Entre expansion belge et nationalisme italien. La Sucrerie et Raffinerie de Pontelongo, image de ses époques (1908–1927)

In December 1908, sugar manufacturers and financiers, who already own a sugar refinery in Romania, gathered in Brussel to establish the Sucrerie et raffinerie de Pontelongo. Its leaders, ambitious and conquering, immediately try to break a strongly cartelized Italian sugar market, therefore triggering the hostility of the main existing corporates. However, the outbreak of the First World War and its consequences sweep aside the expansionist rhetoric of the Belle Epoque. Instead, during the 1920s, an always more important part of its capital is acquired by an Italian ally, the Distilleria di Cavarzere. In 1927, the definitive fall of the Pontelongo into Italian hands opens a new page of its rich history.