Negotiations were resumed with Napoleon for the evacuation of Rome by

the French troops; but the emperor, though he saw that the temporal

power could not for ever be supported by French bayonets, desired some

guarantee that the evacuation should not be followed, at all events

immediately, by an Italian occupation, lest Catholic opinion should lay

the blame for this upon France. Ultimately the two governments concluded

a convention on the 15th of September 1864, whereby France agreed to

withdraw her troops from Rome so soon as the papal army should be

reorganized, or at the outside within two years, Italy undertaking not

to attack it nor permit others to do so, and to transfer the capital

from Turin to some other city within six months.[18] The change of

capital would have the appearance of a definite abandonment of the _Roma

capitale_ programme, although in reality it was to be merely a _tappa_

(stage) on the way. The convention was kept secret, but the last clause

leaked out and caused the bitterest feeling among the people of Turin,

who would have been resigned to losing the capital provided it were

transferred to Rome, but resented the fact that it was to be established

in any other city, and that the convention was made without consulting

parliament. Demonstrations were held which were repressed with

unnecessary violence, and although the change of capital was not

unpopular in the rest of Italy, where the _Piemontesismo_ of the new

régime was beginning to arouse jealousy, the secrecy with which the

affair was arranged and the shooting down of the people in Turin raised

such a storm of disapproval that the king for the first time used his

privilege of dismissing the ministry. Under La Marmora's administration

the September convention was ratified, and the capital was transferred

to Florence the following year. This affair resulted in an important

political change, for the Piedmontese deputies, hitherto the bulwarks of

moderate conservatism, now shifted to the Left or constitutional

opposition.

Venetian question.

Prusso-Italian Alliance of 1866.

Meanwhile, the Venetian question was becoming more and more acute. Every

Italian felt the presence of the Austrians in the lagoons as a national

humiliation, and between 1859 and 1866 countless plots were hatched for

their expulsion. But, in spite of the sympathy of the king, the attempt

to raise armed bands in Venetia had no success, and it became clear that

the foreigner could only be driven from the peninsula by regular war. To

wage this alone Italy was still too weak, and it was necessary to look

round for an ally. Napoleon was sympathetic; he desired to see the

Austrians expelled, and the Syllabus of Pius IX., which had stirred up

the more aggressive elements among the French clergy against his

government, had brought him once more into harmony with the views of

Victor Emmanuel; but he dared not brave French public opinion by another

war with Austria, nor did Italy desire an alliance which would only have

been bought at the price of further cessions. There remained Prussia,

which, now that the Danish campaign of 1864 was over, was completing her

preparations for the final struggle with Austria for the hegemony of

Germany; and Napoleon, who saw in the furthering of Bismarck's plans the

surest means of securing his own influence in a divided Europe,

willingly lent his aid in negotiating a Prusso-Italian alliance. In the

summer of 1865 Bismarck made formal proposals to La Marmora; but the

_pourparlers_ were interrupted by the conclusion of the convention of

Gastein (August 14), to which Austria agreed partly under pressure of

the Prusso-Italian _entente_. To Italy the convention seemed like a

betrayal; to Napoleon it was a set-back which he tried to retrieve by

suggesting to Austria the peaceful cession of Venetia to the Italian

kingdom, in order to prevent any danger of its alliance with Prussia.

This proposal broke on the refusal of the emperor Francis Joseph to cede

Austrian territory except as the result of a struggle; and Napoleon, won

over by Bismarck at the famous interview at Biarritz, once more took up

the idea of a Prusso-Italian offensive and defensive alliance. This was

actually concluded on the 8th of April 1866. Its terms, dictated by a

natural suspicion on the part of the Italian government, stipulated that

it should only become effective in the event of Prussia declaring war on

Austria within three months. Peace was not to be concluded until Italy

should have received Venetia, and Prussia an equivalent territory in

Germany.

The outbreak of war was postponed by further diplomatic complications.

On the 12th of June Napoleon, whose policy throughout had been obscure

and contradictory, signed a secret treaty with Austria, under which

Venice was to be handed over to him, to be given to Italy in the event

of her making a separate peace. La Marmora, however, who believed

himself bound in honour to Prussia, refused to enter into a separate

arrangement. On the 16th the Prussians began hostilities, and on the

20th Italy declared war.

Ricasoli Ministry.

Battle of Königgrätz.

Victor Emmanuel took the supreme command of the Italian army, and La

Marmora resigned the premiership (which was assumed by Ricasoli), to

become chief of the staff. La Marmora had three army corps (130,000 men)

under his immediate command, to operate on the Mincio, while Cialdini

with 80,000 men was to operate on the Po. The Austrian southern army

consisting of 95,000 men was commanded by the archduke Albert, with

General von John as chief of the staff. On the 23rd of June La Marmora

crossed the Mincio, and on the 24th a battle was fought at Custozza,

under circumstances highly disadvantageous to the Italians, which after

a stubborn contest ended in a crushing Austrian victory. Bad

generalship, bad organization and the jealousy between La Marmora and

Della Rocca were responsible for this defeat. Custozza might have been

afterwards retrieved, for the Italians had plenty of fresh troops

besides Cialdini's army; but nothing was done, as both the king and La

Marmora believed the situation to be much worse than it actually was. On

the 3rd of July the Prussians completely defeated the Austrians at

Königgrätz, and on the 5th Austria ceded Venetia to Napoleon, accepting

his mediation in favour of peace. The Italian iron-clad fleet commanded

by the incapable Persano, after wasting much time at Taranto and Ancona,

made an unsuccessful attack on the Dalmatian island of Lissa on the 18th

of July, and on the 20th was completely defeated by the Austrian

squadron, consisting of wooden ships, but commanded by the capable

Admiral Tegethoff.

Venice united to Italy.

On the 22nd Prussia, without consulting Italy, made an armistice with

Austria, while Italy obtained an eight days' truce on condition of

evacuating the Trentino, which had almost entirely fallen into the

hands of Garibaldi and his volunteers. Ricasoli wished to go on with the

war, rather than accept Venetia as a gift from France; but the king and

La Marmora saw that peace must be made, as the whole Austrian army of

350,000 men was now free to fall on Italy. An armistice was accordingly

signed at Cormons on the 12th of August; Austria handed Venetia over to

General Leboeuf, representing Napoleon; and on the 3rd of October peace

between Austria and Italy was concluded at Vienna. On the 19th Leboeuf

handed Venetia over to the Venetian representatives, and at the

plebiscite held on the 21st and 22nd, 647,246 votes were returned in

favour of union with Italy, only 69 against it. When this result was

announced to the king by a deputation from Venice he said: "This is the

finest day of my life; Italy is made, but it is not complete." Rome was

still wanting.

Revolt in Sicily, 1866.

Rattazzi Ministry.

Garibaldi attacks Rome.

Menabrea Ministry.

Battle of Mentana.

Custozza and Lissa were not Italy's only misfortunes in 1866. There had

been considerable discontent in Sicily, where the government had made

itself unpopular. The priesthood and the remnants of the Bourbon party

fomented an agitation, which in September culminated in an attack on

Palermo by 3000 armed insurgents, and in similar outbreaks elsewhere.

The revolt was put down owing to the energy of the mayor of Palermo,

Marquis A. Di Rudini, and the arrival of reinforcements. The Ricasoli

cabinet fell over the law against the religious houses, and was

succeeded by that of Rattazzi, who with the support of the Left was

apparently more fortunate. The French regular troops were withdrawn from

Rome in December 1866; but the pontifical forces were largely recruited

in France and commanded by officers of the imperial army, and service

under the pope was considered by the French war office as equivalent to

service in France. This was a violation of the letter as well as of the

spirit of the September convention, and a stronger and more

straightforward statesman than Rattazzi would have declared Italy

absolved from its provisions. Mazzini now wanted to promote an

insurrection in Roman territory, whereas Garibaldi advocated an invasion

from without. He delivered a series of violent speeches against the

papacy, and made open preparations for a raid, which were not interfered

with by the government; but on the 23rd of September 1867 Rattazzi had

him suddenly arrested and confined to Caprera. In spite of the vigilance

of the warships he escaped on the 14th of October and landed in Tuscany.

Armed bands had already entered papal territory, but achieved nothing in

particular. Their presence, however, was a sufficient excuse for

Napoleon, under pressure of the clerical party, to send another

expedition to Rome (26th of October). Rattazzi, after ordering a body of

troops to enter papal territory with no definite object, now resigned,

and was succeeded by Menabrea. Garibaldi joined the bands on the 23rd,

but his ill-armed and ill-disciplined force was very inferior to his

volunteers of '49, '60 and '66. On the 24th he captured Monte Rotondo,

but did not enter Rome as the expected insurrection had not broken out.

On the 29th a French force, under de Failly, arrived, and on the 3rd of

November a battle took place at Mentana between 4000 or 5000 red-shirts

and a somewhat superior force of French and pontificals. The

Garibaldians, mowed down by the new French _chassepôt_ rifles, fought

until their last cartridges were exhausted, and retreated the next day

towards the Italian frontier, leaving 800 prisoners.

Lanza Ministry.

The affair of Mentana caused considerable excitement throughout Europe,

and the Roman question entered on an acute stage. Napoleon suggested his

favourite expedient of a congress but the proposal broke down owing to

Great Britain's refusal to participate; and Rouher, the French premier,

declared in the Chamber (5th of December 1867) that France could never

permit the Italians to occupy Rome. The attitude of France strengthened

that anti-French feeling in Italy which had begun with Villafranca; and

Bismarck was not slow to make use of this hostility, with a view to

preventing Italy from taking sides with France against Germany in the

struggle between the two powers which he saw to be inevitable. At the

same time Napoleon was making overtures both to Austria and to Italy,

overtures which were favourably received. Victor Emmanuel was sincerely

anxious to assist Napoleon, for in spite of Nice and Savoy and Mentana

he felt a chivalrous desire to help the man who had fought for Italy.

But with the French at Civitavecchia (they had left Rome very soon after

Mentana) a war for France was not to be thought of, and Napoleon would

not promise more than the literal observance of the September

convention. Austria would not join France unless Italy did the same, and

she realized that that was impossible unless Napoleon gave way about

Rome. Consequently the negotiations were suspended. A scandal concerning

the tobacco monopoly led to the fall of Menabrea, who was succeeded in

December 1869 by Giovanni Lanza, with Visconti-Venosta at the foreign

office and Q. Sella as finance minister. The latter introduced a sounder

financial policy, which was maintained until the fall of the Right in

1876. Mazzini, now openly hostile to the monarchy, was seized with a

perfect monomania for insurrections, and promoted various small risings,

the only effect of which was to show how completely his influence was

gone.

Italian occupation of Rome.

