THE GREAT WAR: SUCCESS AND FAILURE

In the national historiographies of the single Countries, the idea that the Great War has produced the conclusion or the creation of the national State prevails. After the Treaties of Peace of the 1919-1920, it was widely understood that the States formed as a consequence of the fall of the multinational Empires did not have truly ethnic boundaries. So, it is doubtful that the Great War marked the victory of the national State. Moreover, the great multi-ethnic Empires disappeared but other imperial States survived. However, the principle of nationality and the so-called historical rights were broadly used in an entirely flexible way. Also for this reason, the interwar period was characterized by notable international stress. Accordingly, a resumption of the pacifism and of the supranational projects that had already emerged in the XIX century and in the first years of XX was recorded. According to Benedetto Croce, history is always contemporary because, through the reconstruction and the historical story, the researcher also speaks of himself and of his time. It has been so for the historiography of the XX century. Today also all of us have a motivation to reconsider the events of one century ago, not only for what factually they were or for the effects that they left in the whole XX century, but for what our European continent is living in the first part of the new century, the XXI. The project to unify the continent is very ancient, going up again to XIX century and it found further definition in the interwar period. Today, now that in wide part it has been implemented, it gives signs of difficulty, almost of crisis. It is then strong the curiosity to know how it would have been accomplished and developed, if it had been the result of agreements among States in the first part of XX century, if it had not been stopped by the conflict begun in 1914.