Prologue
TRAGEDY STRIKES THE ITALIAN POLITICAL SCENE
ROME- Sidney Sonnino's government was hit by the tragedy today with the news of Antonio Salandra's sudden death. The finance minister was going to Pisa for institutional reasons, when the train he was traveling on derailed near Grosetto.
While he served as finance minister for just over a month, mourning for his sudden death has come from all parts of the political spectrum, including former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti.
Sonnino has promised to start an investigation regarding the incident, while also reassuring the parliament this will not stop the work of the government.
-La Domenica del Corriere, 1/26/1910
The year 1913 represented the most important moment in Giovanni Giolitti's political life: not only had he managed to survive the new elections after losing the support of the Socialists the previous year[1], but he had also managed to unify the centrist and moderate current of the Italian politics through the formation of the so-called "Liberal Union", a single centrist and liberal coalition composed by both leftwing and rightwing moderates.
The result of a process started already by Prime Minister Agostino Depretis in 1879[2], the Union managed to win 47.6% of the votes, gaining 270 seats out of 508.
With a weak and divided opposition between the Socialists and the Republicans, Giolitti seemed to have secured all the support needed to govern.
Unfortunately in less than a year another apparent flaw in his system came to view when the Radical Party and its leader Ettore Sacchi [3] retired their supports for the government, leading to the downfall of Giollitti's administration.
While it was weakened, the Liberal Union still managed to hold the majority in the Parliament, meaning Giolitti still held enough influence and authority to recomend his successor.[4]
Although the end of the fourth Giolitti government had been predicted by many European political observers, many were still surprised by the appointment of Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonino Paternò Castello as the new prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy.
While this decision may seem bizarre and unorthodox in the eyes of non-Italian readers, there are a number of factors to keep in mind:
1)A shortage of candidates acceptable to all political forces present in parliament during that period. In the chaotic context of twentieth-century Italian politics, Castello was one of the few politicians acceptable to all political currents.
Having already served under the Luzatti government, he had already acquired a reputation as an intelligent and skilled ambassador, and his support for the invasion of Libya in 1911 had made him sufficiently popular with the most militaristic area of Italian politics.
Likewise his defense of Italian interests in the Balkans against Austria-Hungary had secured him enough support from Italian conservatives to be elected as Prime Minister.
2) His was considered a transitional government more than anything else. In fact, many still believe that Giolitti supported Castello's nomination more to prevent his rival Sidney Sonnino [5] from becoming prime minister again than to create a stable government (of course Giolitti was unable to prevent the nomination of his rival as minister of the Finances in the new government[6])
In short, the new Castello government was seen by both the Italian Right and the Italian Left as a time to lick their wounds and prepare themself for a new political comeback within two, maximum three, years.
Of course on March 21, 1914, nobody could have expected that in a little more than three months all Europe would have entered into one of the most devastating wars in human history and that Castello's actions would have redefined Italian politics forever ..
-From Prelude to The Great War, Richard M. Nixon
[1] They had formed a coalition government with him in 1911, but Giolitti's support for the invasion of Lybia caused the collapse of the alliance,causing the elections mentioned above.
[2]Prime Minister multiple times between 1879 and 1887. A left-wing politican, he quite literally created the concept of "Trasformismo",the method of making a flexible, centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics after the unification.
[3] As the name already suggests, the Radical Party weren't moderates. A far left political party existing between 1904 and 1922, it called for the abolition of the monarchy and a series of socialist reforms. Both in OTL and ITTL they weren't part of the Liberal Union, but Giolitti made them part of his government after they had won more than 10% of the vote (62 seats) at the elections of 1913.
[4]It may seem a little ASB, but in OTL Giolitti himself was behind Salandra's nomination as Prime MInister, even if he had just lost the election. ITTL he still using his massive political influence but in another direction
[5] OTL Sonnino was one of Giolitti's main opponents. Without Salandra as a compromise candidate(in OTL he had actually started as a supporter of Giolitti), Giolitti preferred to use his political influence to find another replacent ITL.
