Unification

During the French-German war of 1870 the Italian government took their opportunity and defeated the French army in Italy . The Italian government occupied the city Rome. In May 1871 a Law of Guarantees reaffirmed the independence of the papacy and the Vatican, Pius IX shut himself in the Vatican and declared himself a prisoner of the ‘subalpine government.’

The quarrel was not in fact settled until the concordat between Pius XI and Mussolini in 1929 and its perpetuation was not the least of the grave difficulties that weakened the new kingdom. Nevertheless, political union was now complete, the government transferred itself from Florence (whither it had moved in 1866) to Rome in June 1871.

There was someone who said:" We have made Italy, but we have now to make Italians."

And that was a difficult problem. Too few had taken part in the national uprising.

Garibaldi’s armies of volunteers had always been very small, strong enough to overthrow the regime of the Neapolitan kings, but not strong enough to make a serious contribution against the Austrians.

The result was that the Italians found no friends at the congress of Berlin in 1878 and France was able, as a result of agreements reached at that congress, to assume a protectorate over Tunis in 1881 despite the larger Italian population and interests there and the obvious strategic importance to Italy of the region.

It was this rebuff which drove the Italian government into the arms of Bismarck and in 1882 the triple alliance of Germany, Austria an Italy was formed.

This was an uneasy alliance for Italy and was unpopular.

Although it existed on paper till 1914 it was never very effective.

Francesco Crispi became president of the council in 1887 and launched Italy upon a policy of colonial adventure. Crispi was a Sicilian a pupil of Mazzini and Garibali’s right-hand man during the campaign of Thousand.

The Italians had achieved political control only on the Red sea, at Massawa in 1882.

Menelik emperor of Abyssinia was newly and insecurely seared on his throne and some of the local races disputed his authority.

In December 1895 Menelik with a large army defeated the Italian advance-guard at Amba Alagi and in March 1896 the entirely annihilated the main italian army in the Tigre at Adowa.

By 1898 Italy had begun to make use of her rushing mountaind-streams to develop hydro-electricity, a development which was to become of the first importance to the country.

A improvement in her agriculture, always the most important Italian activity, increased the productive power of the soil and helped to provide food for the growing population, which had increased from 22 millions in 1860 to 32 millions in 1911.

The Peasants of the south, and particularly of Sicily, remained desperately poor and little was done to alleviate the distresses and diseases which were endemic amongst them. There came a large group of people who were against the government in North-Italy . Nowadays they still life in South- Italy, and they are well known as the Maffia.

A serious revolt took place in 1893 and in 1894 in Sicily, when the farm labourers, organising themselves in fasces, rose up and were duly crushed, with great severity, by Crispi.

The economic expansion of northern Italy was the result of the mechanisation of industry and the application of science to agriculture.

Socialism was introduced in Italy in the 1860s by Bakunin, at that time the agent of Karl Marx, and it made fairly rapid progress in the south as will as in the north.

The struggle of the Paris Commune in 1871 acted as an inspiration to the socialist groups in the growing north Italian towns.

In 1890 the Italian Socialist party was formally constituted.

In 1882 only a little more than 6 per cent of the population enjoyed the vote.

They would have more secured far stronger representation in parliament and a greater control over the government.

The Nationalist association was founded in 1908, the same year that saw the syndicalists ( such as Mussolini) break away from the socialists.

It is important to the understanding of Italian development in the 20^th century to appreciate that there was a bond of mutual sympathy between the extremist doctrines of the nationalists and the syndicalists, a sympathy which was later to merge in the fascist movement.

The common ground was not only a sadistic faith in violence, but also specialluy Italian doctrine of the prolitarian nation, a doctrine which became widely popular and still governs Italian thought.