Fascist Italy entered World War II as a leading member of the Axis Powers in 1940 and despite initial success, was defeated in North Africa and the Soviet Union.

Consequentially, Italy descended into civil war, with the Italian Co-belligerent Army and resistance movement contending with the Social Republic's forces and its German allies.

The Triple Entente promised to grant to Italy – if the state joined the Allies in World War I – several regions, including former Austrian Littoral, western parts of former Duchy of Carniola, Northern Dalmatia and notably Zara, Šibenik and most of the Dalmatian islands (except Krk and Rab), according to the secret London Pact of 1915.

He commanded the land, sea and air power; he declared wars, concluded peace, alliance, trade and other treaties, of which only those that entailed a burden on finances or a change in territory required the approval of the chambers to be effective.

Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the political and social Italian unification movement, or Risorgimento, emerged to unite Italy consolidating the different states of the peninsula and liberate it from foreign control.

A prominent radical figure was the patriotic journalist Giuseppe Mazzini, member of the secret revolutionary society of Carbonari and founder of the influential political movement Young Italy in the early 1830s.

However, the Northern Italy monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state.

[8] In 1860–1861, Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily (the Expedition of the Thousand),[11] while the House of Savoy troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States.

In April 1861, Garibaldi entered the Italian parliament and challenged Cavour's leadership, accusing him of dividing Italy, and threatened a civil war between the Kingdom in the North and his forces in the South.

For this reason, historians sometimes describe the unification period as continuing past 1871, including activities during the late 19th century and the First World War (1915–1918), and reaching completion only with the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 4 November 1918.

[23] To reconcile the various monetary systems it was decided to opt for bimetallism, taking inspiration from the French franc model, from which the dimensions of the coins and the exchange rate of 1 to 15.50 between gold and silver were taken.

Italy managed to industrialize in several steps, although the country remained the most backward economy among the great powers (except for the Russian Empire) and was very dependent on foreign trade, especially the international markets through which it imported coal and exported grain.

[33] The backbone of the industrial boom was, next to the labor force, institutions of higher learning such as the Politecnico founded in Milan in 1863 by Francesco Brioschi and the Technical School for Engineers in Turin established four years earlier.

Various solutions were proposed for the so-called "Southern question" by Francesco Saverio Nitti, Gaetano Salvemini and Sidney Sonnino, but the government only acted in special problem areas such as Naples.

[34] The ILVA group of Genoa, with the political and financial backing of the Italian state, built the Bagnoli steel plant as part of the 1904 law for the development of Naples, prepared by economist and later prime minister Nitti.

While automobiles were only affordable by few its popularity and fascination rose rapidly, and one of the first sports car racing events in the world, the Targa Florio, held annually in the mountains of Sicily was established in 1906.

In March 1905, after serious labor unrest among railroad workers, Giolitti resigned due to illness, and suggested his fellow party member Alessandro Fortis to the king as his successor.

This reduced infant mortality and, together with what had been the highest birth rate in Europe for a long time, led to an increase in population, which in turn forced many young southern Italians to emigrate at the beginning of the 20th century.

Depretis put through authoritarian measures, such as banning public meetings, placing "dangerous" individuals in internal exile on remote penal islands across Italy and adopting militarist policies.

Italy proved unable to prosecute the war effectively, as fighting raged for three years on a very narrow front along the Isonzo River, where the Austrians held the high ground.

Historians regard mutilated victory as a "political myth", used by fascists to fuel Italian imperialism and obscure the successes of liberal Italy in the aftermath of World War I.

This early Fascist movement had a platform more inclined to the left, promising social revolution, proportional representation in elections, women's suffrage (partly realized in 1925) and dividing rural private property held by estates.

[105] At the same time, the so-called Biennio Rosso (red biennium) took place in the two years following the war in a context of economic crisis, high unemployment and political instability.

Thenceforth, the Fasci di Combattimento (forerunner of the National Fascist Party, 1921) successfully exploited the claims of Italian nationalists and the quest for order and normalization of the middle class.

On 25 July, Mussolini was ousted by the Great Council of Fascism and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, who appointed General Pietro Badoglio as new Prime Minister.

The Kingdom of Italy declared war on Nazi Germany on 13 October 1943;[133][134] tensions between the Axis Powers and the Italian military were rising following the failure to defend Sicily.

[145] The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGL) and the PSI refused to officially recognize the anti-fascist militia and maintained a non-violent, legalist strategy, while the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I) ordered its members to quit the organization.

[159] Much like Japan and Germany, the aftermath of World War II left Italy with a destroyed economy, a divided society, and anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years.

Umberto II decided to leave Italy on 13 June to avoid the clashes between monarchists and republicans, already manifested in bloody events in various Italian cities, for fear they could extend throughout the country.

Fears of a possible Communist takeover proved crucial for the first universal suffrage electoral outcome on 18 April 1948, when the Christian Democrats, under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory.