Geopolitica: the ‘geographical and imperial consciousness’

of Fascist Italy

Marco Antonsich

University of Birmingham, UK

Abstract:

Very few contributions have been published in English on the Italian geopolitical

tradition of the interwar years. This is rather surprising, given the fact that, after

Geopolitik, Italian geopolitics was one of the largest and most significant in Europe.

This article aims to fill this void, by offering a detailed and critical investigation into

this intellectual production. Although the article traces the origins of Italian

geopolitics back to the 1920s, its main focus is on Geopolitica (1939-9142), the

journal which, more than any others, embodied the attempts to give Italy its own

geopolitics. Despite its ambitious proposal to become the ‘imperial-geographical

consciousness’ of the Fascist regime, Geopolitica remained largely confined within

the circle of academic geography and ultimately also failed to influence the

development of Italian geographical tradition.

Key words: Geopolitica, Italy, Fascism, geopolitics, geographical tradition

1. Introduction

Despite the fact that the Italian geopolitical production of the 1930s-40s was the

second largest and most significant in Europe after the German Geopolitik,1 it is

surprising that no articles on it have so far been published in any international

academic journals. A possible answer to this absence of studies can perhaps be found

in the linguistic barrier. Even today rather few Italian geographers feel indeed

confident enough to write in English, and even fewer foreign geographers have a

sufficient knowledge of Italian to carry out such a study. Another possible explanation

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relates to the mechanisms of recruitment and advancement in the Italian university

system, where publication in international journals is not stressed, thus pushing Italian

geographers to confine their works within national reviews and periodicals.

Other reasons can certainly be found. The point here is simply to stress the fact

that, until today, Italian geopolitical thought of the Fascist period has been studied by

only a few scholars in the Anglophone and Francophone literature.2 The Italian

literature is larger, of course, but not by as much as might be expected. Here a critical

reflection on the Italian geopolitical tradition started only in the 1980s. Before this

time, anything which contained the word ‘geopolitics’/‘geopolitical’ was considered

taboo, as was the case in the rest of the Western world.3 Therefore, it is not surprising

that even in Italy rather few studies have been published on this topic. Those authors

who have addressed this issue have focused on the question whether Italian

geopolitics was somehow different from German geopolitics. In this regard, two

rather distinct views have emerged. On the one hand, there is the view put forward by

Gambi and others, which maintains that the whole experience of Geopolitica can be

dismissed as a form of Fascist rhetoric, which did not bring new ideas within Italian

geography, being in fact only an imitation of the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik.4 On the

other hand, there is the view which praises the originality and the moderation of

Italian geopoliticians, particularly when compared with their German colleagues.5 A

couple of studies can be located between these two positions.6 In contrast to this are

the works of Anna Vinci, Giulio Sinibaldi, and Marco Antonsich which are less

concerned about the originality of Geopolitica and more oriented to understand the

historical context in which this journal was produced.7

All these studies are well documented and have helped us better to understand the

Italian geopolitical tradition. Yet, overall there has been the tendency to focus only on

some specific traits of this tradition, looking either at its colonialist exposure, its

disposition towards Fascism or its degree of originality. As a result, a rather

fragmented picture has emerged, which has prevented a full assessment of Italian

geopolitical thought as it emerged in the 1920s-1930s and found final expression in

Geopolitica. It is the aim of the present paper to offer a more comprehensive analysis

of the development of this thought in its socio-economic, political, and intellectual

context. My argument is that even though Geopolitica was indeed highly derivative of

the German tradition of political geography/geopolitics, it represented nevertheless

the involvement of many Italian geographers in the Fascist blueprint for a colonial

2

and imperial Italy. Moreover, it represented a genuine attempt to transform geography

into both an applied science and a disciplina di sintesi (synthesizing discipline), open

also to the contributions of other social sciences – an attempt which the Italian

geographical establishment firmly resisted in the name of the autonomy of geography

as an academic discipline.

To support this argument I will examine the development of Italian geopolitics in

relation to Fascism and Italian geography more broadly. I will first delineate the

socio-economic and intellectual context after World War I which motivated Italian

geographers to abandon the naturalist character of their discipline in order to tackle

the new political and economic problems faced by the country. It is in this context that

Italian geopolitics arose as a formal discourse. I will then investigate the specifics of

this geopolitical thought, by offering a critical account of the journal Geopolitica

(1939-42), which represented the most formalized effort to give Italy its own

geopolitics.

2. Geography after World War I

In order to understand the intellectual and theoretical tenets of Italian geopolitics

during Fascism we should look at the Italian politico-economic crisis that ensued at

the end of World War I. Two major themes come here to the fore.

First, as in the case of Germany, Italian geographers were disappointed with the

war’s outcome. Despite being among the victors, Italy did not obtain at Versailles the

lands along the eastern Adriatic coast and the colonial concessions which Britain,

France, and Russia had promised in the Treaty of London (1915). These concessions

were offered as a way to convince Italy to join the war against Germany and the

Habsburg Empire. As a consequence, many Italian geographers echoed the nationalist

slogan of the vittoria mutilata (the mutilated victory), first popularized by the

irredentist poet Gabriele D’Annunzio and later taken up by Fascism.8 In particular,

geographers criticized the fact that the Italian political delegation at Versailles was

accompanied only by two military cartographers, whereas other powers had mobilized

their most famous geographers (Isaiah Bowman for the USA, Emmanuel De

Martonne for France, and the Serbian Jovan Cvijić).9 For them, this was a clear

evidence of the low consideration in which politicians held geographical knowledge.

According to Giuseppe Ricchieri, a highly respected name within the Italian academic

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geography of the early 20th century, the geographical ignorance of Italian politicians

had been “the primary cause of immeasurable damages in our colonial and foreign

policy”.10 The comment, though, sounds somewhat ironic, as it was exactly the close

association between geography and politics which had led, in 1896, to the disastrous

battle of Adwa (Ethiopia), when for the first time in modern history a Western power

was defeated by a non-Western opponent.11 Yet in the context of the territorial

reshuffling associated with the collapse of the Ottoman, Habsburg and German

empires, Adwa became a distant memory and the quest for a geography which could

serve the interests of a greater Italy came to the fore again.

The second theme associated with the outcome of World War I concerns the

dramatic socio-economic crisis which characterized Italy in the aftermath of the war.

Italian geographers felt an urgent need to help their country to recover from this crisis

and, accordingly, aimed to transform geography from a discipline traditionally

concerned with the physical aspects of the Earth into one more sensitive to the

political and economic aspects of societies.12 Since the late 19th century, Italian

geographers, traditionally nurtured on German and Austrian geographical textbooks,

had always maintained the integral character of their discipline. Accordingly,

geography was understood as the study of the Earth in its both physical and human

dimensions.13 This type of geography, however, was merely descriptive, as the

observation of the distribution of physical and human factors was thought to be the

main task of the geographer. Yet, in the interwar years, i.e. in a context of a perceived

increasing economic competition among states, this perspective was deemed no

longer sufficient. In an influential article of 1923, Roberto Almagià, one of the

leading Italian geographers of the interwar period, argued for the necessity to add a

‘dynamic’ dimension to political geography, which he considered too ‘static’ (i.e.

descriptive ) a discipline.14 For Almagià, while a ‘static political geography’

(geografia politica statica) studied the size, location, shape and structure of the state,

a ‘dynamic political geography’ (geografia politica dinamica) had to analyse the state

as “an individual who is born, growths, decays, and dies following influences which,

to a great extent, are also tied to geographical conditions”.15 This ‘dynamism’ clearly

echoed Friedrich Ratzel’s theory of the political state as a biological organism. Yet, in

another publication, Almagià did not refer directly to Ratzel, whom he actually

criticized for his excessive environmental determinism, but, strangely enough, to

