The ensuing general election (November 1892), marked by unprecedented violence and abuse of official pressure upon the electorate, fitly ushered in what proved to be the most unfortunate period of Italian history since Bank scandals. the completion of national unity. The influence of Giolitti was based largely upon the favour of a court clique, and especially of Rattazzi, minister of the royal household. Early in 1893 a scandal arose in connexion with the management of state banks, and particularly of the Banca Romana, whose managing director, Tanlongo, had issued £2,500,000 of duplicate bank-notes. Giolitti scarcely improved matters by creating Tanlongo a member of the senate, and by denying in parliament the existence of any mismanagement. The senate, however, manifested the utmost hostility to Tanlongo, whom Giolitti, in consequence of an interpellation in the Chamber, was compelled to arrest. Arrests of other prominent persons followed, and on the 3rd of February the Chamber authorized the prosecution of De Zerbi, a Neapolitan deputy accused of corruption. On the 20th of February De Zerbi suddenly expired. For a time Giolitti successfully opposed inquiry into the conditions of the state banks, but on the 21st of March was compelled to sanction an official investigation by a parliamentary commission composed of seven members. On the 23rd of November the report of the commission was read to the Chamber amid intense excitement. It established that all Italian cabinets since 1880 had grossly neglected the state banks; that the two preceding cabinets had been aware of the irregularities committed by Tanlongo; that Tanlongo had heavily subsidized the press, paying as much as £20,000 for that purpose in 1888 alone; that a number of deputies, including several ex-ministers, had received from him loans of a considerable amount, which they had apparently made no effort to refund; that Giolitti had deceived the Chamber with regard to the state banks, and was open to suspicion of having, after the arrest of Tanlongo, abstracted a number of documents from the latter’s papers before placing the remainder in the hands of the judicial authorities. In spite of the gravity of the charges formulated against many prominent men, the report merely “deplored” and “disapproved” of their conduct, without proposing penal proceedings. Fear of extending still farther a scandal which had already attained huge dimensions, and the desire to avoid any further shock to national credit, convinced the commissioners of the expediency of avoiding a long series of prosecutions. The report, however, sealed the fate of the Giolitti cabinet, and on the 24th of November it resigned amid general execration.
Apart from the lack of scruple manifested by Giolitti in the bank scandals, he exhibited incompetence in the conduct of foreign and home affairs. On the 16th and 18th of August 1893 a number of Italian workmen were Aigues-Mortes massacre. massacred at Aigues-Mortes. The French authorities, under whose eyes the massacre was perpetrated, did nothing to prevent or repress it, and the mayor of Marseilles even refused to admit the wounded Italian workmen to the municipal hospital. These occurrences provoked anti-French demonstrations in many parts of Italy, and revived the chronic Italian rancour against France. The Italian foreign minister, Brin, began by demanding the punishment of the persons guilty of the massacre, but hastened to accept as satisfactory the anodyne measures adopted by the French government. Giolitti removed the prefect of Rome for not having prevented an expression of popular anger, and presented formal excuses to the French consul at Messina for a demonstration against that consulate. In the following December the French tribunal at Angoulême acquitted all the authors of the massacre. At home Giolitti displayed the same weakness. Riots at Naples in August 1893 and symptoms of unrest in Sicily found him, as usual, unprepared and vacillating. The closing of the French market to Sicilian produce, the devastation wrought by the phylloxera and the decrease of the sulphur trade had combined to produce in Sicily a discontent of which Socialist agitators took advantage to organize the workmen of the towns and the peasants of the country into groups known as fasci. Insurrection in Sicily. The movement had no well-defined object. Here and there it was based upon a bastard Socialism, in other places it was made a means of municipal party warfare under the guidance of the local mafia, and in some districts it was simply popular effervescence against the local octrois on bread and flour. As early as January 1893 a conflict had occurred between the police and the populace, in which several men, women and children were killed, an occurrence used by the agitators further to inflame the populace. Instead of maintaining a firm policy, Giolitti allowed the movement to spread until, towards the autumn of 1893, he became alarmed and drafted troops into the island, though in numbers insufficient to restore order. At the moment of his fall the movement assumed the aspect of an insurrection, and during the interval between his resignation (24th November) and the formation of a new Crispi cabinet (10th December) conflicts between the public forces and the rioters were frequent. The return of Crispi to power—a return imposed by public opinion as that of the only man capable of dealing with the desperate situation—marked the turning-point of the crisis. Intimately acquainted with the conditions of his native island, Crispi adopted efficacious remedies. The fasci were suppressed, Sicily was filled with troops, the reserves were called out, a state of siege proclaimed, military courts instituted and the whole movement crushed in a few weeks. The chief agitators were either sentenced to heavy terms of imprisonment or were compelled to flee the country. A simultaneous insurrection at Massa-Carrara was crushed with similar vigour. Crispi’s methods aroused great outcry in the Radical press, but the severe sentences of the military courts were in time tempered by the Royal prerogative of amnesty.
