Y220: Italy 1896-1943 | OCR A-Level History A (H505)

Y220: Italy 1896-1943

80 questions
8 subtopics
Non-British period study, one of twenty-four
Y201 to Y224

Italy 1896–1943 is unit Y220 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-four options in unit group 2, the non-British period study; a student sits one of them.

Its four key topics are Italy 1896–1915, Italy 1915–1925, Fascist Italy 1925–1943 and foreign Policy of Mussolini 1922–1943. 80 recall questions across 8 subtopics.

Sample questions from Y220: Italy 1896-1943

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Italy 1896–1915: Italy in 1896, industrial growth and its consequences

Explain the divide between northern and southern Italy.

Show the answer
The north was increasingly industrial, literate and prosperous, while much of the south remained a countryside of great estates, landless labourers, illiteracy, malaria and mass emigration, and southerners saw unification as a northern conquest.
Italy 1896–1915: Giolitti’s ministries, foreign policy and the growing demand for war

On what grounds was Giolitti criticised?

Show the answer
Critics said he governed by corruption, buying deputies and rigging southern elections through local bosses, and that his reforms bought off opponents without solving Italy's structural problems.
Italy 1915–1925: Early neutrality and subsequent entry into war, weaknesses of the post-war governments

What happened at Caporetto in 1917?

Show the answer
A combined Austro-German attack using new infiltration tactics broke the Italian line, and the army fell back some seventy miles to the Piave with hundreds of thousands taken prisoner and huge quantities of equipment lost.
Italy 1915–1925: electoral pact 1921 and the March on Rome, Acerbo law and the murder of Matteotti

What was squadrismo?

Show the answer
It was the campaign of armed fascist squads, led in the provinces by local bosses known as ras, who beat and killed socialists, destroyed union and party offices and drove elected councils from town halls, often with police and army connivance.
Fascist Italy 1925–1943: the Corporate State, propaganda, the Lateran Pacts and the lira

How did the Corporate State work in practice?

Show the answer
The corporations created from 1934 became a vast bureaucracy dominated by employers and party officials, wages fell and workers lost the right to bargain, so the system chiefly served propaganda and patronage; in 1939 an appointed chamber of corporations even replaced the elected one.
Fascist Italy 1925–1943: industrial policy, social policy, preparations for and domestic impact of war

Which public works did the regime advertise most, and how far did the reality match the claim?

Show the answer
New motorways, electrified and rebuilt railways, grand public buildings and land reclamation were displayed as proof of fascist efficiency; much was genuinely built, but the boast that the trains now ran on time flattered a modernisation already begun before 1922.
Foreign Policy of Mussolini 1922–1943: aims, early diplomacy and the Abyssinian War

What was Italian policy towards Austria in the early 1930s?

Show the answer
Mussolini supported Austrian independence as a buffer against Germany, subsidised the Dollfuss government, and when Austrian Nazis murdered Dollfuss in 1934 he moved troops to the Brenner Pass to deter a German takeover.
Foreign Policy of Mussolini 1922–1943: Spanish Civil War, allied invasion and fall of Mussolini

Why did Italy join the Anti-Comintern Pact and leave the League?

Show the answer
Joining Germany and Japan against communism in 1937 confirmed Italy's new alignment, and departure from the League followed logically from the humiliation of sanctions over Abyssinia.

The 8 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Italy 1896–1915: Italy in 1896, industrial growth and its consequences	Recall questions on liberal Italy in 1896, its constitution and trasformismo, north and south, Church and state, industrial growth and its social effects, Milan in 1898, industrial unrest and Giolitti’s approach to strikes.	10
Italy 1896–1915: Giolitti’s ministries, foreign policy and the growing demand for war	Recall questions on Giolitti’s ministries, colonial conflicts, including the war in Abyssinia and the Tripoli campaign, the challenges caused by irredentism, nationalism and socialism, foreign policy and the growing demand for war by 1915.	10
Italy 1915–1925: Early neutrality and subsequent entry into war, weaknesses of the post-war governments	Recall questions on early neutrality and subsequent entry into war, treaty of London, the conduct of war, the weaknesses of the post-war governments.	12
Italy 1915–1925: electoral pact 1921 and the March on Rome, Acerbo law and the murder of Matteotti	Recall questions on electoral pact 1921 and the March on Rome, the Acerbo law and the murder of Matteotti.	8
Fascist Italy 1925–1943: the Corporate State, propaganda, the Lateran Pacts and the lira	Recall questions on the Corporate State in theory and practice, the destruction of free unions, Mussolini’s image, the Lateran Pacts and later Church conflict, and the revaluation of the lira.	8
Fascist Italy 1925–1943: industrial policy, social policy, preparations for and domestic impact of war	Recall questions on industrial policy, public works, including railways and roads, social policy: education and youth policy, sport, Dopolavoro, policies concerning women and population, preparations for and domestic impact of war.	12
Foreign Policy of Mussolini 1922–1943: aims, early diplomacy and the Abyssinian War	Recall questions on Mussolini’s foreign policy aims, Corfu, Locarno and Kellogg-Briand, Austria, the Stresa Front, and the causes, conduct, League response and consequences of the Abyssinian War.	9
Foreign Policy of Mussolini 1922–1943: Spanish Civil War, allied invasion and fall of Mussolini	Recall questions on Spanish Civil War, Rome-Berlin Axis, Anti-Comintern pact, Munich Conference, Pact of Steel, Albania, entry into Second World War 1940, failures in Africa, Greece, allied invasion and fall of Mussolini.	11

Y220: Italy 1896-1943 is 80 of the 6,240 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.