9781422277713

along front lines that in many cases didn’t move more than a few hundred yards for months on end, despite appalling casu- alties. Trench warfare and the use of weapons such as poison gas and the machine gun led to slaughter on a scale never before witnessed. The total number of dead will never be known with certainty. Most historians accept a figure of around 10 million. An additional 20 million or more were wounded in the conflict. World War I would have far-reaching consequences beyond the shocking toll in killed and maimed. In addition to Russia’s tsar, the war swept away the monarchies and dissolved the empires of three defeated states. Even in countries that had fought on the winning side, public revulsion at the brutality and apparent senselessness of the conflict was widespread. Many people lost faith in existing social and political institu- tions. In Italy, considerable resentment of the government grew out of the war. Italian forces had suffered a string of defeats. About 1.5 million Italian soldiers had been killed or wounded. Yet it was hard to see what their sacrifice had achieved. In the peace negotiations that followed the fighting, the so-called Big Three victorious nations—the United Kingdom, France, and the United States—largely ignored Italy’s interests, even though Italy had fought on their side. Italy received little in the way of new territory. Many Italians saw this as a national humiliation. As a group, Italy’s war veterans were especially frustrated and angry. On returning to civilian life, many found them- selves unable to get a job.

10

Fascism: Radical Nationalism