London Treaty

The Treaty of London (1915) was the wartime agreement invoked to argue that Italy had been promised Dalmatia in return for joining the Allies. After the victory, the contested fulfillment of that promise helped turn the peace negotiations into a public story of betrayal, and gave nationalists a rallying point in the dispute over Fiume.

The wartime promise

The treaty, concluded in 1915, established conditions for Italy to enter the war alongside Russia, France, and Great Britain. As described in the book, it promised Italy Dalmatia, a region associated for centuries with the Republic of Venice, in the event of victory. The book does not detail the treaty’s full provisions; its significance here lies in the promise that Italians believed the victorious powers were now obliged to honor.

The postwar dispute

At the Paris Peace Conference, Italy’s claims extended beyond the treaty’s promise. Nationalists argued that the principle of self-determination promoted by Woodrow Wilson should also secure Fiume, a border city with a large Italian majority, even though Fiume had not been included in the London agreements. Their slogan joined the two claims: “Treaty of London plus Fiume.” Wilson rejected both Dalmatia and Fiume. The distinction between a claim grounded in the treaty and one advanced through self-determination thus became central to the political dispute.

From agreement to grievance

The Italian delegation’s walkout from the peace negotiations gave the treaty’s promise a public and emotional force. In Italy, the refusal was understood as a repudiation of wartime sacrifice: yesterday’s allies seemed to be withholding what Italy had been promised at the cost of 600,000 deaths. The delegation returned to Paris after two weeks, having achieved no settlement; the episode left a sense of humiliation and intensified the belief that Italian wounds had been suffered in vain.

The book presents the treaty not simply as a diplomatic document but as a measure against which postwar expectations were tested. Its promise supplied one part of the nationalist case, while the additional claim to Fiume widened the dispute. Together, they helped transform the peace conference into a potent symbol of deprivation—one that political movements could invoke even as the Allied powers continued negotiating without Italy.