Italy 1898

Synopsis

The early 1890s have been referred to as the Black Years in Italy because of the serious industrial and agricultural problems that confronted the country during that period. In the late 1890s economic conditions gradually began to improve. Grain shortages and higher bread prices that resulted from the Spanish-American war in 1898, however, became the focal point of discontent for workers and the population at large. During that year demonstrations took place in most of the large cities, particularly in the industrialized North, as part of a campaign to eliminate the tax on milling grain into flour. As the often violent demonstrations spread, the government began using force to suppress them. The most dramatic confrontation took place in Milan during May 1898, in what was called the Events of May (or, in Italian, Fatti di Maggio), when over a four-day period the military carried...