My Italy

The world in 1910 was in a peaceful atmosphere. Although the smoke over Europe began to fill the air, this did not affect the current tranquility.

If there is anything that attracts more attention in this peaceful world, then the news of the death of King Edward VII of the British Empire this year. The British king, who reigned for only nine years, passed away at Buckingham Palace on May 6, 1910. The cause of death was pneumonia.

Edward VII was famous for his romantic affairs. His father, Prince Albert, made a hurried round trip from London to Cambridge because of his romantic affairs. He died of typhoid fever two weeks later.

Affected by his father's death, his mother, Queen Victoria, has not allowed him to get involved in political or royal affairs. It wasn't until he was nearly 50 that he started to get involved. One can imagine how angry Queen Victoria was with her son.

But despite this, this Edward VII monarch, in addition to his romantic nature, still made many political achievements. For example, during his reign, he vigorously restored the British monarchy, which had been dimmed by the Queen's long-term widowhood. In addition, his visit to Paris in 1903 laid the foundation for the signing of the "Anglo-French Entente" between the two countries.

No matter what, as the world's most powerful country, the death of a monarch of the British Empire and the accession of a new monarch to the throne must be extremely grand and grand.

The funeral of Edward VII also saw the gathering of monarchs from all over the world. Nine monarchs, five crown princes, seven queens, and more than 40 members of the royal family attended his funeral, especially the famous photo of the nine monarchs gathered together. It was taken before the funeral.

For this century's luxurious funeral attended by dignitaries from various countries, Italy also sent a delegation headed by Foreign Minister Bacona to participate, but no royal family members or monarchs were sent. The reason is simple, because the Savoy family is not married to the British royal family, and the relationship between the two countries is now a bit delicate, so there is no need to send such a high-level delegation.

In addition to the succession of the Emperor, a bourgeois revolution broke out in Portugal.

The revolution began on naval ships. Under the instigation of the Republicans, a man named Santos led two cruisers to openly rebel and bombard the palace. The army also refused to carry out King Manuel's order to suppress it, and instead formed a coalition with the navy.

At this time, Manuel was playing bridge leisurely with the visiting Brazilian President. After learning the news of the outbreak of the revolution, he knew that the situation was over and he could not stay for long. So regardless of the fact that the card game was not over yet, he hurriedly took a boat from the harbor to England.

Not to be outdone, the republican-minded soldiers in Lisbon took this opportunity to arrest their sleeping officers, quickly took control of the troops who might interfere with the revolution, and distributed weapons to the people in the city who were eager for change.

It was all too easy, Republicans found, to take over a country so quickly. So the streets were quickly patrolled to protect people's private property and suppress all signs of anarchist tendencies.

Teofilo Braga was subsequently elected president, and the new government quickly carried out reforms in politics, economy, and foreign policy.

The Brazilian president who came to visit dramatically witnessed the hasty curtain call of the Portuguese monarchy. He was playing bridge with the monarch yesterday, but everything changed the next day. The sunshine of the Republic shone on the land of Portugal.

The revolution in Portugal was like child's play. It was nothing compared to another revolution: the Mexican Revolution.

This year, Mexico holds another presidential election. President Díaz has always been the "love" of the people and has been ruling the country for more than 30 years. Under his rule, Mexico's economy has been in serious chaos and the people have suffered even more. In addition, Mexico's elections are also quite democratic, because Díaz always declares himself to be re-elected without going through an election. He has been reelected as president for 6 terms.

The key is that Mr. Diaz not only wants to generate electricity for Mexico, but also wants his family to continue to generate electricity for Mexico. This spirit of dedication to Messina made the people dissatisfied.

Among them, the liberal Madero proposed programs such as opposing dictatorship, protecting national industries, and establishing a constitutional state, which received great support from the people.

Díaz then locked Madero in a dark room, held a fake election in July, and declared himself the winner. As for Madero, who was imprisoned in a dark room, he was released after the election.