Rudolf Kjellén and Karl Haushofer.16

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The term ‘dynamic political geography’ became widely used by other Italian

geographers.17 But why not call it just ‘geopolitics’ (geopolitica)? I would argue that

by using the latter term Italian geographers tried to differentiate themselves from their

prominent German colleagues. In contrast to Geopolitik, Italian political geography

was said to preserve a geographic basis (contained in the ‘static’ part of the

discipline), which was deemed inseparable from the ‘dynamic’ one.18 Ernesto Massi,

one of the two future co-editors of Geopolitica, stressed this point by affirming in

1 D. Atkinson, 'Geopolitical imaginations in modern Italy', in K. Dodds and D. Atkinson (eds.), Geopolitical traditions. A century of geopolitical thought (London: Routledge 2000) p. 95. 2 The only exception is the work of David Atkinson, who in various publications has analyzed the Italian geopolitical visions of Africa during Fascism, covering also the editorial production of the journal Geopolitica (1939-42). D. Atkinson, 'Geopolitics, cartography and geographical knowledge: envisioning Africa from Fascist Italy', in M. Bell, R. A. Butlin and M. Heffernan (eds.), Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1995) pp. 265-297; D. Atkinson, 'Geopolitical imaginations in modern Italy', note 1; D. Atkinson, 'Creating colonial space with geographies and geopolitics', in R. Ben-Ghiat and M. Fuller (eds.), Italian Colonialism (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2005) pp. 15-26. Besides Atkinson, only another publication in English has so far appeared on the same topic. L. Gambi, 'Geography and imperialism in Italy: From the unity of the nation to the 'new' Roman empire', in A. Godlewska and N. Smith (eds.), Geography and Empire (Oxford: Blackwell 1994) pp. 74-91. Recently, Geopolitics has published a new study on the cartography of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in which the author briefly touches on the history of Geopolitica (E. Boria, ‘Geopolitical maps: A sketch history of a neglected trend in cartography’, Geopolitics, 13 (2008) pp. 278-308). In French, the only works published on the subject are D. Lopreno, ‘La géopolitique du fascisme italien: la révue mensuelle <<Geopolitica>>’, Hérodote, 63 (1991) pp. 116-129 and C. Raffestin et al., Géopolitique et Histoire (Lausanne: Payot 1995).3 L. Hepple, 'The revival of geopolitics', Political Geography Quarterly 5 (supplement) (1986) pp. 21-36.4 Gambi (note 2). This view is also shared by C. Caldo, Il territorio come dominio. La geografia italiana durante il Fascismo (Napoli: Loffredo Editore 1982) p. 85.5 G. Merlini, "Geografia politica", in AaVv., "Un sessantennio di ricerca geografica italiana", Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana, Londra, 1964, pp. 415-450. See also M. P. Pagnini, 'La geografia politica', in G. Corna Pellegrini (eds.), Aspetti e problemi della geografia (Settimo Milanese: Marzorati 1987, vol. I) pp. 407-443.6 Somewhat in between the two positions discussed above are the works of M. E. Ferrari, 'La rivista 'Geopolitica' (1939-1942): una dottrina geografica per il Fascismo e l'Impero', Miscellanea di storia delle esplorazioni 10 (1985) pp. 211-291; I. Luzzana Caraci, 'Storia della geografia in Italia dal secolo scorso ad oggi', in G. Corna Pellegrini (eds.), Aspetti e problemi della geografia (Settimo Milanese: Marzorati 1987) pp. 45-95 (part of this work is reproduced in English in I. Luzzana Caraci, 'Modern geography in Italy: From the archives to environmental management', in G. S. Dunbar (ed.), Geography: Discipline, Profession and subject since 1870 (Dordrect: Kluwer Academic Publisher 2001) pp. 121-151).7 A. Vinci, ''Geopolitica' e balcani: l'esperienza di un gruppo di intelletuali in un ateneo di confine', Storia e Società 47 (1990) pp. 87-127; G. Sinibaldi, ‘Alle origini della rivista ‘Geopolitica’ (1939-1942)’, Clio 41/2 (2005) pp. 267-294; M. Antonsich, 'La rivista 'Geopolitica' e la sua influenza sulla politica fascista', Limes. Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica 4 (1994) pp. 269-279; M. Antonsich, 'Géopolitique méditerranéenne de l'Italie fasciste', in H. Coutau-Bégarie (ed.), La pensée géopolitique navale (Paris: Institut de Stratégie Comparée - Economica 1995) pp. 163-190; M. Antonsich, 'Eurafrica. Dottrina Monroe del fascismo', Limes. Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica 3 (1997) pp. 261-266.M. Antonsich, '‘Geopolitica’, ‘Hérodote/Italia (Erodoto)’, ‘Limes’: geopolitiche italiane a confronto', Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana/3 (1997) pp. 411-418.8 On the notion of ‘vittoria mutilata’, see J.H. Burgwyn, The legend of the mutilated victory: Italy, the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1915-1919 (Westport, Connect.: Greenwood Press 1993).

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1931 that in Germany, after Ratzel, there had been the tendency to neglect the

morphologic, hydrographical and climatologic bases of political geography. “This is

a tendency which must be contrasted with energy, if we do not want political

geography to stop being a geography and become confused with politics, sociology or

economics”.19 As the next section will show, the ‘geographic’ character of Italian

geopolitics became an issue of intense debate among Italian geographers, particularly

when Geopolitica started being published. What is worth noting here is that, although

contested, the geographic character of Italian geopolitics remained a key argument

among the supporters of a dynamic political geography to sustain its difference from

German geopolitics. This point was also made after World War II by Giorgio Roletto,

the co-editor of Geopolitica, and later repeated by other commentators.20

Besides stressing its geographic character, Italian geographers also tried to

differentiate their concept of dynamic political geography by not fully espousing the

environmental determinist approach which was said to characterize German

geography. Thus, for instance, in the first Italian book of political geography, Luigi

De Marchi, while reproducing Ratzel’s metaphor of the state as a biological organism,

9 G. Ricchieri, 'La geografia alla Conferenza per la pace a Parigi, nel 1919', Rivista Geografica Italiana/April-August (1920) pp. 101-109; A. R. Toniolo, 'I moderni concetti di geografia sociale e politica', L'Universo 3 (1923) pp. 203-212; G. Graziani, 'I risultati del convegno per la diffusione della cultura geografica in Italia', Rivista Geografica Italiana (Jan.-April 1923) pp. 57-62; C. Errera, Orizzonti odierni della geografia (Bologna: Regia Università degli Studi di Bologna 1928); L. De Marchi, Fondamenti di geografia politica (Padova: Cedam 1929).10 Ricchieri (note 9) p. 109.11 M. Carazzi, La Società Geografica Italiana e l'espansione coloniale in Africa (1867-1900) (Firenze: La Nuova Italia 1972).12 S. Grande, 'Un nuovo orientamento della geografia', L'Universo 8 (1923) pp. 595-606. 13 Luzzana Caraci, 'Storia della geografia’ (note 6).14 R. Almagià, 'La geografia politica. Considerazioni metodiche sul concetto e sul campo di studio di questa scienza', L'Universo 10 (1923) pp. 751-768.15 Almagià (note 14) p. 765.16 R. Almagià, 'Gli indirizzi attuali della geografia e il Decimo Congresso geografico nazionale', Nuova Antologia, july (1927) pp. 246-254. This misinterpretation might be related to the fact that Ratzel’s Politische Geographie was never fully translated into Italian. A partial translation was made in 1899 by Cesare Battisti, but it was never published - today the translation is available in V. Calì, Cesare Battisti geografo. Carteggi 1894-1916 (Trento: Edizione Temi-Museo del Risorgimento 1988). The major ideas of the Politische Geographie were, however, presented in the review made by Olinto Marinelli ('Federico Ratzel e la sua opera geografica', Rivista Geografica Italiana 10 (1903) pp. 272-277). 17 L. De Marchi (note 9); A. R. Toniolo, Per l'insegnamento della geografia politica nelle scuole medie superiori, Atti dell' XI Comgresso geografico italiano (Napoli, 1930) vol. III, pp. 266-269; G. Roletto, Lezioni di geografia politico-economica (Padova: Cedam 1933) p. 11; U. Toschi, Appunti di geografia politica (Bari: Macrì 1940, 2nd edit.) p. 43.18 E. Massi, I nuovi compiti della geografia politica (Rome: Studium 1931) p. 11; Roletto (note 17) p.13; Toschi (note 17) p. 48.19 Massi (note 18) p. 920 G. Roletto, L’evoluzione della scienza geografica. Appunti curati da K.C., academic years 1946-47, 1947-48 (Trieste: University of Trieste, 1948) p. 25. See also Merlini (note 5) and Pagnini (note 5).

