Week 95

 

President of the Council Nitti, to Commander of the inter-Allied occupation corp in Fiume, Pittaluga – September 12^th 1919, 6.40 pm

Incoming reports that D'Annunzio has departed from Ronchi at the head of one thousand grenadiers. You are well aware of your precise duty in such an hour.

We all are – I guess. But what are we supposed to do about it?

The lack of specificity, the focus on general concepts, the (over)reliance on the ability of his subordinates to appreciate the value of his arguments and to act accordingly – these are frequent points of criticism aimed at Nitti's handling, and in fact at his interpretation, of the functions of government. It is, to an extent, a fair criticism, and shared by more than a few of Nitti's own collaborators. Carlo Sforza – the future Foreign Minister who signed the Treaty of Rapallo – observed in his memoirs (L'Italia dal 1914 al 1944 quale io la vidi) that Nitti “didn't know how to command, he didn't give orders, he gave lectures” and Paolo Alatri, who paints a generally favorable portrait of Nitti (Nitti, D'Annunzio e la questione Adriatica), observed on this particular communication that

[…] it wasn't the proper way to formulate a precise instruction, since it was necessary to clarify whether the Italian regular forces had to resist or not, with armed force, to D'Annunzio's initiative and to the occupation of Fiume. That one was a responsibility of the President of the Council, and there was no way to expect a general to take it upon himself after receiving instructions which, only in appearance energetic and radical, were really generic enough to leave any direction open.

At the same time, we can't really assume that the army would have been – by and large – very inclined to follow Nitti on this point, had his instructions been worded better. And this for a series of different reasons – ranging from the structural resistance to the demobilization process, to military concerns over the Yugoslav territorial aspirations, to the very own aspirations of the Italian nationalist and “national” groups, to a sentimental dislike for Nitti's role as a “trustee in bankruptcy” of the Italian victorious war – which made Nitti's attempts to secure the approval and understanding “of the country” (and in turn of his own administration) a much less safe endeavor than he had perhaps genuinely hoped.

Not that everyone refused to see the point in Nitti's arguments, the validity in his economical, financial and at times political considerations; but in the end the Italian Prime Minister was marching ahead with an army of reluctant followers, who could agree with him at times and appreciate the general state of Italian affairs, but shared little of the sentimental appeal of his political campaign, of his end goals and of his aspirations – something which mad their support often conjunctural, as Nitti's own arguments appeared often to be driven by circumstances rather than by a coherent illustration of deeply rooted principles. Again Alatri observed how

[…] Nitti revealed a notable ability in making use of men inspired by an instinctive nationalism for his markedly anti-nationalistic policy […] to the point where many of them would later on jump the wagon to Fascist collaboration.

To be fair, those were the men he had available; and the nature of his ministerial combination did not allow for a government which excluded the “national” forces, especially in the delicate handling of international matters (if only for the purpose of pacifying the nationalist press) – a choice that Nitti had made also, in part at least, for a personal belief in a general program of national collaboration (Nitti had always – at times less coherently and giving rise to suspicions of merely paying lip service to national ideas – pursued the collaboration of certain less than moderate “national” groups) and social pacification based on the (unfortunate) economical facts and on the development of a general awareness of the need for the country to regenerate her productive forces before any possible (but for Nitti always inadvisable) program of foreign adventures was resumed.

But Alatri's words are also indicative of the superficial degree Nitti's ideas impacted on his collaborators, and could therefore be taken to signify not a measure of political strength but a character of Nitti's political weakness. After all, international politics – especially when you are at the table with the US, the UK and France – is likely to provide an insurmountable obstacle for any nationalistic-imperialistic delusion, so that it's hard to judge whether the adjustment to Nitti's political imprint after the failure of Orlando and Sonnino was a matter of disgruntled realism, practicality or genuine confidence.

This was, in the end, also the character of a political system which Nitti had inherited from Giolitti, likely well past its twilight, and attempted to control and steer straight, applying those (belated) democratic adjustments that his liberal economicism of western imprint suggested, while heading into the last midnight of the Italian liberal system. At the head of his composite parliamentary coalition, Nitti attempted a general, social, economical, political pacification of the Italian nation, he introduced a more complete form of universal suffrage, removing the last restrictions to male participation and introducing proportional representation, despite a certain opposition within the constitutional forces for fear that the new electoral law could favor excessively the popular parties. A circumstance this one which Nitti considered unlikely – and he was very much mistaken – relying perhaps more on his confidence that the country was going to see his point than on a realistic evaluation of the Italian situation, and even abandoning the well established (and quite undemocratic) tradition of the public administration displaying a certain special attention for the constitutional groups in the electoral fray.

I wish for the prefects and all the functionaries depending from them to display absolute impartiality – Nitti wrote to the prefects on October 21^st 1919 – Any act of overbearance is censurable and, in our present times, criminal, since it excites souls and inspires them to new violence. What we need instead, when necessary, is a good example against violence of any source or color, white, red or black, and for the electoral operations to run in the most regular fashion. Abuses need to be entirely banished and even the purest of ends can't justify illegal means. The prefects who will best accomplish their duty are those whose provinces will generate the least of complaints and where the elections will proceed most orderly.

Such administrative choices have been subject to a certain line of criticism – besides those who disagreed with the principle of government neutrality in election matters altogether – which recognized in them a symptom of Nitti's resignation to his (and to the parliament's) inability to manage the affirmation of democratic principles, with the Great War marking a collapse of Giolitti's “parliamentary dictatorship” (that is of the peculiar structures of power which had formalized the dialogue between government, central institutions, local powers and public administration – the expression is typical of criticism of Giolitti from the democratic side – for an attempt to draw a general picture, see R. Vivarelli, Storia delle origini del Fascismo, vol.2, chapter 1).

And thus the Italian people – wrote sociologist and historian Guglielmo Ferrero a few years later (Da Fiume a Roma, 1923) – on November 16^th 1919, amidst the confusion of all the hidden forces which had ruled it, was for the first time really sovereign and no longer in name only. For the first time public speeches were held […] with the government standing passively, almost fearful, indistinguishable from the audience, and the people making use of their rights, following, if not an idea, a sentiment of their own […]