But it was not alone in regard to public order that heroic measures were necessary. The financial situation inspired serious misgivings. While engagements contracted by Depretis in regard to public works had more than Financial crisis. neutralized the normal increase of revenue from taxation, the whole credit of the state had been affected by the severe economic and financial crises of the years 1889-1893. The state banks, already hampered by maladministration, were encumbered by huge quantities of real estate which had been taken over as compensation for unredeemed mortgages. Baron Sidney Sonnino, minister of finance in the Crispi cabinet, found a prospective deficit of £7,080,000, and in spite of economies was obliged to face an actual deficit of more than £6,000,000. Drastic measures were necessary to limit expenditure and to provide new sources of revenue. Sonnino applied, and subsequently amended, the Bank Reform Bill passed by the previous Administration (August 10, 1893) for the creation of a supreme state bank, the Bank of Italy, which was entrusted with the liquidation of the insolvent Banca Romana. The new law forbade the state banks to lend money on real estate, limited their powers of discounting bills and securities, and reduced the maximum of their paper currency. In order to diminish the gold premium, which under Giolitti had risen to 16%, forced currency was given to the existing notes of the banks of Italy, Naples and Sicily, while special state notes were issued to meet immediate currency needs. Measures were enforced to prevent Italian holders of consols from sending their coupons abroad to be paid in gold, with the result that, whereas in 1893 £3,240,000 had been paid abroad in gold for the service of the January coupons and only £680,000 in paper in Italy, the same coupon was paid a year later with only £1,360,000 abroad and £2,540,000 at home. Economies for more than £1,000,000, were immediately effected, taxes, calculated to produce £2,440,000, were proposed to be placed upon land, incomes, salt and corn, while the existing income-tax upon consols (fixed at 8% by Cambray-Digny in 1868, and raised to 13.20% by Sella in 1870) was increased to 20% irrespectively of the stockholders’ nationality. These proposals met with opposition so fierce as to cause a cabinet crisis, but Sonnino who resigned office as minister of finance, returned to power as minister of the treasury, promulgated some of his proposals by royal decree, and in spite of vehement opposition secured their ratification by the Chamber. The tax upon consols, which, in conjunction with the other severe fiscal measures, was regarded abroad as a pledge that Italy intended at all costs to avoid bankruptcy, caused a rise in Italian stocks. When the Crispi cabinet fell in March 1896 Sonnino had the satisfaction of seeing revenue increased by £3,400,000, expenditure diminished by £2,800,000, the gold premium reduced from 16 to 5%, consolidated stock at 95 instead of 72, and, notwithstanding the expenditure necessitated by the Abyssinian War, financial equilibrium practically restored.
