How far did World War One cause the collapse of the liberal state? The liberal state in Italy during the period in the build up to World War One was one of instability an speculation led by Giovanni Giolitti by the rules of trasformismo politics. While Giolitti is seen as successful in some senses, he failed to unite Italy in a way in which other continental countries were, and could not prevent resentment between different groups and classes causing chaotic riots and civil unrest in 1914, the same year that would see him come to pass on power to Antonio Salandra. Only a year later would Italy enter the First World War under Salandra against Giolitti’s will of neutrality. World War one itself perhaps exposed some of the weaknesses in the current political system of which liberal Italy was functioning on. The fact that there was division of opinion on whether Italy should enter the war highlights the unstable and indecisive nature of this system in Italy at this time. Italy’s influence and helpfulness to the allies in the fighting aspect of the war was very minimal, the army seemed relatively weak willed and lacked morale eventually leading to situations such as Caporetto in 1917 when an astonishing 300,000 Italian soldiers surrendered to become POW’s leaving Italy depleted in infantry, while also losing 150km of land. Overall in the war around 600,000 Italian troops were killed, a staggering amount considering Italy’s limited role in the war and perhaps pointed to a poor command structure that in turn links back to the government. All these points go some way in undermining the liberal state, raising doubts from within about not only the decision to enter the war but also who was controlling it, only furthering divisions among an already frustrated public. The torches of the public and opposition to the government were only enflamed by the outcomes of World War I. After agreeing to the treaty of London in 1915, Italy had expected to gain new land around the Adriatic Sea area, especially after the victory of Vittorio Veneto where the Italians took significant pride in perhaps a less successful battle. However, Italy were left feeling hard done by due to the effects of the treaty of Saint-Germain which ordered that Italy was to obtain control of prior Austrian lands, being South Tyrol, Trieste and Istria. Leaving them with none of the Adriatic coast territory highly coveted as a prize by the Italians, giving the idea of the ‘mutilated victory’. It was seen that among other reasons Italy did not deserve to gain such fortunes for such a poor showing in the war, which had been partly funded by a £50 million pound loan from Britain. This financial aspect of the war also proved devastating to the Italian economy, before the war Italy already had debt of 16 billion Lira, and post war this number had risen to 85 billion – a colossal amount for a only partially industrialised country. This of course in turn led to inflation, increasing the difficulty of daily life for ordinary people while also pathing the way for new fresh political strategies; coming in the form of the liberals ‘enemies’, the socialists. It is seen by many that the First World War exposed some severe problems within the trasformismo method of liberal Italian politics. The way in which prime ministers would rotate so often proved to be just too unstable and short lived that the country and government did not have to time adjust and adapt to new ideology and policies before new ones were brought in, in some cases within only a year. There is a degree of irony in the fact the so called ‘master of trasformismo’ Giovanni Giolitti attempted to unite and run a fair Italy under the conditions of a corrupt political system, leading to the five time prime minister of Italy becoming nicknamed ‘the master of the underworld’. The government itself promised reform after Caporetto, only heightening expectation for change which proved never forthcoming due to the previously mentioned instability within the system, leading to a significant loss in popularity, not helped by the image of a ruling middle class elite. This obvious weakness of liberal Italy provided the platform for other parties such as the Socialists and Popolari to gather momentum. Before even the 1900’s there was a distinct divide on average between the poorer in the south and the wealthier in the north of Italy. This divide was suitably heightened in the aftermath of the First World War, with the south blaming the north for the war and paradoxically vice versa. This proves that Giolitti and his reforms had failed in the long run, seeing as his aim was to nationalise Italy, whereas now the divide was seemingly greater than ever in recent memory. Not only was there a political and social divide, but there was also a difference in dialect and in some places such as Tuscany even a language barrier. This provided the sense that Italy was more like two nations, the north and south; rather than a united Italy. Other issues in southern Italy such as the prevalence of organised crime in the shape of the mafia helped to widen this divide and grew along with the increasing urbanisation of Italy. While politicians would distance themselves from such activities, they actually operated on a similar model of corruption in regards to the trasformismo political system. One of Giolitti’s reforms that is seen as successful is the development of mass politics and the expansion of the voting public being taken from 3 million people and raised to 8 million people. This shows the equalisation that is starting to take place in Italy, as before it was widely seen that you must be educated and middle class to vote. Even though this is a step in the right direction for democracy, it actually led to the assurgency of new political ideas for Italy that had previously been unable to gain support. The new socialist, nationalist and popilari political groups all presented a threat to the liberal state and highlighted the close minded political system with which Italy had been governed partly due to a previous voting minority but also by politicians effectively electing themselves after bribing their way to a majority. Mass politics also led to the fruition of new, more extremist left and right win parties gaining support. This covered groups such as the fascists gaining seats they may have not gained due to new support coming from new voters, who were perhaps more desperate and radical in their ideology. Taking all into account, leading a country into war is always risky for its leaders, let alone a country already in debt and divided in its politics and classes. And while the First World War provided the so called ‘mutilated victory’ and left hundreds of thousands dead for little gain, other factors such as the emergence of true mass politics and the already weak system of trasformismo politics played a part in the collapse of the liberal state. Couple this with the distinct divide between north and south I am led to think that it was only a matter of time before the liberal state fell, and the First World War acted as a catalyst as it left the country in the instant need of relief and reform.