Being treated in this way by His Excellency the President, this old man was also angry and released the "San Luis Petosi Plan" in San Antonio, Texas on October 3. Demand the resignation of Diaz, distribute land and reform the electoral system, and call for an armed uprising by the people.

So under his leadership, the revolution swept across Mexico. In the north, Orozco and Villa led peasant armies to attack government troops, and in the south, Sabata led peasants in armed struggle.

Mexico is currently fighting very lively, and its enthusiastic neighbor the United States will naturally not be peaceful at this time. The United States has always been very wary of Mexico because it needs to control it.

During the Diaz government, the United States exported a large amount of capital and technology to Mexico. Although Mexico's economy developed rapidly during the Díaz period and its industry developed to a certain extent, the economic development during Díaz's rule was based on the United States' unilateral export of the economy rather than its independence. Therefore, economically, Mexico has gradually been controlled by the United States.

As for the revolution that has broken out now, the United States is naturally paying close attention to it. As long as there is any behavior that harms the interests of the United States, Uncle Sam will let the Mexican straw hat know the many benefits of his neighbor.

Although there are revolutions in two countries, their international status is not high, so it is not an exaggeration to say that the world is peaceful.

Under this harmless and disaster-free situation, Italy's economy has developed rapidly.

At present, the Italian economy mainly relies on shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, power industry, military industry, etc.

Taking the automobile manufacturing industry as an example, Italy alone employs 197,000 people in the vehicle manufacturing industry, and the number of people in related industries has exceeded one million. This year, the total scale of Italy's automobile manufacturing industry exceeded the 2 billion lira mark, reaching a scale of 2.11 billion lira. Among them, automobile and parts exports accounted for 15.1% of total exports.

Although each country currently has its own car manufacturing plants, the advantages of first mover and mass production allow Italian cars to account for more than half of the market share in each country. Especially in the truck industry, which pays most attention to economic efficiency, Italian trucks account for 80% of sales in Europe.

The reason why trucks can sell so high is mainly because Italian automobile companies were the first to enter the industry. Fiat, for example, spends tens of millions of lire every year on the research and development of truck technology.

This is something that other car manufacturers can't do, so it makes sense for Fiat to become the largest truck manufacturer.

In addition to automobile manufacturing, Italy's pillar industries, shipbuilding, are also booming.

Low labor costs and the continuous development of new technologies have allowed the Italian shipbuilding industry to occupy an increasing share of the world's shipbuilding industry. The current order volume of the Italian shipbuilding industry accounts for 18.9% of the total order volume of the global shipbuilding industry, which is not a small number.

In addition to numerous shipbuilding orders, Italy is also innovating in related technologies. The most powerful technology in Italy at present is containers and their supporting facilities and equipment. This is a technology developed in Italy under the guidance of an expert.

That’s right, shipping containers are the biggest killer. Needless to say, the benefits of containers are that they can be used repeatedly for a long time. In addition, there is no need to move or load and unload midway, effectively avoiding loss of goods. It also loads and unloads quickly and is easy to fill and empty. Secondly, there are many specifications and standards to choose from, and they can be stacked in ports and ships, saving a lot of space.

More importantly, the efficiency of containers is unmatched by other loading methods, whether it is in terms of reloading efficiency or economic efficiency.

Therefore, once this technology was launched, it immediately attracted countries to imitate it. Everyone has upgraded terminals, stations, ships and other tools in an effort to adapt to the use of containers.

Among them, as a promoter of container use, Italy has also made a lot of money by promoting container technology in various countries. After all, using containers requires various facilities and equipment, and currently the best facilities and equipment for using containers are basically produced in Italy.

In fact, the container is very simple, mainly a matter of thinking. After all, this is just a big iron box, and it is more of a management consideration.

In addition to these two pillar industries, the Italian power industry has also declined. Currently, Westinghouse Electric Company occupies a large proportion of power transportation and production equipment manufacturers. And in addition to these, Westinghouse has also developed a lot of electrical appliances for production and living, and is currently promoting them in various countries.

