NO ROADS INTO ROME: RUSSIA'S FAILURE TO ESTABLISH THE OKHRANA IN ITALY, 1900-1914

Between 1900 and the commencement of the First World War in 1914, the Russian government under Tsar Nicholas II (1894-1917) engineered an expansion of its European based espionage agency called the Foreign Agentura. During that period, Italy had become a haven for Russian extremists Italian government also challenged Russia for hegemonic influence in the Balkans. The combination of these issues magnified the threat Italy posed to the success of the foreign policy toward Europe. Strangely, Russia did not open a branch of the Foreign Agentura in the southern Mediterranean state of Italy. While the Okhrana’s spy operations seemed to have flourished in France, Germany, Great Britain, as well as in the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, it seems to have lacked the required organizational prowess to infiltrate Italy. This thesis seeks to isolate the historical factors that influenced Russia’s failure to open a division of Foreign Agentura in Italy.Master of Art