6

also added the prefix tendenziale to his laws of development of the state.21 According

to De Marchi, all laws in political geography should indeed be understood as

‘tendencies’ rather than proper ‘laws’, due to the fact that, being common among

states, they necessarily contrast one with the other. Similarly, in his textbook of

politico-economic geography, Almagià, referring to the organic growth of the state,

preferred the term ‘tendencies’ rather than ‘laws’, in order to distance himself from

Ratzel and to signify once again that the environment does not have an absolute

power over society.22 Yet, this difference seemed once again terminological rather

than substantive, given the fact that in Ratzel’s original works environmental

determinism was never presented in absolute terms.23 The goal of Italian political

geographers of the interwar period was clearly to distance themselves from the

overwhelming influence of German geographical thought. Yet, rather than

introducing new concepts or theories, they often limited themselves to re-writing

ideas already put forward by foreign scholars.

In political terms as well, Italian geographers followed the same path as other

national geographic traditions and equally worked to put their discipline at the service

of the state.24 The goal, as the future editors of Geopolitica maintained, was to give

Italy its own geographical knowledge which could be used in the race among states

over space and resources. “[It is the] duty of science to offer to the statesman the

correct, updated, and refined tools which he needs […]. Political geography and

politics stand face to face like theory and practice: one works out the concepts that the

other must apply; one detects the tendencies and indicates the road which the other

should follow”.25

Given these premises, it is not surprising that when Fascism arose, it attracted the

sympathies of an overwhelming majority of Italian geographers.26 Its rhetoric about

the injustice of the Versailles settlement and its project for a greater Italy resonated

with their nationalist feelings. Fascism and geography established a consensual and

21 De Marchi (note 9) p. 11.22 R. Almagià, Elementi di geografia politico-economica (Milan: Giuffré 1936) p. 202.23 M. Bassin, 'Friedrich Ratzel, 1844-1904', in T. W. Freeman (ed.), Geographers Biobibliographical Studies (London: Mansell Publishing Limited 1987) p. 126.24 D. Hooson (ed.), Geography and national identity (Oxford: Blackwell 1994); A. Godlewska and N. Smith (eds.), Geography and empire (Oxford: Blackwell 1994).25 G. Roletto and E. Massi, Lineamenti di geografia politica (Trieste: Università degli Studi di Trieste 1931) p. 26.26 Caldo (note 4); L. Gambi, Una geografia per la storia (Torino: Einaudi 1973); Luzzana Caraci, 'Storia della geografia’ (note 6).

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reciprocally supportive relationship. In 1924, just two years after coming to power,

Mussolini paid a symbolic visit to the Italian Geographical Society, which throughout

the interwar years remained faithful to the ideology and the directives of the regime.27

Fascist ideas were similarly espoused by another important geographical institution,

the Touring Club Italiano, created in 1894 in order to familiarise the Italians with the

geography of their country and indirectly creating a sense of national unity.28

The facility by which Fascism managed to penetrate the Italian geographical

community has been explained by the fact that Italian geographers had traditionally

been good servants of the state and, after Fascism came to power, they simply

confused loyalty to the state with loyalty to the regime.29 It comes as no surprise,

therefore, that geographers also willingly accepted the institution, in 1921, of the

Comitato Nazionale per la Geografia (National Geographical Committee), which

served as a way for Fascism to coordinate and control geographical research and

which, particularly under the guidance of Nicola Vacchelli, acted as a propagandistic

tool for the ideology of the regime and its imperial project.30 An additional

confirmation of the close collaboration between Fascism and geographers came in

1926, when the regime’s call for a Giornata Coloniale (Colonial Day) to support

Italy’s colonial ambitions was answered by many leading geographers and other

members of the Italian Geographical Society, who delivered public speeches in some

major Italian towns.31

According to the historian Renzo De Felice, Mussolini believed that culture, in all

its forms, had a political meaning, as its role was to contribute both to the prestige of

Italy and Fascism and to the education of young generations along nationalist lines.32

Geography occupied a privileged position within this plan, for Mussolini—a former

geography school teacher himself—believed along with Napoléon that geography was

an “immutable element which influences the destiny of peoples”.33 It is

understandable, therefore, why in 1925, when the regime decided to produce the most

prestigious encyclopaedic work ever published in Italy, Enciclopedia Italiana, it

offered large space to geographic entries.34 More precisely, as suggested by 27 Caldo (note 4) p. 30 ff.28 Ibid, p. 32. See also S. Pivato, Il Touring Club Italiano (Bologna: Il Mulino 2006).29 Luzzana Caraci, 'Storia della geografia’ (note 6) p. 69.30 Luzzana Caraci, 'Modern geography in Italy’ (note 6) p. 139.31 Caldo (note 4) p. 49ff.; Gambi (note 2) p. 26.32 R. De Felice, Mussolini il Duce. Gli anni del consenso (1929-1936) (Torino: Einaudi 1974) p. 107. 33 B. Mussolini, Opera omnia. A cura di E. e D. Susmel (Firenze: la Fenice 1958) vol. XXVI, p. 190.34 Caldo (note 4) p. 36.

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Costantino Caldo, geography was given the important role to blend together the

variety of encyclopaedic materials in a nationalist vein.35

The majority of geographers fully shared this view, in which culture and politics

were closely tied together. This structural union found expression in the concept of

coscienza geografica (geographical awareness) – a term already introduced at the end

of the 19th century to support the colonial adventure in Africa and which Fascism

embraced once again. The term was defined by Roletto as follows: “[geographical

awareness] is the unique catalyst of action and expansion […], a key element in

patriotic education, a sign of the development of a politico-national consciousness”.36

Geographical knowledge was obviously the necessary ingredient for developing this

consciousness, so an intense debate arose over the limited number of hours dedicated

to the teaching of geography in schools and the inadequacy of programs.37 Despite the

emphasis placed on geographical awareness by Fascist rhetoric, the reality was that

the school reform introduced by Fascism in 1924 downplayed the role of geography

both in middle and high school curricula.38 Moreover, by dividing its teaching

between the literature teacher (human geography) and the teacher in natural sciences

(physical geography), the reform negated the unity of geography, thus weakening its

academic disciplinary status. Despite this contradiction, the consensus of geographers

for Fascism and its nationalist programme did not falter. It is significant that in 1937,

during the 13th Italian Geographical Congress, the alliance between geography and the

regime was confirmed by the Minister of National Education, Giuseppe Bottai, in the

following terms: “geographical knowledge is even more necessary as knowledge is a

form of possession and scientific possession is the essential and best preparation for

any other form of possession. Therefore, a geographical revival is always correlated

with a political revival […]”.39

A few years later, when, under the patronage of the same Bottai, Geopolitica

started its publications, it was clear that the relationship between geography and

Fascism was already one of close collaboration and mutual sympathy. They both

35 Ibid, p. 3736 G. Roletto, La geografia come scienza utilitaria. Discorso inaugurale dell'A.A. 1928-29 (Trieste: Regia Università degli Studi economici e commerciali di Trieste 1929) p. 20.37 M. Antonsich, La coscienza geografico imperiale del regime fascista. ‘Geopolitica’ (1939-1942) , unpublished Master thesis (Milan: Catholic University ‘Sacred Heart’ of Milan, 1991), p. 30ff.38 Almagià (note 14). 39 G. Bottai, Discorso inaugurale al XIII C.G.I. (Friuli: Atti del XIII Congresso Geografico Italiano, 1937) vol. I, p. 29. See also G. Bottai, 'Mète ai geografi', Bollettino della Regia Società Geografica Italiana 1 (1939) pp. 1-3.