While engaged in restoring order and in supporting Sonnino’s courageous struggle against bankruptcy, Crispi became the object of fierce attacks from the Radicals, Socialists and anarchists. On the 16th of June an attempt by Attacks on Crispi. an anarchist named Lega was made on Crispi’s life; on the 24th of June President Carnot was assassinated by the anarchist Caserio; and on the 30th of June an Italian journalist was murdered at Leghorn for a newspaper attack upon anarchism—a series of outrages which led the government to frame and parliament to adopt (11th July) a Public Safety Bill for the prevention of anarchist propaganda and crime. At the end of July the trial of the persons implicated in the Banca Romana scandal revealed the fact that among the documents abstracted by Giolitti from the papers of the bank manager, Tanlongo, were several bearing upon Crispi’s political and private life. On the 11th of December Giolitti laid these and other papers before the Chamber, in the hope of ruining Crispi, but upon examination most of them were found to be worthless, and the rest of so private a nature as to be unfit for publication. The effect of the incident was rather to increase detestation of Giolitti than to damage Crispi. The latter, indeed, prosecuted the former for libel and for abuse of his position when premier, but after many vicissitudes, including the flight of Giolitti to Berlin in order to avoid arrest, the Chamber refused authorization for the prosecution, and the matter dropped. A fresh attempt of the same kind was then made against Crispi by the Radical leader Cavallotti, who advanced unproven charges of corruption and embezzlement. These attacks were, however, unavailing to shake Crispi’s position, and in the general election of May 1895 his government obtained a majority of nearly 200 votes. Nevertheless public confidence in the efficacy of the parliamentary system and in the honesty of politicians was seriously diminished by these unsavoury occurrences, which, in combination with the acquittal of all the defendants in the Banca Romana trial, and the abandonment of the proceedings against Giolitti, reinforced to an alarming degree the propaganda of the revolutionary parties.
The foreign policy of the second Crispi Administration, in which the portfolio of foreign affairs was held by Baron Blanc, was, as before, marked by a cordial interpretation of the triple alliance, and by close accord with Great Complications in Eritrea. Britain. In the Armenian question Italy seconded with energy the diplomacy of Austria and Germany, while the Italian fleet joined the British Mediterranean squadron in a demonstration off the Syrian coast. Graver than any foreign question were the complications in Eritrea. Under the arrangement concluded in 1891 by Rudini with native chiefs in regard to the Italo-Abyssinian frontier districts, relations with Abyssinia had remained comparatively satisfactory. Towards the Sudan, however, the Mahdists, who had recovered from a defeat inflicted by an Italian force at Agordat in 1890, resumed operations in December 1893. Colonel Arimondi, commander of the colonial forces in the absence of the military governor, General Baratieri, attacked and routed a dervish force 10,000 strong on the 21st of December. The Italian troops, mostly native levies, numbered only 2200 men. The dervish loss was more than 1000 killed, while the total Italian casualties amounted to less than 230. General Baratieri, upon returning to the colony, decided to execute a coup de main against the dervish base at Kassala, both in order to relieve pressure from that quarter and to preclude a combined Abyssinian and dervish attack upon the colony at the end of 1894. The protocol concluded with Great Britain on the 15th of April 1891, already referred to, contained a clause to the effect that, were Kassala occupied by the Italians, the place should be transferred to the Egyptian government as soon as the latter should be in a position to restore order in the Sudan. Concentrating a little army of 2600 men, Baratieri surprised and captured Kassala on the 17th of July 1894, and garrisoned the place with native levies under Italian officers. Meanwhile Menelek, jealous of the extension of Italian influence to a part of northern Somaliland and to the Benadir coast, had, with the support of France and Russia, completed his preparations for asserting his authority as independent ruler of Ethiopia. On the 11th of May 1893 he denounced the treaty of Uccialli, but the Giolitti cabinet, absorbed by the bank scandals, paid no heed to his action. Possibly an adroit repetition in favour of Mangashà and against Menelek of the policy formerly followed in favour of Menelek against the negus John might have consolidated Italian influence in Abyssinia by preventing the ascendancy of any single chieftain. The Italian government, however, neglected this opening, and Mangashà came to terms with Menelek. Consequently the efforts of Crispi and his envoy, Colonel Piano, to conclude a new treaty with Menelek in June 1894 not only proved unsuccessful, but formed a prelude to troubles on the Italo-Abyssinian frontier. Bath-Agos, the native chieftain who ruled the Okulé-Kusai and the cis-Mareb provinces on behalf of Italy, intrigued with Mangashà, ras of the trans-Mareb province of Tigre, and with Menelek, to raise a revolt against Italian rule on the high plateau. In December 1894 the revolt broke out, but Major Toselli with a small force marched rapidly against Bath Agos, whom he routed and killed at Halai. General Baratieri, having reason to suspect the complicity of Mangashà in the revolt, called upon him to furnish troops for a projected Italo-Abyssinian campaign against the Mahdists. Mangashà made no reply, and Baratieri crossing the Mareb advanced to Adowa, but four days later was obliged to return northwards. Mangashà thereupon took the offensive and attempted to occupy the village of Coatit in Okulé-Kusai, but was forestalled and defeated by Baratieri on the 13th of January 1895. Hurriedly retreating to Senafé, hard pressed by the Italians, who shelled Senafé on the evening of the 15th of January, Mangashà was obliged to abandon his camp and provisions to Baratieri, who also secured a quantity of correspondence establishing the complicity of Menelek and Mangashà in the revolt of Bath-Agos.
