unthinkable; the great men who made her a united nation were all
in different ways apostles of Democracy. Mazzini was its preacher;
Garibaldi fought for it on many fields, in South America, in Italy
and in France; Victor Emmanuel was the first democratic sovereign
in Europe in the nineteenth century; Cavour, beyond all other
statesmen of his age, believed in Liberty, religious, social and
political and applied it to his vast work of transforming thirty
million Italians out of Feudalism, and the stunting effects of
autocracy into a nation of democrats.
It was impossible also for Italy, the ancient home of Civilization,
the mother of arts and refinement, to accept the standard of the
Huns which the Germans embraced and imposed upon their allies.
The conflict between the Germans and the Italians was instinctive,
temperamental. For a thousand years it took the form of a struggle
between the German Emperors and the Italian Popes for mastery. The
Germans strove for political domination, for temporal power; the
Italians strove, at least in ideal, in order that the spiritual
should not be the vassal of the physical. It was soul force against
brute force. Looking at it as deeply as possible we see that the
Italians, a race sprung out of ancient culture, mightily affected
but not denatured by Christianity, repudiated the Barbarian ideals
of Teutonism. Men whose ancestors had worshiped Jupiter and Apollo,
and who were themselves worshipping the Christian God, Madonna and
the great saints, had no spiritual affinity with men whose ancestors
could conceive of no Deities higher than Thor, Odin and the other
rough, crude, and unmannered denizens of the Northern Walhalla. So
Italy stood by Civilization. Her risk was great, but great shall
be her guerdon in the approval of her own conscience and the
gratitude of posterity.
[signed] William Roscoe Thayer
Sept. 1, 1917.
Al Generale Cadorna
"Io ho quel che ho donato."
Questo che in Te si compie anno di sorte,
l'Italia l'alza in cima della spada
mirando al segno; e la sua rossa strada
ne brilla insino alle sue alpine porte.
Tu tendi la potenza della morte
come un arco tra il Vodice e l'Hermada;
varchi l'Isonzo indomito ove guada
la tua Vittoria col tuo pugno forte.
Giovine sei, rinato dalla terra
sitibonda, balzato su dal duro
Carso col fiore dei tuio fanti imberbi.
Questo, che in te si compie, anno di guerra
splenda da te, avido del futuro,
e al domani terribile ti serbi.
Gabriele D'Annunzio
To General Cadorna On his 69th birthday, September 11, 1917
"What I have given, that have I"
This fateful year which thou fulfillest so,
Our Italy, her cherisht goal in sight,
Exalts upon her sword; and gleameth bright
Her ruddy pathway to the gates of snow.
The power of death thou bendest like a bow
'Twixt Vodice and bleak Hermada's height;
And Victory, guided by thy hand of might,
Thro' wild Isonzo forth doth fording go.
Reborn from lands of drought, a youth art thou,
Upheaved by rugged Carso suddenly
With all the lads of thine advancing throng.
This bloody year which thou fulfillest now,
O may it, onward pressing, shine with thee
And keep thee for the fearful morrow strong!
Poetical Version by
[signed] C.H. Grangent
The Voice of Italy
In the great turmoil of nations it rings with a tone peculiarly
true: for Italy is the country that found herself confronted,
at the outbreak of the great war, by perhaps the most perplexing
situation of any of the present allies. If she had chosen to
follow the way which lay open and easy before her, the war would
have long since been decided in favor of the Central Powers. Italy
had entered the Triple Alliance as a clean contract, for an honest
defensive purpose. It was never intended for a weapon of aggression.
When Austria and Germany decided upon the outrage to Serbia that
was the cause of the conflagration, they did not consult Italy
about it, knowing well that Italy would not have consented; in
fact, would have denounced it to the world. But they hoped that
by surprising her with the "fait accompli," she would have to yield
and follow. Italy chose the long hard trail instead, incredibly long,
inconceivably hard, but morally right, and it has been made clear
once more in the history of humanity, that "Latin" and "barbaric"
are two incompatible terms.
True enough, Italy felt in her own heart the cry of her long-oppressed
children from Istria, the Trentino and Dalmatia ringing just as
loud as that of the children of Belgium and the women of Serbia;
but who can blame her if history had it so, that the sudden outrage
on other nations was but the counterpart of the long-continued
provocation to the Italian nationality, when in the Italian
provinces subject to Austrian rule, the mere singing of a song in
the mother-language brought women to jail and children to fustigation;
and a bunch of white, red and green flowers might cause an indictment
of high treason? National aspirations and international honor
equally called forth to Italy, and Italy leaped forth in answer as
soon as she could make her way clear to the fight. She took it up
where the political pressure brought to bear upon her in the name
of European peace in 1866 had compelled the fathers of the present
leaders to retire from combat.
General Luigi Cadorna leads the offensive of 1917 where his father
Count Raffaele Cadoran found it stopped by diplomatic arrangements
in 1866; Garibaldi's nephew avenges on the Col di Lana his "obbedisco"
from the Trentino; Francesco Pecori-Giraldi's son repels from
Asiago the sons of those Austrians who wounded him at Montanara and
imprisoned him at Mantova. Gabriele d'Annunzio, mature in years
and wonderfully youthful in spirit, takes up the national ideals of
the great master Giosuè Carducci (who died before he could see the
dream of his life realized with the reunion of Trento and Trieste,
Istria and the Italian cities of Dalmatia, to the Motherland); and
becomes the speaker of the nation expectant in Genoa and assembled
in Rome to decree the end of the strain of Italian neutrality which
has to its credit the magnificent rebellion to the unscrupulous
intrigues of Prince von Bulow, and the releasing of five hundred
thousand French soldiers from the frontier of Savoy to help in the
battle of the Marne.
