Britain and Italy faced a similar problem, albeit from completely diff erent positions. Britain was the world’s fi rst industrial power; Italy was still a largely agricultural country that had only recently begun industrializing, and its young capitalism was still highly dependent on foreign capital and imports. On the eve of the war, Italy’s GDP (only a quarter of which was industrial) was less than half of Britain’s. In 1913 Britain produced nine times more steel than Italy, and for other raw materials the disproportion was even greater.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 119