The comparatively facile success achieved by Baratieri against Mangashà seems to have led him to undervalue his enemy, and to forget that Menelek, negus and king of Shoa, had an interest in allowing Mangashà to be Conquest of Tigre. crushed, in order that the imperial authority and the superiority of Shoan over Tigrin arms might be the more strikingly asserted. After obtaining the establishment of an apostolic prefecture in Eritrea under the charge of Italian Franciscans, Baratieri expelled from the colony the French Lazarist missionaries for their alleged complicity in the Bath-Agos insurrection, and in March 1895 undertook the conquest of Tigre. Occupying Adigrat and Makallè, he reached Adowa on the 1st of April, and thence pushed forward to Axum, the holy city of Abyssinia. These places were garrisoned, and during the rainy season Baratieri returned to Italy, where he was received with unbounded enthusiasm. Whether he or the Crispi cabinet had any inkling of the enterprise to which they were committed by the occupation of Tigre is more than doubtful. Certainly Baratieri made no adequate preparations to repel an Abyssinian attempt to reconquer the province. Early in September both Mangashà and Menelek showed signs of activity, and on the 20th of September Makonnen, ras of Harrar, who up till then had been regarded as a friend and quasi-ally by Italy, expelled all Italians from his territory and marched with 30,000 men to join the negus. On returning to Eritrea, Baratieri mobilized his native reserves and pushed forward columns under Major Toselli and General Arimondi as far south as Amba Alagi. Mangashà fell back before the Italians, who obtained several minor successes; but on the 6th of December Toselli’s column, 2000 strong, which through a misunderstanding continued to hold Amba Alagi, was almost annihilated by the Abyssinian vanguard of 40,000 men. Toselli and all but three officers and 300 men fell at their posts after a desperate resistance. Arimondi, collecting the survivors of the Toselli column, retreated to Makallè and Adigrat. At Makallè, however, he left a small garrison in the fort, which on the 7th of January 1896 was invested by the Abyssinian army. Repeated attempts to capture the fort having failed, Menelek and Makonnen opened negotiations with Baratieri for its capitulation, and on the 21st of January the garrison, under Major Galliano, who had heroically defended the position, were permitted to march out with the honours of war. Meanwhile Baratieri received reinforcements from Italy, but remained undecided as to the best plan of campaign. Thus a month was lost, during which the Abyssinian army advanced to Hausen, a position slightly south of Adowa. The Italian commander attempted to treat with Menelek, but his negotiations merely enabled the Italian envoy, Major Salsa, to ascertain that the Abyssinians were nearly 100,000 strong mostly armed with rifles and well supplied with artillery. The Italians, including camp-followers, numbered less than 25,000 men, a force too small for effective action, but too large to be easily provisioned at 200 m. from its base, in a roadless, mountainous country, almost devoid of water. For a moment Baratieri thought of retreat, especially as the hope of creating a diversion from Zaila towards Harrar had failed in consequence of the British refusal to permit the landing of an Italian force without the consent of France. The defection of a number of native allies (who, however, were attacked and defeated by Colonel Stevani on the 18th of February) rendered the Italian position still more precarious; but Baratieri, unable to make up his mind, continued to manœuvre in the hope of drawing an Abyssinian attack. These futile tactics exasperated the home government, which on the 22nd of February despatched General Baldissera, with strong reinforcements, to supersede Baratieri. On the 25th of February Crispi telegraphed to Baratieri, denouncing his operations as “mllitary phthisis,” and urging him to decide upon some strategic plan. Baratieri, anxious probably to obtain some success before the arrival of Baldissera, and alarmed by the rapid diminution of his stores, which precluded further immobility, called a council of war (29th of February) and obtained the approval of the divisional commanders for a plan of attack. During the night the army advanced towards Adowa in three divisions, under Generals Dabormida, Arimondi and Albertone, each division being between 4000 and 5000 Battle of Adowa. strong, and a brigade 5300 strong under General Ellena remaining in reserve. All the divisions, save that of Albertone, consisted chiefly of Italian troops. During the march Albertone’s native division mistook the road, and found itself obliged to delay in the Arimondi column by retracing its steps. Marching rapidly, however, Albertone outdistanced the other columns, but, in consequence of allowing his men an hour’s rest, arrived upon the scene of action when the Abyssinians, whom it had been hoped to surprise at dawn, were ready to receive the attack. Pressed by overwhelming forces, the Italians, after a violent combat, began to give way. The Dabormida division, unsupported by Albertone, found itself likewise engaged in a separate combat against superior numbers. Similarly the Arimondi brigade was attacked