For the Italians who were still subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as they lived in the unredeemed lands (Trentino, Venezia Giulia, Fiume and Dalmatia) as well as for a large part of the interventionist front, what contemporaries called the Great War effectively represented a Fourth War of Independence, the completion of the Risorgimento process which had stopped at the Breach of Porta Pia (20 September 1870) and then set aside due to the commitment of the Kingdom of Italy in colonial adventures and its adherence to the Triple Alliance.

This continuity with the struggles of the Risorgimento and the final recognition of the demands put forward by the irredentists resident on both sides of the border with the Habsburg Empire established in 1866 is also evident in the message with which King Victor Emmanuel III of Savoy communicated the entry into the conflict from the Grand Headquarters on 24 May 1915: