Italy

The outbreak of the Great European War took Italy by surprise and came at a particularly difficult time. From February 1914 onward, the country had been ruled by a center-right government under the leadership of Antonio Salandra. The Chamber of Deputies had been elected in 1913 on the basis of an (albeit exclusively male) electoral law. Until then, the government had lain in the hands of the liberal prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who had essentially dictated the character of Italian poli…