by 30,000 Shoans, and encumbered by the débris of Albertone’s troops. Baratieri vainly attempted to push forward the reserve, but the Italians were already overwhelmed, and the battle—or rather, series of distinct engagements—ended in a general rout. The Italian loss is estimated to have been more than 6000, of whom 3125 were whites. Between 3000 and 4000 prisoners were taken by the Abyssinians, including General Albertone, while Generals Arimondi and Dabormida were killed and General Ellena wounded. The Abyssinians lost more than 5000 killed and 8000 wounded. Baratieri, after a futile attempt to direct the retreat, fled in haste and reached Adi-Cajè before the débris of his army. Thence he despatched telegrams to Italy throwing blame for the defeat upon his troops, a proceeding which subsequent evidence proved to be as unjustifiable as it was unsoldier-like. Placed under court-martial for his conduct, Baratieri was acquitted of the charge for having been led to give battle by other than military considerations, but the sentence “deplored that in such difficult circumstances the command should have been given to a general so inferior to the exigencies of the situation.”
In Italy the news of the defeat of Adowa caused deep discouragement and dismay. On the 5th of March the Crispi cabinet resigned before an outburst of indignation which the Opposition had assiduously fomented, and five days later a new cabinet was formed by General Ricotti-Magnani, who, however, made over the premiership to the marquis di Rudini. The latter, though leader of the Right, had long been intriguing with Cavallotti, leader of the Extreme Left, to overthrow Crispi, but without the disaster of Adowa his plan would scarcely have succeeded. The first act of the new cabinet was to confirm instructions given by its predecessor to General Baldissera (who had succeeded General Baratieri on the 2nd of March) to treat for peace with Menelek if he thought desirable. Baldissera opened negotiations with the negus through Major Salsa, and simultaneously reorganized the Italian army. The negotiations having failed, he marched to relieve the beleaguered garrison of Adigrat; but Menelek, discouraged by the heavy losses at Abyssinian settlement. Adowa, broke up his camp and returned southwards to Shoa. At the same time Baldissera detached Colonel Stevani with four native battalions to relieve Kassala, then hard pressed by the Mahdists. Kassala was relieved on the 1st of April, and Stevani a few days later severely defeated the dervishes at Jebel Mokram and Tucruff. Returning from Kassala Colonel Stevani rejoined Baldissera, who on the 4th of May relieved Adigrat after a well-executed march. By adroit negotiations with Mangashà the Italian general obtained the release of the Italian prisoners in Tigré, and towards the end of May withdrew his whole force north of the Mareb. Major Nerazzini was then despatched as special envoy to the negus to arrange terms of peace. On the 26th of October Nerazzini succeeded in concluding, at Adis Ababa, a provisional treaty annulling the treaty of Uccialli; recognizing the absolute independence of Ethiopia; postponing for one year the definitive delimitation of the Italo-Abyssinian boundary, but allowing the Italians meanwhile to hold the strong Mareb-Belesa-Muna line; and arranging for the release of the Italian prisoners after ratification of the treaty in exchange for an indemnity of which the amount was to be fixed by the Italian government. The treaty having been duly ratified, and an indemnity of £400,000 paid to Menelek, the Shoan prisoners were released, and Major Nerazzini once more returned to Abyssinia with instructions to secure, if possible, Menelek’s assent to the definitive retention of the Mareb-Belesa-Muna line by Italy. Before Nerazzini could reach Adis Ababa, Rudini, in order partially to satisfy the demands of his Radical supporters for the abandonment of the colony, announced in the Chamber the intention of Italy to limit her occupation to the triangular zone between the points Asmarà, Keren and Massawa, and, possibly, to withdraw to Massawa alone. This declaration, of which Menelek was swiftly apprised by French agents, rendered it impossible to Nerazzini to obtain more than a boundary leaving to Italy but a small portion of the high plateau and ceding to Abyssinia the fertile provinces of Seraè and Okulé-Kusai. The fall of the Rudini cabinet in June 1898, however, enabled Signor Ferdinando Martini and Captain Cicco di Cola, who had been appointed respectively civil governor of Eritrea and minister resident at Adis Ababa, to prevent the cession of Seraè and Okulé-Kusai, and to secure the assent of Menelek to Italian retention of the Mareb-Belesa-Muna frontier. Eritrea has now approximately the same extent as before the revolt of Bath-Agos, except in regard (1) to Kassala, which was transferred to the Anglo-Egyptian authorities on the 25th of December 1897, in pursuance of the above-mentioned Anglo-Italian convention; and (2) to slight rectifications of its northern and eastern boundaries by conventions concluded between the Eritrean and the Anglo-Egyptian authorities. Under Signor Ferdinando Martini’s able administration (1898-1906) the cost of the colony to Italy was reduced and its trade and agriculture have vastly improved.