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shared the dream of a greater Italy, fuelled particularly by the conquest of Abyssinia

in 1936. From this perspective, Geopolitica did not introduce anything new, but

simply embodied the most conscious and formalized expression of a geography which

wanted to support Italy’s nationalist and imperialist ambitions.

3. Geopolitica

The origin of Geopolitica is rooted in a curious anecdote. In 1937, Ernesto Massi,

the future co-editor of Geopolitica, was barred by the powerful Almagià from

presenting a paper to the 13th Italian Geographical Congress. This skirmish pushed

Massi, eager to create his own space of research, to ask for the support of Father

Agostino Gemelli, the founder and first chancellor of the Catholic University of

Milan, where, in 1936, Massi had been appointed professor of political and economic

geography. The Franciscan friar, an influential figure of the time and open

sympathiser of Fascism,40 wrote a letter of reference to introduce Massi to Bottai. The

Minister of National Education then met with Massi and encouraged him to start a

journal with Giorgio Roletto, Massi’s mentor, by providing the two with a well-

known publishing company, Sperling & Kupfler.41

The anecdote recounted by Massi shows the key role played by Bottai – one of the

most respected intellectual figures of Fascism – who always supported Geopolitica,

by guaranteeing the subscription from numerous schools and by offering also the

possibility of a cumulative subscription with his prominent journal Critica Fascista.42

This allowed Geopolitica, which was printed monthly in about 1,000 copies, to rely

on a stable core of readers - besides those occasional ones who, until April 1941,

could find the journal also at the newsstands.43 Geopolitica was published between

January 1939 and December 1942. Each monthly issue had about 60-70 pages and

40 R. A. Webster, The Cross and the Fasces. Christian Democracy and Fascism in Italy (Standford: Standford University Press 1960) p. 213. See also G. Cosmacini, Gemelli. Il Machiavelli di Dio (Milano: Rizzoli, 1985). 41 Personal interview with Ernesto Massi, Rome 15 November 1991. There are no additional sources, either written or oral, which can confirm the version offered by Massi. Yet, no other geographer, historian or person has so far contradicted this interpretation, which has been already publicised (see M. Antonsich, ‘La rivista 'Geopolitica' e la sua influenza ..’, note 7).

10

was characterised by original research papers, commentaries, brief notes, statistical

tables about Italy’s commercial exchange, and so-called ‘sintesi geopolitiche’, in

other words geopolitical maps which, similarly to the maps published by the

Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, aimed at introducing new elements of dynamism within

traditional cartography (see fig. 1).44

FIG. 1: MARE NOSTRUM; THE ITALIAN LIVING SPACE IN THE

MEDITERRANEAN REGION (SOURCE: GEOPOLITICA 3, 1939, P. 161)

Although the main editorial office was located in Trieste, where Roletto and his

assistants were based, two additional offices were opened in Milan and Rome, under

42 M. Antonsich, 'La rivista 'Geopolitica'’ (note 7) p. 272, note 24. It is significant that the first issue of Geopolitica opened with an inaugural note by Bottai, whose name always figured on the cover of the journal as one of the founders. On the importance of Bottai in supporting Italian geography more broadly see Atkinson, 'Geopolitics, cartography and geographical knowledge’ (note 2) p. 274ff.43 The exact number of copies is debated, as other sources talk of 2,000 (L. Romagnoli, ‘La rivista Geopolitica (1939-1942) di Giorgio Roletto ed Ernesto Massi’, in Atti del XXVIII Congresso Geografico Italiano (2003) p. 3329). In March 1941, Massi joined the army and was then deployed on the Russian front, leaving Geopolitica in the hands of Roletto and Morichini. It is difficult to say, though, whether the problems with the distribution of the journal originated from his departure or from the general difficult conditions in which Italy was gradually plunged after it entered the world conflict in June 1940.44 For a visual analysis of these maps see Atkinson, 'Geopolitics, cartography and geographical knowledge’ (note 2) and E. Boria, Cartografia e potere (Torino, UTET, 2007).

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the guidance respectively of Massi and Ugo Morichini, this latter being the head

officer of the information and education sector of the Confederazione fascista dei

commercianti (the group representing the interests of the merchants within the Fascist

corporativist system).

Despite the large support among geographers for Fascism and its expansionist

ambition, the appearance of Geopolitica, whose editorial board was composed by

some well-known Italian geographers (e.g. Umberto Toschi, Roberto Biasutti,

Goffredo Jaja), encountered a clear resistance from the institutional sectors of Italian

geography. It is, for example, significant that the first issue of the journal was not

reviewed by the Bullettin of the Italian Geographical Society, which later also

continued to ignore Geopolitica, generating the resentment of its editors.45 This

silence of the major organ of Italian academic geography can be explained in terms of

the debate about the scientific status of geopolitics. Back in 1930, Elio Migliorini, the

director of the Bulletin, had already criticized the works of Haushofer for being

beyond the domain of political geography, i.e. beyond the scientific bases on which,

according to Migliorini, political geography had to be built.46 Ten years later, in the

entry ‘geopolitica’ written for the Dictionary of Politics of the National Fascist Party,

Migliorini reiterated the same critique towards Haushofer and his Geopolitik,

doubting, more generally, the scientific character of any geopolitics, which was

accused of moving away from the main tenets of political geography.47 Migliorini’s

critique can be explained if we consider the context in which it was made. In the

1930s, Italian geography was indeed a discipline whose scientific and academic status

was still to be fully acknowledged. As observed by a geographer of that time,

geopolitics, while possessing the merit of bringing geography back to the study of real

problems, at the same time endangered the content and method of geography as it had

developed up to that point in Italy.48 It was not Geopolitica’s nationalist stance or its

putting itself at the service of the expansionist project of the regime which bothered

these representatives of the geographical establishment. Rather, it was the desire of

Geopolitica to radically transform Italian geography, which it accused of being

‘outdated’ and ‘suffocating’.49

This tension between the radical program put forward by Geopolitica and the

conservative concerns expressed by the institutional circles was also reflected in the

debate about the definition of geopolitics. Given the confusion around the term that

was characteristic for Germany and, at a later date, the United States,50 a group of

12

important Italian geographers gathered in 1941 in Rome under the patronage of the

National Geographical Committee in order to establish a common definition. This

group, formed, among others, by Giorgio Roletto, Antonio Renato Toniolo, Umberto

Toschi and Carmelo Colamonico, reached the following conclusion: “geopolitics is

the doctrine which studies political phenomena with regard to their spatial distribution

and environmental relations, causes, and development. Geopolitics, therefore,

identifies itself with political geography”.51 By this definition, the eminent group of

geographers aimed to restate the ‘geographical’ character of geopolitics.

Yet, paradoxically, this definition upset both those geopoliticians who, like Massi,

thought that geopolitics ‘synthesized’ all the different branches of geography and thus

was more than political geography, as well as the representatives of institutional

geography. The director of the Bulletin commented indeed in negative terms on that

definition: “it is not appropriate to identify political geography (which is a science and

as such has a universal character, valid for all countries) with geopolitics, which is

political and has exclusively national goals…”.52

In its first issue, Geopolitica stated clearly that it aimed to become the

“geographical, political and imperial coscienza (awareness)” of the Fascist state.53

Consequently, the editors advocated the development of an ‘autarchic’ geopolitical

thought, i.e. one which would be exclusively rooted in the Italian intellectual tradition,

45 Anonymous editorial, Geopolitica 8-9 (1940) p. 373.46 E. Migliorini, 'Recensioni e annunzi bibliografici', Bollettino della Regia Società Geografica Italiana 6 (1930) p. 622.47 E. Migliorini, ‘Geopolitica’ in Dizionario di Politica del Partito Nazionale Fascista (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1940) vol. II, p. 250.48 A. R. Toniolo, 'Crisi della geografia', Scientia 2-3 (1943) pp. 52. 49 Editorial note, ‘Precisazioni’, Geopolitica 11 (1941) p. 537.50 M. Antonsich, 'Dalla Geopolitik alla Geopolitics: conversione ideologica di una dottrina di potenza', Quaderni del Dottorato di Ricerca in Geografia Politica 4 (1994) pp. 19-53 (French translation in Stratégique, 1995, n. 4, pp. 53-87). See also G. Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press 1996), chapter 4.51 Anonymous note in Geopolitica, 12 (1941) p. 567.52 E. Migliorini, 'Una nuova definizione di 'geopolitica'', Bollettino della Regia Società Geografica Italiana (April 1942) p. 166.

