I cannoni del re: l'industria Armstrong in Italia (1885-1914)

The thesis represents a case study regarding the birth of the Italian military industrial complex, from the mid-1880s up to the eve of the Great War. The study treats the commercial relations between an Italian subsidiary of a big English company, Armstrong of Elswick, and the Italian navy. The subsidiary produced ordnance and its establishment was at Pozzuoli, a village near Naples. The methodology of research here offers a different point of view from traditional business histories; it considers mainly the internal strategy of a company and relations with its external environment. In particular, the research gives equal importance to the seller and the customer, in order to understand their intentions and behavior, about the market and the political context. The specific topic of the thesis is the study of the contracts between the Armstrong of Pozzuoli and the Italian navy, and the relative business correspondence. In this way, the industrial politics of the Navy (i.e., the building of a modern national armaments industry) and the Italian marketing strategy of Armstrong of Elswick are both explored. The ordnance market was very important in the age of empires, because the imperialist aspirations of many states were based on the power of a military fleet, which represented for them the most important military logistic instrument to achieve their imperialistic aims. In this international political context, it was very important for a country to independently produce its own weapons and the large battleships were the most prestigious weapons at that time. For this reason, in the mid-eighties of 19th century, the Italian navy asked for help to the Armstrong of Elswick to implant a production of large naval ordnances in Italy, because the English company was the most important manufacturer of naval guns for battleships in the world. This work starts by defining a historiographical framework to describe these government/business trade relationships. The problem is there were not that many systematic and general studies about the Italian military industrial complex. To address this lack, it was necessary to employ the foreign historiography concerning the birth of British, German and Russian national military industrial complexes. By approaching the Italian case comparatively, it was possible to place Italy’s military-industrial-complex position in the wider context of Europe’s armament industries and international politics. These three national cases were ranked differently in terms of industrial development. The “theory of the merchants of death,” which was born during the Belle Époque, considers military expenditure as a waste of money and the military and foreign policies of various national governments as being influenced by lobbyists from the armament industries. The English historian, Clevin Trebilcock called into discussion the assumptions of this theory. Since the mid-sixties, in his essays and books regarding the age of empire, Trebilcock claimed that the development of armaments industry could have positive effects on economic growth and increase tax revenue, too. He claimed also the state could condition the marketing strategy of the enterprises, through the assignment of arms orders, whereas the firms couldn’t condition the military and foreign policies of various national governments. This case study confirms this point of view, with respect to the positive effects of arms production on taxation and the local economic development. In addition, the results of the research confirm the balance of power between the State and the arms companies described by Trebilcock. In short, this case study about the contracts between an arms manufacturer and the Italian navy and the relative business correspondence can offer some interesting methodological considerations for those who study the military-industrial complexes.