While marked in regard to Eritrea by vacillation and undignified readiness to yield to Radical clamour, the policy of the marquis di Rudini was in other respects chiefly characterized by a desire to demolish Crispi and his supporters. Actuated by rancour against Crispi, he, on the 29th of April 1896, authorized the publication of a Green Book on Abyssinian affairs, in which, without the consent of Great Britain, the confidential Anglo-Italian negotiations in regard to the Abyssinian war were disclosed. This publication, which amounted to a gross breach of diplomatic confidence, might have endangered the cordiality of Anglo-Italian relations, had not the esteem of the British government for General Ferrero, Italian ambassador in London, induced it to overlook the incident. Fortunately for Italy, the marquis Visconti Venosta shortly afterwards consented to assume the portfolio of foreign affairs, which had been resigned by Duke Caetani di Sermoneta, and again to place, after an interval of twenty years, his unrivalled experience at the service of his country. In September 1896 he succeeded in concluding with France a treaty with regard to Tunisia in place of the old Italo-Tunisian treaty, denounced by the French Government a year previously. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 Visconti Venosta laboured to maintain the European concert, joined Great Britain in preserving Greece from the worst consequences of her folly, and lent moral and material aid in establishing an autonomous government in Crete. At the same time he mitigated the Francophil tendencies of some of his colleagues, accompanied King Humbert and Queen Margherita on their visit to Homburg in September 1897, and, by loyal observance of the spirit of the triple alliance, retained for Italy the confidence of her allies without forfeiting the goodwill of France.
The home administration of the Rudini cabinet compared unfavourably with that of foreign affairs. Bound by a secret understanding with the Radical leader Cavallotti, an able but unscrupulous demagogue, Rudini was compelled to bow to Radical exigencies. He threw all the influence of the government against Crispi, who was charged with complicity in embezzlements perpetrated by Favilla, managing director of the Bologna branch of the Bank of Naples. After being subjected to persecution for nearly two years, Crispi’s character was substantially vindicated by the report of a parliamentary commission appointed to inquire into his relations with Favilla. True, the commission proposed and the Chamber adopted a vote of censure upon Crispi’s conduct in 1894, when, as premier and minister of the interior, he had borrowed £12,000 from Favilla to replenish | the secret service fund, and had subsequently repaid the money as instalments for secret service were in due course furnished by the treasury. Though irregular, his action was to some extent justified by the depletion of the secret service fund under Giolitti and by the abnormal circumstances prevailing in 1893-1894, when he had been obliged to quell the insurrections in Sicily and Massa-Carrara. But the Rudini-Cavallotti alliance was destined to produce other results than those of the campaign against Crispi. Pressed by Cavallotti, Rudini in March 1897 dissolved the Chamber and conducted the general election in such a way as to crush by government pressure the partisans of Crispi, and greatly to strengthen the (Socialist, Republican and Radical) revolutionary parties. More than ever at the mercy of the Radicals and of their revolutionary allies, Rudini continued so to administer public affairs that subversive propaganda and associations obtained unprecedented extension. The effect was seen in May 1898, when, in consequence of a rise in the price of bread, disturbances occurred in southern Italy. The corn duty was reduced to meet the emergency, but the disturbed Riots of May, 1898. area extended to Naples, Foggia, Bari, Minervino-Murge, Molfetta and thence along the line of railway which skirts the Adriatic coast. At Faenza, Piacenza, Cremona, Pavia and Milan, where subversive associations were stronger, it assumed the complexion of a political revolt. From the 7th to the 9th of May Milan remained practically in the hands of the mob. A palace was sacked, barricades were erected and for forty-eight hours the troops under General Bava-Beccaris, notwithstanding the employment of artillery, were unable to restore order. In view of these occurrences, Rudini authorized the proclamation of a state of siege at Milan, Florence, Leghorn and Naples, delegating the suppression of disorder to special military commissioners. By these means order was restored, though not without considerable loss of life at Milan and elsewhere. At Milan alone the official returns confessed to eighty killed and several hundred wounded, a total generally considered below the real figures. As in 1894, excessively severe sentences were passed by the military tribunals upon revolutionary leaders and other persons considered to have been implicated in the outbreak, but successive royal amnesties obliterated these condemnations within three years.
