South Tyrolean secessionist movement

The South Tyrolean secessionist movement (German: Südtiroler Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Italian: Movimento d'Indipendenza dell'Alto Adige) is a political movement in the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol that calls for the secession of the region from Italy and its reunification with neighboring Austria. Concurrently, some groups favor the establishment of an interim Free State of South Tyrol as a sovereign nation while reintegration is organized.

The entirety of contemporary South Tyrol came under the jurisdiction of the Austrian Empire in 1814. The popularity of nationalism cast a prominent shadow over Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. In the Kingdom of Italy, the fervor of Italian irredentism was born in 1866. Irredentism entailed the unification of all territories on the Italian peninsula or those perceived to be Italian into a single nation. South Tyrol, given its geographic inclusion in the peninsula, was often the subject of calls for absorption into Italy.

On the onset of the First World War, Italy remained strictly neutral. It was only on April 26, 1915 that the latter nation declared war on the Central Powers. This change in attitude is attributed by historians to the secretive signing of the Treaty of London, which entailed that in exchange for Italy's support the country "shall obtain the Trentino, Cisalpine Tyrol with its geographical and natural frontier (the Brenner frontier)" from the German-aligned Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite petitions from public officials in South Tyrol and reassurances from United States President Woodrow Wilson that the "readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality," southern Tyrol and Trentino fell under Italian military administration with the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in September 1919.

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