In 1877 Francesco Crispi, the best statesman of Italy at the time, one of those men of the Left whose mentality brought them mostly to think and often to act as if they had belonged to the Right, made a diplomatic tour to the capitals of Germany, Austria, France and England. He had one open aim, and another one not quite so fully acknowledged, which was to look for support against a possible aggression that was feared both from Paris and Vienna. The impression he received was that Berlin might accept an alliance with Italy against France, on the understanding that Austria would be left free to do what she liked in the East. Thirty years before, Italy, still in the making and far from seeing yet her way to unity, had attacked single-handed the greatest empire of Europe in an offensive war; now, out of fear of a possible attack from France, which Bismarck himself declared very unlikely, she entered into an alliance from which she received only orders and prohibitions. When the Congress of Berlin took place, all that the representative of Italy could do was of so little avail, that the Germans declared that the French and the Italians had to settle the question of Tunis between themselves. This did not admit of any compensation to Italy for the Austrian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and expansion in the East. The Italian policy at that congress betrayed a total incapacity to display the policy of a great State in foreign affairs. The reasons were threefold, the men in power had a very poor understanding of the forces and the interests of the country and, in consequence, could not act according to these; they were holding on to ideologies, that had served their time and whose high-sounding rhetoric could only help them to hide the vacuum of their minds; finally, they had a sense that their home affairs were getting more and more out of hand and this feeling may have been the most cramping of all the circumstances in which they stood. Negative as it was, the attitude of the government was in harmony with that of Parliament. When, in January, 1879, the Senate disapproved of its foreign policy, the head of the government, who was Depretis, shifted all responsibility by saying that, as Prime Minister, he had in that department followed faithfully the traditions of the Right, although he belonged to the Left. In February of the same year, Mussolino strongly advised them to enter into an alliance with Germany; he knew, said he, that Bismarck would accept it unwillingly, as he believed the Italians to be unfaithful, but that he would do so nevertheless, needing Italy against France. Nothing could be less heroic, than a Senate which had good grounds to feel pride in the newly achieved national independence, and was yet so low spirited that it could accept an alliance on such grounds.