13

independent of other geopolitical schools.54 Given this position, there is some irony in

the fact that immediately following this editorial Geopolitica published the greetings

of Karl Haushofer, the founding father of German Geopolitik.55 As Vinci has

demonstrated, Geopolitica always showed a confused sentiment of admiration,

subordination and competition towards its German counterpart – the same attitude

that, according to De Felice, the Fascist regime actually showed towards its German

ally.56 On the one hand, in fact, the two geopolitical schools clearly had common

points. Like Geopolitik, Geopolitica attempted to investigate the relations and causes

of geographical facts, beyond the geographical tradition of descriptive studies.57

Massi, in particular, who, contrary to Roletto, knew German and had friendly personal

relations with Haushofer, was fascinated by the explanatory power of environmental

determinism and continually oscillated between this deterministic approach and one in

which the role of human will predominated over the influence of the soil.58

At the same time, however, Geopolitica also sought to carve out its own

autonomous space – an attempt, however, carried out in a rather inconsistent way.

Italian geopolitics was indeed presented as the middle ground between German

determinism and French possibilism or, better, ‘the balance’ among different

paradigms (environmental determinism, possibilism and geographical humanism).59

Yet, in pursuing their ‘autarchic’ ideal, Roletto and Massi refused to acknowledge

the influence of any foreign tradition, praising instead the ideas of those whom they

saw as ‘precursors’ of the Italian geopolitical thought: Niccolò Machiavelli, Giuseppe

53 Anonymous note, “I direttori di ‘Geopolitica’ ricevuti dal Duce’, Geopolitica 2 (1939) p. 75. In Italian, the term coscienza can be translated both as ‘awareness’ and ‘conscience’. It is interesting to observe that Karl Haushofer used a similar terminology to define geopolitics: “das geographische Gewissen des Staats” (M. Bassin, ‘Blood or soil? The Völkisch movement, the Nazis, and the legacy of Geopolitik’. In F.-J. Brüggemeier et al. (eds.), How green were the Nazis? Nature, environment, and nation in the Third Reich (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), p.p. 218). Gewissen clearly stands here for ‘conscience’, i.e. the source of moral or ethical judgment. Given Massi’s acquaintance with and esteem of Haushofer and his Geopolitik, we could assume that coscienza should equally be translated with ‘conscience’. Yet, this translation would sound odd in Italian, as the terms ‘coscienza geografica’, ‘coscienza imperiale’, or ‘coscienza politica’ would be generally understood as meaning ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’, not ‘conscience’.54 G. Roletto and E. Massi, 'Per una geopolitica italiana', Geopolitica 1 (1939) p. 6.55 K. Haushofer, 'Der italienischen 'Geopolitik' als Dank und Gruss!' Geopolitica 1 (1939) pp. 12-15. Wisely enough, however, Haushofer carefully avoided any reference to his Geopolitik, praising instead the practical geopolitics of ancient Romans.56 Vinci (note 7) p. 122. R. De Felice, Mussolini il Duce. Lo stato totalitario, 1936-1940 (Torino: Einaudi 1981).57 F. Farinelli, I segni del mondo (Firenze: La Nuova Italia 1992), p. 235ff. 58 Antonsich (note 37) pp. 100-111.59 Roletto and Massi (note 54) p. 10. Geographical humanism was the approach attributed to the French geographers Albert Demangeon and André Siegfried.

14

Mazzini, Giacomo Durando, Carlo Cattaneo, and Cesare Correnti.60. As a further way

to stress this ‘autarchy’, Geopolitica called upon the glorious past of the Roman

Empire, eulogized as a great example of geopolitica in atto (geopolitical praxis). By

putting forward this form of practical geopolitics, along with a tradition of formal

geopolitics embodied by the afore mentioned ‘precursors’, Geopolitica clearly was

aiming to supply with the former what was missing in the latter.61 Interestingly

enough, this ‘Roman-Mediterranean’ geopolitical praxis was portrayed against the

‘Nordic’ geopolitical praxis of the ‘barbarian’ tribes.62 While the latter was depicted

as amassing as many people and as much territory as possible without really

organizing them, the former was praised for reaching an optimum equilibrium

between the different territories which formed the Roman Empire.63 Italian Fascism,

obviously, was presented to be the inheritor of this superior geopolitical praxis – a

representation which obviously set Italy apart from and even ‘above’ its German

‘ally’.

A similar factor of differentiation from Germany was also found in the debate

over race. Even in this case, the desire for autonomy and independence led

Geopolitica to affirm the existence of an autochthon ‘Roman race’, described as the

product of the mix between the dolichocephals (the Neanderthal Man) and the

brachycephals (the Aryans).64 Apart from this biological reference, the notion of

Roman race was not however constructed, like in Germany, on notions of ‘blood’ and

‘purity’, rather on psychological and spiritual characteristics: no unity in blood, but

unity in a common imperial and civilising spirit.65 This ‘spiritual’ definition was

60 Roletto e Massi (note 54) p. 11; Anonymous editorial, ‘Echi e precisazioni’, Geopolitica, 12 (1940) p. 586. On the precursors see: C. Schiffrer, 'Geografia e politica nel pensiero di Carlo Cattaneo', Geopolitica 11 (1939) pp. 578-587; C. Premus, 'Studi geopolitici sul libro 'Della nazionalità italiana' di Giacomo Durando', Geopolitica 12 (1939) pp. 619-622; A. Scocchi, 'L'Italia e i Balcani nel pensiero di Mazzini', Geopolitica 11 (1940) pp. 486-490; A. Bosisio, 'Spunti di geografia politica nel pensiero di Niccolò Machiavelli', Geopolitica 6-7 (1941) pp. 351-357.61 It is interesting to note that this distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘practical’ geopolitics would have been theorized, some fifty years later, by Ò Tuathail and Agnew (‘Geopolitics and Discourse - Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American Foreign-Policy’, Political Geography 11/2 (1992) pp. 190-204).62 U. Morichini, 'Le vicende alterne della concezione geopolitica italiana', Geopolitica 1 (1939) pp. 36-41.63 Ibid, p. 3864 R. Pozzi, 'Autoctonia originaria della razza italiana', Geopolitica 8-9 (1941) pp. 386-391; R. Pozzi, 'Autoctonia originaria della razza italiana', Geopolitica 10 (1941) pp. 463-471; R. Pozzi, 'Nostri problemi della razza', Geopolitica 5 (1941) pp. 292-293. Also the second version of the Manifesto della Razza (Manifest of Race) issued on 25 April 1942 propagated the idea of the Italian race as a product of the mix between Mediterranean and Aryan elements.65 R. Sertoli Salis, ‘Razza e nazionalità nella pace d'Europa’, Geopolitica 1 (1941) pp. 12-19. On this specific difference between the German and Italian racial doctrine see also De Felice (note 56) p. 250.

15

obviously in relation to the project of an Italian living space in the Mediterranean

region which, contrary to the German Lebensraum, could not have been based on

common biological and linguistic ties.

