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Luigi Pelloux

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LUIGI PELLOUX (1839-), Italian general and politician, was born on the 1st of March 1839, at La Roche, in Savoy, of parents who retained their Italian nationality when Savoy was annexed to France. Entering the army as lieutenant of artillery in 1857, he gained the medal for military valour at the battle of Custozza in 1866, and in 1870 commanded the brigade of artillery which battered the breach in the wall of Rome at Porta Pia. He was elected to the Chamber in 1881 as deputy for Leghorn, which he represented until 1895, and joined the party of the Left.. He had entered the war office in 1870, and in 1880 became general secretary, in which capacity he introduced many useful reforms in the army. After a succession of high military commands he received the appointment of chief of the general staff in 1896. He was minister of war in the Rudini and Giolitti cabinets of 1891-1893. In July 1896 he resumed the portfolio of war in the Rudini cabinet, and was appointed senator. In May 1897 he secured the adoption of the Army Reform Bill,. fixing Italian military expenditure at a maximum of 9,560,000 a year, but in December of that year he was defeated in the Chamber on the question of the promotion of officers. Resigning office, he was in May 1898 sent as royal commissioner to Bari, where, without recourse to martial law, he succeeded in restoring public order. Upon the fall of Rudini in June 1898, General Pelloux was entrusted by King Humbert with the formation of a cabinet, and took for himself the post of minister of the interior. He resigned office in May 1899, but was again entrusted with the formation of the ministry. He took stern measures against the revolutionary elements in southern Italy, and his new cabinet was essentially military and conservative. The Public Safety Bill for the reform of the police laws, taken over by him from the Rudini cabinet, and eventually promulgated by royal decree, was fiercely obstructed by the Socialist party, which, with the Left and Extreme Left, succeeded in forcing General Pelloux to dissolve the Chamber in May 1900, and to resign office after the general election in June. In the autumn of 1901 he was appointed to the command of the Turin army corps.