That year the conclusion of the first world naval convention concluded in Washington (see XXXV, p. 676) between the great maritime powers. This convention, however, governs only the naval relations for the types of large liners, large cruisers of 10 thousand tons and aircraft carriers, leaving unsolved the problem of relations between the lighter and more mobile naval units, torpedo boats and submarines., who had also revealed their fearsome power during the world war. The Washington pact establishes a hierarchy of forces between the powers, consecrating equality between Great Britain and the United States and an inferior position of Japan vis-à-vis these two powers, with a ratio of 3 to 5, and a rank still. lower than Italy and France, equalized for the tonnage of large ships.
On these lines of the Washington treaty, now lapsed and no longer renewed for the subsequent naval competitions of the great powers, Italy has developed its new navy according to the directives set out above.
According to ejinhua.org, the tasks of the Empire, the situations created in the Mediterranean and in the oceans as a consequence of these tasks and the latent political conflicts, explain this new imposing seafaring force.
To it is added the aerial one (see aeronautics, App.), Also recreated from the bases only after January 1923, when a first aeronautics commission was established which later became an autonomous ministry. The Italian aviation, fierced by long tests, among which the Atlantic ones led by the quadrumviro marshal Italo Balbo and by a young son of Mussolini, Bruno, just twenty years old, supported by a national industry by now autonomous, now counts among the most notable forces air of the world, typical expression of the virile power and new organizational skills of the Italian nation.
– The strengthening and development of Italian domestic politics, in all its forms and aspects, have naturally followed the expansion of foreign policy. Exit from the world war almost in national isolation due to the hostile attitude of the great allies which, as soon as the need for Italian aid ceased, already during the formation of the peace treaties; dominated by Franco-British pressures; unable to orient itself decisively for the many vital problems that have remained unsolved; overshadowed by discontent and internal disorder, Italian politics was able to regain its consistency and individuality only after 1922, when, with the resolution of major internal problems and the new social peace obtained with the solidarity of the classes, it was able to address ,
The development of the new foreign policy, which passes through successive well-defined stages, progressively reflects the new awareness of Italian law and force. On November 27, 1922, in a speech to the Senate, Mussolini set the basic guidelines: “I intend to make a foreign policy that will not be rash but will not even give up. I think I have already succeeded in something: to make the allies understand and perhaps also to other peoples of Europe the exact vision of an Italy such as the one I see being born before my eyes: an Italy swollen with life that does not live on income from the past, like a parasite, but intends to build with its own strength, with his labor, with his martyrdom, with his passion, his fortunes to come “.
These phrases should be remembered because they are the clear formulation of the new principles of Italian foreign policy which, in their light, reveals itself developed with a linear logical succession of times and actions, always faithful to itself even if apparently variable in the contingency of some episodes. For the first time, Italian foreign policy is defined according to the real needs of the elementary tendencies of the national community, in the awareness of its strength and rights and in the anxiety of its power. As such it becomes a policy of movement, revision and progressive conquest.
Its first stage is that of liberation from the heavy legacies of the past, from the problems left open by the war that cluttered the ways for the new action. First of all, typical of this moment are the actions of Mussolini aimed at an arrangement of relations with the new great Yugoslavia – which is an Adriatic settlement – with the ratification of the agreements of Santa Margherita and Rapallo (1923), up to the pact of Italian friendship and collaboration. -Yugoslav, signed in Rome on January 27, 1924, which tends to dispel the elements of the rivalry between Italy and Yugoslavia created by the peace treaties and by the evident tendencies of some foreign power.
The action carried out for the definition of independent Albania, with precise borders, as a guarantee for the Adriatic and Balkan balance also belongs to this moment. This action found resolute hostilities along its path, such as those opposed by certain Hellenic groups that led to the assassination of General Tellini (1923), when he, head of a commission for the delimitation of the borders of the new Albanian state , was located in the vicinity of the Greek Epirus. This massacre, for which the Athens government did not immediately want to take responsibility, led in reaction to the temporary Italian occupation of Corfu, and to a tension in relations between Italy and England, which arose due to its well-known Mediterranean interests., a guardian of Hellenic independence.
The part taken by Italy in the Tangier statute and regime from which England and France wanted to exclude it still belongs to this moment.
