Background Flashcards
How powerful was the King and PM during this period?
- Head of state w/ executive power
- Appoint + dismiss ministers and controlled foreign policy
- PM was head of gov and ran everyday affairs
- Needed support of parliament to make decisions
What two things did the Italian political system consist of and what were they?
- Senate (appointed by King)
- Chamber of Deputies (elected every 5 yrs, more political power than Senate, ministers selected from this)
What was the limitation of the Chamber of Deputies and how did this change from 1860 to 1882?
- Very limited franchise( based upon age, education, property ownership)
- 1860s –> Less than 2% of country had a say on who was elected
- 1882 –> Extension of franchise to 25% of adult males (from 3 mil to 8 mil men)
What is Risorgimento?
‘Rebirth’/Unification of Italy
What is meridionale?
A term used to reference the Italian south eg. Sicily
What did Italians feel that they were defined by?
- Campanalismo –> feeling of pride towards place of birth
When was Italy partly unified and then fully unified?
- Partly unified in 1861
- Fully unified in 1870 w/ Rome
How did the Catholic Church and socialist politicians react to the 50th anniversary of Italian unification (in what year)?
In 1911 the 50th anniversary of Italian unification was celebrated. In retaliation:
- Catholic Church boycotted events and refused to celebrate
- Socialist politicians asserted the idea that an united Italian nation was meaningless
How divided were the languages of Italy?
- 99% spoke a regional dialect that other areas could not understand
- Official Italian is dialect from Florence
- Even the King mostly spoke in Piedmont dialect
Give two examples of political + economic turmoil in the late 1800s
- 100 protestors killed in Milan due to gov crackdown protesting against growing economic problems + political system
- King Umberto I assassinated by an Italian anarchist who wanted to avenge protestors’ deaths
Who made up the Chamber of Deputies?
- Northern professional middle class, who only represented their own interests
Explain the ‘Roman Question’
The question of who the Papal States were given to, as Pope Pius IX was angered in 1870 when it had been taken from them
What was the constitution after unification based upon and what did it guarantee?
- The constitution of Piedmont of 1848
- Guaranteed equality, rights of free assembly + free press
- Constitutional monarchy (like UK)
Give features of governments in Italy
- Operated on trasformismo, which was forming political alliances by offering key positions to other deputies (corruption)
- Governments were short-lived (29 changes of PM between 1870 and 1922) as politicians could change sides whenever they were offered a good deal
- Inability to pass legislation that could improve Italians’ lives
What decision in 1886 crucially affected the political system and how?
- Pope Leo XIII forbade Catholics from running for office/voting in elections
- Prevented the creation of a national Conservative Party based on Catholic values
- No challenge to liberal middle classes in power due to lack of political opposition ( <25% of men had the vote)
- Italian politicians feared challenging the Church would alienate the pop
- Very few formal political parties
How much did the people have to do with the changes in gov?
- It had very little to do with them
- Majority of pop was disenfranchised
- Any protests against the gov were violently repressed by military
- Divide between Italian people and ruling classes reinforced fuelling more protests and extreme ideologies
What had happened to the north-south divide by 1911?
- It had worsened due to a focus on the economic expansion of large northern cities like the industrial triangle: Milan, Turin + Genoa
- Half of 2.2 mil industrial workers were employed in the northern provinces –> what about the south?
- Rural poverty increase in south
- Suffered from malnutrition, high rates of infant mortality (40% under 5 yrs) , lack of clean drinking water + malaria (between 1910 and 1911, 25000 people died in Naples due to cholera)
- More than half of southern pop were illiterate, which is 5x the rate in Piedmont
- By 1911, income per head was double in the north compared to the south
How did hospitals change between 1885 and 1902?
- Number of people cured there increased by 50%
How did life expectancy change between 1861 and 1914?
- 30 yrs to 47 yrs (same as other European countries)
What impact did compulsory schooling have?
- Number of schools increased
- Illiteracy rates decreased from more than 69% to 37.6%
- Poor families were still less likely to enrol their children as labour was more important for their survival
How many years after unification did an Italian prime minister visit the south?
32 years
What were the successes of industrialisation between 1899 and 1914?
- Iron, steel, chemical, mechanical, electrical + car industries grew significantly
- Production doubled between 1899 and 1910
- Exports increased at a rate of 4.5% per year