Fabio De Ninno
Ed. Laterza, Bari 2017
pagg.241
The author, a university researcher, aims, in this volume, the purpose of "rebuilding the development of the navy between the First and the Second World Wars, showing how the influence of the fascist regime and the political relationship that the admirals built with Mussolini were decisive in the development of the institution."
After the war, between the armistice and the arrival of Mussolini, Italy went through a political, economic and social crisis that frustrated the ambitions of power gained by the Navy during the liberal period. Only Mussolini seemed to be able to revive the development of the fleet. After the Washington naval conference (12 November 1921 - 21 February 1922), which saw the participation of the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France and Italy and where a fixed ratio was established in the tonnage of fleets of battleships and aircraft carriers five powers and a tonnage limit of the "light ship", the 10 October 1922, "a few weeks before the march on Rome, the admirals reiterated the need to build new light cruisers, explorers, destroyers and submarines. [...] The search for a new political actor who was able to breathe these ambitions was probably the point most important of the alliance between the institution and Mussolini. " The Duce, in fact, posed the question of maritime expansion at the center of his program.
The Minister of the Navy Thaon of Revel, besides wanting to strengthen the researches on the employment of the torpedoes and increase the allocation for the navy aviation, "He wanted an eight-year construction program (1924 - 1932) that included 5 cruisers, 43 destroyers and 39 submarines," also focusing a lot on staff and preparation, "attributing these priorities to shipbuilding." The two had bitter contrasts regarding naval spending, also because "for the ambitious naval policy desired by the minister it would have been necessary to revolutionize all the military expenditure and with it the balance of power deriving from it." Thus, at the end of the 1924, when the relations between them deteriorated irreversibly, the Prime Minister began to look for a substitute for the minister who, although representing the Duce a thorn in the side, was however "a very prestigious character: he was considered equal to General Diaz, being the only great admiral in the history of Italy and duke of the sea."
The presentation, the 1 ° May 1925, by Mussolini, of the decree that established the post of general chief of staff reserving it to the army generals and, the 4 May, the new ordering of the air force that assigned only 35 squadriglie naval aviation, led to the resignation of Thaon Revel and Chief of Staff Ducci. Thus, the 9 May Mussolini took control of the navy ministry, appointing the 10 May Giuseppe Sirianni undersecretary to the navy and Acton chief of staff. To him we owe the statement that "the construction of aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy was neither useful nor necessary." His vision, accepted by the Duce, was to focus on the construction of a greater number of light units, thus benefiting the national shipbuilding industry. Therefore, "On the air-sea question the admirals showed a considerable dose of myopia, trading an immediate advantage with a long-term need for naval development." On the other hand Mussolini, "despite having acquired the political responsibility for the management of the armed forces, it did not have its own program to be opposed to that of the military", and, therefore, he was forced to come to terms with the leaders of the navy. These, in the 1926, also obtained a reform that reiterated the preeminence of the naval officers on the organization of the navy - thus relegating the technicians to secondary roles - and thus sanctioning an agreement thanks to which the leaders of the navy contributed "to legitimize the position of the Duce proposing itself as one of the institutions that collaborated with fascism and went from being protagonists in the government of the country." Numerous, in fact, were, in the following years, the admirals appointed senators. However, "the relationship between admirals and politics, even in the case of fascism, is explained above all by keeping in mind the expansionist ambitions of which the navy management group was imbued." In fact, "as opposed to an army still linked to an Alpine perspective and to an air force that lacked even a clear military dimension, naval officers were protagonists in the elaboration of the imperial projects of fascism, claiming the return to the sea as the premise of the Italian expansion. "
The Mediterranean would have returned to be the sea of Rome, Mussolini said in a speech held in July 1926, on the armored Cavour, to the commanders of the fleet. To be considered a great power, however, Italy should have had an adequate presence on the oceans, so the navy would have had to prepare to operate outside the Mediterranean. "Solved the problem of land borders Italy, if it wants to be a truly world power, it must solve the problem of its maritime borders: the same security of the Empire is linked to the solution of this problem, "he told the King, Mussolini, the 30 March 1940. Meanwhile, the goal, however, was to achieve naval equality with France. With the appointment, in the 1927, of the admirals Burzagli and Bernotti, respectively Chief of Staff and Deputy, there was enormous progress in the fleet, both materials and efficiency, thanks to a rationalization of resources made by the former. In 1932, with Admiral Ducci Chief of Staff, "The situation had reached the critical point and the new buildings implemented to follow the naval parity were absorbing practically all the resources of the navy."
With the emergence of Nazi Germany and the totalitarian acceleration of the regime, after the 1933 "Mussolini placed at the head of the institutions men willing to follow him faithfully in the wars he was about to begin." In this perspective, as undersecretary in the navy, in November 1933 was appointed Admiral Domenico Cavagnari, who, with the subsequent appointment, in the 1934, at the head of staff, a single admiral of the army and then commander of the fleet in wartime, maintained control of the institution until the first defeats of the 1940. Contrary to Sirianni, his predecessor, Cavagnari was in favor of the construction of battleships, as he was convinced that they were the basis of naval power and also because the fascist regime had already started preparing a war of great proportions. But the available funds and industrial capacities made the navy, in the 1940, arrive to have a fleet different from that assumed in the 1936, that is to say with many more submarines and torpedo boats and less cruisers and, above all, without the aircraft carrier, some consider it necessary to make up for the problem of aeronaval cooperation between the navy and aeronautics, even if Cavagnari was skeptical about the need for this type of ship, believing more in the use of ground-based aircraft, the same thought of the Duce. These had been influenced, in his military readings, by Douhet, who claimed that "the submarine was, together with the plane, the weapon that would transform the war." However, the lack of aerial coverage was a huge limit for Italian warships as it did not allow them to operate far from the Italian bases of the central Mediterranean.
With the appointment of Mussolini, the 30 March 1938, the first marshal of the empire, "the military gave the dictator the total direction of the armed forces." The attack of the British torpedo bombers at the naval base of Taranto (11 - 12 November 1940), showing all the vulnerability of the Italian fleet to enemy naval power and marking the end of the navy's hopes of inflicting decisive damage to the enemy forces, was a consequence of a naval policy progressively and inexorably bent to the military amateurs of the Duce"To speak of a fascist navy would be excessive, as it could make us think that the regime has effectively fascistized the institution and its men, but it is certain that Mussolini, with the connivance of the admirals who found themselves at the helm of the navy, influenced decisively military policy, building a Navy of Mussolini, evolution and at the same time different from that of the liberal period. "
Gianlorenzo Capano
