Mare Nostrum e Grandi Potenze. L’Italia e le Conferenze sul Disarmo Navale.1920-1930

Abstract

From the second half of the nineteenth century a series of transformation processes had led to a profound metamorphosis of the social, political and industrial structure of the nations. The innumerable technological innovations had changed commerce and the economy in a short time and they had quickly turned from continental to world, forcing man and his perception of life to a too sudden metamorphosis. The opening of the Suez Canal was the turning point for commercial development at that time, causing, immediately , a deep transformation in the field of naval engineering. The development of modernization techniques and processes in industrialization will increasingly evacuate the need for sea freight transport, the only ones capable of ensuring the transport of large quantities of raw materials that are indispensable for mass production. The whole colonial system, moreover, speaks to the continuous and constant need of the great powers to look for cheap low-cost raw materials to maintain and increase their industrial level. In this new optics, land routes lost importance as they were incapable of competing now with shipping by sea. Industries needed raw materials and these could only be guaranteed at low cost through colonialism that needed a dense maritime and commercial network. However, maritime routes had to be guaranteed. Therefore, the military fleets of the great empires developed exceptionally by arriving at such quality and quantity that were unimaginable until a few years earlier. So the sea power never takes precedence before. With the “Versailles mess”, many and many were the unresolved issues including the Pacific. Paradoxically after the signatures of peace treaties new misunderstandings pushed the winning powers towards a possible war. These were fiddled with conferences on naval disarmament. The first and perhaps most important one was held in Washington at the end of 1921. In this meeting it was decided to establish a new world ranking of super powers in which the young Italian kingdom was included. The present work, as well as analyzing the modern necessities of the military distortions of the powers involved in such encounters, also tries to enucleate the role of the Marine Directorate and the Mediterranean in the new political scenario emerging from the Great War. The disarmament conferences that were most important in the twenty years between the two wars have been carefully studied by Transalpine and Anglo-Saxon historians while in Italy they have been the subject of two studies dating to several years. The numerous foreign studies allow a reading of this phenomenon only in relation to the Pacific and relations between United States, Japan and the British Empire, relegating the role of the Mediterranean powers to almost simple extras. This study will demonstrate, thanks to the documentation gathered in the Italian archives, that the role played by the naval powers of the Mediterranean was of exceptional importance and was crucial to the conclusion of the treaties on naval disarmament. The Mediterranean, in addition to being the only sea with an ocean importance because it is the only one in the world to join three continents, it is the main street for the Indies and has always been the fulcrum of British naval power. Hence the role played, more or less consciously, by Roma in a historical period characterized by continued political and economic crises and where the danger of a new conflict was always present.[edited by Author]