ITALY
"What will Italy do?" The question is often repeated in the newspapers
of the capitals of Europe. The interest in the attitude of Italy, the
only Great European Power which has not, to the time of writing, taken
a part in the war, seems to increase every day.
For one who is here, in Rome, the answer can hardly be doubtful. Italy
looks very much like a country getting ready for war; like a country
that understands to the utmost that this is an occasion on which to
fulfil her national ambition--an occasion that will never return.
When the war broke out, Italy found herself in a peculiar position.
Bound by the decrepit Triple Alliance to Austria and Germany, but with
her interests, feeling, and sympathies on the side of the Entente,
Italy did not, unfortunately, feel strong enough to take a decision
straight away. Her army, especially the artillery, was in need of much
material; the Tripoli war, the plan and conduct of which was marred by
the very same mistakes England committed in the South African War, had
swallowed up more money and men than had been expected. Her diplomats,
though warned of the approaching storm, did not believe that it would
break so soon, and under such a condition of things, neutrality seemed
for the moment the only possible attitude.
Italy fully realised that if she wanted to take her part in this
war, or at least if she wanted to safeguard her own interests, she
had to get ready first. The large quantity of guns, which had been
ordered at Krupp's, was not supplied, and Italy had to make good the
deficiencies with her national industrial resources. Nearly all the
large metal-works in Italy started making guns under the supervision
of artillery officers; new uniforms, new boots, ammunition, sanitary
necessities, etc., have been prepared in very large quantities. The
fortresses on the Alps and the eastern frontiers have been reinforced,
and a number of regiments generally quartered in South and Central
Italy have been moved steadily to the northern towns.
This as far as the Government goes. As for the spirit of the army,
it could not be keener. In the barracks the old songs of the
"Risorgimento" have been resurrected and have taken the place of the
Neapolitan melodies.
Many officers told me that their men kept asking, "When are we going
to fight?" just as if Italy was already at war. The aspiration to the
possession of Trento and Trieste, which, during the last twenty years
seemed to have weakened considerably, has now reawakened as strong as
ever, and the many inhabitants of Dalmatia and Istria, who have left
their homes for Italy during the last months, to escape persecutions
and vexations of all kinds, are carrying on an active propaganda.
Almost every day there are demonstrations in favour of going to war.
The university towns of Italy are like powder-magazines ready to
explode at the first spark of war, and the professors have to use
all their authority to keep their students quiet and to prevent them
running away to enlist in France or Montenegro. Before the war the most
educated Italian classes gave to Germany a place of honour amongst
the cultivated nations of the world. Now this feeling has completely
disappeared and its place has been taken by disgust and hate for the
country which has disguised her incurable barbarism under a mask of
more or less real culture. German people in Italy have never got on
very well with the majority of the population, but now they are having
a very hard time. Everybody tries to avoid them, in the way of business
and relations of all other kinds, and most of those who did not go
back to fight for their country have left for America, or have become
naturalised Italian citizens.
Public opinion in Italy varies from province to province. While all the
south is frankly eager for war as soon as possible, in the northern
provinces, the richest and most industrial of Italy, the population is
just now recovering from the financial losses inflicted by the last
war, and would prefer Italy to keep neutral as far as possible.
This does not mean that the war would be unpopular there. Rich
provinces are a little like wealthy people; they would rather keep
quiet and continue in their profitable business, but when the danger
is near and fighting is unavoidable they give up without regret their
everyday habits and bravely do their duty.
The different tendencies of the north and south meet in Rome. Though
there are no more convinced adherents of the Triple Alliance left
in Italy, and though you cannot find a single Italian who will say
that his country ought to have fought side by side with Austria and
Germany, the neutralist party is still very strong, and the idea of
making _cause commune_ with France still keeps some of the intransigent
Catholics from joining the War Party. The Socialists have assumed a
sort of wait-and-see attitude which will easily be changed at the right
moment to frank support of the war; and the new Nationalist Party,
though only a few years old, is making gigantic progress.