In December 1869 the XXI. oecumenical council began its sittings in

Rome, and on the 18th of July 1870 proclaimed the infallibility of the

pope (see VATICAN COUNCIL). Two days previously Napoleon had declared

war on Prussia, and immediately afterwards he withdrew his troops from

Civitavecchia; but he persuaded Lanza to promise to abide by the

September convention, and it was not until after Worth and Gravelotte

that he offered to give Italy a free hand to occupy Rome. Then it was

too late; Victor Emmanuel asked Thiers if he could give his word of

honour that with 100,000 Italian troops France could be saved, but

Thiers remained silent. Austria replied like Italy: "It is too late." On

the 9th of August Italy made a declaration of neutrality, and three

weeks later Visconti-Venosta informed the powers that Italy was about to

occupy Rome. On the 3rd of September the news of Sédan reached Florence,

and with the fall of Napoleon's empire the September convention ceased

to have any value. The powers having engaged to abstain from

intervention in Italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to

Pius IX. asking him in the name of religion and peace to accept Italian

protection instead of the temporal power, to which the pope replied that

he would only yield to force. On the 11th of September General Cadorna

at the head of 60,000 men entered papal territory. The garrison of

Civitavecchia surrendered to Bixio, but the 10,000 men in Rome, mostly

French, Belgians, Swiss and Bavarians, under Kanzler, were ready to

fight. Cardinal Antonelli would have come to terms, but the pope decided

on making a sufficient show of resistance to prove that he was yielding

to force. On the 20th the Italians began the attack, and General Mazé de

la Roche's division having effected a breach in the Porta Pia, the pope

ordered the garrison to cease fire and the Italians poured into the

Eternal City followed by thousands of Roman exiles. By noon the whole

city on the left of the Tiber was occupied and the garrison laid down

their arms; the next day, at the pope's request, the Leonine City on the

right bank was also occupied. It had been intended to leave that part of

Rome to the pope, but by the earnest desire of the inhabitants it too

was included in the Italian kingdom. At the plebiscite there were

133,681 votes for union and 1507 against it. In July 1872 King Victor

Emmanuel made his solemn entry into Rome, which was then declared the

capital of Italy. Thus, after a struggle of more than half a century, in

spite of apparently insuperable obstacles, the liberation and the unity

of Italy were accomplished.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A vast amount of material on the Risorgimento has been

published both in Italy and abroad as well as numerous works of a

literary and critical nature. The most detailed Italian history of the

period is Carlo Tivaroni's _Storia critica del Risorgimento Italiano_

in 9 vols. (Turin, 1888-1897), based on a diligent study of the

original authorities and containing a large amount of information; the

author is a Mazzinian, which fact should be taken into account, but

he generally quotes the opinions of those who disagree with him as

well. Another voluminous but less valuable work is F. Bertolini's

_Storia d'Italia dal 1814 al 1878_, in 2 parts (Milan, 1880-1881.) L.

Chiala's _Lettere del Conte di Cavour_ (7 vols., Turin, 1883-1887) and

D. Zanichelli's _Scritti del Conte di Cavour_ (Bologna, 1892) are very

important, and so are Prince Metternich's _Mémoires_ (7 vols., Paris,

1881). P. Orsi's _L'Italia moderna_ (Milan, 1901) should also be

mentioned. N. Bianchi's _Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia_ (8

vols., Turin, 1865) is an invaluable and thoroughly reliable work. See

also Zini's _Storia d' Italia_ (4 vols., Milan, 1875); Gualterio's

_Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani_ (4 vols., Florence, 1850) is

important for the period from 1831 to 1847, and so also is L. Farina's

_Storia d' Italia dal 1815 al 1849_ (5 vols., Turin, 1851); W. R.

Thayer's _Dawn of Italian Independence_ (Boston, 1893) is gushing and

not always accurate; C. Cantù's _Dell' indipendenza italiana

cronistoria_ (Naples, 1872-1877) is reactionary and often unreliable;

V. Bersezio, _Il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II_ (8 vols., Turin, 1889,

&c.). For English readers Countess E. Martinengo Cesaresco's

_Liberation of Italy_ (London, 1895) is to be strongly recommended,

and is indeed, for accuracy, fairness and synthesis, as well as for

charm of style, one of the very best books on the subject in any

language; Bolton King's _History of Italian Unity_ (2 vols., London,

1899) is bulkier and less satisfactory, but contains a useful

bibliography. A succinct account of the chief events of the period

will be found in Sir Spencer Walpole's _History of Twenty-Five Years_

(London, 1904). See also the _Cambridge Modern History_, vols. x. and

xi. (Cambridge, 1907, &c.), where full bibliographies will be found.

(L. V.*)

F. HISTORY, 1870-1902

Italian occupation of Rome.

The downfall of the temporal power was hailed throughout Italy with

unbounded enthusiasm. Abroad, Catholic countries at first received the

tidings with resignation, and Protestant countries with joy. In France,

where the Government of National Defence had replaced the Empire,

Crémieux, as president of the government delegation at Tours, hastened

to offer his congratulations to Italy. The occupation of Rome caused no

surprise to the French government, which had been forewarned on 11th

September of the Italian intentions. On that occasion Jules Favre had

recognized the September convention to be dead, and, while refusing

explicitly to denounce it, had admitted that unless Italy went to Rome

the city would become a prey to dangerous agitators. At the same time he

made it clear that Italy would occupy Rome upon her own responsibility.

Agreeably surprised by this attitude on the part of France,

Visconti-Venosta lost no time in conveying officially the thanks of

Italy to the French government. He doubtless foresaw that the language

of Favre and Crémieux would not be endorsed by the French Clericals.

Prussia, while satisfied at the fall of the temporal power, seemed to

fear lest Italy might recompense the absence of French opposition to the

occupation of Rome by armed intervention in favour of France. Bismarck,

moreover, was indignant at the connivance of the Italian government in

the Garibaldian expedition to Dijon, and was irritated by

Visconti-Venosta's plea in the Italian parliament for the integrity of

French territory. The course of events in France, however, soon calmed

German apprehensions. The advent of Thiers, his attitude towards the

petition of French bishops on behalf of the pope, the recall of Senard,

the French minister at Florence--who had written to congratulate Victor

Emmanuel on the capture of Rome--and the instructions given to his

successor, the comte de Choiseul, to absent himself from Italy at the

moment of the king's official entry into the new capital (2nd July

1871), together with the haste displayed in appointing a French

ambassador to the Holy See, rapidly cooled the cordiality of

Franco-Italian relations, and reassured Bismarck on the score of any

dangerous intimacy between the two governments.

Attitude of the Vatican.

The friendly attitude of France towards Italy during the period

immediately subsequent to the occupation of Rome seemed to cow and to

dishearten the Vatican. For a few weeks the relations between the Curia

and the Italian authorities were marked by a conciliatory spirit. The

secretary-general of the Italian foreign office, Baron Blanc, who had

accompanied General Cadorna to Rome, was received almost daily by

Cardinal Antonelli, papal secretary of state, in order to settle

innumerable questions arising out of the Italian occupation. The royal

commissioner for finance, Giacomelli, had, as a precautionary measure,

seized the pontifical treasury; but upon being informed by Cardinal

Antonelli that among the funds deposited in the treasury were 1,000,000

crowns of Peter's Pence offered by the faithful to the pope in person,

the commissioner was authorized by the Italian council of state not only

to restore this sum, but also to indemnify the Holy See for moneys

expended for the service of the October coupon of the pontifical debt,

that debt having been taken over by the Italian state. On the 29th of

September Cardinal Antonelli further apprised Baron Blanc that he was

about to issue drafts for the monthly payment of the 50,000 crowns

inscribed in the pontifical budget for the maintenance of the pope, the

Sacred College, the apostolic palaces and the papal guards. The Italian

treasury at once honoured all the papal drafts, and thus contributed a

first instalment of the 3,225,000 lire per annum afterwards placed by

Article 4 of the Law of Guarantees at the disposal of the Holy See.

Payments would have been regularly continued had not pressure from the

French Clerical party coerced the Vatican into refusing any further

instalment.

The Law of Guarantees.

Once in possession of Rome, and guarantor to the Catholic world of the

spiritual independence of the pope, the Italian government prepared

juridically to regulate its relations to the Holy See. A bill known as

the Law of Guarantees was therefore framed and laid before parliament.

The measure was an amalgam of Cavour's scheme for a "free church in a

free state," of Ricasoli's Free Church Bill, rejected by parliament four

years previously, and of the proposals presented to Pius IX. by Count

Ponza di San Martino in September 1870. After a debate lasting nearly

two months the Law of Guarantees was adopted in secret ballot on the

21st of March 1871 by 185 votes against 106.

It consisted of two parts. The first, containing thirteen articles,

recognized (Articles 1 and 2) the person of the pontiff as sacred and

intangible, and while providing for free discussion of religious

questions, punished insults and outrages against the pope in the same

way as insults and outrages against the king. Royal honours were

attributed to the pope (Article 3), who was further guaranteed the

same precedence as that accorded to him by other Catholic sovereigns,

and the right to maintain his Noble and Swiss guards. Article 4

allotted the pontiff an annuity of 3,225,000 lire (£129,000) for the

maintenance of the Sacred College, the sacred palaces, the

congregations, the Vatican chancery and the diplomatic service. The

sacred palaces, museums and libraries were, by Article 5, exempted

from all taxation, and the pope was assured perpetual enjoyment of the

Vatican and Lateran buildings and gardens, and of the papal villa at

Castel Gandolfo. Articles 6 and 7 forbade access of any Italian

official or agent to the above-mentioned palaces or to any eventual

conclave or oecumenical council without special authorization from the

pope, conclave or council. Article 8 prohibited the seizure or

examination of any ecclesiastical papers, documents, books or

registers of purely spiritual character. Article 9 guaranteed to the

pope full freedom for the exercise of his spiritual ministry, and

provided for the publication of pontifical announcements on the doors

of the Roman churches and basilicas. Article 10 extended immunity to

ecclesiastics employed by the Holy See, and bestowed upon foreign

ecclesiastics in Rome the personal rights of Italian citizens. By

Article 11, diplomatists accredited to the Holy See, and papal

diplomatists while in Italy, were placed on the same footing as

diplomatists accredited to the Quirinal. Article 12 provided for the

transmission free of cost in Italy of all papal telegrams and

correspondence both with bishops and foreign governments, and

sanctioned the establishment, at the expense of the Italian state, of

a papal telegraph office served by papal officials in communication

with the Italian postal and telegraph system. Article 13 exempted all

ecclesiastical seminaries, academies, colleges and schools for the

education of priests in the city of Rome from all interference on the

part of the Italian government.

This portion of the law, designed to reassure foreign Catholics, met

with little opposition; but the second portion, regulating the

relations between state and church in Italy, was sharply criticized by

deputies who, like Sella, recognized the ideal of a "free church in a

free state" to be an impracticable dream. The second division of the

law abolished (Article 14) all restrictions upon the right of meeting

of members of the clergy. By Article 15 the government relinquished

its rights to apostolic legation in Sicily, and to the appointment of

its own nominees to the chief benefices throughout the kingdom.

Bishops were further dispensed from swearing fealty to the king,

though, except in Rome and suburbs, the choice of bishops was limited

to ecclesiastics of Italian nationality. Article 16 abolished the need

for royal _exequatur_ and _placet_ for ecclesiastical publications,

but subordinated the enjoyment of temporalities by bishops and

priests to the concession of state _exequatur_ and _placet_. Article

17 maintained the independence of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in

spiritual and disciplinary matters, but reserved for the state the

exclusive right to carry out coercive measures.

