Almost coincident with Germany's increased efforts to upbuild its navy, a change had been made in the incumbency of the admiralty. One of the younger and most active members of the Liberal party, Winston Churchill, a member of the House of Marlborough, became First Lord. He created a sensation by a speech made in the Commons in March, 1913, suggesting that Germany and Great Britain should agree to stop naval construction for a period of a year. Although this proposal received a great deal of attention, it had no tangible result, and the race for increased armament continued. Neither 1913 nor 1914 brought about any diminution in the difficulties regarding the Irish question, in fact rather the opposite, and the Government even went so far as to prohibit the importation of arms into Ireland. Armed resistance against Home Rule on the part of Ulster seemed to be unavoidable. Agitation in England and Ireland over Home Rule had become so violent that the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in June, 1914, did not arouse as much interest and attention in England as it would have done otherwise. Revolution in Ireland was a matter that England expected at that particular moment, rather than a general European war. Not until the British fleet, assembled at Portsmouth for maneuvers, left there on July 29, 1914, under sealed orders, was the country aroused to the possibility of a world war, which had been considered for so many years impossible by some and inevitable by others, and which was now about to break out. CHAPTER VI ITALY In the middle of the nineteenth century the position of Italy was somewhat analogous to that of Germany. It consisted of a number of separate states, and, in spite of the fact that all of these states were inhabited by people speaking the same language and having the same ideals and customs, they seemed to be unable to combine. One of the results of this was the fact that the country adjoining on the north, Austria, was meddling continually with Italian affairs and attempting to gain a lasting influence over them. There were too many racial differences, however, between the two countries to permit an arrangement of this nature to continue for any length of time without causing serious conflicts. Statesmen in the various Italian states finally became convinced that it would be only a question of time before some foreign nation would succeed in dominating them unless they would be able to consolidate and show a united front to any and all outsiders.