4 Italy’s spazio vitale

Since the beginning of his political career, Mussolini stated that the Mediterranean

was the space where Italy could regain the greatness of ancient Rome. “Our destiny is

on the sea […]; because of her geographical shape and location, [Italy] must go back

to the sea, must find in her surrounding element the ways of her fortune” he wrote in

1919 in Il Popolo d’Italia.66 “If for others the Mediterranean is a road, for us it is our

life”, he added in 1936, when the confrontation with Britain, the new delenda

Carthago, had become the leitmotif of his foreign policy.67 The Adriatic space, and

more precisely the Balkans, also figured as an aspect of this greater Mediterranean

strategy. In April 1939, Italy invaded Albania and the following year launched its

disastrous attack on Greece, a traditional ally of Britain and a key state in the control

of the eastern Mediterranean.

To this picture of Italy’s grand strategy Geopolitica added few new elements.

From the first issue, its editors affirmed that the areas of the Mediterranean and the

Balkans were indeed Italy’s spazio vitale (living space). This term, borrowed from

Ratzel and German Geopolitik, was frequently used by the Italian geopoliticians, but

not in the same demographical and racial connotation as in Germany.68 An analysis of

the articles published in Geopolitica reveals indeed that the Italians attributed mainly

an economic character to this concept, which was at times confused with other notions

such as grande spazio (great space – the German Grossraum), comunità imperiale

(imperial community), or spazio economico autarchico (autarkic economic space).69

66 B. Mussolini, ‘Italia marinara, avanti!’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 18 December 1919, p. 1.67 B. Mussolini (note 33) vol. XXVIII, p. 71. See also N. Quilici, 'Mussolini e il Mediterraneo', Il Mediterraneo 1 (1938) pp. 9-13. Delenda Carthago (‘Carthage must be destroyed’) refers to the Fascist rhetoric of depicting the struggle against Britain in the Mediterranean in terms of the struggle between Rome and Carthage during the Punic Wars for the control of the Mediterranean.68 On the notion of Lebensraum see, among others, G. Corni, Il sogno del 'grande spazio'. Le politiche di occupazione nell'Europa nazista (Roma-Bari: Laterza 2005).69 Due to space constraints, it is impossible to discuss in detail all these different notions. It suffices here to say that they all shared the same idea of a great space, economically self-sufficient, led by Italy. For a further discussion see: Antonsich (note 37).

16

Since the end of World War I, Italy felt squeezed by the economic blocs

constructed around France and Britain.70 This economic pressure obviously

accentuated when in 1936 the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy

as punishment for its aggression on Abyssinia. Facing this ‘closure of spaces’, Italy

aimed to build its own exclusive economic bloc, which could supply Italy with the

highly needed raw materials. In this sense, the Italian ‘living space’ was conceived

first and foremost as an autarchic space, but one which extended far beyond the

neighbouring regions to include also African colonies, thus becoming a greater or

imperial space.

The emphasis on the economic, rather than on the political dimension of the

Italian living space did not please everybody at Geopolitica, which indeed published

an anonymous note stressing that this interpretation was not in line with Ratzel’s

original thought and, moreover, it obfuscated the principle that any living space had to

be accompanied by the predominance of a single country.71 This was an important

point, as it raised the question of the nature of the relations among the future member

countries of Italy’s living space. On this point, Geopolitica tried to show that despite

the fact that the great economic space that Italy wanted to build was in its own vital

interests, it could actually also meet the interests of the other member countries.72

The fact that an economic rather than a demographic or racial dimension was

privileged in the construction of the Italian living space could be explained also in

relation to the fragmented ethnic composition of the Mediterranean region, as aptly

described by Renzo Sertoli Salis: “whereas the German living space relies, in areas of

its influence, on cognate races, which can therefore help define it, the Italian living

space cannot rely on a similar criterion of racial kinship; it must therefore be

integrated, due to the intense ethnic mixture of the Mediterranean zone, with other

economic, military and strategic elements.”73

Geopolitica featured also articles which discussed the notion of ‘European living

space’.74 Both the Italian and the German regimes supported this idea, often

propagated under the name of ‘new European order’, which, according to the German

70 E. Massi, 'L'ora della geopolitica', Critica Fascista, 15 August 1940, pp. 325-328. See also L. Chersi, 'Considerazioni geopolitiche sul nuovo ordine internazionale', Geopolitica 4 (1941) pp. 206-210.71 Anonymous editorial, Geopolitica 1 (1941) p. 31.72 Chersi (note 70) p. 208. See also J. Mazzei, 'Il problema degli 'spazi vitali'', Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali 3 (1941) pp. 334.73 R. Sertoli Salis, 'Razza e nazionalità nella pace d'Europa', Geopolitica 1 (1941) p. 17.74 Antonsich (note 37) pp. 131-133.

17

Minister of Economics, Walther Funk, and his Italian colleague, Raffaello Riccardi,

should have led to the creation of a European customs and monetary union.75 Yet, the

boundaries of this space remained always a matter of debate and, in this regard, it is

interesting to note the attempt of Geopolitica to push them beyond Europe, to include

the whole Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and Africa.76 The rationale behind

this initiative was clearly to shift the centre of gravity of this European space

southwards, i.e. away from Germany and closer to Italy. However, by doing so, the

Italian geopoliticians were mixing, once again, the notions of living space, great space

and pan-region (see below), casting a shadow of ambiguity and approximation on

their self-declared endeavour to bring analytical and scientific clarity in the study of

international problems.77

Mare Nostrum

As mentioned above, Italy’s living space was located in the Mediterranean and in

the Balkan regions. Due to lack of space, I will not discuss this latter region, where

the competition between Italy and Germany over their spheres of influence clearly

surfaced in the pages of Geopolitica.78 The Mediterranean, however, attracted much

more attention, among both the Fascist regime and the Italian geopoliticians.

In order to legitimize Italy’s right to rule over the Mediterranean, Geopolitica

adopted the same rhetoric about ancient Rome and the mare nostrum which until then

the regime had already widely deployed. Yet, it also introduced a new focus on the

geographical features of this space to further Italy’s hegemonic aspirations. The

central location of Italy was presented as the key factor which justified Italy’s leading

role in the Mediterranean. According to Roletto, “in order to become united, the

Mediterranean has always revolved around a centralizing pivot, whose role has been

more effective when it matched the geographical centre of the basin”.79 It was this

central geographical position which had given Italy in the past – and would give her

75 A. Fossati, 'La ricostruzione economica dell'Europa', Commercio 9 (1940) p. 5.76 Anonymous editorial, ‘Panorami’, Geopolitica 10 (1940) p. 400.77 Roletto and Massi (note 54) p. 8, 11.78 Antonsich ‘La rivista 'Geopolitica' ...’ (note 7) 276-277.

18

again in the future - the capacity to ‘harmoniously’ balance the East and the West of

the Mediterranean.80

The Mediterranean’s geographical features were also scripted so as to support the

idea of ‘unity’ of this space. Drawing on a sort of legge tendenziale, Geopolitica

emphasized that “if all internal seas serve the purpose of joining rather than dividing

peoples, no other Mediterranean sea, more than our Roman one, forms an absolute

physical, biological, economic and human unity”.81 Interestingly enough, however,

this view was rejected by Massi – another of the many contradictions and

inconsistencies which characterised Geopolitica. Massi argued that the unity of the

Mediterranean region was not based on geographical features, but on the volontà

dell’uomo (human will).82 This explained why, for him, this unity was geopolitical,

rather than merely geographical. This point is important, as it underlines the emphasis

that Italian geopolitics always put on human will. From this perspective, nature was

presenting only possibilities and limits to human action, without entirely determining

its course.83 Although at first sight this view might simply appear to echo French

possibilism, it seems preferable to interpret it as another sign of the adherence of

geographers to Fascist ideology. Fascism, in fact, heralded the capacity of Man to

overcome any natural obstacles – what it was called volontarismo (voluntarism).84

This idea, which was best rendered by one of Mussolini’s slogans (‘it is the spirit

which tames and bends the material’), was largely echoed by Italian geographers and

helped shape the specific character of an Italian geopolitics which had self-proclaimed

itself as the geographical doctrine of Fascism.85 “[We] intend – wrote Geopolitica in

1940 - to restore the importance of man in geographical studies, by considering also

his spiritual, psychical and racial aspects […], we intend to emphasize political will as

a determining factor in the anthropogeographical field”.86 It was exactly this superior

79 G. Roletto, 'Geopolitica mediterranea', in Autori vari (eds.), Problemi economici e demografici del Mediterraneo (Milano: Giuffré 1942) pp. 104.80 A. R. Toniolo, 'L'unità economica e politica del Mediterraneo', Geopolitica 3 (1941) pp. 165-169.81 Editors’ introduction to Toniolo (note 82) p. 165.82 E. Massi, 'Problemi mediterranei', Geopolitica 12 (1940) pp. 531-540.83 For a similar discussion in the German geographical and geopolitical tradition, see M. Bassin, ‘Politics from nature’. In J. Agnew et al. (eds.), A Companion to political geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 13-29.84 Caldo (note 4) p. 18485 G. Jaja, 'È lo spirito che doma e piega la materia', Bollettino della Regia Società Geografica Italiana 2 (1939) pp. 124-142.86 Anonymous editorial, ‘Perché siamo dei mistici?’, Geopolitica 3 (1940) p. 120.