On the 12th of July 1871, Articles 268, 269 and 270 of the Italian Penal

Code were so modified as to make ecclesiastics liable to imprisonment

for periods varying from six months to five years, and to fines from

1000 to 3000 lire, for spoken or written attacks against the laws of the

state, or for the fomentation of disorder. An encyclical of Pius IX. to

the bishops of the Catholic Church on the 15th of May 1871 repudiated

the Law of Guarantees, and summoned Catholic princes to co-operate in

restoring the temporal power. Practically, therefore, the law has

remained a one-sided enactment, by which Italy considers herself bound,

and of which she has always observed the spirit, even though the

exigencies of self-defence may have led in some minor respects to

non-observance of the letter. The annuity payable to the pope has, for

instance, been made subject to quinquennial prescription, so that in the

event of tardy recognition of the law the Vatican could at no time claim

payment of more than five years' annuity with interest.

For a few months after the occupation of Rome pressing questions

incidental to a new change of capital and to the administration of a new

domain distracted public attention from the real condition of Italian

affairs. The rise of the Tiber and the flooding of Rome in December 1870

(tactfully used by Victor Emmanuel as an opportunity for a first visit

to the new capital) illustrated the imperative necessity of reorganizing

the drainage of the city and of constructing the Tiber embankment. In

spite of pressure from the French government, which desired Italy to

maintain Florence as the political and to regard Rome merely as the

moral capital of the realm, the government offices and both legislative

chambers were transferred in 1871 to the Eternal City. Early in the year

the crown prince Humbert with the Princess Margherita took up their

residence in the Quirinal Palace, which, in view of the Vatican refusal

to deliver up the keys, had to be opened by force. Eight monasteries

were expropriated to make room for the chief state departments, pending

the construction of more suitable edifices. The growth of Clerical

influence in France engendered a belief that Italy would soon have to

defend with the sword her newly-won unity, while the tremendous lesson

of the Franco-Prussian War convinced the military authorities of the

need for thorough military reform. General Ricotti Magnani, minister of

war, therefore framed an Army Reform Bill designed to bring the Italian

army as nearly as possible up to the Prussian standard. Sella, minister

of finance, notwithstanding the sorry plight of the Italian exchequer,

readily granted the means for the reform. "We must arm," he said, "since

we have overturned the papal throne," and he pointed to France as the

quarter from which attack was most likely to come.

Finance.

Though perhaps less desperate than during the previous decade, the

condition of Italian finance was precarious indeed. With taxation

screwed up to breaking point on personal and real estate, on all forms

of commercial and industrial activity, and on salt, flour and other

necessaries of life; with a deficit of £8,500,000 for the current year,

and the prospect of a further aggregate deficit of £12,000,000 during

the next quinquennium, Sella's heroic struggle against national

bankruptcy was still far from a successful termination. He chiefly had

borne the brunt and won the laurels of the unprecedented fight against

deficit in which Italy had been involved since 1862. As finance minister

in the Rattazzi cabinet of that year he had been confronted with a

public debt of nearly £120,000,000, and with an immediate deficit of

nearly £18,000,000. In 1864, as minister in the La Marmora cabinet, he

had again to face an excess of expenditure over income amounting to more

than £14,600,000. By the seizure and sale of Church lands, by the sale

of state railways, by "economy to the bone" and on one supreme occasion

by an appeal to taxpayers to advance a year's quota of the land-tax, he

had met the most pressing engagements of that troublous period. The king

was persuaded to forgo one-fifth of his civil list, ministers and the

higher civil servants were required to relinquish a portion of their

meagre salaries, but, in spite of all, Sella had found himself in 1865

compelled to propose the most hated of fiscal burdens--a grist tax on

cereals. This tax (_macinato_) had long been known in Italy. Vexatious

methods of assessment and collection had made it so unpopular that the

Italian government in 1859-1860 had thought it expedient to abolish it

throughout the realm. Sella hoped by the application of a mechanical

meter both to obviate the odium attaching to former methods of

collection and to avoid the maintenance of an army of inspectors and

tax-gatherers, whose stipends had formerly eaten up most of the proceeds

of the impost. Before proposing the reintroduction of the tax, Sella and

his friend Ferrara improved and made exhaustive experiments with the

meter. The result of their efforts was laid before parliament in one of

the most monumental and most painstaking preambles ever prefixed to a

bill. Sella, nevertheless, fell before the storm of opposition which his

scheme aroused. Scialoja, who succeeded him, was obliged to adopt a

similar proposal, but parliament again proved refractory. Ferrara,

successor of Scialoja, met a like fate; but Count Cambray-Digny, finance

minister in the Menabrea cabinet of 1868-1869, driven to find means to

cover a deficit aggravated by the interest on the Venetian debt,

succeeded, with Sella's help, in forcing a Grist Tax Bill through

parliament, though in a form of which Sella could not entirely approve.

When, on the 1st of January 1869, the new tax came into force, nearly

half the flour-mills in Italy ceased work. In many districts the

government was obliged to open mills on its own account. Inspectors and

tax-gatherers did their work under police protection, and in several

parts of the country riots had to be suppressed _manu militari_. At

first the net revenue from the impost was less than £1,100,000; but

under Sella's firm administration (1869-1873), and in consequence of

improvements gradually introduced by him, the net return ultimately

exceeded £3,200,000. The parliamentary opposition to the impost, which

the Left denounced as "the tax on hunger," was largely factitious. Few,

except the open partisans of national bankruptcy, doubted its necessity;

yet so strong was the current of feeling worked up for party purposes by

opponents of the measure, that Sella's achievement in having by its

means saved the financial situation of Italy deserves to rank among the

most noteworthy performances of modern parliamentary statesmanship.

Under the stress of the appalling financial conditions represented by

chronic deficit, crushing taxation, the heavy expenditure necessary for

the consolidation of the kingdom, the reform of the army and the

interest on the pontifical debt, Sella, on the 11th of December 1871,

exposed to parliament the financial situation in all its nakedness. He

recognized that considerable improvement had already taken place.

Revenue from taxation had risen in a decade from £7,000,000 to

£20,200,000; profit on state monopolies had increased from £7,000,000 to

£9,400,000; exports had grown to exceed imports; income from the working

of telegraphs had tripled itself; railways had been extended from 2200

to 6200 kilometres, and the annual travelling public had augmented from

15,000,000 to 25,000,000 persons. The serious feature of the situation

lay less in the income than in the "intangible" expenditure, namely, the

vast sums required for interest on the various forms of public debt and

for pensions. Within ten years this category of outlay had increased

from £8,000,000 to £28,800,000. During the same period the assumption of

the Venetian and Roman debts, losses on the issue of loans and the

accumulation of annual deficits, had caused public indebtedness to rise

from £92,000,000 to £328,000,000, no less than £100,000,000 of the

latter sum having been sacrificed in premiums and commissions to bankers

and underwriters of loans. By economies and new taxes Sella had reduced

the deficit to less than £2,000,000 in 1871, but for 1872 he found

himself confronted with a total expenditure of £8,000,000 in excess of

revenue. He therefore proposed to make over the treasury service to the

state banks, to increase the forced currency, to raise the stamp and

registration duties and to impose a new tax on textile fabrics. An

optional conversion of sundry internal loans into consolidated stock at

a lower rate of interest was calculated to effect considerable saving.

The battle over these proposals was long and fierce. But for the tactics

of Rattazzi, leader of the Left, who, by basing his opposition on party

considerations, impeded the secession of Minghetti and a part of the

Right from the ministerial majority, Sella would have been defeated. On

the 23rd of March 1872, however, he succeeded in carrying his programme,

which not only provided for the pressing needs of the moment, but laid

the foundation of the much-needed equilibrium between expenditure and

revenue.

Religious Orders Bill.

In the spring of 1873 it became evident that the days of the Lanza-Sella

cabinet were numbered. Fear of the advent of a Radical administration

under Rattazzi alone prevented the Minghettian Right from revolting

against the government. The Left, conscious of its strength, impatiently

awaited the moment of accession to power. Sella, the real head of the

Lanza cabinet, was worn out by four years' continuous work and

disheartened by the perfidious misrepresentation in which Italian

politicians, particularly those of the Left, have ever excelled. By

sheer force of will he compelled the Chamber early in 1873 to adopt some

minor financial reforms, but on the 29th of April found himself in a

minority on the question of a credit for a proposed state arsenal at

Taranto. Pressure from all sides of the House, however, induced the

ministry to retain office until after the debate on the application to

Rome and the Papal States of the Religious Orders Bill (originally

passed in 1866)--a measure which, with the help of Ricasoli, was carried

at the end of May. While leaving intact the general houses of the

various confraternities (except that of the Jesuits), the bill abolished

the corporate personality of religious orders, handed over their schools

and hospitals to civil administrators, placed their churches at the

disposal of the secular clergy, and provided pensions for nuns and

monks, those who had families being sent to reside with their relatives,

and those who by reason of age or bereavement had no home but their

monasteries being allowed to end their days in religious houses

specially set apart for the purpose. The proceeds of the sale of the

suppressed convents and monasteries were partly converted into pensions

for monks and nuns, and partly allotted to the municipal charity boards

which had undertaken the educational and charitable functions formerly

exercised by the religious orders. To the pope was made over £16,000 per

annum as a contribution to the expense of maintaining in Rome

representatives of foreign orders; the Sacred College, however, rejected

this endowment, and summoned all the suppressed confraternities to

reconstitute themselves under the ordinary Italian law of association. A

few days after the passage of the Religious Orders Bill, the death of

Rattazzi (5th June 1873) removed all probability of the immediate advent

of the Left. Sella, uncertain of the loyalty of the Right, challenged a

vote on the immediate discussion of further financial reforms, and on

the 23rd of June was overthrown by a coalition of the Left under

Depretis with a part of the Right under Minghetti and the Tuscan Centre

under Correnti. The administration which thus fell was unquestionably

the most important since the death of Cavour. It had completed national

unity, transferred the capital to Rome, overcome the chief obstacles to

financial equilibrium, initiated military reform and laid the foundation

of the relations between state and church.

Minghetti.

The succeeding Minghetti-Visconti-Venosta cabinet--which held office

from the 10th of July 1873 to the 18th of March 1876--continued in

essential points the work of the preceding administration. Minghetti's

finance, though less clear-sighted and less resolute than that of Sella,

was on the whole prudent and beneficial. With the aid of Sella he

concluded conventions for the redemption of the chief Italian railways

from their French and Austrian proprietors. By dint of expedients he

gradually overcame the chronic deficit, and, owing to the normal

increase of revenue, ended his term of office with the announcement of a

surplus of some £720,000. The question whether this surplus was real or

only apparent has been much debated, but there is no reason to doubt its

substantial reality. It left out of account a sum of £1,000,000 for

railway construction which was covered by credit, but, on the other

hand, took no note of £360,000 expended in the redemption of debt.

