Gaetano Salvemini and foreign policy during the First World War: the collaboration with The New Europe

Abstract

In 1958, A.J.P. Taylor's essay The Troublemakers explored the tradition of dissent against power politics in the United Kingdom. Gaetano Salvemini, who had always shown a consistent interest in British political and cultural debates, shared many of the positions put forward by these ‘troublemakers’, such as free trade, the fight against military expenditure, and suspicions regarding standing armies. At the outbreak of the First World War, Salvemini used these arguments to support Italy's involvement in the war against autocratic and militarist central powers. Salvemini's journal L'Unità reported the stances expressed by a ‘troublemaker network’ called the Union of Democratic Control, despite their criticism of the United Kingdom's line of action during the war. In the course of the conflict, Salvemini kept in close contact with a specific group of ‘troublemakers’ around Robert Seton-Watson's journal The New Europe. Salvemini championed The New Europe's fight for subject nationalities in the Habsburg Empire, though he criticised their support of Yugoslavian claims to Istria, Trieste and Venezia Giulia. This essay will focus on the complex relationship between Salvemini and these British ‘troublemakers’ through the former's writings and correspondence.