1914-1918, indirect effects
The First World War does not directly involve San Marino, which takes part only by sending volunteers. The consequences, however, weigh heavily on the Titano. Unemployment, already serious, grows out of proportion together with inflation. The political class lacks the capacity and the courage needed to enact the necessary changes. Conflicts sharpen between the popular classes, the majority, and the middle class formed by a few families of landowners and bourgeoisie.
PFS and oligarchic dictatorship
The moderate government attempts concessions to the popular classes, but the middle class, in order to preserve almost feudal privileges (sharecropping still persists), adopts the fascist model already in place in Italy. Mass consensus does not materialise among the Sammarinesi: the result is an oligarchic dictatorship that justifies itself by appealing to the Italian regime.
In 1922 the Sammarinese Fascist Party (PFS) is founded, lacking internal unity from the start. The Great and General Council is dissolved in 1923 and turned into the Sovereign Princely Council. The new elections are held with a single fascist-majority list. Mussolini launches the construction of the Rimini-San Marino railway, financed entirely by Italy.
The fall of the PFS
Between 1941 and 1942 some socialist leaders return to San Marino and build a clandestine antifascist movement. Opposition grows and consolidates, up to the demonstration of 28 July 1943, which obtains the dissolution of the PFS and the calling of new elections. The subsequent liberation of Mussolini by the Germans, however, imposes a new pacification pact with the restored regime. The Great and General Council delegates its powers to a Council of State of twenty members, some of them fascists.
Over one hundred thousand refugees
Diplomacy becomes the only available tool. The Council of State works to have Sammarinese neutrality recognised, and for almost the entire duration of the war the country remains uninvolved. San Marino becomes a safe refuge: over 100,000 people receive asylum, including a group of Jews saved from concentration camps. Refugees are housed in palaces, churches and the railway tunnels. For a population of fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, supplying food for such a mass of refugees demands enormous effort.
On 26 June 1944 a British air raid strikes the Republic. The unprepared population fails to take shelter in time: 60 people die, many more are wounded. As the United Kingdom government itself will admit, the bombing is due to faulty intelligence. In September the territory becomes the stage of direct fighting between Anglo-Americans and Germans. At the end of the war the Allies remain on the territory for two months to support the slow outflow of the refugees.
Rights, at last
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 11 March 1945 | New elections, victory of the left-wing parties (in government until 1955) |
| 1957 | Christian Democrat and Social Democrat majority government |
| 23 December 1958 | Law on the right to vote for Sammarinese women |
| 1 January 1960 | Effective entry into force of women's suffrage |
| 11 September 1973 | Equal access to public and political office |