Practically, therefore, the Right, of which the Minghetti cabinet was

the last representative administration, left Italian finance with a

surplus of £80,000. Outside the all-important domain of finance, the

attention of Minghetti and his colleagues was principally absorbed by

strife between church and state, army reform and railway redemption. For

some time after the occupation of Rome the pope, in order to

substantiate the pretence that his spiritual freedom had been

diminished, avoided the creation of cardinals and the nomination of

bishops. On the 22nd of December 1873, however, he unexpectedly created

twelve cardinals, and subsequently proceeded to nominate a number of

bishops. Visconti-Venosta, who had retained the portfolio for foreign

affairs in the Minghetti cabinet, at once drew the attention of the

European powers to this proof of the pope's spiritual freedom and of the

imaginary nature of his "imprisonment" in the Vatican. At the same time

he assured them that absolute liberty would be guaranteed to the

deliberations of a conclave. In relation to the Church in Italy,

Minghetti's policy was less perspicacious. He let it be understood that

the announcement of the appointment of bishops and the request for the

royal _exequatur_ might be made to the government impersonally by the

congregation of bishops and regulars, by a municipal council or by any

other corporate body--a concession of which the bishops were quick to

take advantage, but which so irritated Italian political opinion that,

in July 1875, the government was compelled to withdraw the temporalities

of ecclesiastics who had neglected to apply for the _exequatur_, and to

evict sundry bishops who had taken possession of their palaces without

authorization from the state. Parliamentary pressure further obliged

Bonghi, minister of public instruction, to compel clerical seminaries

either to forgo the instruction of lay pupils or to conform to the laws

of the state in regard to inspection and examination, an ordinance which

gave rise to conflicts between ecclesiastical and lay authorities, and

led to the forcible dissolution of the Mantua seminary and to the

suppression of the Catholic university in Rome.

Military and naval reform.

More noteworthy than its management of internal affairs were the efforts

of the Minghetti cabinet to strengthen and consolidate national defence.

Appalled by the weakness, or rather the non-existence, of the navy,

Admiral Saint-Bon, with his coadjutor Signor Brin, addressed himself

earnestly to the task of recreating the fleet, which had never recovered

from the effects of the disaster of Lissa. During his three years of

office he laid the foundation upon which Brin was afterwards to build up

a new Italian navy. Simultaneously General Ricotti Magnani matured the

army reform scheme which he had elaborated under the preceding

administration. His bill, adopted by parliament on the 7th of June 1875,

still forms the ground plan of the Italian army.

Foreign policy under the Right.

It was fortunate for Italy that during the whole period 1860-1876 the

direction of her foreign policy remained in the experienced hands of

Visconti-Venosta, a statesman whose trustworthiness, dignity and

moderation even political opponents have been compelled to recognize.

Diplomatic records fail to substantiate the accusations of lack of

initiative and instability of political criterion currently brought

against him by contemporaries. As foreign minister of a young state

which had attained unity in defiance of the most formidable religious

organization in the world and in opposition to the traditional policy of

France, it could but be Visconti-Venosta's aim to uphold the dignity of

his country while convincing European diplomacy that United Italy was an

element of order and progress, and that the spiritual independence of

the Roman pontiff had suffered no diminution. Prudence, moreover,

counselled avoidance of all action likely to serve the predominant

anti-Italian party in France as a pretext for violent intervention in

favour of the pope. On the occasion of the Metrical Congress, which met

in Paris in 1872, he, however, successfully protested against the

recognition of the Vatican delegate, Father Secchi, as a representative

of a "state," and obtained from Count de Rémusat, French foreign

minister, a formal declaration that the presence of Father Secchi on

that occasion could not constitute a diplomatic precedent. The

irritation displayed by Bismarck at the Francophil attitude of Italy

towards the end of the Franco-German War gave place to a certain show of

goodwill when the great chancellor found himself in his turn involved in

a struggle against the Vatican and when the policy of Thiers began to

strain Franco-Italian relations. Thiers had consistently opposed the

emperor Napoleon's pro-Italian policy. In the case of Italy, as in that

of Germany, he frankly regretted the constitution of powerful

homogeneous states upon the borders of France. Personal pique

accentuated this feeling in regard to Italy. The refusal of Victor

Emmanuel II. to meet Thiers at the opening of the Mont Cenis tunnel (a

refusal not unconnected with offensive language employed at Florence in

October 1870 by Thiers during his European tour, and with his

instructions to the French minister to remain absent from Victor

Emmanuel's official entry into Rome) had wounded the _amour propre_ of

the French statesman, and had decreased whatever inclination he might

otherwise have felt to oppose the French Clerical agitation for the

restoration of the temporal power, and for French interference with the

Italian Religious Orders Bill. Consequently relations between France and

Italy became so strained that in 1873 both the French minister to the

Quirinal and the Italian minister to the Republic remained for several

months absent from their posts. At this juncture the emperor of Austria

invited Victor Emmanuel to visit the Vienna Exhibition, and the Italian

government received a confidential intimation that acceptance of the

invitation to Vienna would be followed by a further invitation from

Berlin. Perceiving the advantage of a visit to the imperial and

apostolic court after the Italian occupation of Rome and the suppression

of the religious orders, and convinced of the value of more cordial

intercourse with the German empire, Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti

advised their sovereign to accept both the Austrian and the subsequent

German invitations. The visit to Vienna took place on the 17th to the

22nd of September, and that to Berlin on the 22nd to the 26th of

September 1873, the Italian monarch being accorded in both capitals a

most cordial reception, although the contemporaneous publication of La

Marmora's famous pamphlet, _More Light on the Events of 1866_, prevented

intercourse between the Italian ministers and Bismarck from being

entirely confidential. Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti, moreover, wisely

resisted the chancellor's pressure to override the Law of Guarantees and

to engage in an Italian _Kulturkampf_. Nevertheless the royal journey

contributed notably to the establishment of cordial relations between

Italy and the central powers, relations which were further strengthened

by the visit of the emperor Francis Joseph to Victor Emmanuel at Venice

in April 1875, and by that of the German emperor to Milan in October of

the same year. Meanwhile Thiers had given place to Marshal Macmahon, who

effected a decided improvement in Franco-Italian relations by recalling

from Civitavecchia the cruiser "Orénoque," which since 1870 had been

stationed in that port at the disposal of the pope in case he should

desire to quit Rome. The foreign policy of Visconti-Venosta may be said

to have reinforced the international position of Italy without sacrifice

of dignity, and without the vacillation and short-sightedness which was

to characterize the ensuing administrations of the Left.

First Depretis Cabinet.

The fall of the Right on the 18th of March 1876 was an event destined

profoundly and in many respects adversely to affect the course of

Italian history. Except at rare and not auspicious intervals, the Right

had held office from 1849 to 1876. Its rule was associated in the

popular mind with severe administration; hostility to the democratic

elements represented by Garibaldi, Crispi, Depretis and Bertani;

ruthless imposition and collection of taxes in order to meet the

financial engagements forced upon Italy by the vicissitudes of her

Risorgimento; strong predilection for Piedmontese, Lombards and Tuscans,

and a steady determination, not always scrupulous in its choice of

means, to retain executive power and the most important administrative

offices of the state for the _consorteria_, or close corporation, of its

own adherents. For years the men of the Left had worked to inoculate the

electorate with suspicion of Conservative methods and with hatred of the

imposts which they nevertheless knew to be indispensable to sound

finance. In regard to the grist tax especially, the agitators of the

Left had placed their party in a radically false position. Moreover, the

redemption of the railways by the state--contracts for which had been

signed by Sella in 1875 on behalf of the Minghetti cabinet with

Rothschild at Basel and with the Austrian government at Vienna--had been

fiercely opposed by the Left, although its members were for the most

part convinced of the utility of the operation. When, at the beginning

of March 1876, these contracts were submitted to parliament, a group of

Tuscan deputies, under Cesare Correnti, joined the opposition, and on

the 18th of March took advantage of a chance motion concerning the date

of discussion of an interpellation on the grist tax to place the

Minghetti cabinet in a minority. Depretis, ex-pro-dictator of Sicily,

and successor of Rattazzi in the leadership of the Left, was entrusted

by the king with the formation of a Liberal ministry. Besides the

premiership, Depretis assumed the portfolio of finance; Nicotera, an

ex-Garibaldian of somewhat tarnished reputation, but a man of energetic

and conservative temperament, was placed at the ministry of the

interior; public works were entrusted to Zanardelli, a Radical

doctrinaire of considerable juridical attainments; General Mezzacapo and

Signor Brin replaced General Ricotti Magnani and Admiral Saint-Bon at

the war office and ministry of marine; while to Mancini and Coppino,

prominent members of the Left, were allotted the portfolios of justice

and public instruction. Great difficulty was experienced in finding a

foreign minister willing to challenge comparison with Visconti-Venosta.

Several diplomatists in active service were approached, but, partly on

account of their refusal, and partly from the desire of the Left to

avoid giving so important a post to a diplomatist bound by ties of

friendship or of interest to the Right, the choice fell upon Melegari,

Italian minister at Bern.

Programme of the Left.

The new ministers had long since made monarchical professions of faith,

but, up to the moment of taking office, were nevertheless considered to

be tinged with an almost revolutionary hue. The king alone appeared to

feel no misgiving. His shrewd sense of political expediency and his

loyalty to constitutional principles saved him from the error of

obstructing the advent and driving into an anti-dynastic attitude

politicians who had succeeded in winning popular favour. Indeed, the

patriotism and loyalty of the new ministers were above suspicion. Danger

lay rather in entrusting men schooled in political conspiracy and in

unscrupulous parliamentary opposition with the government of a young

state still beset by enemies at home and abroad. As an opposition party

the Left had lived upon the facile credit of political promises, but had

no well-considered programme nor other discipline nor unity of purpose

than that born of the common eagerness of its leaders for office and

their common hostility to the Right. Neither Depretis, Nicotera, Crispi,

Cairoli nor Zanardelli was disposed permanently to recognize the

superiority of any one chief. The dissensions which broke out among them

within a few months of the accession of their party to power never

afterwards disappeared, except at rare moments when it became necessary

to unite in preventing the return of the Conservatives. Considerations

such as these could not be expected to appeal to the nation at large,

which hailed the advent of the Left as the dawn of an era of unlimited

popular sovereignty, diminished administrative pressure, reduction of

taxation and general prosperity. The programme of Depretis corresponded

only in part to these expectations. Its chief points were extension of

the franchise, incompatibility of a parliamentary mandate with an

official position, strict enforcement of the rights of the State in

regard to the Church, protection of freedom of conscience, maintenance

of the military and naval policy inaugurated by the Conservatives,

acceptance of the railway redemption contracts, consolidation of the

financial equilibrium, abolition of the forced currency, and,

eventually, fiscal reform. The long-promised abolition of the grist tax

was not explicitly mentioned, opposition to the railway redemption

contracts was transformed into approval, and the vaunted reduction of

taxation replaced by lip-service to the Conservative deity of financial

equilibrium. The railway redemption contracts were in fact immediately

voted by parliament, with a clause pledging the government to legislate

in favour of farming out the railways to private companies.

