Carlo Sforza

Carlo Sforza
President of the Italian National Consult
In office 25 September 1945 – 1 June 1946
Preceded by	Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
Succeeded by	Giuseppe Saragat
Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 2 February 1947 – 19 July 1951
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi
Preceded by	Pietro Nenni
Succeeded by	Alcide De Gasperi
Personal details
Born	24 January 1872 Montignoso, Italy
Died	4 September 1952 Rome
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Italian Republican Party

Count Carlo Sforza (24 January 1872 – 4 September 1952) was an Italian diplomat and anti-Fascist politician.

Biography

Sforza was born at Montignoso (Tuscany).

Sforza entered the diplomatic service in 1896. He served in Cairo, Paris, Constantinople, Beijing, Bucharest, Madrid, London, and Belgrade, and after the First World War became foreign minister under Giovanni Giolitti. In 1921 Sforza upset nationalist right-wing forces by signing the Rapallo Treaty which recognised the important port of Fiume as a free city. As minister of Foreign Affairs he was instrumental in breaking the proto-fascist feud led by poet Gabriele D'Annunzio in Fiume.

Sforza was ambassador to France but resigned from office when Benito Mussolini gained power in 1922. He led the anti-fascist opposition in the Senate until being forced into exile in 1926. While living in exile Sforza published the books, European Dictatorships, Contemporary Italy, or Synthesis of Europe, as well as many articles where he analysed the fascist ideology and attacked its many well-wishers as well as different "appeasers" in England, France and elsewhere. After the murder in France in 1937 of Carlo Rosselli, leader of the Giustizia e Libertà movement (non-marxist left), count Sforza became the de facto leader of Italian antifascism in exile.

Sforza lived in France until the German occupation in June 1940. He then settled in England where he lived until moving on to the United States.

After the surrender in September 1943, he returned to his country and in June 1944 he accepted the offer of Ivanoe Bonomi to join his provisional antifascist government. Sforza in 1946 became a member of the Italian Republican Party.

As foreign minister (1947–1951) he supported the European Recovery Program and the settlement of Trieste. He was a convinced advocate and one of the designers of Italy's pro-European policy and with De Gasperi he led Italy into the Council of Europe. On 18 April 1951 he signed the Treaty instituting the European Coal and Steel Community, making Italy one of the founder members.

He died in Rome in 1952.

Further reading

• Liebmann, George W. Diplomacy between the Wars: Five Diplomats and the Shaping of the Modern World (London I. B. Tauris, 2008)

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