19

will of the Italian race that, in addition to geographical conditions, was also used to

justify Italy’s leading role in the Mediterranean.

It is interesting to observe that within the Mediterranean space the German ally

was not welcomed. The goal was to create, according to Mussolini’s dictum (‘the

Mediterranean to the Mediterranean peoples’), an autonomous, independent and, at

least in the early 1940, neutral bloc.87 In the words of Paolo D’Agostino Orsini,

“German, Slavic and Nordic peoples can reunite as they wish; they are and must stay

out of the Mediterranean. To be sure, the Mediterranean peoples do not intend to

interfere with their affairs and enter into their spheres of action and ‘living spaces’.

The Mediterranean is the ‘living space’ of Imperial Italy”.88 In order to realize this

‘new Mediterranean order’, Geopolitica supported Mussolini’s policy of friendship

with Mediterranean Muslim countries and equally condemned the presence of Britain

in the Mediterranean which, by controlling Suez and Gibraltar, “imprisoned Italy in

its sea”.89 In this regard, it is important to note that Italian maritime strategists held a

completely opposite view. Aware of the inadequate maritime power of Italy, they

supported an entente with Britain, which was viewed as the only realistic possibility

for Italy’s Mediterranean ambitions, and treated instead France as the new delenda

Carthago.90

The Mediterranean was not only thought as a living space per se, but it also served

in the construction of a more ambitious geopolitical project, Eurafrica. This term was

first introduced in 1929 by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi as part of his Pan-European

idea and later incorporated by Karl Haushofer in his theory of pan-regions.91 In Italy,

the term first appeared in 1930 in an article by Paolo D’Agostino Orsini, a colonial

geographer and future contributor to Geopolitica.92 Even if the article did not refer to

Coudenhove-Kalergi, it presented the same geopolitical project of an autarchic space

87 R. Sertoli Salis, 'La guerra europea, il Mediterraneo orientale e l'Italia', Geopolitica 10 (1939) pp. 522-526.88 P. D'Agostino Orsini, 'Le direttrici geopolitiche dell'espansione italiana alla Mostra delle Terre d'Oltremare', Rassegna Sociale dell'Africa Italiana 5-6 (1940) p. 382.89 De Felice (note 56) pp. 321-325. On Mussolini’s policy towards the Muslims see R. De Felice, Il Fascismo e l'Oriente. Arabi, ebrei e indiani nella politica di Mussolini (Bologna: Il Mulino 1988).90 France had always been considered as the traditional rival by Italian naval strategists. See Antonsich, ‘Géopolitique méditerranéenne…’ (note 7).

20

between Europe and Africa.93 In his original vision, this space was essentially

conceived in economic and demographic terms, i.e. as a source of raw materials, a

new market and an area of settlement for Europeans. No political or cultural

considerations applied, contrary to Haushofer’s Panideen theory. The Mediterranean

was said to be the ‘junction zone’ (zona di saldatura) between the two continents,

which would have been connected not via Suez, in the hands of Britain (which was

explicitly excluded from Eurafrica), but by a Transafrican railway, from Tripoli

(Libya) to Cape Town (see fig. 2).94

INSERT FIG. 2 THE ITALIAN TRANSAFRICAN RAILWAY LINE (SOURCE:

GEOPOLITICA 12, 1941, P. 571)

91 T. Botz-Bornstein, 'European transfigurations - Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy revisited', The European Le gacy 12/5 (2007) pp. 565-575; J. O' Loughlin and H. van der Wusten, 'Political geography of panregions', The Geographical Review 80/1 (1990) pp. 1-20.92 Corriere Africano, 1 December 1930. See also P. D'Agostino Orsini, Eurafrica. L'Europa per l'Africa, l'Africa per l'Europa (Roma: Cremonese 1934).93 Rather than the ideas of Coudenhove-Kalergi, D’Agostino Orsini engaged the Eurafrican project of the French Guernier, which he saw as the expression of the imperial interests of France and Britain. See E.L. Guernier, L'Afrique, Champ d'expansion de l'Europe (Paris: Armand Colin, 1933).94 A. Biondo, 'La Transafricana italiana', Geopolitica 12 (1941) pp. 569-575.

21

The central position of Italy in the Mediterranean was once again used to give

Italy a sort of natural primacy over Eurafrican space, in clear competition with a

similar claim put forward by the Germans.

The term Eurafrica circulated widely in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s and became

part of the rhetoric of the regime as well. Interestingly enough, it did not disappear in

the post-war years, but it remained in use until the 1960s, mainly confined, though, to

military circles, as a project for a ‘third way’ between the two opposite imperialisms

of the USA and USSR.95

95 Antonsich, ‘Eurafrica...’ (note 7). It is interesting to note that today the term ‘Eurafrica’ has been put forward again by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his project for a partnership between Europe and Africa (D. Flynn, ‘Sarkozy proposes ‘Eurafrica’ partnership on tour’, Reuters-Africa, 27 July 2007, http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN723359.html, accessed on Jan.11, 2008.

22

5 Conclusion

Despite presenting itself as the doctrine of the Fascist state, Italian geopolitics

hardly exercised any influence on the choices of foreign policy of the regime – a fate

not very dissimilar from its German counterpart.96 Throughout the four years of

publication of Geopolitica, its editors met only once with Mussolini. As Massi later

acknowledged, “our relationship with the regime was very difficult. It is true that we

influenced the political class with some articles, and I was personally in contact with

Lessona, the Ministry for Italian Africa. But the regime was not really looking to us

to make its choices”.97 After all, Geopolitica, rather than tracing new foreign policy

directions, limited itself to confirming the choices already made by the regime. Rather

than opening new geopolitical scenarios, its role was to substantiate and legitimate

these choices through studies which, despite their analytical and normative claims,

often ended up being largely descriptive.

Contrary to what previous commentators have observed, Geopolitica does not

stand as an isolated journalistic experience.98 Instead, it should be considered as the

final stage of an intellectual movement which originated in the aftermath of World

War I and which sought to transform the traditional, ‘static’ geography practiced until

then in Italy into a new, applied, and ‘dynamic’ discipline, at the service of the

country’s national interests. In their language, Italian geopoliticians definitely adopted

the same emphatic rhetoric deployed by the Fascist regime – a trait which later

commentators used to justify the purge of Geopolitica from the Italian geographical

tradition.99 Yet, this interpretation is inadequate, since Italian geopolitics actually

reproduced the late 19th century Italian geographical tradition of a discipline at the

service of the country’s colonial ambitions. In this sense, Italian geopolitics can be

seen as a confirmation of Ó Tuathail’s thesis on the structural link between the

emergence of contemporary geopolitics and the late 19th century rivalry among

European powers for the acquisitions of new lands in Africa.100

96 H. Heske, 'Karl Haushofer: His role in German geopolitics and in Nazi politics', Political Geography Quarterly 6/2 (1987) pp. 135-144.97 Personal interview with Ernesto Massi, Rome, 15 Nov. 1991.98 Vinci (note 7).99 Gambi (note 26).100 Ò Tuathail (note 50) p. 21 ff.