Nicotera, minister of the interior, began his administration of home

affairs by a sweeping change in the _personnel_ of the prefects,

sub-prefects and public prosecutors, but found himself obliged to incur

the wrath of his supporters by prohibiting Radical meetings likely to

endanger public order, and by enunciating administrative principles

which would have befitted an inveterate Conservative. In regard to the

Church, he instructed the prefects strictly to prevent infraction of the

law against religious orders. At the same time the cabinet, as a whole,

brought in a Clerical Abuses Bill, threatening with severe punishment

priests guilty of disturbing the peace of families, of opposing the laws

of the state, or of fomenting disorder. Depretis, for his part, was

compelled to declare impracticable the immediate abolition of the grist

tax, and to frame a bill for the increase of revenue, acts which caused

the secession of some sixty Radicals and Republicans from the

ministerial majority, and gave the signal for an agitation against the

premier similar to that which he himself had formerly undertaken against

the Right. The first general election under the Left (November 1876) had

yielded the cabinet the overwhelming majority of 421 Ministerialists

against 87 Conservatives, but the very size of the majority rendered it

unmanageable. The Clerical Abuses Bill provoked further dissensions:

Nicotera was severely affected by revelations concerning his political

past; Zanardelli refused to sanction the construction of a railway in

Calabria in which Nicotera was interested; and Depretis saw fit to

compensate the supporters of his bill for the increase of revenue by

decorating at one stroke sixty ministerial deputies with the Order of

the Crown of Italy. A further derogation from the ideal of democratic

austerity was committed by adding £80,000 per annum to the king's civil

list (14th May 1877) and by burdening the state exchequer with royal

household pensions amounting to £20,000 a year. The civil list, which

the law of the 10th of August 1862 had fixed at £650,000 a year, but

which had been voluntarily reduced by the king to £530,000 in 1864, and

to £490,000 in 1867, was thus raised to £570,000 a year. Almost the only

respect in which the Left could boast a decided improvement over the

administration of the Right was the energy displayed by Nicotera in

combating brigandage and the mafia in Calabria and Sicily. Successes

achieved in those provinces failed, however, to save Nicotera from the

wrath of the Chamber, and on the 14th of December 1877 a cabinet crisis

arose over a question concerning the secrecy of telegraphic

correspondence. Depretis thereupon reconstructed his administration,

excluding Nicotera, Melegari and Zanardelli, placing Crispi at the home

office, entrusting Magliani with finance, and himself assuming the

direction of foreign affairs.

Foreign policy of the Left.

In regard to foreign affairs, the début of the Left as a governing party

was scarcely more satisfactory than its home policy. Since the war of

1866 the Left had advocated an Italo-Prussian alliance in opposition to

the Francophil tendencies of the Right. On more than one occasion

Bismarck had maintained direct relations with the chiefs of the Left,

and had in 1870 worked to prevent a Franco-Italian alliance by

encouraging the "party of action" to press for the occupation of Rome.

Besides, the Left stood for anti-clericalism and for the retention by

the State of means of coercing the Church, in opposition to the men of

the Right, who, with the exception of Sella, favoured Cavour's ideal of

"a free Church in a free State," and the consequent abandonment of state

control over ecclesiastical government. Upon the outbreak of the

Prussian _Kulturkampf_ the Left had pressed the Right to introduce an

Italian counterpart to the Prussian May laws, especially as the

attitude of Thiers and the hostility of the French Clericals obviated

the need for sparing French susceptibilities. Visconti-Venosta and

Minghetti, partly from aversion to a Jacobin policy, and partly from a

conviction that Bismarck sooner or later would undertake his _Gang nach

Canossa_, regardless of any tacit engagement he might have assumed

towards Italy, had wisely declined to be drawn into any infraction of

the Law of Guarantees. It was, however, expected that the chiefs of the

Left, upon attaining office, would turn resolutely towards Prussia in

search of a guarantee against the Clerical menace embodied in the régime

of Marshal Macmahon. On the contrary, Depretis and Melegari, both of

whom were imbued with French Liberal doctrines, adopted towards the

Republic an attitude so deferential as to arouse suspicion in Vienna and

Berlin. Depretis recalled Nigra from Paris and replaced him by General

Cialdini, whose ardent plea for Italian intervention in favour of France

in 1870, and whose comradeship with Marshal Macmahon in 1859, would, it

was supposed, render him _persona gratissima_ to the French government.

This calculation was falsified by events. Incensed by the elevation to

the rank of embassies of the Italian legation in Paris and the French

legation to the Quirinal, and by the introduction of the Italian bill

against clerical abuses, the French Clerical party not only attacked

Italy and her representative, General Cialdini, in the Chamber of

Deputies, but promoted a monster petition against the Italian bill. Even

the _coup d'état_ of the 16th of May 1877 (when Macmahon dismissed the

Jules Simon cabinet for opposing the Clerical petition) hardly availed

to change the attitude of Depretis. As a precaution against an eventual

French attempt to restore the temporal power, orders were hurriedly

given to complete the defences of Rome, but in other respects the

Italian government maintained its subservient attitude. Yet at that

moment the adoption of a clear line of policy, in accord with the

central powers, might have saved Italy from the loss of prestige

entailed by her bearing in regard to the Russo-Turkish War and the

Austrian acquisition of Bosnia, and might have prevented the

disappointment subsequently occasioned by the outcome of the Congress of

Berlin. In the hope of inducing the European powers to "compensate"

Italy for the increase of Austrian influence on the Adriatic, Crispi

undertook in the autumn of 1877, with the approval of the king, and in

spite of the half-disguised opposition of Depretis, a semi-official

mission to Paris, Berlin, London and Vienna. The mission appears not to

have been an unqualified success, though Crispi afterwards affirmed in

the Chamber (4th March 1886) that Depretis might in 1877 "have harnessed

fortune to the Italian chariot." Depretis, anxious only to avoid "a

policy of adventure," let slip whatever opportunity may have presented

itself, and neglected even to deal energetically with the impotent but

mischievous Italian agitation for a "rectification" of the

Italo-Austrian frontier. He greeted the treaty of San Stefano (3rd March

1878) with undisguised relief, and by the mouth of the king,

congratulated Italy (7th March 1878) on having maintained with the

powers friendly and cordial relations "free from suspicious

precautions," and upon having secured for herself "that most precious of

alliances, the alliance of the future"--a phrase of which the empty

rhetoric was to be bitterly demonstrated by the Berlin Congress and the

French occupation of Tunisia.

Crispi.

Deaths of Victor Emmanuel II. and Pius IX.

Leo XIII.

The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December 1877) placed at

the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye at a moment when

they were about to become imperatively necessary. Crispi was the only

man of truly statesmanlike calibre in the ranks of the Left. Formerly a

friend and disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken on the question

of the monarchical form of government which Crispi believed

indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had afterwards been one of

Garibaldi's most efficient coadjutors and an active member of the "party

of action." Passionate, not always scrupulous in his choice and use of

political weapons, intensely patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based

rather on reason than sentiment, quick-witted, prompt in action,

determined and pertinacious, he possessed in eminent degree many

qualities lacking in other Liberal chieftains. Hardly had he assumed

office when the unexpected death of Victor Emmanuel II. (9th January

1878) stirred national feeling to an unprecedented depth, and placed the

continuity of monarchical institutions in Italy upon trial before

Europe. For thirty years Victor Emmanuel had been the centre point of

national hopes, the token and embodiment of the struggle for national

redemption. He had led the country out of the despondency which followed

the defeat of Novara and the abdication of Charles Albert, through all

the vicissitudes of national unification to the final triumph at Rome.

His disappearance snapped the chief link with the heroic period, and

removed from the helm of state a ruler of large heart, great experience

and civil courage, at a moment when elements of continuity were needed

and vital problems of internal reorganization had still to be faced.

Crispi adopted the measures necessary to ensure the tranquil accession

of King Humbert with a quick energy which precluded any Radical or

Republican demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman

Pantheon as the late monarch's burial-place, in spite of formidable

pressure from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor Emmanuel II. to rest

with the Sardinian kings at Superga. He also persuaded the new ruler to

inaugurate, as King Humbert I., the new dynastical epoch of the kings of

Italy, instead of continuing as Humbert IV. the succession of the kings

of Sardinia. Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel

had passed away, the decease of Pius IX (7th February 1878) placed

further demands upon Crispi's sagacity and promptitude. Like Victor

Emmanuel, Pius IX. had been bound up with the history of the

Risorgimento, but, unlike him, had represented and embodied the

anti-national, reactionary spirit. Ecclesiastically, he had become the

instrument of the triumph of Jesuit influence, and had in turn set his

seal upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Syllabus and Papal

Infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposition and

good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and rendered his

death an occasion of mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiff's bestowal of

the apostolic benediction _in articulo mortis_ upon Victor Emmanuel, the

attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it doubtful

whether the conclave would be held in Rome. Crispi, whose strong

anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him from regarding the papacy

as preeminently an Italian institution, was determined both to prove to

the Catholic world the practical independence of the government of the

Church and to retain for Rome so potent a centre of universal attraction

as the presence of the future pope. The Sacred College having decided to

hold the conclave abroad, Crispi assured them of absolute freedom if

they remained in Rome, or of protection to the frontier should they

migrate, but warned them that, once evacuated, the Vatican would be

occupied in the name of the Italian government and be lost to the Church

as headquarters of the papacy. The cardinals thereupon overruled their

former decision, and the conclave was held in Rome, the new pope,

Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the 20th of February 1878 without let

or hindrance. The Italian government not only prorogued the Chamber

during the conclave to prevent unseemly inquiries or demonstrations on

the part of deputies, but by means of Mancini, minister of justice, and

Cardinal di Pietro, assured the new pope protection during the

settlement of his outstanding personal affairs, an assurance of which

Leo XIII. on the evening after his election, took full advantage. At the

same time the duke of Aosta, commander of the Rome army corps, ordered

the troops to render royal honours to the pontiff should he officially

appear in the capital. King Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of

congratulation upon his election, and received a courteous reply. The

improvement thus signalized in the relations between Quirinal and

Vatican was further exemplified on the 18th of October 1878, when the

Italian government accepted a papal formula with regard to the granting

of the royal _exequatur_ for bishops, whereby they, upon nomination by

the Holy See, recognized state control over, and made application for,

the payment of their temporalities.

Cairoli.

The Depretis-Crispi cabinet did not long survive the opening of the new

reign. Crispi's position was shaken by a morally plausible but

juridically untenable charge of bigamy, while on the 8th of March the

election of Cairoli, an opponent of the ministry and head of the

extremer section of the Left, to the presidency of the Chamber, induced

Depretis to tender his resignation to the new king. Cairoli succeeded in

forming an administration, in which his friend Count Corti, Italian

ambassador at Constantinople, accepted the portfolio of foreign affairs,

Zanardelli the ministry of the interior, and Seismit Doda the ministry

of finance. Though the cabinet had no stable majority, it induced the

Chamber to sanction a commercial treaty which had been negotiated with

France and a general "autonomous" customs tariff. The commercial treaty

was, however, rejected by the French Chamber in June 1878, a

circumstance necessitating the application of the Italian general

tariff, which implied a 10 to 20% increase in the duties on the

principal French exports. A highly imaginative financial exposition by

Seismit Doda, who announced a surplus of £2,400,000, paved the way for a

Grist Tax Reduction Bill, which Cairoli had taken over from the Depretis

programme. The Chamber, though convinced of the danger of this reform,

the perils of which were incisively demonstrated by Sella, voted by an

overwhelming majority for an immediate reduction of the impost by

one-fourth, and its complete abolition within four years. Cairoli's

premiership was, however, destined to be cut short by an attempt made

upon the king's life in November 1878, during a royal visit to Naples,

by a miscreant named Passanante. In spite of the courage and presence of

mind of Cairoli, who received the dagger thrust intended for the king,

public and parliamentary indignation found expression in a vote which

compelled the ministry to resign.