Of course, Italy is not just home to Westinghouse Electric. Electrical companies such as Erica, De'Longhi, and Tess are all relatively famous in the world. Of course, Italy's largest and most important company is Westinghouse Electric.

Needless to say, there is no need to say more about the military industry. Currently, various countries are constantly expanding their armaments and preparing for war, and Italy is certainly not left behind. The Turin Arsenal, Beretta Arms Company, Venice Naval Shipyard, etc. provided sufficient support for Italy's military expansion.

After all, the guns, ammunition, artillery, warships, etc. needed for military expansion can all be built by the above-mentioned companies.

Of course, in addition to producing various weapons for the Italian military, the above-mentioned companies also accept orders from abroad. The performance of the Italian army in recent years has attracted the attention of various countries and even various forces that lack self-production. In order to allow companies to develop better, the Italian government is also actively promoting its weapons to various countries. For example, the Qing Dynasty in the Far East made a lot of purchases. Italy had a large share of guns, ammunition, artillery, warships, etc.

In addition, weapons produced in Italy can be seen everywhere in the Balkans, South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

In addition to the above-mentioned industries, Italy's petrochemical industry cannot be underestimated. Italy is currently the largest oil exporter in Europe, and oil from Libya is continuously supplied to European countries. With its own advantages in petroleum, Italy has its own place in the petrochemical industry. Various crude oils, refined oil products and their chemical products have become Italy's top export products, bringing considerable profits to Italy every year.

In addition to these pillar industries, various industries such as the steel industry, textile industry, and mining industry also performed well driven by pillar industries.

At present, Italy has more than 8 million industrial workers in various industries, accounting for 18.7% of the total population.

Yes, the current total population of Italy has reached 43 million. Benefiting from the great development of industry in recent years, coupled with the influence of Italian culture, the number of people who are willing to have children is not low, and this has also led to Italy’s population growth over the years. Not low.

At present, Italy's annual natural population growth rate has been hovering around 2%. The increase in population has put considerable pressure on the Italian government.

Of course, this also proves that the growth of the Italian economy has led to the gradual prosperity of the people. Otherwise, who would have children if they don't have enough to eat?

Focusing on the natural growth of the population, Italy's education, medical, food and other related industries have also developed rapidly in recent years.

In addition to their own development, these industries also receive considerable support from the government.

In recent years, the development of the Italian economy has brought government fiscal revenue to a new high. According to estimates from the Ministry of Finance, Italian fiscal revenue this year reached a new high of 31.2 lira. The gross national product reached 30.4 billion lire. It is very close to the level of France and Russia, and much higher than Austria-Hungary. No one can wear the title "Poor Power" on Italy's head.

As Italy's economic situation improves, its status in the Three Kingdoms Alliance has also improved. Germany needs to ask Italians for their opinions on many aspects.

This is also a benefit brought by the increase in national power. Of course, in addition to the benefits, there are also disadvantages. For example, Britain, France and Russia have strong uneasiness about the growth of Italy's national power. France, in particular, has built many fortifications on the border between the two countries. At present, Paris has passed a financial expenditure plan to increase its fortifications on the Alpine border.

Likewise, the British Navy also strengthened its Mediterranean fleet, assigning two of its four newly built Mammoth-class battleships to the Mediterranean fleet.

The British Mediterranean Fleet currently has 6 dreadnoughts, ranking second among all fleets in terms of strength, second only to the Home Fleet targeting Germany.

As for Russia, due to its long distance, it does not have many means against Italy, but its huge army advantage to the west of its border with Germany and Austria is enough for both countries to dare not ignore its existence.

In response to the tension between Britain and France, Italy sent diplomats to express goodwill to the two countries, and on the other hand, accelerated the construction of warships. At present, the construction of the fourth ship of the Cavour class has started. In addition, the construction of the second ship of the Milan class has also started this year.

Italy's actions have made the situation in the Mediterranean also tense.

At this time, the integration of a non-adjacent country has made the Mediterranean more dangerous and made European countries feel like they are facing a formidable enemy.