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Home | Overview | Controversies | Timeline | Combatants | Biographies | Glossary | Learn More
Combatant States - Central powers | Austro - Hungary | Germany | Turkey (Ottoman Empire) | Bulgaria
Combatant States - Allies | Serbia | Russia | France | Belgium | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | India | New Zealand | Rhodesia | Union of South Africa | United States of America| Italy | Romania | Greece | Montenegro | Portugal | Japan
Entered War : 23 May 1915 (declared war on Austria-Hungary)
Political system : Constitutional monarchy since emerging as an independent unified kingdom in the 1860s
Leader : Victor Emmanuel III: sovereign, 1900-1947
Antonio Salandra: prime minister, 1914-16
Paolo Boselli: prime minister,1916-17
Vittorio Orlando: prime minister,1917-19
Population : 34.7 million (1911)
Army : 300,000 men (1912). In 1915, the Italian army consisted of 875,000 men in 25 infantry divisions and four cavalry divisions. A total of 5.2 million Italians were mobilised for army service during the war.
Navy : 5 dreadnoughts, 8 pre-dreadnought battleships, 21 cruisers, 49 destroyers, 85 torpedo boats, 25 submarines (1915)
Recent Diplomacy : Italy joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance in 1882. Under the terms of this agreement, each country was supposed to support the others if attacked by Russia or France; the alliance was renewed every five years. However, Italy concluded a secret agreement with France in 1902. When Germany and Austria-Hungary went to war in 1914, Italy reneged on its Triple Alliance commitments, claiming that the other two had behaved aggressively and that the terms of the Triple Alliance did not apply.
With Prime Minister Salandra claiming Italy's Sacro Egoismo (sacred self-interest), the country joined the war in 1915 on the side of the Allies. It hoped to gain territory at Austria-Hungary's expense.
Casualties by 1918 : 650,000 dead, 959,000 wounded