The most important part of the Italian Press has never ceased,
since the beginning of the war, to try and make the nation feel the
disadvantages of an uncertain position.
Without England or France having supported them, or even treated
particularly well their correspondents (many Italian journalists,
Barzini included, were arrested and sent back to Paris when found
too near the front), the Italian Press, with few and not important
exceptions, has opposed the idea of neutral policy. One of the most
important of Italian journals printed as a sub-title to its heading
in big type the sentence of Machiavelli: "Neutrality is never suitable
to a nation, for a State who keeps neutral loses her friends, does not
gain advantages and, when the war is over, ingenerates such diffidence
about her future conduct that no other nation cares to conclude an
alliance with her."
Germany and Austria, recognising the trend of public opinion in
Italy, did not economise money or trouble in an endeavour to change
its course if possible. Two or three newspapers were bought by a sort
of secret trust which depends upon "Palazzo Venezia," the Austrian
Embassy in Rome; some others were largely subventioned; news made
in Germany was sent out, not only to all newspapers, but to private
houses. A friend of mine kept a full collection of such pamphlets right
from the beginning of the war. The circulars are issued every two or
three weeks, and generally begin with a formal denial of everything
that has been stated by the French, English, and Russian official
bulletins. Accusations of pillage, robbery, murder, and cruelties of
every possible kind are made against the Allies, and are _proved_ by
bogus letters from German officers and soldiers. This system, though it
certainly does not succeed amongst the more educated classes, scores
a little more amongst the lower-class folk, who are highly flattered
to see amongst their weekly correspondence a large letter bearing for
crest the Austrian or German eagle.
Another system largely employed by Germany in their attempted work of
modifying Italy's public opinion is the free supply of photographs
and sketches to illustrated newspapers. Above all, however, they have
concentrated their endeavours upon the kinema.
The picture-house has ceased to be the means of spending an hour far
from business and worry, in a restfully darkened room, watching a
moderately amusing and, possibly, highly moral film, which does not
suffer if one misses part of it. Now it has become an instrument used
by Governments for educating the people.
Germany produces a large number of war films, both for home display
and for abroad. There are descriptive, allegoric, sentimental, even
comic films inspired by the war: the soldiers of the Kaiser do the most
wonderful things. They are strong, generous, good-humoured. Most of
these scenes are arranged, and only slices of real life in the case of
military revues and parades are introduced.
The German authorities seem to be specially anxious to prove one thing:
that the German soldiers are behaving like gentlemen, and that the
stories about their deeds in Belgium and France are calumnies.
Perhaps this very earnestness in trying to alter a prevalent belief
proves that Germany has not quite a clear conscience on the subject.
So, at least, seem to think the Italian public; and when some such
pictures were shown lately in Rome and Milan, nobody took them
seriously, and they were considered as childish fakes.
Such films are offered to picture-house managers on extremely tempting
terms by special agents, who tour all over Italy. Nearly all the
atrocities which were proved to have been committed by the Germans
themselves are attributed in these films to the Belgians. In one of
them a Belgian woman sets fire to the bed on which three wounded
German soldiers are dying, and runs away after taking their watches
and pocket-books. In another picture the old tale of the _treachery_
of the Louvain inhabitants is staged in a very fierce manner; I have
also seen a picture of a cavalry charge given as having been actually
taken during the war in Flanders, but which was really part of a two
years' old manœuvre film, easily recognisable because the uniforms have
changed since then.
As no English or French war pictures reach Italy, the local firms have
to make their own war-films to suit the taste of their public. In the
country round about Milan, Turin, and Rome, the principal centres of
the Italian film industry, cardboard Belgian villages and churches,
trenches, and terrible-looking fortresses have been constructed, and
one can often see hundreds of "Tommies" in khaki, French "pioupious"
and helmeted Germans fighting miniature battles.
Another of Germany's devices to capture Italian public opinion was the
famous tour of Italian journalists, organised by a well-known German
emissary, who, by the way, has been arrested lately as a spy in Naples.
