Italy, 1915 was facing many problems due to a number of reasons, including the main 3 factors I consider to be the greatest, these are economic weakness, weakness of the liberal political system and the lack of Italian identity.
Economic Weakness.
Italy was still a predominantly rural and agricultural country in the south and most peasants and labourers lived in day to day poverty and deprivation. Industry was at a great drawback because of the lack of natural resources, mostly coal and iron ore, and the iron and steel that was being developed was restricted for military purposes and railways. These financial problems Italy was experiencing meant the government received little in taxes thus making it more difficult for them to fund such national projects such as the enlargement of schooling and the expansion of Italian armed forces. I consider this to be one of the biggest problems 1915 Italy faced as it was an immediate hindrance that effected the Italian people directly in their day to day finances, and also the economy’s weakness also had long term effects such as Italy having a weak military force and some children growing up without the opportunity of an education. Weaknesses of the Liberal political system. Italy seen 29 prime ministers in just 55 years, this was due to the Liberal political system being relatively weak from 1870-1922. Italy’s parliamentary system had been based on the British but it lacked vital aspects and turned out to be very different. One of the main setbacks was that there were no clearly distinctive political parties and it lacked a 2 party system. Parliament was drawn from well-to-do professional middle class men, that did not represent the masses of Italy and as the rural and urban people did not vote, they felt uninvolved in Italy’s politics. The politicians did not differ much on opinion and did not even divide on ideology differences, as there didn’t seem to be many. Because of this parliament did not see it a valid reason and felt no necessity to form distinguishing political parties. This resulted in a number of factions agreeing to support each other and form a government. Prior political opponents would momentarily put their differences aside and agree to work together, this obviously did not always work, causing the 29 prime ministers in the 55 years. These ever-changing governments implied that the politicians were corrupt and very self-interested, as they used the unethical method of transformismo to form unstable majorities. I consider this one of the main problems as a country cannot possibly prosper with a failing government. Lack of Italian identity. Italy was not a dated country in 1915, had it only been founded 54 years ago in 1861. This meant that only 2% of Italians spoke Italian, as the great majority spoke dialects, causing a big communication barrier between the people of Italy. Different currencies in different regions restricted trade around the country, and people’s loyalties were to their families or local communities, not Italy as a country. This was because people did not feel unified as a country nor did they act as citizens as one country. This was more of a social problem but I still consider it a big one as the people of Italy did not even consider themselves Italian, creating many difficulties between the country as a whole.