THE LIBERAL STATE 1911-18

Question 1

What is Risorgimento and what challenges did it bring?

Answer 1

• The forced reunification of Italy in 1870
• Political, economical and cultural fragmentation
• Italians felt more pride in local regions (campanilismo)
• 99% of Italians spoke regional dialects so couldn’t understand each other

Question 2

What was the political system like in the liberal state?

Answer 2

• Parliament made mainly from wealthy Northern Italians
• Lack of class representation at expense of the wider population
• Hindered by the Roman question as Pope Leo XIII forbade Catholics from participating in elections
• Politicians formed parties through bribery and corruption (transformismo)
• 29 changes of prime minister
• reinforced divide between the Italian people and the ruling classes
• Less than 25% of men could vote

Question 3

What was the economy like in the liberal state?

Answer 3

• Italy experienced considerable economic expansion and industrialization focused on the north
• Iron and steel production grew
• Fiat established
• living conditions for workers remained low
• 1500 strikes involving 350000 workers

Question 4

What was the North-South divide?

Answer 4

• Questione Meridionale (southern question)
• North was industrialized and rich whereas South was one of Europe’s most impoverished areas
• No prime minister even visited Italy until 32 years after unification
• Almost half of the industrial workers were employed in the northern provinces of Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont (industrial triangle)
• Peasants from south suffered from poor diet and lack of clean drinking water
• Majority of southerners illiterate and unable to speak with northerners
• 200000 fled the South per year, many going to New York

Question 5

How was Italy viewed internationally?

Answer 5

• Lagged behind the other European powers
• Focused on reclaiming lost land (irredentism)
• Hoped to expand its empire in Africa (invasion of Abyssinia)
• Disastrous battle of Adwa, the worst defeat suffered by a European power in Africa

Question 6

What was the Socialist party?

Answer 6

• PSI
• Led by Filippo Turati
• Supported by a large number of educated individuals who believed socialism could solve Italy’s problem of corruption
• 250000 members

Question 7

How did Giolitti placate the Socialists?

Answer 7

• compulsory accident insurance in industrial work and national insurance for health and old age
• Limits employment age to 12
• Working day for woman limited to 11 hours
• placated the PSI by offering moderate reforms

Question 8

How did Giolitti placate the Catholic Church?

Answer 8

• Allowed divorce bill to disappear from Parliament
• Karl Marx - “Religion is the opium of the masses”
• Promoted Catholic interest in education (crucifix in classrooms)
• Church and state were two “parallel lines” which should never meet
• Offered concessions to the Church in return for support in government

Question 9

How did Giolitti placate the Nationalists?

Answer 9

• Ideologically opposed to the liberals
• Increase in support after humiliating defeat at Adwa
• Giolitti hoped to introduce a range of support programs to win support
• To embrace their love of violence, Giolitti expanded Italy’s empire in North Africa through the invasion of Libya

Question 10

What was the outcome of Giolitti’s invasion of Libya?

Answer 10

• Seized most costal towns within 3 weeks with 70000 soldiers
• 50000 soldiers stationed as a permanent garrison
• brutal guerilla warfare
• Pyrrhic victory (not worthwhile) for liberals as Nationalists claimed credit for the victory
• Expansion of the franchise

Question 11

What was the expansion of the franchise?

Answer 11

• 1912
• Difficult to deny the vote to conscript soldiers who were fighting in Libya
• Vote extended from literate men over age 21 to all men over age 30

Question 12

What was the outcome of the 1913 election?

Answer 12

• Liberals lose 71 seats
• Liberals found itself too reliant upon the Church for support
• Giolitti resigned
• Replaced by Salandra

Question 13

Why did the interventionists want war?

Answer 13

• The King would benefit from an expansion of the Italian empire
• Industrialists would benefit from an increase in production for warfare
• Nationalists led by Gabriele D’Annunzio sought violent action for benefit of Italy

Question 14

Why didn’t the neutralists want war?

Answer 14

• Italy still had not completed unification and there was a lack of national identity motivating the public
• poor communication between north and south
• The recent resignation of Giolitti left a lack of clear leadership
• The economy was still lagging behind other European countries due to a late industrialization
• Proved unreliable in warfare in the defeat at Lybia and 50000 permanently in Lybia

Question 15

Why did Italy side with the Entente?

Answer 15

• Promised victory would result in gaining much of the irridente lands (South Tyrol, Trieste)
• Signed Treaty of London in 1915 (article 11 specified Italy would only benefit from a victory if they made sufficient sacrifice)

Question 16

What was the military stalemate?

Answer 16

• War against Austria fought mainly in the mountainous areas bordering the countries in static trench warfare
• Horrific conditions, many killed by cholera and frostbite
• Thousands sacrificed to gain even a small amount of mountainside
• 5 million conscripted, majority being workers from the south who had little interest in the importance of the war
• Peasants could not understand orders given by northern officers
• Many incidents caused by confusion and miscommunication
• Extremely low rations (3000 calories per day)
• 290000 soldiers court martialed for disobedience
• Commanded by Luigi Cadorna who used outdated strategies
• Officers feared that soldiers would be inclined to surrender to be taken to POW camps with favorable conditions, no efforts were made to rescue soldiers from camps
• Introduced decimation for disobedience

Question 17

What happened at Caporetto?

Answer 17

-1917
- Austrian army launched a strafexpedition to split the Italian army
- Italian forces defeated
- Allies had to intervene to prevent an invasion into Italy
- 200000 lost contact with regiments
- 10000 Italians killed
- 400000 simply went home
- Humiliating defeat for Italy
- General Cadorna replaced by Diaz
- marked birth of a new Italy through war (trenchismo)

Question 18

What positive effect did the war have on the economy?

Answer 18

• Fiat established as Europe’s leading truck and lorry manufacturer, producing 25000 vehicles in 1918 alone
• Fiat’s employment increased from 3-30 thousand workers
• Italy produced an aeronautical industry that produced 6500 planes
• Production of 20000 machine guns, a greater number than the British
• Short term economic stimulus

Question 19

What negative effect did the war have on the economy?

Answer 19

• Economic growth had been supported by foreign loans and printing more money, leading to hyper-inflation
• 23 billion lire debt
• The south remained impoverished while the north’s economy grew by 20%
• Rationing introduced on bread and pasta
• Longer hours and fall in real wages
• Increase in taxes

Question 20

What was the significance of the victory of the war?

Answer 20

• Italy stormed the town of Vittorio Veneto and split the Austrian army in two
• Austria signed the armistice and the war in Italy came to an end
• Vittorio Veneto was symbolic of the greatest moment of the Italian nation
• Italy had suffered 650000 casualties with a greatly distorted economy
• The legacy of war left a greater division between north and south