La British Army in Italia tra il 1917 e 1919

• Giacomo Innocenti ^[1]
  1. [1] Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

     Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

     Milán, Italia

     
• Localización: Nuova rivista storica, ISSN 0029-6236, Vol. 101, Nº. 3, 2017, págs. 939-968
• Idioma: italiano
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In this work it will be analysed the British intervention in Italy after the battle of Caporetto. In particular, it will be studied the reason why the British Government took the decision to send in Italy some of its divisions. It will be proved that this expedition was part of a bigger strategy, which was a consequence of an internal dispute in the British establishment: was it better concentrate all the efforts against Germany, or was it better first defeat the Germany’s allies? Lloyd George was a supporter of the second option, so he pretended to use the Italian front to attack Austria-Hungary. In this way he was sure that Berlin, after finding itself alone, had to ask for peace. The analysis will show that the British intervention in Italy not only helped the Italian Army, but it has also been a great deal for Rome.

    As a matter of fact the presence of British and French divisions in the Po Valley was a problem for the future peace for Italy. Italy needed help after Caporetto, but this help could compromise its prestige inside the Alliance. At the same time, knowing that the Italian war was almost unknown between the Allies and their populations, Italian Government had to make all the efforts to feed into interest of the Italian conflict. In this way Italy tried to have a better diplomatic position during the final phase of the war.

    To study this particular moment of the First World War, it will be analysed Italian and British literature and different archive’s documents will be use as work sources.

    To summarize, in this work it will be studied the British military effort in Italy after Caporetto, the help given by British to reorganize Italian Army and the operations in which the British were engaged, it will be discussed therefore the political consequences of this intervention.