Carnaro: A Test Run for Fascism
How A Small Croatian City Laid the Foundations for Fascism
Our story begins with a man: Gabriele D’Annunzio, an Italian playwright, poet, journalist, author, aristocrat, army officer and war hero. In 1919…D’Annunzio became a dictator.
When World War One began, D’Annunzio, a self-proclaimed ‘Superman’ (having been inspired by Nietzsche’s Ubermensch), started to give speeches in favour of Italy’s entry on the side of the Triple Entente. With the war beginning, he volunteered and achieved further celebrity as a fighter pilot, losing sight in one eye during a flying accident. It was in the First World War that perceptions of D’Annunzio transformed from literary figure to national war hero, as he was also associated with the elite Arditi storm troops of the Italian Army, and took part in “il Volo su Vienna”, translating to Flight over Vienna, where he lead nine planes in a 700-mile round trip to drop propaganda leaflets on Vienna.
The war strengthened D’Annunzio’s ultra-nationalist views, and he campaigned widely for Italy to assume a role alongside her wartime allies as a first-rate European power. During World War One, Italy had made a pact with the Allies, the Treaty of…
