Italy accedes to the Pact of London

On 30 November 1915 in London representatives of five powers signed a short declaration in which they undertook not to conclude a separate peace. It was signed by the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and by the ambassadors of France, Paul Cambon; of Italy, the Marquis Guglielmo Imperiali; of Japan, Katsunosuke Inoue; and of Russia, Count Alexander Benckendorff. The document opened with the statement that the Italian government had decided to accede to the declaration of 5 September 1914, to which Japan had already acceded on 19 October.

Content

The declaration repeated word for word the undertakings of 1914, but in the name of five states rather than three. The British, French, Italian, Japanese and Russian governments mutually undertook not to conclude peace separately during the present war. They also agreed that when the time came to discuss peace, none of the Allies would put forward peace terms without the prior agreement of each of the others. The text was drawn up in French in five copies. In December the British government laid it before Parliament and published it in the official Treaty Series.

A secret commitment made public

For Italy this was not a new commitment. On 26 April 1915, together with the secret Treaty of London, its ambassador had signed a separate declaration against concluding a separate peace. That too, however, had remained secret. Italy’s position in the coalition was, moreover, unusual. It was fighting Austria-Hungary, and since August also Turkey, but with Germany it had only broken off diplomatic relations and was not formally at war. Rumours of a possible separate understanding between Rome and Vienna appeared in the press of neutral countries. The public declaration of the five powers cut such speculation short: from then on the whole world knew that Italy had bound its fate to the rest of the Entente until the end of the war.

The foreign minister, Sidney Sonnino, announced the accession to the declaration in parliament, which resumed its sittings after a recess on 1 December. In his speech he set out the causes and aims of the war Italy was waging alongside the Entente. The American monthly “Current History” wrote that Sonnino’s statement on the signing of the powers’ joint undertaking emphasised that Austria-Hungary could not count on a separate peace with Italy. Soon afterwards a collection of documents appeared in Italy under the title “Il patto di Londra firmato dall’Italia il 30 novembre 1915” (“The Pact of London signed by Italy on 30 November 1915”), with the full record of the debates in the Chamber of Deputies of 1–4 December and in the Senate of 16–17 December. At the time, therefore, Italians called precisely the November declaration the “Pact of London”. Today in Italian literature the name usually denotes the April treaty that brought Italy into the war.

Five allies

From 30 November 1915 the undertaking bound the five main powers fighting the Central Powers. The following months showed, however, that Allied unity had its limits. Italy declared war on Germany only in August 1916, after strong pressure from the British and French. The first to break the declaration was Russia, whose Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace at Brest in March 1918.