Crispi was disposed to renew the struggle, for there was within a march of a day or two a larger Italian force than that which had been defeated, under a competent commander, and the losses of the Abyssinians had been so heavy that they were unable to advance, while the season of rain was so close on them that they must have retreated in a few days, even if not attacked, and if attacked in their retreat they must have abandoned all the fruits of their previous victory. But to do this it was necessary to prorogue the Chamber until the operations were concluded, and this course was opposed in the cabinet; Saracco, the Minister of Public Works, threatening to resign if a further prorogation was decreed. The public panic was such that a partial crisis would have been the signal for an outbreak of disorders on the part of the parties opposed to the African policy, headed by the extreme Left in the Chamber,--a risk which several of the ministers were indisposed to face,--and the ministry resigned without waiting to meet the Parliament. Civic courage in Italy is so low that any grave military or civil disaster, no matter on whom should fall the responsibility, entails a change of ministry, and in this case even the King abandoned Crispi, though the chief responsibility for the disastrous result of the campaign rested on himself. Humbert always retreated before any popular commotion. He never understood that the duty of the sovereign was to lend his moral support to his ministers so long as no constitutional question was involved, or until there had been the expression of the will of the nation, deliberately formulated, and not by the accidental votes which in the Italian Chamber are oftener the result of conspiracies or panics than of any question involving a political measure. Parliamentary government in Italy is a caricature of the form, demanding for its safe working the most conservative influence of the Crown to control its action. But Humbert, by yielding to every gust of excitement in the Chamber which, even by a surprise, menaced the ministry, encouraged and developed the disorderly tendency and the strength of the subversive party which always profited by the disorders. Victor Emmanuel in a similar case quelled the anarchy by dissolving the Chamber; Humbert had never that degree of courage even when he knew that the disorder was directed against the monarchy, not merely against a ministry; and he is, more than any other person, the cause of the decline and anarchy in parliamentary government in Italy.