The end of the “Long Romance”. The image of Greece in Italy between the Two World Wars

Once the time of great ideals and mutual solidarity of the Italian unification came to an end, the Italian-Greek relationship deteriorated as a result of the different international political-diplomatic scene and because of the mutual strategic interest, e.g. the issue of the Dodecanese. The issues related to the different order in Central and East-Central Europe after World War II intensified the conflict between the two countries (e.g. the presence of the Italian Army in Anatolia). In August 1923, during Fascism, these strained relations resulted in the murder of the members of the Italian delegation led by General Enrico Tellini and appointed by the League of Nations to mark the boundaries between Greece and Albania. Italian Government reacted to it by bombing Corfu and stationing its Army divisions in the island. The gradual improvement of the relations between Italy and Greece defined by the Treaty of Friendship in 1928 was followed by the cultural and economic expansionism under the Mussolini regime, as a token of the aggression against Greece in October 1940, in an area considered to be crucial for foreign policy together with the Danubian area. The present essay aims at analyzing the decline of the firm and enduring image of the “sister nations” in the eyes of the countries of the two Mediterranean shores, to outline the change in the perception of the image of Greece, which was gradually deteriorating, by the Italian political journalism and historiography during the period between the two world wars.