None of Italy's best-known journalists, nor any correspondents of
predominant papers, accepted the invitation, and only about twelve
young men, belonging to second-rate journals, went, chaperoned by the
vigilant Herr Sweinhart.
But they were only allowed to see parades and specially prepared
trenches, or batteries which had never been exposed to the fire. They
were shown a concentration camp, but were not allowed to speak to the
prisoners. They were taken to Liège to see the forts, but not to the
destroyed towns in Belgium. Then they had to go back to Berlin and were
kept there in one of the principal hotels, waiting for the moment when
everything should have been arranged for them on some quiet spot of
the Russian frontier. The tour came to a sudden and rather unfortunate
end, as the journalists, having realised that they were allowed to see
nothing of interest, but only what pleased Herr Sweinhart, decided to
return to Italy at their own expense, and did not write a line about
their experiences so as not to excite the hearty laughter of their
wiser colleagues.
The cleverest move of the Austro-Germans in the direction of keeping
Italy quiet as long as possible was certainly the sending of von Buelow
to Rome as German Ambassador.
The personal charm of this clever diplomat probably accounts for
Italy's attitude during the last months. He acted, and is still acting,
like a rubber cushion between the Teutonic ruggedness and the Italian
susceptibility.
* * *
In the little "Trattoria" near Piazza Colonna, in which most
parliamentary men meet in preference to the big, gilded, French-style
restaurants, where the food is excellent, the wine taken with a gay
murmur from large barrels showing at the back, and where hardly any
"outsider" or any foreigners dare enter, so modest is the appearance of
the establishment, half-a-dozen world-known writers, politicians, and
journalists were enjoying a "fritto di pesce," abundantly accompanied
by the light wine, "delli Castelli." The subject of the conversation
was, of course, the war. All the sympathies were on the side of the
Entente. A copy of _The Times_ was passed from one to another, and
the most important news was translated for the benefit of the few of
the company who were not familiar with English. A well-known writer
of military criticism in one of the principal Italian papers, a
former Major in the army, produced a letter from one of his sons,
now fighting with the French army in Alsace. The letter was very
enthusiastic about everything and everybody at the front; the young
man was one of the very last to manage to join the voluntary corps,
Italy having, since December last, stopped completely the granting of
passports to young men liable for military service.
The wonderful work of the "Dante Alighieri," the society which has been
struggling hard during the last years to keep the Italian language
alive in the provinces under foreign domination, the last poem of
D'Annunzio on the war, the concentration of troops near Verona, were,
in turn, subjects of conversation. I got the impression that for them
the question was not, "Are we going to war?" but, "When are we going to
war?"
* * *
Italy has suffered very much already for this war. All her commerce
with the Continent has been stopped, as well as her shipping lines
trading with Constantinople and the Black Sea. The shortage of
petroleum, coal and wood has hit many of her industries, and some
foodstuffs have increased considerably in prices.
Moreover, the annual tide of foreigners which is the principal resource
of many Italian towns has not come this year, and Italy begins to
realise that if she is not going to war now, she has made enormous
financial sacrifices to equip her army. She will have shared all the
disadvantages of the fighting countries without being able to get any
of the recompense.
It is now for Italy to make a great decision. If she believes in her
destiny, if she feels that there are in her energies, intelligence,
and possibilities of taking her real place amongst the great Powers of
Europe, she has to fight.
If she feels she is not equal to such a task, then she had better
become at once the first of the defensive countries and renounce all
her dreams of empire; she had better sell her fleet, economise on
armaments, and invest the money saved in first-class hotels, casinos,
and spas. She has certainly beauty and natural advantages enough to
out-rival Switzerland, Spain, or Norway.
But the modern Italian is rather tired of being the citizen of a
country admired only for her blue skies, her Roman monuments, and her
rich museums. He is more proud of her industrial enterprise, of the
wide expansion, of the wonderful progress of his country in the last
fifty years, than of the fair pages of her history. He will not hear
about renouncing what he calls the third renaissance of Italy.
That is why I believe Italy is going to fight.