‘A pointless farce’ – the blunt summation by General Conrad von Hötzendorf of the value and character of Italy's membership of the Triple Alliance is corroborated by events. Italy, after only the briefest hesitation, did not join her allies in war in August 1914, and before that month was out negotiations had begun on the terms by which Italy would instead enter the war on the Triple Entente side against her old allies.

In retrospect, San Giuliano's words to the Chamber of Deputies in December 1910, repeated in similar phrases at almost weekly intervals in the following three and a half years, seem almost ludicrously false, another example of Italy's habitual diplomatic deviousness and dishonesty.

Yet the issue is by no means so clear. Indeed, it is controversial enough to have encouraged a greater volume of analysis and commentary than any other aspect of Italian foreign policy just before the First World War. Interpretations have varied considerably. The major Austrian diplomatic historian, A. F. Pribram, writing in the 1920s, agreed with Conrad that the Triple Alliance was always worked in Italy's favour, and that Italy never had any intention of loyally limiting her ambitions within it.