Italy and the Berlin Congress.

Irredentism.

Though brief, Cairoli's term of office was momentous in regard to

foreign affairs. The treaty of San Stefano had led to the convocation of

the Berlin Congress, and though Count Corti was by no means ignorant of

the rumours concerning secret agreements between Germany, Austria and

Russia, and Germany, Austria and Great Britain, he scarcely seemed alive

to the possible effect of such agreements upon Italy. Replying on the

9th of April 1878 to interpellations by Visconti-Venosta and other

deputies on the impending Congress of Berlin, he appeared free from

apprehension lest Italy, isolated, might find herself face to face with

a change of the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and declared that

in the event of serious complications Italy would be "too much sought

after rather than too much forgotten." The policy of Italy in the

congress, he added, would be to support the interests of the young

Balkan nations. Wrapped in this optimism, Count Corti proceeded, as

first Italian delegate, to Berlin, where he found himself obliged, on

the 28th of May, to join reluctantly in sanctioning the Austrian

occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 8th of July the revelation

of the Anglo-Ottoman treaty for the British occupation of Cyprus took

the congress by surprise. Italy, who had made the integrity of the

Ottoman empire a cardinal point of her Eastern policy, felt this change

of the Mediterranean _status quo_ the more severely inasmuch as, in

order not to strain her relations with France, she had turned a deaf ear

to Austrian, Russian and German advice to prepare to occupy Tunisia in

agreement with Great Britain. Count Corti had no suspicion that France

had adopted a less disinterested attitude towards similar suggestions

from Bismarck and Lord Salisbury. He therefore returned from the German

capital with "clean" but empty hands, a plight which found marked

disfavour in Italian eyes, and stimulated anti-Austrian Irredentism.

Ever since Venetia had been ceded by Austria to the emperor Napoleon,

and by him to Italy, after the war of 1866, secret revolutionary

committees had been formed in the northern Italian provinces to prepare

for the "redemption" of Trent and Trieste. For twelve years these

committees had remained comparatively inactive, but in 1878 the presence

of the ex-Garibaldian Cairoli at the head of the government, and popular

dissatisfaction at the spread of Austrian sway on the Adriatic,

encouraged them to begin a series of noisy demonstrations. On the

evening of the signature at Berlin of the clause sanctioning the

Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an Irredentist riot took

place before the Austrian consulate at Venice. The Italian government

attached little importance to the occurrence, and believed that a

diplomatic expression of regret would suffice to allay Austrian

irritation. Austria, indeed, might easily have been persuaded to ignore

the Irredentist agitation, had not the equivocal attitude of Cairoli and

Zanardelli cast doubt upon the sincerity of their regret. The former at

Pavia (15th October 1878), and the latter at Arco (3rd November),

declared publicly that Irredentist manifestations could not be prevented

under existing laws, but gave no hint of introducing any law to sanction

their prevention. "Repression, not prevention" became the official

formula, the enunciation of which by Cairoli at Pavia caused Count Corti

and two other ministers to resign.

Finance.

The fall of Cairoli, and the formation of a second Depretis cabinet in

1878, brought no substantial change in the attitude of the government

towards Irredentism, nor was the position improved by the return of

Cairoli to power in the following July. Though aware of Bismarck's

hostility towards Italy, of the conclusion of the Austro-German alliance

of 1879, and of the undisguised ill-will of France, Italy not only made

no attempt to crush an agitation as mischievous as it was futile, but

granted a state funeral to General Avezzana, president of the

Irredentist League. In Bonghi's mordant phrase, the foreign policy of

Italy during this period may be said to have been characterized by

"enormous intellectual impotence counterbalanced by equal moral

feebleness." Home affairs were scarcely better managed. Parliament had

degenerated into a congeries of personal groups, whose members were

eager only to overturn cabinets in order to secure power for the leaders

and official favours for themselves. Depretis, who had succeeded Cairoli

in December 1878, fell in July 1879, after a vote in which Cairoli and

Nicotera joined the Conservative opposition. On 12th July Cairoli formed

a new administration, only to resign on 24th November, and to

reconstruct his cabinet with the help of Depretis. The administration of

finance was as chaotic as the condition of parliament. The £2,400,000

surplus announced by Seismit Doda proved to be a myth. Nevertheless

Magliani, who succeeded Seismit Doda, had neither the perspicacity nor

the courage to resist the abolition of the grist tax. The first vote of

the Chamber for the immediate diminution of the tax, and for its total

abolition on 1st January 1883, had been opposed by the Senate. A second

bill was passed by the Chamber on 18th July 1879, providing for the

immediate repeal of the grist tax on minor cereals, and for its total

abolition on 1st January 1884. While approving the repeal in regard to

minor cereals, the Senate (24th January 1880) again rejected the repeal

of the tax on grinding wheat as prejudicial to national finance. After

the general election of 1880, however, the Ministerialists, aided by a

number of factious Conservatives, passed a third bill repealing the

grist tax on wheat (10th July 1880), the repeal to take effect from the

1st of January 1884 onwards. The Senate, in which the partisans of the

ministry had been increased by numerous appointments ad hoc, finally set

the seal of its approval upon the measure. Notwithstanding this

prospective loss of revenue, parliament showed great reluctance to vote

any new impost, although hardly a year previously it had sanctioned

(30th June 1879) Depretis's scheme for spending during the next eighteen

years £43,200,000 in building 5000 kilometres of railway, an expenditure

not wholly justified by the importance of the lines, and useful

principally as a source of electoral sops for the constituents of

ministerial deputies. The unsatisfactory financial condition of the

Florence, Rome and Naples municipalities necessitated state help, but

the Chamber nevertheless proceeded with a light heart (23rd February

1881) to sanction the issue of a foreign loan for £26,000,000, with a

view to the abolition of the forced currency, thus adding to the burdens

of the exchequer a load which three years later again dragged Italy into

the gulf of chronic deficit.

Tunisia.

In no modern country is error or incompetence on the part of

administrators more swiftly followed by retribution than in Italy; both

at home and abroad she is hemmed in by political and economic conditions

which leave little margin for folly, and still less for "mental and

moral insufficiency," such as had been displayed by the Left. Nemesis

came in the spring of 1881, in the form of the French invasion of

Tunisia. Guiccioli, the biographer of Sella, observes that Italian

politicians find it especially hard to resist "the temptation of

appearing crafty." The men of the Left believed themselves subtle enough

to retain the confidence and esteem of all foreign powers while

coquetting at home with elements which some of these powers had reason

to regard with suspicion. Italy, in constant danger from France, needed

good relations with Austria and Germany, but could only attain the

goodwill of the former by firm treatment of the revolutionary

Irredentist agitation, and of the latter by clear demonstration of

Italian will and ability to cope with all anti-monarchical forces.

Depretis and Cairoli did neither the one nor the other. Hence, when

opportunity offered firmly to establish Italian predominance in the

central Mediterranean by an occupation of Tunisia, they found themselves

deprived of those confidential relations with the central powers, and

even with Great Britain, which might have enabled them to use the

opportunity to full advantage. The conduct of Italy in declining the

suggestions received from Count Andrássy and General Ignatiev on the eve

of the Russo-Turkish War--that Italy should seek compensation in Tunisia

for the extension of Austrian sway in the Balkans--and in subsequently

rejecting the German suggestion to come to an arrangement with Great

Britain for the occupation of Tunisia as compensation for the British

occupation of Cyprus, was certainly due to fear lest an attempt on

Tunisia should lead to a war with France, for which Italy knew herself

to be totally unprepared. This very unpreparedness, however, rendered

still less excusable her treatment of the Irredentist agitation, which

brought her within a hair's-breadth of a conflict with Austria. Although

Cairoli, upon learning of the Anglo-Ottoman convention in regard to

Cyprus, had advised Count Corti of the possibility that Great Britain

might seek to placate France by conniving at a French occupation of

Tunisia, neither he nor Count Corti had any inkling of the verbal

arrangement made between Lord Salisbury and Waddington at the instance

of Bismarck, that, when convenient, France should occupy Tunisia, an

agreement afterwards confirmed (with a reserve as to the eventual

attitude of Italy) in despatches exchanged in July and August 1878

between the Quai d'Orsay and Downing Street. Almost up to the moment of

the French occupation of Tunisia the Italian government believed that

Great Britain, if only out of gratitude for the bearing of Italy in

connexion with the Dulcigno demonstration in the autumn of 1880, would

prevent French acquisition of the Regency. Ignorant of the assurance

conveyed to France by Lord Granville that the Gladstone cabinet would

respect the engagements of the Beaconsfield-Salisbury administration,

Cairoli, in deference to Italian public opinion, endeavoured to

neutralize the activity of the French consul Roustan by the appointment

of an equally energetic Italian consul, Macciò. The rivalry between

these two officials in Tunisia contributed not a little to strain

Franco-Italian relations, but it is doubtful whether France would have

precipitated her action had not General Menabrea, Italian ambassador in

London, urged his government to purchase the Tunis-Goletta railway from

the English company by which it had been constructed. A French attempt

to purchase the line was upset in the English courts, and the railway

was finally secured by Italy at a price more than eight times its real

value. This pertinacity engendered a belief in France that Italy was

about to undertake in Tunisia a more aggressive policy than necessary

for the protection of her commercial interests. Roustan therefore

hastened to extort from the bey concessions calculated to neutralize the

advantages which Italy had hoped to secure by the possession of the

Tunis-Goletta line, and at the same time the French government prepared

at Toulon an expeditionary corps for the occupation of the Regency. In

the spring of 1881 the Kroumir tribe was reported to have attacked a

French force on the Algerian border, and on the 9th of April Roustan

informed the bey of Tunis that France would chastise the assailants. The

bey issued futile protests to the powers. On the 26th of April the

island of Tabarca was occupied by the French, Bizerta was seized on the

2nd of May, and on the 12th of May the bey signed the treaty of Bardo

accepting the French protectorate. France undertook the maintenance of

order in the Regency, and assumed the representation of Tunisia in all

dealings with other countries.

