ABSTRACT
During the eleven years from 1911 to 1922, the Italian political scene was dominated by Liberal governments. From March 1911 to March 1914, and under pressure from the nationalists, Giolitti’s Liberal administration took Italy to war against Turkey and, being victorious, Italy gained possession of Libya, increasing her colonial presence in Africa. At the end of the war, the forces of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes briefly seized the city of Fiume from its former Austro-Hungarian administrators, but it soon fell under the occupation of an international force consisting of British, French, Italian and American troops, prior to its sovereignty being discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Born in 1883, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was the son of a blacksmith and a school teacher. On 31st October, a coalition government took office with Mussolini as Prime Minister, and for a while violence came to an end.
