The Impact of Giolitti’s Government (1911-1914)

Question 1

Who was Giovanni Giolitti? Give 4 details.

Answer 1

• He was the most prominent politician in liberal Italy (1870 to 1922)
• He had been born in Piedmont and had studied Law at Turin University
• He was prime minister 5 times, the final 2 times being from 1911-4 and 1920-1
• As a result, he had such a large impact that the period from 1901 to 1914 is known as the Giolittian Era

Question 2

What 2 skills made Giolitti good at his job?

Answer 2

• He was a master at trasformismo; he believed he could bring anyone over to his side with the right incentive
• He used corruption, manipulation and patronage to ensure he was supported

Question 3

What 3 things did Giolitti aim to do when in office in 1911?

Answer 3

• Make Italy a modern, industrialised and successful country
• To unite the masses with shared values and faith in the liberal government
• He therefore wanted to gain the support of the 3 main groups that opposed the liberals by offering them what they wanted, which would ‘absorb’ the deputies from these groups
• Giolitti did this as he believed it would be less difficult than if he excluded them

Question 4

Which 3 groups posed a big challenge to Giolitti?

Answer 4

• Socialists
• The Catholic Church
• Nationalists

Question 5

What were 2 reasons why Giolitti wanted the socialists on his side?

Answer 5

• The PSI was rapidly becoming more popular; by 1913, they had won almost a quarter of all votes
• This reflected what the population wanted, as urbanisation was increasing (Milan almost doubled in size between 1880 and 1914)

Question 6

How did the increases in population and urbanisation lead to increased support for the PSI?

Answer 6

• They caused more Italians to mix, and become literate and politically aware
• As they were members of the working class, they then supported the PSI

Question 7

Who led the PSI?

Answer 7

• Filippo Turati

Question 8

What were 3 of the PSI’s main beliefs?

Answer 8

• Most of the people within the party did not believe that the liberals could achieve the dreams of the Risorgimento
• They believed that socialism was the only way of dealing with political corruption, rural poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor
• They believed that education led to social mobility, so encouraged better school attendance and they gave books to workers

Question 9

Which parts of the population did the PSI address their aims to, and how successful were they?

Answer 9

• Both the urban and rural populations
• 1902: 250,000 industrial workers had joined socialist national federations to strike for higher wages
• 1910: 218,000 Italians joined socialist agricultural cooperatives

Question 10

What did Giolitti do to ‘absorb’ socialist deputies? Give 2 examples.

Answer 10

He introduced a series of social reforms:
- 1906: non-intervention policy in labour disputes and the creation of arbitration courts that would settle pay disputes
- 1913: state subsidised sickness pay

Question 11

How successful was Giolitti’s attempt to placate the PSI? Give 3 details.

Answer 11

• It was a success with moderates like Turati, at least up to 1912
• However, the party also contained reformists and maximalists
• Reformists: wanted to bring gradual change for workers, so were willing to work with Giolitti
• Maximalists: believed in revolution and violent overthrow of the state, and therefore despised the liberal state (most of the wider socialist movement agreed that the liberal government had to be removed)
• His aim of trasformismo was therefore undermined by the radicals in the PSI

Question 12

What problematic statement had Giolitti made in 1904?

Answer 12

• That the Church and the state were “2 parallel lines which should never meet”

Question 13

What 2 things did Giolitti do to win the Catholics’ support?

Answer 13

• In 1904 he caused a divorce bill that was about to be passed quietly disappear
• He had promoted Catholic interests in areas like education

Question 14

What did the pope do in 1909, and why?

Answer 14

• He allowed Italians to vote in 150 constituencies
• In those constituencies, the socialists had a good chance of winning, and Catholics were generally fearful of socialism

Question 15

In what 2 ways did Giolitti benefit from giving concessions to the Catholic Church?

Answer 15

• It could sway the vote, especially in the north through the influence it had in youth movements and sports clubs
• Catholics in local coalitions in Turin, Bologna, Florence and Venice cooperated with liberals

Question 16

How successful was Giolitti at appeasing the Catholics? Give 2 details.

Answer 16

• He became the first Italian prime minister to win the organised Catholic vote
• However, he would not concede any territory to the Church, and so the Roman Question remained unsolved

Question 17

What were 4 reasons why the nationalist movement in Italy was particularly strong when compared to the rest of the Europe?

Answer 17

• The failure of the values of the Risorgimento
• The humiliating defeat at the Battle of Adwa
• The country’s weakness as a world power
• The shame felt at the fact that millions of Italians had to leave the country in order to lead better lives

Question 18

List 4 things the nationalists wanted.

Answer 18

• An aggressive foreign policy, which would lead to Italy claiming colonies in Africa and the irredente lands; Italy would become a world power as a result
• It would also end internal strife through a shared sense of patriotism
• To get rid of what they saw as the corrupt and self-serving liberal order
• They also wanted to get rid of socialism

Question 19

What 2 things did Giolitti do to deal with the rising popularity of nationalism?

Answer 19

• He tried to boost the liberals’ popularity through reform and economic modernisation
• However, nationalism remained more appealing due to the unity it promised
• In 1911, Giolitti embraced nationalism, and decided to invade Libya

Question 20

How well did the nationalists cooperate with Giolitti’s government, and why?

Answer 20

• They didn’t cooperate at all as they saw Giolitti and the liberal government as everything that was weak and corrupt about Italy
• The nationalists believed that they needed to be overthrown

Question 21

What was the problem with all of Giolitti’s concessions? What 2 things did he do as a result?

Answer 21

• Giving concessions to one of the three groups would usually anger the others for political reasons
• Giolitti tended to prioritise the socialists as he believed gaining the support of workers was the most important
• As the nationalists were quite a new group, Giolitti tended to underestimate them

Question 22

What were the 2 areas of foreign policy that Giolitti found difficult to navigate?

