Italy
Antonio Salandra
1853–1931 Prime Minister of Italy, 1914–1916
Antonio Salandra was born in Troia, in Apulia, on 13 August 1853, taught administrative law in Rome and sat in parliament as a conservative from 1886. He became prime minister in March 1914 and proclaimed Italy neutral in August, then negotiated with both sides over the price of intervention. The secret Treaty of London, signed on 26 April 1915 with Britain, France and Russia, committed Italy to join the Entente. Salandra and Sidney Sonnino, his foreign minister from November 1914, took the country into the war in May 1915 against the opposition of Giovanni Giolitti. His government fell on 10 June 1916 after the Austro-Hungarian offensive in the Trentino. He at first welcomed Fascist rule but broke with it in January 1925, and died in Rome on 9 December 1931.