Italian Interventionists Essay

Submitted By eva1532
Words: 455
Pages: 2

Explain why interventionists wanted to go to war in 1914 (8 marks)

An interventionist is someone who advocates war. There were many interventionist groups in Italy in 1914 such as the Futurists. The Futurists were completely pro war, they believed that Italy could never become great whilst it still had so much history behind it, their main aim was to destroy the past. They thought that the current government within Italy were too patriotic and proud of their past to desire the creation of a new future for Italy. The Futurists wanted Italy to go to war to cleanse itself from the past. The leader of the Futurist party, Filipo Marinetti once said that war was "...the world's best hygiene" meaning that war can clean up things that politics and reform cannot.
The next group that were war advocates in Italy at this time were the Nationalist party. Their leader was Enrico Corradini who believed that war and violence would make Italy great. The Nationalists believed that Italy was not a 'whole' country because it was ruled by 'foreigners', their aim was to get Italy back from these 'foreigners' and for Italy to be ruled by Italians. They believed that war was needed to do this, and so this was their reason for wanting to go to war.
The Italian Socialists lead by Filipo Turati believed in using violence to change Italy. In 1914 these extremists tried to overthrow the Italian government in a week of widespread violence which would be later known as Red Week. However, the Socialists were divided on whether or not they should go to war. Some Socialists believed that war would create favourable circumstances for a revolution due to the fact that things, such as living standards may well disprove during war times and generate a level of social