ITALY. 



345 



peasants armed with scythes and hatchets, who tried 

 to join the workingraen. Cavalry charges and vol- 

 leys of infantry were used against the latter, but the 

 barricades did not fall until cannon were employed. 

 Some women and children were killed by grapeshot 

 entering windows. The number of persons killed 

 during the two days was 75, the number of wounded 

 treated in the hospitals 70. In Pisa and Genzano 

 were similar uprisings, and tumults occurred in 

 Brescia, Treviso, Verona, and Padua. At Luino 

 and Novara many lives were lost. On May 7 

 martial law was proclaimed throughout Tuscany. 

 The insurrectionary elements were workingmen 

 and students. A state of siege was proclaimed in 

 Milan. The circulation of news and comments on 

 current events were forbidden. The possession of 

 weapons was prohibited, even to those having 

 licenses. Public meetings of every kind were de- 

 clared illegal. Whoever infringed the regulations 

 of the Government was liable to be tried by court- 

 martial. When the soldiers first charged the bar- 

 ricades many men and women were killed or 

 maimed. One of the main squares, barricaded at 

 every entrance, was held by the mob for a long 

 time, and it was only by the utmost bravery that 

 the bersaglieri finally forced their way in. On the 

 outer boulevards several thousand rioters, after a 

 company of bersaglieri had fired a volley and killed 

 a number of them, advanced on the soldiers and 

 with a shower of stones drove them into the river, 

 and then returned to the barricade they were 

 building with overturned wagons. 



The workingmen, though lacking effective weap- 

 ons, displayed remarkable tactical knowledge and a 

 degree of discipline that indicated previous organi- 

 zation and preparation for an uprising. The fight- 

 ing lasted two days and was of the most sanguinary 

 kind. The women, instead of restraining their 

 husbands, urged them on, and even rushed in front 

 of the soldiers, calling them cowards and assassins. 

 Trains bringing recruits who were called to the 

 colors were stopped by rioters and turned back. 

 Men and women threw themselves in front of rail- 

 road trains to prevent them from proceeding. In 

 the evening of May 8 bands of students, arriving 

 from Pavia with revolvers, were repelled by the 

 soldiery as they attempted to enter the city. The 

 students were received in the Capuchin convent in 

 one of the suburbs, where they intrenched them- 

 selves and fired upon a detachment of soldiers 

 that was marching by. The soldiers returned with 

 cannon, made a breach in the convent wall, and 

 entered, but the students had fled. All the Ca- 

 puchin friars were arrested and taken to prison, 

 from which Gen. Bava refused to release them at 

 the request of the prefect. Archbishop Ferrari, 

 who had left the city at the beginning of the dis- 

 orders and had taken no notice of the events that 

 were passing, in contrast with the conduct of the 

 Archbishop of Cremona, who inveighed against the 

 revolutionaries, both anti-Clerical and Clerical, 

 interceded with Gen. Bava, only to receive a severe 

 rebuke for deserting his post instead of restraining 

 the inflammable element in his flock. Later the 

 friars were given into the custody of the ecclesiasti- 

 cal authorities, who gave a pledge for their good 

 behavior. The Government suspected the Clericals 

 of being as deeply implicated and as active in the 

 revolutionary conspiracy as the Republicans, and 

 the Papal press contained as incendiary matter as 

 the Socialist organs. The Milan insurgents were 

 masters of the city on May 8, and had Gen. Bava's 

 troops entrapped in a ring of barricades command- 

 ing every gate of the city. The Government only 

 gained control of the situation when Gen. Leone 

 Pelloux, with half an army corps, marched on Milan 

 from Lodi and cleared out the rebels with round 



shot. Workingmen and peasants, even laborers 

 working in France and Switzerland, were then 

 hastening to Milan to take part in the revolution. 

 These disturbances, beginning in the south, had 

 followed the railroad from Brindisi through Bari, 

 Molfetta, Foggia, Chieti, Ascoli-Piceno, Pesaro, 

 Rimini, and Ravenna, to Ferrara, and then by Cre- 

 mona, Piacenza, and Pavia, to Milan, indicating 

 some connection with the Socialistic organizations 

 of railroad employees. Therefore the Government 

 decided to place the railroads under the control of 

 the military. Want of bread was the cause of the 

 first outbreaks in Sicily and the Neapolitan province, 

 but this was only a pretext in the richest parts of 

 central Italy, in Tuscany, and in Lombardy, where 

 the workmen in every instance struck work'in order 

 to engage in the uprising, which spread from town 

 to town, each moved by local pride to equal or 

 outdo its neighbor in revolutionary exploits. 



In Milan, Deputies Turati, Bissolati, and Costa 

 were arrested. In Venice and other cities where 

 no disturbances occurred Socialist leaders were ar- 

 rested as a precautionary measure. In the follow- 

 ing week riots broke out afresh in Naples and can- 

 non were used to prevent the building of barricades. 

 The whole province was declared in a state of siege. 

 At Potedera, in Tuscany, a detachment of troops, 

 after repeated warnings, fired into a crowd with 

 deadly effect, killing women and infants as well as 

 men. Newspapers were suppressed all over Italy.- 

 On May 13, owing to student demonstrations, the 

 Government closed the universities of Pavia, Naples, 

 Bologna, and Rome. The fermentation still ex- 

 tended to new districts, but the outbreaks were 

 simple manifestations of desperate misery, no longer 

 a prearranged and organized insurrection, for the 

 revolutionary leaders gave up their schemes and ex- 

 erted themselves to calm the people after the troops 

 gained the upper hand in Milan. A state of siege 

 was declared on May 10 in the provinces of Leg- 

 horn, Pisa, Sienna, Massa, and Grosseto. Another 

 class of recruits was called out, and to avert a rail- 

 road strike all the reserves of the railroad section 

 of the army were ordered to report to their officers 

 for duty. A general strike of railroad employees, 

 paralyzing the whole system of military transport, 

 was one of the main features in the revolutionary 

 plan, but the railroad men, though imbued to a 

 large extent with Socialist and Republican princi- 

 ples, were not prepared to strike when the outbreaks 

 occurred prematurely. On May 11 Parliament was 

 prorogued so as to give the ministry a free hand in 

 dealing with the situation. Revolutionary clubs, 

 including Clerical as well as Red Republican or- 

 ganizations, were disbanded and the Republican 

 leaders in all parts of the country were placed 

 under arrest. Large numbers of arrested rioters 

 were tried by court-martial and sentenced to im- 

 prisonment with hard labor. Editors were con- 

 demned to prison for four and six years. Very 

 many of the persons implicated in the uprising fled 

 to Switzerland. Ticino was already swarming with 

 Italian revolutionists, and the Swiss Government 

 expelled the most active and notorious ones under 

 the law that was passed in 1892 in order to preserve 

 public safety. 



Ministerial Crisis. Before the reassembling of 

 Parliament the ministry had to decide on what re- 

 strictive measures were called for to check the 

 elements of disorder and prevent a recurrence of 

 revolutionary outbreaks. The leniency which the 

 Government showed in the beginning to the bread 

 rioters was severely censured by the Conservatives, 

 who had lost faith in the Premier since his dissolu- 

 tion of the Chamber in 1897 and his dependence in 

 the new Parliament on Republican and Socialist 

 support. The extraordinary development of Radi- 



