Conclusion

Italy fought the Great War in pursuit of a Greater Italy; to that end, all the resources of nation and empire were mobilised. The end of the First World War saw the demise of the liberal emigrant model in Italy, in which diaspora communities were still colonies, in favour of a more conventional vision based solely on direct territorial control. Tracing the growth of Italian colonial ambitions from 1911 through to 1923 as against the objective decline and weakening of its real empire highlights the extent to which it was an empire of fantasy as much as reality. Nonetheless, though in many ways insubstantial, empire and above all the idea of empire exerted enormous influence on Italian attitudes, policies, and priorities in the era of the First World War, with devastating long-term consequences.