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 also gained.
However, in any case, the Italian fiscal budget reached a new high in 1896, totaling 1.756 billion lire. Military expenditure was still the largest category, and 371 million lire was the largest budget category.
Of course, in this first category, the navy’s funding has also reached a new high. 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.
lira.
For these expenses, the living salary of naval personnel requires 47.1 million lire. Then there is the training and maintenance cost, which the navy spends 341 billion lire. Then there are the three phases of equipment purchase cost, engineering construction cost and scientific research funding, the total cost is
338 billion lire.
Among them, engineering construction expenses and scientific research funds account for the majority. Equipment procurement expenses, also due to the impact of the shipbuilding plan, are mainly the update of warship equipment. As for the procurement of new warships, they are directly merged into the five-year shipbuilding plan.
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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 salary in the army is very low, it is still a huge expense. The annual living salary of 63.1 million lire cannot be reduced by a penny.
In addition to the personnel costs, the training and maintenance costs are also 52.4 million lire. Then there are equipment purchase costs, engineering construction costs 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 a high procurement cost for the Army is also necessary. According to the 1895 Italian Army Organization Plan formulated by Chief of General Staff General Simeone, each Italian Army Division needs 72 barrel artillery pieces of various types. Currently, the Italian Army has 24 divisions.
It requires 1,700 artillery pieces. In addition, the army currently has six independent heavy artillery regiments, each regiment is equipped with 24-52 large-caliber artillery pieces, which 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 does it exceed 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 barrels. As a member of the great powers, the Italian Army certainly does not want to lag behind. The Italian Army is also replacing artillery.
And this artillery is expensive, so replacing it won't be possible in a short time.
Moreover, the Italian Army had other concerns, so the artillery replacement was even slower.
In recent years, the Italian Army has had frequent exchanges with Germany and Austria, and the scale of exercises and 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. However, there was one problem that required a lot of effort, and that was 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 are slightly inferior.
This is indeed the case. At present, the artillery equipment of the Italian Army division level is mainly 76mm mountain field guns, and there are also a small number of 80mm and 57mm artillery. The German army's division level equipment is 77mm field guns and 105mm howitzers.
At the division level, the quality of Italian artillery was completely defeated. As for the corps level, the Italian gap was even greater. It was equally difficult for the 105mm howitzers and 120mm cannons to compete with 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 requirements for unified artillery calibers. 37 mm, 57 mm, 76 mm, 105 mm,
120mm, 150mm, 210mm, 240mm, these calibers will serve as the unified standard for Italian Army artillery.
In principle, artillery pieces of other calibers in the military should be replaced as much as possible. These replaced artillery pieces 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 add a battalion of 18 105mm howitzers. In addition, at the corps level
, the 105mm artillery can be decentralized to the division and the 150mm caliber artillery can be added.
Of course, in addition to the enhancement of artillery, Simeone and his colleagues considered the current military needs and believed that more defensive weapons such as Maxim machine guns needed to be equipped, so it is very reasonable for a battalion to have four. In addition, considering the impact of the enhancement of artillery and other technical weapons on logistics,
Due to the pressure, the number of its 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, if all Italian divisions and corps levels are to be replaced, the army's military expenditure is simply not enough.
People 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 purchasing fee doesn'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 Italian transportation planning and construction, it received a budget of 268 million lire.
Although Italy has relatively developed shipping due to its terrain, it will not forget the construction of land roads. At present, the Italian Ministry of Transport has built railways in various major regions.
But in addition to railways, ordinary roads also need to be repaired and maintained. For example, the cobblestone roads connecting various towns, and the compacted cinder roads and asphalt roads connecting various cities. Of course, these alone are not enough, and the current expansion of various ports
Among them. 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 the transportation department to spend more attention.
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 Trade Department, etc. The expenditures of these departments constituted 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?