Italian indignation at the French _coup de main_ was the deeper on

account of the apparent duplicity of the government of the Republic. On

the 11th of May the French foreign minister, Barthélémy Saint Hilaire,

had officially assured the Italian ambassador in Paris that France "had

no thought of occupying Tunisia or any part of Tunisian territory,

beyond some points of the Kroumir country." This assurance, dictated by

Jules Ferry to Barthélémy Saint Hilaire in the presence of the Italian

ambassador, and by him telegraphed _en clair_ to Rome, was considered a

binding pledge that France would not materially alter the _status quo_

in Tunisia. Documents subsequently published have somewhat attenuated

the responsibility of Ferry and Saint Hilaire for this breach of faith,

and have shown that the French forces in Tunisia acted upon secret

instructions from General Farre, minister of war in the Ferry cabinet,

who pursued a policy diametrically opposed to the official declarations

made by the premier and the foreign minister. Even had this circumstance

been known at the time, it could scarcely have mitigated the intense

resentment of the whole Italian nation at an event which was considered

tantamount not only to the destruction of Italian aspirations to

Tunisia, but to the ruin of the interests of the numerous Italian colony

and to a constant menace against the security of the Sicilian and south

Italian coasts.

Had the blow thus struck at Italian influence in the Mediterranean

induced politicians to sink for a while their personal differences and

to unite in presenting a firm front to foreign nations, the crisis in

regard to Tunisia might not have been wholly unproductive of good.

Unfortunately, on this, as on other critical occasions, deputies proved

themselves incapable of common effort to promote general welfare. While

excitement over Tunisia was at its height, but before the situation was

irretrievably compromised to the disadvantage of Italy, Cairoli had been

compelled to resign by a vote of want of confidence in the Chamber. The

only politician capable of dealing adequately with the situation was

Sella, leader of the Right, and to him the crown appealed. The faction

leaders of the Left, though divided by personal jealousies and mutually

incompatible ambitions, agreed that the worst evil which could befall

Italy would be the return of the Right to power, and conspired to

preclude the possibility of a Sella cabinet. An attempt by Depretis to

recompose the Cairoli ministry proved fruitless, and after eleven

precious days had been lost, King Humbert was obliged, on the 19th of

April 1881, to refuse Cairoli's resignation. The conclusion of the

treaty of Bardo on the 12th of May, however, compelled Cairoli to

sacrifice himself to popular indignation. Again Sella was called upon,

but again the dog-in-the-manger policy of Depretis, Cairoli, Nicotera

and Baccarini, in conjunction with the intolerant attitude of some

extreme Conservatives, proved fatal to his endeavours. Depretis then

succeeded in recomposing the Cairoli cabinet without Cairoli, Mancini

being placed at the foreign office. Except in regard to an increase of

the army estimates, urgently demanded by public opinion, the new

ministry had practically no programme. Public opinion was further

irritated against France by the massacre of some Italian workmen at

Marseilles on the occasion of the return of the French expedition from

Tunisia, and Depretis, in response to public feeling, found himself

obliged to mobilize a part of the militia for military exercises. In

this condition of home and foreign affairs occurred disorders at Rome in

connexion with the transfer of the remains of Pius IX. from St Peter's

to the basilica of San Lorenzo. Most of the responsibility lay with the

Vatican, which had arranged the procession in the way best calculated to

irritate Italian feeling, but little excuse can be offered for the

failure of the Italian authorities to maintain public order. In

conjunction with the occupation of Tunisia, the effect of these

disorders was to exhibit Italy as a country powerless to defend its

interests abroad or to keep peace at home. The scandal and the pressure

of foreign Catholic opinion compelled Depretis to pursue a more

energetic policy, and to publish a formal declaration of the

intangibility of the Law of Guarantees.

Growth of the Triple Alliance.

Meanwhile a conviction was spreading that the only way of escape from

the dangerous isolation of Italy lay in closer agreement with Austria

and Germany. Depretis tardily recognized the need for such agreement, if

only to remove the "coldness and invincible diffidence" which, by

subsequent confession of Mancini, then characterized the attitude of the

central powers; but he was opposed to any formal alliance, lest it might

arouse French resentment, while the new Franco-Italian treaty was still

unconcluded, and the foreign loan for the abolition of the forced

currency had still to be floated. He, indeed, was not disposed to

concede to public opinion anything beyond an increase of the army, a

measure insistently demanded by Garibaldi and the Left. The Right

likewise desired to strengthen both army and navy, but advocated cordial

relations with Berlin and Vienna as a guarantee against French

domineering, and as a pledge that Italy would be vouchsafed time to

effect her armaments without disturbing financial equilibrium. The Right

also hoped that closer accord with Germany and Austria would compel

Italy to conform her home policy more nearly to the principles of order

prevailing in those empires. More resolute than Right or Left was the

Centre, a small group led by Sidney Sonnino, a young politician of

unusual fibre, which sought in the press and in parliament to spread a

conviction that the only sound basis for Italian policy would be close

alliance with the central powers and a friendly understanding with Great

Britain in regard to Mediterranean affairs. The principal Italian public

men were divided in opinion on the subject of an alliance. Peruzzi,

Lanza and Bonghi pleaded for equal friendship with all powers, and

especially with France; Crispi, Minghetti, Cadorna and others, including

Blanc, secretary-general to the foreign office, openly favoured a

pro-Austrian policy. Austria and Germany, however, scarcely reciprocated

these dispositions. The Irredentist agitation had left profound traces

at Berlin as well as at Vienna, and had given rise to a distrust of

Depretis which nothing had yet occurred to allay. Nor, in view of the

comparative weakness of Italian armaments, could eagerness to find an

ally be deemed conclusive proof of the value of Italian friendship.

Count di Robilant, Italian ambassador at Vienna, warned his government

not to yield too readily to pro-Austrian pressure, lest the dignity of

Italy be compromised, or her desire for an alliance be granted on

onerous terms. Mancini, foreign minister, who was as anxious as Depretis

for the conclusion of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, gladly

followed this advice, and limited his efforts to the maintenance of

correct diplomatic relations with the central powers. Except in regard

to the Roman question, the advantages and disadvantages of an Italian

alliance with Austria and Germany counterbalanced each other. A

_rapprochement_ with France and a continuance of the Irredentist

movement could not fail to arouse Austro-German hostility; but, on the

other hand, to draw near to the central powers would inevitably

accentuate the diffidence of France. In the one hypothesis, as in the

other, Italy could count upon the moral support of Great Britain, but

could not make of British friendship the keystone of a Continental

policy. Apart from resentment against France on account of Tunisia there

remained the question of the temporal power of the pope to turn the

scale in favour of Austria and Germany. Danger of foreign interference

in the relations between Italy and the papacy had never been so great

since the Italian occupation of Rome, as when, in the summer of 1881,

the disorders during the transfer of the remains of Pius IX. had lent an

unwonted ring of plausibility to the papal complaint concerning the

"miserable" position of the Holy See. Bismarck at that moment had

entered upon his "pilgrimage to Canossa," and was anxious to obtain from

the Vatican the support of German Catholics. What resistance could

Italy have offered had the German chancellor, seconded by Austria, and

assuredly supported by France, called upon Italy to revise the Law of

Guarantees in conformity with Catholic exigencies, or had he taken the

initiative of making papal independence the subject of an international

conference? Friendship and alliance with Catholic Austria and powerful

Germany could alone lay this spectre. This was the only immediate

advantage Italy could hope to obtain by drawing nearer the central

Powers.

The political conditions of Europe favoured the realization of Italian

desires. Growing rivalry between Austria and Russia in the Balkans

rendered the continuance of the "League of the Three Emperors" a

practical impossibility. The Austro-German alliance of 1879 formally

guaranteed the territory of the contracting parties, but Austria could

not count upon effectual help from Germany in case of war, since Russian

attack upon Austria would certainly have been followed by French attack

upon Germany. As in 1860-1870, it therefore became a matter of the

highest importance for Austria to retain full disposal of all her troops

by assuring herself against Italian aggression. The tsar, Alexander

III., under the impression of the assassination of his father, desired,

however, the renewal of the _Dreikaiserbund_, both as a guarantee of

European peace and as a conservative league against revolutionary

parties. The German emperor shared this desire, but Bismarck and the

Austrian emperor wished to substitute for the imperial league some more

advantageous combination. Hence a tacit understanding between Bismarck

and Austria that the latter should profit by Italian resentment against

France to draw Italy into the orbit of the Austro-German alliance. For

the moment Germany was to hold aloof lest any active initiative on her

part should displease the Vatican, of whose help Bismarck stood in need.

At the beginning of August 1881 the Austrian press mooted the idea of a

visit from King Humbert to the emperor Francis Joseph. Count di

Robilant, anxious that Italy should not seem to beg a smile from the

central Powers, advised Mancini to receive with caution the suggestions

of the Austrian press. Depretis took occasion to deny, in a form

scarcely courteous, the probability of the visit. Robilant's opposition

to a precipitate acceptance of the Austrian hint was founded upon fear

lest King Humbert at Vienna might be pressed to disavow Irredentist

aspirations, and upon a desire to arrange for a visit of the emperor

Francis Joseph to Rome in return for King Humbert's visit to Vienna.

Seeing the hesitation of the Italian government, the Austrian and German

semi-official press redoubled their efforts to bring about the visit. By

the end of September the idea had gained such ground in Italy that the

visit was practically settled, and on the 7th of October Mancini

informed Robilant (who was then in Italy) of the fact. Though he

considered such precipitation impolitic, Robilant, finding that

confidential information of Italian intentions had already been conveyed

to the Austrian government, sought an interview with King Humbert, and

on the 17th of October started for Vienna to settle the conditions of

the visit. Depretis, fearing to jeopardize the impending conclusion of

the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, would have preferred the visit to

take the form of an act of personal courtesy between sovereigns. The

Austrian government, for its part, desired that the king should be

accompanied by Depretis, though not by Mancini, lest the presence of the

Italian foreign minister should lend to the occasion too marked a

political character. Mancini, unable to brook exclusion, insisted,

however, upon accompanying the king. King Humbert with Queen Margherita

reached Vienna on the morning of the 27th of October, and stayed at the

Hofburg until the 31st of October. The visit was marked by the greatest

cordiality, Count Robilant's fears of inopportune pressure with regard

to Irredentism proving groundless. Both in Germany and Austria the visit

was construed as a preliminary to the adhesion of Italy to the

Austro-German alliance. Count Hatzfeldt, on behalf of the German Foreign

Office, informed the Italian ambassador in Berlin that whatever was

done at Vienna would be regarded as having been done in the German

capital. Nor did nascent irritation in France prevent the conclusion of

the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, which was signed at Paris on the

3rd of November.

In Italy public opinion as a whole was favourable to the visit,

especially as it was not considered an obstacle to the projected

increase of the army and navy. Doubts, however, soon sprang up as to its

effect upon the minds of Austrian statesmen, since on the 8th of

November the language employed by Kállay and Count Andrássy to the

Hungarian delegations on the subject of Irredentism was scarcely

calculated to soothe Italian susceptibilities. But on 9th November the

European situation was suddenly modified by the formation of the

Gambetta cabinet, and, in view of the policy of revenge with which

Gambetta was supposed to be identified, it became imperative for

Bismarck to assure himself that Italy would not be enticed into a

Francophil attitude by any concession Gambetta might offer. As usual

when dealing with weaker nations, the German chancellor resorted to

intimidation. He not only re-established the Prussian legation to the

Vatican, suppressed since 1874, and omitted from the imperial message to

the Reichstag (17th November 1881) all reference to King Humbert's visit

to Vienna, but took occasion on the 29th of November to refer to Italy

as a country tottering on the verge of revolution, and opened in the

German semi-official press a campaign in favour of an international

guarantee for the independence of the papacy. These manoeuvres produced

their effect upon Italian public opinion. In the long and important

debate upon foreign policy in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (6th to

9th December) the fear was repeatedly expressed lest Bismarck should

seek to purchase the support of German Catholics by raising the Roman

question. Mancini, still unwilling frankly to adhere to the

Austro-German alliance, found his policy of "friendship all round"

impeded by Gambetta's uncompromising attitude in regard to Tunisia.

