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The Italian Air Force from Its Origins to 1923 55 The Italian Air Force from Its Origins to 1923 55 Chapter 3 The Italian Air Force from Its Origins to 1923 Andrea Ungari Introduction This paper analyses the debates over the Italian air force between 1910 and 1923 using both parliamentary legislation and the documentation in the Air Force and Army Historical Archives, to reveal two principles underlying the origins of the Italian air force, which were often the source of heated arguments. A large part of public opinion and many members of parliament called for efforts to strengthen the wartime use of aviation. However, the greatest resistance to strengthening Italian aviation, at least before the outbreak of the First World War, came from military and governmental circles. The top military ranks always considered aviation to be an auxiliary force, a means of support for infantry, artillery, or engineers. The Italian government did not have the raw materials or the finances available to countries like France, the United Kingdom and Germany, and these financial difficulties, together with the military’s scep- ticism, strengthened the determination of the army authorities to avoid waste by not investing in equipment whose wartime effectiveness had not yet been completely proven. This left Italian aviation at the outbreak of the First World War requiring urgent improvement. Nonetheless the gap between it and other nations could not be made up by the time of Italy’s intervention in the war. In the post-war period, despite the important role of the air arm during the con- flict, the liberal governing class and military leaders were unable to achieve a consistent approach to aviation issues as a whole. Scepticism on the part of military leaders, the weakness of the nation’s private industry and the govern- ment’s budget restraints were further aggravated by the crisis of the Liberal State and Italian society. The Liberal governing class was forced to make deci- sions on the future of aviation against a backdrop of ‘pre-revolutionary’ activism supported by the Italian Socialist Party, in a period known as the ‘Two Red Years’ (the Biennio Rosso), during serious economic crisis brought on by galloping post-war inflation and industrial rationalization. These conditions inevitably had a negative effect on the growth of Italian military aviation. This premise clearly illustrates the difficulties under which Italian aviation, military and commercial, laboured in the period from 1918 to 1922. Paradoxically from the viewpoint of both organization and legislation, the decisions necessary to © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363724_005 56 Ungari re-launch Italian aviation were taken at the most critical moment for the Liberal State, the eve of the March on Rome. National legislation on aviation was in fact approved in October 1922 and, at the same time, it was determined that the High Command of Aviation should no longer belong to the War Ministry but should become part of a separate Air Arm. Benito Mussolini’s rise to power gave an immediate boost to the organization of aviation. Although resistance did not cease on the part of the top military leaders, particularly in the person of the War Minister Armando Diaz, in little more than five months Mussolini sorted out the hybrid organizations of the previous period and, with royal decree No. 645 dated March 28 1923, he instituted the Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica), incorporating within it all the military air forces of the Kingdom, the Colonies, the Army, and the Navy. I The Debate on the Italian Air Corps on the Eve of the Italo-Turkish War The development of aviation in Italy began in the early twentieth century, thanks to the activity of sports clubs and associations such as the Italian Touring Club, which immediately showed a passion for aerial exploits. As early as 1910 the first parliamentary interventions were made in favour of the avia- tion industry.1 Eugenio Chiesa, one of the members of parliament who, together with Carlo Montù, had a clear understanding of the military and com- mercial importance of the aviation industry, addressed the Chamber of Deputies on 21 May 1910 to advocate protecting aviation inventions and stress- ing the need for secrecy. Chiesa raised a series of fundamental issues: first, he stressed that unlike elsewhere in Europe, the War Ministry was not supporting private enterprise. Chiesa also explored the choice between dirigibles and aeroplanes, at a time when the construction of dirigibles still appeared to be more important. His questions prompted the War Minister, Paolo Spingardi, to defend the actions of the Government and of the ministry, underlining how ‘Italy in just a few years had been capable of putting itself decisively on the 1 On this issue: M. Cobianchi, Pionieri dell’aviazione in Italia con rare e storiche illustrazioni (Rome: Aeronautico, 1943); A. Lodi, Storia delle origini dell’aeronautica militare 1884-1915: aero- stieri dirigibilisti aviatori dell’esercito e della marina in Italia nel periodo pionieristico, vol. I (Rome: Bizzarri, 1976); idem, Il volo a Roma dalle origini ai primi del novecento (Rome: Stato Maggiore dell’Aeronautica, 1981)..
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