9. Victims and Aggressors¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter dissects the cynical realpolitik that drove Italy and Bulgaria into the First World War, stripping away any pretence of national honour or defensive necessity to reveal the naked greed of their ruling classes. The core argument is that these smaller powers were not reluctant participants but opportunistic predators, waiting like hyenas to see which of the “big bandits” would prevail before pouncing on the spoils. Italy’s entry is presented as a masterpiece of duplicity: a member of the Triple Alliance since 1882, Rome had secretly nullified that pact with France as early as 1902, yet continued to hedge its bets. The chapter details how Italy haggled simultaneously with Austria-Hungary (which offered Tunisia, a colony it did not yet control) and the Entente, eventually signing the secret Treaty of London on 26 April 1915 only after Russian victories in the Carpathians and the Allied invasion of Turkey suggested the Entente would win. The Italian bourgeoisie, the text argues, compensated for military and economic weakness with Machiavellian cunning, breaking treaties and promises for territorial plunder in Trentino, the Austrian Littoral, and Dalmatia.
The military narrative is a catalogue of incompetence and butchery, centred on Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a commander who “dreamed of a triumphant Italian army smashing its way onto the Slovenian plateau” but whose only tactic was the frontal assault. The chapter details the horrific conditions of Alpine warfare—mining, avalanches, hand-to-hand combat at high altitude—and Cadorna’s eleven futile Isonzo offensives, which bled the army white. The disaster at Caporetto in October 1917 is attributed to collapsing morale, with mass surrenders and soldiers shooting officers who resisted. The text notes the specific suffering of ethnic Slovenes, forcibly resettled and starved in Italian camps.
Bulgaria’s entry is framed as revenge for the “stab in the back” it suffered in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, when Serbia and Greece seized territory promised to Bulgaria. The chapter emphasises that the Bulgarian workers and peasants opposed war, but King Ferdinand—whose stated life purpose was “the destruction of Serbia”—and the ruling clique waited for the right moment, joining the Central Powers in September 1915 only after concrete territorial guarantees. The swift overrunning of Serbia is described, culminating in the tragic retreat across Albanian mountains. The chapter’s polemical thrust is directed against the nationalist mythologies that pervade the Balkans, where “everyone sees themselves as a victim and nobody as an aggressor.” It argues that the real victims are always the poor peasants and workers driven to slaughter, while yesterday’s victim becomes tomorrow’s aggressor. The only solution proposed is a Balkan Socialist Federation, a call that directly challenges the entire framework of inter-imperialist rivalry and national grievance that the chapter has systematically exposed.