[6] A job he had already held between 1893 and 1896 under the Crispi's government. Obviously ITTL he recieves the job mostly to satisfy his supporters
ROME- Sidney Sonnino's government was hit by the tragedy today with the news of Antonio Salandra's sudden death. The finance minister was going to Pisa for institutional reasons, when the train he was traveling on derailed near Grosetto.
While he served as finance minister for just over a month, mourning for his sudden death has come from all parts of the political spectrum, including former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti.
Sonnino has promised to start an investigation regarding the incident, while also reassuring the parliament this will not stop the work of the government.
-La Domenica del Corriere, 1/26/1910
The year 1913 represented the most important moment in Giovanni Giolitti's political life: not only had he managed to survive the new elections after losing the support of the Socialists the previous year[1], but he had also managed to unify the centrist and moderate current of the Italian politics through the formation of the so-called "Liberal Union", a single centrist and liberal coalition composed by both leftwing and rightwing moderates.
The result of a process started already by Prime Minister Agostino Depretis in 1879[2], the Union managed to win 47.6% of the votes, gaining 270 seats out of 508.
With a weak and divided opposition between the Socialists and the Republicans, Giolitti seemed to have secured all the support needed to govern.
Unfortunately in less than a year another apparent flaw in his system came to view when the Radical Party and its leader Ettore Sacchi [3] retired their supports for the government, leading to the downfall of Giollitti's administration.
While it was weakened, the Liberal Union still managed to hold the majority in the Parliament, meaning Giolitti still held enough influence and authority to recomend his successor.[4]
Although the end of the fourth Giolitti government had been predicted by many European political observers, many were still surprised by the appointment of Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonino Paternò Castello as the new prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy.
While this decision may seem bizarre and unorthodox in the eyes of non-Italian readers, there are a number of factors to keep in mind:
1)A shortage of candidates acceptable to all political forces present in parliament during that period. In the chaotic context of twentieth-century Italian politics, Castello was one of the few politicians acceptable to all political currents.
Having already served under the Luzatti government, he had already acquired a reputation as an intelligent and skilled ambassador, and his support for the invasion of Libya in 1911 had made him sufficiently popular with the most militaristic area of Italian politics.
Likewise his defense of Italian interests in the Balkans against Austria-Hungary had secured him enough support from Italian conservatives to be elected as Prime Minister.
2) His was considered a transitional government more than anything else. In fact, many still believe that Giolitti supported Castello's nomination more to prevent his rival Sidney Sonnino [5] from becoming prime minister again than to create a stable government (of course Giolitti was unable to prevent the nomination of his rival as minister of the Finances in the new government[6])
In short, the new Castello government was seen by both the Italian Right and the Italian Left as a time to lick their wounds and prepare themself for a new political comeback within two, maximum three, years.
Of course on March 21, 1914, nobody could have expected that in a little more than three months all Europe would have entered into one of the most devastating wars in human history and that Castello's actions would have redefined Italian politics forever ..
-From Prelude to The Great War, Richard M. Nixon
[1] They had formed a coalition government with him in 1911, but Giolitti's support for the invasion of Lybia caused the collapse of the alliance,causing the elections mentioned above.
[2]Prime Minister multiple times between 1879 and 1887. A left-wing politican, he quite literally created the concept of "Trasformismo",the method of making a flexible, centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics after the unification.
[3] As the name already suggests, the Radical Party weren't moderates. A far left political party existing between 1904 and 1922, it called for the abolition of the monarchy and a series of socialist reforms. Both in OTL and ITTL they weren't part of the Liberal Union, but Giolitti made them part of his government after they had won more than 10% of the vote (62 seats) at the elections of 1913.
[4]It may seem a little ASB, but in OTL Giolitti himself was behind Salandra's nomination as Prime MInister, even if he had just lost the election. ITTL he still using his massive political influence but in another direction
[5] OTL Sonnino was one of Giolitti's main opponents. Without Salandra as a compromise candidate(in OTL he had actually started as a supporter of Giolitti), Giolitti preferred to use his political influence to find another replacent ITL.
[6] A job he had already held between 1893 and 1896 under the Crispi's government. Obviously ITTL he recieves the job mostly to satisfy his supporters
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