as South Tyrol, a part of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca and part of Dalmatia. The claims were extended later to the city of Fiume, Corsica, the island of Malta, the County of Nice and Italian Switzerland.
context_section_description: Fascist Italy strove to be seen as the natural result of war heroism against a "betrayed Italy" that had not been awarded all it "deserved", as well as appropriating the image of Arditi soldiers. In this vein, irredentist claims were expanded and often used in Fascist Italy's desire to control the Mediterranean basin. To the east of Italy, the Fascists claimed that Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians, including those of Italianized South Slavic descent, had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy, and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries via the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. The Fascists especially focused their claims based on the Venetian cultural heritage of Dalmatia, claiming that Venetian rule had been beneficial for all Dalmatians and had been accepted by the Dalmatian population. The Fascists were outraged after World War I, when the agreement between Italy and the Entente Allies in the Treaty of London of 1915 to have Dalmatia join Italy was revoked in 1919.
  To the west of Italy, the Fascists claimed that the territories of Corsica, Nice and Savoy held by France were Italian lands. The Fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the island's italianità. The Fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historic, ethnic and linguistic grounds. The Fascists quoted Medieval Italian scholar Petrarch who said: "The border of Italy is the Var; consequently Nice is a part of Italy". The Fascists quoted Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, a native of Nizza (Nice) himself, who said: "Corsica and Nice must not belong to France; there will come the day when an Italy mindful of its true worth will reclaim its provinces now so shamefully languishing under foreign domination". Mussolini initially pursued promoting annexation of Corsica through political and diplomatic means, believing that Corsica could be annexed to Italy through Italy first encouraging the existing autonomist tendencies in Corsica and then independence of Corsica from France, that would be followed by annexation of Corsica into Italy.
  In 1923, Mussolini temporarily occupied Corfu, using irredentist claims based on minorities of Italians in the Ionian islands of Greece. Similar tactics may have been used towards the islands around the Kingdom of Italy – through the pro-Italian Maltese, Corfiot Italians and Corsican Italians – in order to control the Mediterranean sea (his Mare Nostrum, from the Latin "Our Sea").
  During World War II, large parts of Dalmatia were annexed by Italy into the Governorship of Dalmatia from 1941 to 1943. Corsica and Nice were also administratively annexed by Italy in November 1942. Malta was heavily bombed, but was not occupied due to Erwin Rommel's request of diverting to North Africa the forces that had been prepared for the invasion of the island.
caption: Residents of Fiume cheering the arrival of Gabriele D'Annunzio and his Legionari in September 1919, when Fiume had 22,488 (62% of the population) Italians in a total population of 35,839 inhabitants
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