Answer 22

• Nationalist pressure to pursue Italian interests in the Balkans
• The pressure to expand Italy’s colonial empire

Question 23

What was the issue with Italy’s interest in the Balkans?

Answer 23

• The land Italy wanted was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy and Austria-Hungary were in the Triple Alliance together

Question 24

List 3 reasons why Giolitti decided to invade Libya.

Answer 24

• Italy had signed a deal with France in 1902: Italy would support French interests in Morocco, if France did the same for Italy in Libya. In 1911, France began to consolidate its control over Morocco, and after what happened in Tunisia in 1881, there were fears that they would also take control over Libya.
• To placate the nationalists
• The Catholic Church had economic interests in Libya, and were therefore encouraging the government to invade

Question 25

When did Italy invade Libya?

Answer 25

• September 1911

Question 26

How was the invasion of Libya achieved? Give 6 details.

Answer 26

• The navy seized most Libyan ports and coastal towns within 3 weeks
• 70,000 troops were sent to Libya
• Italy had been counting on the Libyans seeing them as liberators (as Libya was part of the Ottoman Empire), and therefore for them to help them
• This strategy didn’t work, so they had to find another to way to weaken the Ottomans
• They therefore occupied 13 Turkish-held islands in the Aegean Sea
• The Ottoman Empire formally surrendered Libya in October 1912 (as they had started another war in 1912)

Question 27

What were reactions like to the invasion of Libya in Italy? Give 3 details.

Answer 27

• There was huge national enthusiasm
• Even some socialists supported the war as they believed it would provide for the poor peasantry
• Their victory proved that they were a true European power, and made up for the loss at Adwa

Question 28

What 2 things did the invasion of Libya cost Italy?

Answer 28

• 3500 Italians had died
• 50,000 troops were required to keep order in Libya

Question 29

After the period of the invasion of Libya, how successful did Giolitti seem to be? What were 3 reasons why?

Answer 29

Very, as he had:
- won the support of PSI deputies through social reform
- got the Church to cooperate with him in many key areas
- pacified the nationalists after the success of the Libyan invasion

Question 30

List the 2 long-term impacts of Italy’s invasion of Libya.

Answer 30

• The nationalists grew in popularity while the liberals became less popular
• The PSI ended their cooperation with the liberals

Question 31

How did the nationalists capitalise off of the invasion of Libya?

Answer 31

• They took credit for the war, claiming Giolitti only ordered it do to pressure from them
• They blamed the liberal government for the loss of so many Italian soldiers, which had an impact as Italy had not benefitted much from the invasion

Question 32

What were 2 reasons why the invasion of Libya ended cooperation between the PSI and the liberals?

Answer 32

• The PSI saw the invasion as imperialist militarism
• They were also angered by the increased cooperation with the nationalists

Question 33

How did the franchise change in 1912, and why?

Answer 33

Before:
- Literate men over 21
After:
- All men aged 30 and over (although 70% of them were potentially illiterate)
- All men who had completed military service
- This was because it was difficult to refuse the vote to men who had fought for Italy in Libya

Question 34

List 4 things Giolitti hoped to gain from extending the franchise.

Answer 34

• It would promote greater national unity
• It would increase the liberals’ majority
• It would strengthen the vote in rural areas- they tended to be more conservative than the cities
• It would undermine the PSI as with greater electoral representation, fewer workers would turn to radical ideas

Question 35

What was the outcome of the 1913 elections?

Answer 35

• Liberal deputies won 318 seats (71 less than in 1909)
• The nationalists, socialists, Catholics and radicals all made gains

Question 36

What was the biggest issue for the liberals after the 1913 elections? Give 5 details about it.

Answer 36

• Count Gentiloni, President of the Catholic Electoral Union, boasted that the liberals owed 228 of their seats to Catholic support
• This was somewhat true as liberal candidates had secretly agreed to 7 key points in return for securing the Catholic vote
• Giolitti claimed he was unaware of this
• However, this was a symptom of the greater problem- the liberals had become overly reliant on the Catholic Church
• They relied on them to gain seats and form coalitions in the government

Question 37

Who was against the link between Giolitti and the Catholic Church, and why did they do as a result?

Answer 37

• Socialists
• Anti-clerical liberals
• They withdrew their support for Giolitti in the spring of 1914, and he chose to resign

Question 38

List 2 other factors that caused Giolitti to resign.

Answer 38

• The army was being used to put down political opposition
• The Catholic Church was critical of how the government had not dealt with the problem of poverty, especially in the south

Question 39

How did Catholics respond to Giolitti’s resignation?

Answer 39

• It infuriated them
• As those against the link between the Church and state were gone, Giolitti could have formed a new pro-Catholic block

Question 40

Who was Giolitti replaced by, and what did his replacement aim to do differently?

Answer 40

• Antonio Salandra
• He believed that he could revive liberalism by linking it more closely with nationalism

Question 41

When was Red Week? Give 3 details about what it was.

Answer 41

• June 1914
• When 3 protestors were shot dead by police, the PSI declared a national strike
• Anarchists, radicals and republicans joined in
• In northern and central Italy, there was civil disobedience

Question 42

Give 4 examples of civil obedience that happened.

Answer 42

• Buildings were torched
• Tax registers were destroyed
• Railway stations were seized
• Churches were attacked

Question 43

How did Red Week come to an end?

Answer 43

• Trade unions agreed to call off the strike

Question 44

List 3 impacts of Red Week.

Answer 44

• Hundreds of workers were killed
• Italy seemed to be on the verge of revolution
• National unity seemed more impossible than ever