My Italy

In the Italian government's fiscal budget of 1896, the Ministry of Education was the big winner. Of course, except for the Ministry of Education, other departments have their own gains.

But in any case, the Italian fiscal budget reached a new high in 1896, totaling 1.756 billion lire. Among them, military expenditure is still the largest category, and the cost of 371 million lire is the largest budget category.

Of course, in this first category, naval funding has also reached a new high, and the cost of 179 million lire is very good. Of course, this cost also includes the allocation for the first year of the five-year shipbuilding plan. Even after deducting it, the navy still has 115 million lire.

For these expenses, the living salary of naval personnel requires 47.1 million lire. Then there is the cost of training and maintenance. The naval expenditure in this area is 34.1 million lire. Then there are the three phases of equipment purchase expenses, engineering construction expenses and scientific research funds. The total cost is 33.8 million lire.

Among them, engineering construction expenses and scientific research funds account for the majority. Equipment procurement expenses are also affected by the shipbuilding plan, mainly the update of warship equipment. As for the procurement of new warships, they are directly merged into the five-year shipbuilding plan. .

Well, in fact, compared to the Navy, which is active in all aspects, the bulk of military expenditures still belongs to the Army.

However, although the army's funding is not large, it is still just a scrap.

First of all, the Army has more personnel. Even if the Army's salary is very low, it is still a considerable expense. The annual personnel living salary of 63.1 million lire cannot be reduced at all.

In addition to this personnel cost, its training and maintenance costs are also 52.4 million lire. Then there are equipment purchase fees, project construction fees and scientific research funds.

However, compared with the Navy, the Army's equipment procurement expenses are the absolute largest, accounting for 51.2 million of the 76.5 million lire.

Such high procurement costs for the Army are also necessary, according to the 1895 Italian Army establishment plan formulated by Chief of General Staff General Simeone. Each Italian army division needs 72 barrel artillery pieces of various types. At present, the 24 divisions of the Italian Army need 1,700 artillery pieces. In addition, the Army currently has six independent heavy artillery regiments, each of which is equipped with 24-52 large-caliber artillery pieces. This is more than 200 large-caliber artillery pieces. .

If you include the fixed artillery in fortresses and checkpoints, the actual artillery demand of the Italian Army is more than 2,400.

So does Italy currently have 2,400 artillery pieces?

In fact, there is, and not only that, it exceeds the standard.

However, the number of artillery pieces that exceed the standard of the Italian Army is actually more artillery that does not meet the requirements and exceeds the standard.

We have now entered the era of rapid-fire artillery. The armies of various countries are rushing to replace the rapid-fire artillery with retractable tubes. As a member of the great powers, the Italian Army is certainly not willing to fall behind. The Italian Army is also replacing artillery.

And this artillery is expensive, and it will not be possible to replace it in a short time.

Moreover, the Italian Army had other thoughts, and the cannon was replaced even more slowly.

In recent years, the Italian Army has had frequent exchanges with Germany and Austria, and the scale of exercise confrontations has also become larger and larger. There are already military-level confrontations.

The Italian Army benefited a lot from the exercise and confrontation and corrected many of the problems discovered. But there is one problem that requires a lot of effort, and that is the problem of artillery.

In many exercises, the Italian Army's small and medium-sized artillery was completely crushed by the German large-caliber artillery.

Regardless of power or range, most of the artillery equipped by the Italian Army is slightly inferior.

This is indeed the case. At present, the artillery equipment of the Italian Army divisions is mainly 76mm mountain field guns, and there are also a small number of 80mm and 57mm artillery. At the division level of the German army, there are 77mm field guns and 105mm howitzers. At the division level, the quality of Italian artillery was completely defeated. As for the Italian army, the gap is even greater. The 105mm howitzers and 120mm cannons are equally difficult to match the German 150mm and 120mm artillery.

Considering that the main imaginary enemy of the German army is the French army, the Italian Army, which has the same goal, must make some changes.

The General Staff led by General Simeone did have this idea. In view of the fact that the large number of artillery calibers in the army was not conducive to logistical considerations, they first determined the requirement for unified artillery calibers. 37 mm, 57 mm, 76 mm, 105 mm, 120 mm, 150 mm, 210 mm, 240 mm, these calibers will serve as the unified standard for Italian Army artillery.

As for artillery of other calibers in the army, in principle, they should be replaced as much as possible. These replaced artillery can be sold to other countries for use.

Of course, the goal of unifying the caliber is to enhance the army's combat effectiveness. Therefore, in General Simeone's plan, the army needs to eliminate 57mm artillery at the division level and increase the need for a battalion of 18 105mm howitzers. In addition, at the corps level, 105mm artillery can be decentralized to divisions and 150mm caliber artillery can be added.

Of course, in addition to the enhancement of artillery, Simeone and his colleagues took into account the current military needs and believed that more defensive weapons such as Maxim machine guns needed to be equipped, so four guns in a battalion was very reasonable. In addition, considering the pressure on logistics caused by the increase in artillery and other technical weapons, the number of logistics personnel has also been increased by a certain amount of personnel and animal-drawn vehicles.

This kind of division with enhanced firepower and logistics personnel was the division established in 1895 as identified by Simeone.

However, to complete the refitting of all Italian divisions and corps levels, the army's military expenditure is simply not enough.

They know their own business, so the General Staff and the Army Department plan to use 2-3 corps and their subordinate divisions as pilots to test the combat effectiveness of this Italian army with heavy firepower standards.

Of course, the cost of such a unit will not be too low. After all, the factory cost of a 105mm rapid-fire grenade cannon is as high as 150,000 lire. Not to mention that the artillery is not cheap. A 105mm high-explosive artillery shell costs 206 lire. For the Army, The purchase fee can't buy much.

But no matter what, this also represents a change in the Italian Army. It is no longer satisfied with the conservative idea of ​​​​based on homeland defense, and wants to pursue the idea of ​​defending the enemy outside the country.

Of course the development of the Italian Army is a good thing.

In addition to the education budget, which ranks second, and the military budget, which ranks first, the Ministry of Transport ranks third. As the department mainly responsible for the planning and construction of Italian transportation, it has received a budget of 268 million lire.

Although Italy has relatively developed shipping due to its terrain, it will not forget the road construction on land. At present, the Italian Ministry of Transport has built railways in all major regions.

But in addition to railways, ordinary roads also need repair and maintenance. Examples include the cobblestone roads that connect towns and cities, as well as the compacted cinder and asphalt roads that connect cities. Of course, these alone are not enough, and the current expansion of various ports is also included. At present, Italy's economic momentum is developing very well, so the demand for terminal throughput is relatively high. Therefore, many terminals in Italy have been expanded to meet the increasing cargo throughput.

In addition, there are many things that the Ministry of Transport needs to pay attention to, such as the maintenance of the Libyan iron ore railway and the maintenance of the Kosovo coal railway. These two heavy-duty freight railways are very important to the Italian steel industry and require more attention from the transportation department.

The Italian Ministry of Transport has a large amount of funds, and there are also many other departments, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Trade, etc. The expenditures of these departments constituted the composition of the Italian government budget in 1896.

Of course, the government needs to refer to the previous year's fiscal revenue when designing its budget. So what was Italy's total fiscal revenue in 1895?