ABSTRACT
Otto von Bismarck, the statesman who made Germany, set the tone for European diplomacy before World War I. He aimed at preventing a conjunction of France and Russia, which could trap Germany between them if war came, through a series of alliances. The factory occupations had incalculable and ironic results. Probably conditions during the Red Biennium did not amount to a revolutionary situation, but if they had, after September 1920 the danger of revolution no longer existed. In the domestic arena, the fight between neutralists and interventionists continued throughout the war. The Boselli government was criticized by the interventionists for its lack of energy, its inefficiency, and its reluctance to crack down on political activity of the kind that had led to the Turin disorders. The first national Catholic party founded in Italy, ancestor of the Christian Democratic Party that dominated Italian politics for forty-five years after World War II, was founded by a progressive priest.