23

This close association between geography and politics re-emerged even more

explicitly after World War I, when a new nationalist wave spread among many Italian

geographers and prompted them to support Fascism’s imperial dreams. In this

context, as happened in other nations (e.g. Germany and the USA), the line separating

geography and geopolitics (i.e. the line between an objective, impartial savoir and a

politically driven savoir) became blurred.101 Italian geographers pushed for the

development of an autonomous Italian geopolitics, not dissimilarly from their

American colleagues who, in the early 1940s, invoked the need to study that ‘lurid

scientific system invented by a Briton and used by the Germans’.102 Not surprisingly,

some famous Italian geographers (e.g. Toschi, Biasutti, and Jaja) joined Geopolitica.

Yet Elio Migliorini, the president of the Società Geografica Italiana (the institutional

watchdog of Italian academic geography) fiercely resisted accepting geopolitics as a

form of geography. This fact is indirectly revealing of the innovative and

transformative force associated with Geopolitica and Italian geopolitics more

generally. In fact, they aimed at re-writing geography into a discipline that was not

only ‘active’ (i.e. applied), but also open to other social sciences. This was perceived

as endangering the status of geography as an autonomous academic discipline. Rather

ironically, however, it is exactly this inter-disciplinary openness that, since at least the

‘cultural turn’ of the 1980s, has become a dominant approach in human geography.103

101 In Germany, the distinction between (political) geography and geopolitics along the paradigm ‘science’ vs. ‘ideology’ was drawn by Carl Troll in an article originally published in Erdkunde (1947) and then translated in English (C. Troll, ‘Geographic science in Germany during the period 1933-1945. A critique and justification’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 39 (1949) pp. 99-137. Yet, this distinction does not hold against a detailed historical account, as shown by M. Fahlbusch, M. Roessler, and D. Siegrist, ‘Conservatism, ideology and geography in Germany 1920-1950’, Political Geography Quarterly 8/4 (1989) pp. 353-367; H. Heske, 'German geographical research in the Nazi period: a content analysis of the major geography journals, 1925-1945', Political Geography Quarterly 5/3 (1986) pp. 267-281; K. Kost, ‘The conception of politics in political geography and geopolitics in Germany until 1945’, Political Geography Quarterly 8/4 (1989), pp. 369-385. A similar distinction was raised in the USA by Isaiah Bowman, ‘Geography vs. geopolitics’, The Geographical Review 32/4 (1942) 646-658. For a critical reading see G. Ó Tuathail, 'The critical reading/writing of geopolitics: Re-reading/writing Wittfogel, Bowman and Lacoste', Progress in Human Geography 18/3 (1994) pp. 313-332.102 J.J.Jr. Thorndike, ‘Geopolitics: the lurid career of a scientific system which a Briton invented, the German used and Americans need to study’, Life 13/25 (1942) pp. 106-115. See also Antonsich, ‘Dalla Geopolitik alla Geopolitics: conversione ideologica di una dottrina di potenza’, Quaderni del Dottorato di Ricerca in Geografia Politica. Universita’ di Trieste, 4 (1994), pp. 19-53 (French translation: ‘De la Geopolitik à la Geopolitics’, Stratégique, 1995, n. 4, pp. 53-87).103 An important point to note in this regard, though, is the fact that, while in the 1930s-40s the idea of geopolitics as a disciplina di sintesi also relied on the contributions of physical geography, this latter input has almost disappeared from the arrays of disciplines which inform the present ways of doing human geography.

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As happened in Germany, geopolitics in Italy was banned from the universities

after World War II with the excuse that it had been too close to political power. Only

in the 1990s, following the great geopolitical revival that a decade earlier had started

in the Anglo-Saxon world, geopolitics has surfaced again also in Italy. This

resurgence has been led in particular by the journal Limes, Rivista Italiana di

Geopolitica, a widely read bi-monthly which presents itself as a democratic forum for

debating Italy’s national interests.104 Limes, however, is not the creation of

geographers, who are barely represented in the editorial board, but journalists, foreign

policy experts, and other academicians. Any interest in a theoretical debate on

geopolitics is absent and, apart from adopting a similar ‘national’ perspective on

world politics and having another Bottai among its founders, Limes has little in

common with Geopolitica.105

Among geographers, geopolitics has also made a comeback, which has taken three

main forms. First, there has been a new interest in the history of geopolitics and its

theoretical tenets, explored, in limited instances, also from a critical geopolitical

perspective.106 Second, the label geopolitics has been assigned to a rather significant

number of studies and initiatives in land use planning.107 The geopolitical character of

this production, however, is not always clear, as it often skips the question of the

political and focuses instead on the technicalities of the socio-economic organization

of space. Third, a new series of geopolitical textbooks have been published, which,

despite their traditional approach, have had the merit of bringing political geography

and geopolitics back in the university classrooms.108 Overall, however, both these

latter disciplines remain rather overlooked within Italian geography today – a

condition, in this case, not very dissimilar from other national contexts.

104 First published in 1993, under the guidance of Lucio Caracciolo and Michel Korinman, Limes has become rather suddenly an editorial success, as testified today by the 35-40,000 copies printed for each issue.105 Bruno Bottai, former secretary general of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and son of Giuseppe Bottai, is a member of the editorial board of Limes.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

The author wishes to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments and

Mark Bassin for his assistance in editing the text.

106 M. Antonsich et al. (eds.), Europe between Political Geography and   Geopolitics. On the Centenary of Ratzel's ‘Politische Geographie ’ (Rome: Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana, 2001); G. Ferro (ed.), Dalla geografia politica alla geopolitica (Rome: Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana 1994). The renewed interest in the history of geopolitics was marked also by the series of colloquia organized in 1994-95 at the University of Trieste by Marco Antonsich and Maria Paola Pagnini, under the name Giornate Triestine di Geopolitica. Unfortunately the proceedings of these conferences, attended by well-known Italian geographers, have been published only irregularly in the bulletin Quaderni del Dottorato di Ricerca in Geografia Politica, University of Trieste, Faculty of Political Science.107 This research trend developed around the Istituto Geopolitico F. Compagna, created in the early 1990s by Tullio d’Aponte at the University of Naples ‘Federico II’. An introduction to this form of geopolitics is T. D'Aponte, 'I 'tempi' della geopolitica: dal 'dominio dello spazio' alla 'cultura politica del territorio'', in G. Ferro (ed.), Dalla geografia politica alla geopolitica (Rome: Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana 1994) pp. 149-158. It is interesting to note that, although D’Aponte and his colleagues do not refer to Geopolitica, this journal already mentioned in 1939 that, because of autarchic exigencies, among the duties of the geopoliticians there were also those related to land use planning (Anonymous editorial, ‘Valorizzare gli studi geografici’, Geopolitica 3 (1940) pp. 95-96). A similar approach is also adopted by G. Bettoni, Dalla geografia alla geopolitica (Milano: Franco Angeli 2004).108 G. Ferro, Fondamenti di geografia politica e geopolitica. Politica del territoio e dell'ambiente (Milano: Giuffré 1993); A. Vallega, Geopolitica e sviluppo sostenibile. Il sistema mondo del XXI secolo (Milano: Mursia 1994); G. Corna Pellegrini and E. Dell'Agnese, Manuale di geografia politica, (Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1995); G. Lizza, Territorio e potere. Itinerari di geografia politica (Torino: UTET 1996); P. Fabbri, Istituzioni di geografia politica (Bologna: Clueb, 2000); M. Casari, G. Corna Pellegrini, F. Eva, Elementi di geografia economica e politica (Roma: Carocci, 2002). A notable exception is the more recent textbook by E. Dell’Agnese, Geografia politica critica (Milano, Guerini, 2005), where the author openly engages with critical geopolitics.

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