Bismarck nevertheless continued his press campaign in favour of the

temporal power until, reassured by Gambetta's decision to send Roustan

back to Tunis to complete as minister the anti-Italian programme begun

as consul, he finally instructed his organs to emphasize the common

interests of Germany and Italy on the occasion of the opening of the St

Gothard tunnel. But the effect of the German press campaign could not be

effaced in a day. At the new year's reception of deputies King Humbert

aroused enthusiasm by a significant remark that Italy intended to remain

"mistress in her own house"; while Mancini addressed to Count de Launay,

Italian ambassador in Berlin, a haughty despatch, repudiating the

supposition that the pope might (as Bismarckian emissaries had suggested

to the Vatican) obtain abroad greater spiritual liberty than in Rome, or

that closer relations between Italy and Germany, such as were required

by the interests and aspirations of the two countries, could be made in

any way contingent upon a modification of Italian freedom of action in

regard to home affairs.

Death of Garibaldi.

Signature of the Treaty, 1882.

The sudden fall of Gambetta (26th January 1882) having removed the fear of

immediate European complications, the cabinets of Berlin and Vienna again

displayed diffidence towards Italy. So great was Bismarck's distrust of

Italian parliamentary instability, his doubts of Italian capacity for

offensive warfare and his fear of the Francophil tendencies of Depretis,

that for many weeks the Italian ambassador at Berlin was unable to obtain

audience of the chancellor. But for the Tunisian question Italy might

again have been drawn into the wake of France. Mancini tried to impede the

organization of French rule in the Regency by refusing to recognize the

treaty of Bardo, yet so careless was Bismarck of Italian susceptibilities

that he instructed the German consul at Tunis to recognize French decrees.

Partly under the influence of these circumstances, and partly in response

to persuasion by Baron Blanc, secretary-general for foreign affairs,

Mancini instructed Count di Robilant to open negotiations for an

Italo-Austrian alliance--instructions which Robilant neglected until

questioned by Count Kalnóky on the subject. The first exchange of ideas

between the two Governments proved fruitless, since Kalnóky, somewhat

Clerical-minded, was averse from guaranteeing the integrity of all Italian

territory, and Mancini was equally unwilling to guarantee to Austria

permanent possession of Trent and Trieste. Mancini, moreover, wished the

treaty of alliance to provide for reciprocal protection of the chief

interests of the contracting Powers, Italy undertaking to second

Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, and Austria and Germany pledging

themselves to support Italy in Mediterranean questions. Without some such

proviso Italy would, in Mancini's opinion, be exposed single-handed to

French resentment. At the request of Kalnóky, Mancini defined his proposal

in a memorandum, but the illness of himself and Depretis, combined with an

untoward discussion in the Italian press on the failure of the Austrian

emperor to return in Rome King Humbert's visit to Vienna, caused

negotiations to drag. The pope, it transpired, had refused to receive the

emperor if he came to Rome on a visit to the Quirinal, and Francis Joseph,

though anxious to return King Humbert's visit, was unable to offend the

feelings of his Catholic subjects. Meanwhile (11th May 1882) the Italian

parliament adopted the new Army Bill, involving a special credit of

£5,100,000 for the creation of two new army corps, by which the war

footing of the regular army was raised to nearly 850,000 men and the

ordinary military estimates to £8,000,000 per annum. Garibaldi, who, since

the French occupation of Tunis, had ardently worked for the increase of

the army, had thus the satisfaction of seeing his desire realized before

his death at Caprera, on the 2nd of June 1882. "In spirit a child, in

character a man of classic mould," Garibaldi had remained the nation's

idol, an almost legendary hero whose place none could aspire to fill.

Gratitude for his achievements and sorrow for his death found expression

in universal mourning wherein king and peasant equally joined. Before his

death, and almost contemporaneously with the passing of the Army Bill,

negotiations for the alliance were renewed. Encouraged from Berlin,

Kalnóky agreed to the reciprocal territorial guarantee, but declined

reciprocity in support of special interests. Mancini had therefore to be

content with a declaration that the allies would act in mutually friendly

intelligence. Depretis made some opposition, but finally acquiesced, and

the treaty of triple alliance was signed on the 20th of May 1882, five

days after the promulgation of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty in

Paris. Though partial revelations have been made, the exact tenor of the

treaty of triple alliance has never been divulged. It is known to have

been concluded for a period of five years, to have pledged the contracting

parties to join in resisting attack upon the territory of any one of them,

and to have specified the military disposition to be adopted by each in

case attack should come either from France, or from Russia, or from both

simultaneously. The Italian General Staff is said to have undertaken, in

the event of war against France, to operate with two armies on the

north-western frontier against the French armée des Alpes, of which the

war strength is about 250,000 men. A third Italian army would, if

expedient, pass into Germany, to operate against either France or Russia.

Austria undertook to guard the Adriatic on land and sea, and to help

Germany by checkmating Russia on land. Germany would be sufficiently

employed in carrying on war against two fronts. Kalnóky desired that both

the terms of the treaty and the fact of its conclusion should remain

secret, but Bismarck and Mancini hastened to hint at its existence, the

former in the Reichstag on the 12th of June 1882, and the latter in the

Italian semi-official press. A revival of Irredentism in connexion with

the execution of an Austrian deserter named Oberdank, who after escaping

into Italy endeavoured to return to Austria with explosive bombs in his

possession, and the cordial references to France made by Depretis at

Stradella (8th October 1882), prevented the French government from

suspecting the existence of the alliance, or from ceasing to strive after

a Franco-Italian understanding. Suspicion was not aroused until March

1883, when Mancini, in defending himself against strictures upon his

refusal to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt, practically revealed

the existence of the treaty, thereby irritating France and destroying

Depretis's secret hope of finding in the triple alliance the advantage of

an Austro-German guarantee without the disadvantage of French enmity. In

Italy the revelation of the treaty was hailed with satisfaction except by

the Clericals, who were enraged at the blow thus struck at the restoration

of the pope's temporal power, and by the Radicals, who feared both the

inevitable breach with republican France and the reinforcement of Italian

constitutional parties by intimacy with strong monarchical states such as

Germany and Austria. These very considerations naturally combined to

recommend the fact to constitutionalists, who saw in it, besides the

territorial guarantee, the elimination of the danger of foreign

interference in the relations between Italy and the Vatican, such as

Bismarck had recently threatened and such as France was believed ready to

propose.

First renewal of the Triple Alliance.

Nevertheless, during its first period (1882-1887) the triple alliance

failed to ensure cordiality between the contracting Powers. Mancini

exerted himself in a hundred ways to soothe French resentment. He not

only refused to join Great Britain in the Egyptian expedition, but

agreed to suspend Italian consular jurisdiction in Tunis, and deprecated

suspicion of French designs upon Morocco. His efforts were worse than

futile. France remained cold, while Bismarck and Kalnóky, distrustful of

the Radicalism of Depretis and Mancini, assumed towards their ally an

attitude almost hostile. Possibly Germany and Austria may have been

influenced by the secret treaty signed between Austria, Germany and

Russia on the 21st of March 1884, and ratified during the meeting of the

three emperors at Skierniewice in September of that year, by which

Bismarck, in return for "honest brokerage" in the Balkans, is understood

to have obtained from Austria and Russia a promise of benevolent

neutrality in case Germany should be "forced" to make war upon a fourth

power--France. Guaranteed thus against Russian attack, Italy became in

the eyes of the central powers a negligible quantity, and was treated

accordingly. Though kept in the dark as to the Skierniewice arrangement,

the Italian government soon discovered from the course of events that

the triple alliance had practically lost its object, European peace

having been assured without Italian co-operation. Meanwhile France

provided Italy with fresh cause for uneasiness by abating her hostility

to Germany. Italy in consequence drew nearer to Great Britain, and at

the London conference on the Egyptian financial question sided with

Great Britain against Austria and Germany. At the same time negotiations

took place with Great Britain for an Italian occupation of Massawa, and

Mancini, dreaming of a vast Anglo-Italian enterprise against the Mahdi,

expatiated in the spring of 1885 upon the glories of an Anglo-Italian

alliance, an indiscretion which drew upon him a scarcely-veiled

_démenti_ from London. Again speaking in the Chamber, Mancini claimed

for Italy the principal merit in the conclusion of the triple alliance,

but declared that the alliance left Italy full liberty of action in

regard to interests outside its scope, "especially as there was no

possibility of obtaining protection for such interests from those who by

the alliance had not undertaken to protect them." These words, which

revealed the absence of any stipulation in regard to the protection of

Italian interests in the Mediterranean, created lively dissatisfaction

in Italy and corresponding satisfaction in France. They hastened

Mancini's downfall (17th June 1885), and prepared the advent of count di

Robilant, who three months later succeeded Mancini at the Italian

Foreign Office. Robilant, for whom the Skierniewice pact was no secret,

followed a firmly independent policy throughout the Bulgarian crisis of

1885-1886, declining to be drawn into any action beyond that required by

the treaty of Berlin and the protection of Italian interests in the

Balkans. Italy, indeed, came out of the Eastern crisis with enhanced

prestige and with her relations to Austria greatly improved. Towards

Prince Bismarck Robilant maintained an attitude of dignified

independence, and as, in the spring of 1886, the moment for the renewal

of the triple alliance drew near, he profited by the development of the

Bulgarian crisis and the threatened Franco-Russian understanding to

secure from the central powers "something more" than the bare

territorial guarantee of the original treaty. This "something more"

consisted, at least in part, of the arrangement, with the help of

Austria and Germany, of an Anglo-Italian naval understanding having

special reference to the Eastern question, but providing for common

action by the British and Italian fleets in the Mediterranean in case of

war. A vote of the Italian Chamber on the 4th of February 1887, in

connexion with the disaster to Italian troops at Dogali, in Abyssinia,

brought about the resignation of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The

crisis dragged for three months, and before its definitive solution by

the formation of a Depretis-Crispi ministry, Robilant succeeded (17th

March 1887) in renewing the triple alliance on terms more favourable to

Italy than those obtained in 1882. Not only did he secure concessions

from Austria and Germany corresponding in some degree to the improved

state of the Italian army and navy, but, in virtue of the Anglo-Italian

understanding, assured the practical adhesion of Great Britain to the

European policy of the central powers, a triumph probably greater than

any registered by Italian diplomacy since the completion of national

unity.

Internal reforms.

The railway conventions.