Since the completion of Italian unity with the fall of the Temporal Power in 1870, the Italian people had devoted all its energies to internal affairs, for everything had to be created--roads, railways, ports, improved agriculture, industry, schools, scientific institutions, the public services, were either totally lacking or quite inadequate to the needs of a great modern nation. Above all, the finances of the State, shattered by the wars of independence and by bad administration, had to be placed on a sound footing. Consequently, foreign affairs attracted but slight public interest. Such a state of things was at that time inevitable owing to the precarious situation at home, but it proved a most unfortunate necessity, as it was during this very period that the great no-man's-lands of Asia and Africa were being partitioned among the other nations, and vast uncultivated, undeveloped, and thinly populated territories annexed by various European Powers, and converted into important colonial empires offering splendid outlets for trade and emigration. Italy had appeared last in this field, when nearly all the best lands had been annexed and when conquests could not be attempted, even in the still available regions, without large, well-organized armed forces and a determined, intelligent, and well-informed public opinion to back them up. In Italy neither was to be found. The country was too poor to launch forth into colonial and foreign politics with any chance of success, and the people were too untraveled and too little acquainted with the development of other countries to pay much attention to events outside Italy, or, at all events, outside Europe.