THE MEMOIRS OF FRANCESCO CRISPI.*
THE third volume of The Memoirs of Francesco Crispi opens with the fall of Bismarck and the appointment of Caprivi as his successor in March, 1890. Crispi had then been Italian Foreign Minister for just two years and a half. With the great German Chancellor he had always been on specially friendly terms, and their personal relations were in no wise affected by his resignation. Nor did the accession of Caprivi make any change in the policy of the Triple Alliance. "So long as I continue to hold my present position," the new Chancellor wrote to Crispi, " the German Empire will maintain its honest and peaceful policy, never swerving from the principle of remaining, under all circumstances, the true friend of its friends." To this Crispi replied not only with assurances of his sharing Caprivi's desire for peace, but with a further promise that, if the two Powers should be forced to assume the defensive, Italy would do her duty " to the very end." In the interviews between the two Ministers which took place at Milan in the following October the policy of Bismarck was accepted by both as a constant element in the relations between Germany and Italy, with one notable exception. He had made, Crispi pointed out to Caprivi, one serious mistake. He was opposed to the restoration of the monarchy in France. His desire was to keep France weak, and he thought that the surest way to reach this end was to support the Republican Government. The Republican Party was broken up into a constantly increasing number of sections fighting for the control of public affairs. Such a state of things, Bismarck believed, must be fatal to any consistent foreign policy, and without this France must " remain a weakling." In 1890 Crispi could point to facts in proof of the error of Bismarck's forecast. "Never," he told Caprivi, "was France so strong as to-day." Bismarck, realizing keenly the strength of the monarchical feeling in Germany, was blind to the missionary force of the Republican propaganda. And now that Bismarck was deposed Crispi took care to impress upon his successor that as long as France remained a Republic—" and this form of government appears to have taken firm root "—she would continue a menace to the monarchies of Europe.
This consideration was enough of itself to make Crispi an advocate of the Triple Alliance. The immediate danger to Italy was the French Republic ; the corresponding safeguard was the friendship of Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 1882 the allied Emperors had not wanted Italy. As a military Power she was of small account. But by 1890 she had become able to put one million two hundred thousand men in the field. In 1887 this fact had not gained full recognition, and the treaty had been renewed on the old terms. In 1890 Crispi was in office, and was watching anxiously for any oppor- tunity which should enable him to get better terms for Italy. Though an old Irredentist, he saw clearly that the time had not come for raising the question of frontiers; and when in June, 1890, the authorities at Trent dissolved the Pro Patric Society he declined to "criticize an act of, home administra- tion," every State being free to govern itself as it may deem best. The Italian Ambassador at Vienna reported that the Austrian Cabinet desired the Italian Alliance, and were prepared to fulfil faithfully the obligations it entailed. But they must not be forced "to tolerate Irre- dentism at home." Crispi fully assented to this condition, and
• The Memoirs of Francesco Crisp& Compiled by T. Palamengbi-Crispi. Translated by Nary Prichard Aguetti. VoL III. London: Hodder and Stoughton. f16e. net.]
in August, 1890, he dissolved a whole network of " associa- tions, committees, clubs, and centres "—d ifferent denominations these for organizations which had but one purpose, the spread of Irredentism. This was not an attitude which it was easy for an Italian statesman to maintain. A month later the Minister of Finance in Crispi's own Cabinet listened without remonstrance to a strongly Irredentist speech, and declined to avert dismissal by resignation. The elections in the following December showed conclusively that the country was with Crispi, and Count Nigra reported that at a Court dinner the Emperor Francis Joseph had congratulated him on the result, and "warmly praised the firmness and ability with which Italy's home and foreign policy are conducted." But though the new Chamber supported Crispi's diplomacy in 1890, they drove him to resignation in 1891, and again in 1896 as a punishment for a defeat in the Abyssinian Campaign. But for this last blow the relations between Italy and Austria would probably have become more friendly, for the Emperor Francis Joseph, only three days before this final defeat, was arranging to meet Crispi at Venice. Upon this, says his biographer, the programme of foreign policy which he had made specially his own "was quickly reduced to naught. The terms of the Triple Alliance were not modified to fit the new international situation, and the Italian Ministries that followed adopted that policy of concession and com- pensation which brought about no advantages of any sort, and whose only fruits were mistrust and injury." From the point of view of European interests, however, we may well he satisfied with the course which events actually took. Under Crispi the Triple Alliance would probably have been further consolidated, and we might not have seen Italy standing neutral in the present war.
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