Dominic Sandbrook

The Italians rallied at the River Piave, and then they beat the Austrians at Vittorio Veneto in November of 1918.

And this was the point at which the Austro-Hungarian Empire was falling apart.

And then the war ends.

And at that point, the Italians have lost 689,000 people killed in battle, as well as probably about 600,000 civilians

and another million Italians seriously wounded.

So it goes well.

Yeah, it didn't exactly develop to their advantage.

And it's this tremendous national trauma.

And the thing is, for what?

Because at the peace conferences,

They are given Trieste.

They're given Istria.

They're given the Trentino and South Tyrol.

But they're not given a lot of the other stuff they wanted.

They don't get a bit of Turkey.

They don't get loads of Greek islands.

They don't get Dalmatia.

They don't get an empire in the Adriatic.

And even though on paper they are among the winners of the First World War, lots of Italians feel, we've actually, you know, we did all that for nothing.

Completely.