ANDREA SACCOMAN

Note sull'esercito italiano dall'unità alla grande guerra

N. 182

Summary — The author focuses his attention on some well-known issues trying to give them new light. The "piemontesizzazione" of the Italian army after unification, that is the imposition of the military organization of the Kingdom of Sardinia to the army of the new Italian kingdom, is not so important as historiography has often argued: in fact most officers in the new Italian army were non-piemontese and by 1859 the Piemontese army itself was very similar to those of the rest of Europe. Only a part of soldiers made the full period of service, and most of recruits in each regiment came from the same region. Political reasons were most of times more important that the influence of the king in the appointment of ministers of war. The king was the only authority always up to date with foreign and military policy, but he did not succeed in coordinating the two fields. The Triple Alliance was undermined from the beginning by suspicions between Italy and Austria-Hungary and, apart from Crispi, nobody seemed to believe in the military agreements with the allies. The African policy was always doubtful and led to Adua. The relations between politicians and the military were often not clear. Various reasons, in short, made cooperation between politics and strategy very difficult and ineffective in Italy at least until 1915, but maybe even until 1943, and could explain the very poor outcome realized by Italian imperialism.