No Italian administration since the death of Depretis underwent so many metamorphoses as that of the marquis di Rudini. Modified a first time within five months of its formation (July 1896) in connexion with General Ricotti’s Pelloux and obstruction. Army Reform Bill, and again in December 1897, when Zanardelli entered the cabinet, it was reconstructed for a third time at the end of May 1898 upon the question of a Public Safety Bill, but fell for the fourth and last time on the 18th of June 1898, on account of public indignation at the results of Rudini’s home policy as exemplified in the May riots. On the 29th of June Rudini was succeeded in the premiership by General Luigi Pelloux, a Savoyard, whose only title to office was the confidence of the king. The Pelloux cabinet possessed no clear programme except in regard to the Public Safety Bill, which it had taken over from its predecessor. Presented to parliament in November 1898, the bill was read a second time in the following spring, but its third reading was violently obstructed by the Socialists, Radicals and Republicans of the Extreme Left. After a series of scenes and scuffles the bill was promulgated by royal decree, the decree being postdated to allow time for the third reading. Again obstruction precluded debate, and on the 22nd of July 1899 the decree automatically acquired force of law, pending the adoption of a bill of indemnity by the Chamber. In February 1900 it was, however, quashed by the supreme court on a point of procedure, and the Public Safety Bill as a whole had again to be presented to the Chamber. In view of the violence of Extremist obstruction, an effort was made to reform the standing orders of the Lower House, but parliamentary feeling ran so high that General Pelloux thought it expedient to appeal to the country. The general election of June 1900 not only failed to reinforce the cabinet, but largely increased the strength of the extreme parties (Radicals, Republicans and Socialists), who in the new Chamber numbered nearly 100 out of a total of 508. General Pelloux therefore resigned, and on the 24th of June a moderate Liberal cabinet was formed by the aged Signor Saracco, president of the senate. Within five weeks of its formation King Humbert was shot by an anarchist assassin named Bresci while leaving an athletic festival at Monza, where his Majesty had distributed the prizes (29th July 1900). The death of the unfortunate Death of King Humbert. monarch, against whom an attempt had previously been made by the anarchist Acciarito (22nd April 1897), caused an outburst of profound sorrow and indignation. Though not a great monarch, King Humbert had, by his unfailing generosity and personal courage, won the esteem and affection of his people. During the cholera epidemic at Naples and Busca in 1884, and the Ischia earthquake of 1885, he, regardless of danger, brought relief and encouragement to sufferers, and rescued many lives. More than £100,000 of his civil list was annually devoted to charitable purposes. Accession of King Victor Emmanuel III. Humbert was succeeded by his only son, Victor Emmanuel III. (b. November 11, 1869), a liberal-minded and well-educated prince, who at the time of his father’s assassination was returning from a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean. The remains of King Humbert were laid to rest in the Pantheon at Rome beside those of his father, Victor Emmanuel II. (9th August). Two days later Victor Emmanuel III. swore fidelity to the constitution before the assembled Houses of Parliament and in the presence of his consort, Elena of Montenegro, whom he had married in October 1896.