In D'Annunzio's "Virgins of the Rocks" the protagonist expresses
his belief that oratory is a weapon of war, and that it should be
unsheathed, so to speak, in all its brilliancy only with the definite
view of rousing people to action. Surely no man ever had a better
chance of wielding the brilliant weapon than D'Annunzio, in his
triumphal progress through Italy during that fateful month of May,
1915, when he uttered against neutralism and pacifism, germanophilism
and petty parliamentarism, the "quo usque tandem" of the newest
Italy.
Nor can we forget how Premier Antonio Salandra in his memorable
speech from the Capitol, expressed the living and the fighting
spirit of Italy, a spirit of strength and humanity, when he said:
"I cannot answer in kind the insult that the German chancellor
heaps upon us: the return to the primordial barbaric stage is so
much harder for us, who are twenty centuries ahead of them in the
history of civilization." To support his, came the quiet utterances
of Sonnino (whose every word is a statement of Italian right and
a crushing indictment of Austro-German felony) "proclaiming still
once the firm resolution of Italy, to continue to fight courageously
with all her might, and at any sacrifice, until her most sacred
national aspirations are fulfilled alongside with such general
conditions of independence, safety and mutual respect between nations
as can alone form the basis of a durable peace, and represent the
very "raison d'être" of the contract that binds us with our Allies."
This is the voice of right: the voice of victory which upholds it
is registered frequently in the admirable war-bulletins of General
Cadorna, than which nothing more Caesarian has been written in the
Latin world since the days of Caesar. The simple words follow with
which the taking of Gorizia was announced to the nation.
"August ninth.
..."Trenches and dugouts have been found, full of enemy corpses:
everywhere arms and ammunition and material of all kinds were
abandoned by the routed opponent. Toward dusk, sections of the
brigades Casale and Pavia, waded through the Isonzo, bridges having
been destroyed by he enemy, and settled strongly on the left bank.
A column of cavalry and 'bersaglieri ciclisti' was forthwith started
in pursuit beyond the river."
Now, the voice of Italy is thundering down from the Stelvio to the
sea, echoed by forty thousand shells a day on the contested San
Gabriele: a mighty thing indeed, the voice of Italy at war; a
thing of which all Italians may well feel proud. And yet, there
is another thing of which they are perhaps even prouder in the
depths of the national heart: the voice of the children of Italy
"redeemed." All along the re-claimed land, from Darzo to Gorizia,
sixteen thousand children of Italian speech and of Italian blood,
for whom Italian schools and Italian teachers have been provided
even under the increasing menace of the Austrian aircraft or gunfire,
join daily and enthusiastically in the refrain which the soldiers
of Italy are enforcing, but a few miles ahead:
"Va fuora d'Italia, va fuora ch'e' l'ora,
va fuora d'Italia, va fuora, stranier!"
[From the Inno di Garibaldi:
"Get out of Italy, it's high time;
get out of Italy, stranger, get out!"]
[signed] Amy Bernardy
Japan's Ideals and Her Part in the Struggle
The people of the world, whether engaged in open resistance to
German rapacity, or as onlookers, do well to see, as indeed they
have seen since its beginning, that modern civilization is at
stake. On every continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and
both the Americas, recognition of this great fact was instinctive.
It was obvious everywhere that, if Germany with its sinister aims,
shamelessly avowed, and its terrible methods, relentlessly carried
out, was to prevail, all the progress that had been made out of
her barbarism and savagery would not only be imperiled but lost.
It was clear that humanity would have to begin anew its weary
struggle out of the difficulties it had slowly overcome. Everything
of a high order that had been done from the beginning, under great,
devoted, far-seeing religious leaders, and by unknown millions who
had fought for liberty, would have to be given up. Recognition
of the potency of peaceful methods in government and industry; the
contribution of the individual to his own progress and that of
mankind; the gradual triumph of an ordered freedom over tyranny and
anarchy; all the achievements, that have gradually made the world
over, would have had to be undertaken again, and that, too, without
the free contribution from every quarter, which, in the varied history
of men, had assured the one great triumph which is civilization.
The dream of individual and national conquest--the cause of so much
suffering and bloodshed--was again to be repeated. This attack
has demanded thus far, as it will demand until the end, the united
efforts of practically all the people of the earth in order to defeat
this the most desperate attempt at conquest, undertaken under the
most favorable conditions, and after the most perfect preparation
known to history. If hesitation or treachery had arisen at any
important point the well-laid plot would have succeeded.
Nothing in the history of Europe, or of all the peoples that sprang
from it in other parts of the world, is more creditable to humanity
than the united resistance which this attempt aroused. All that it
meant was attacked without mercy or shame. Its religious teachings
and practices, the result of many centuries of growth and experience
were defied by one of the nations professing the same creed. Its
political development, the result of a struggle under which
industry, family, and social growth had proceeded in regular order
was defied. Its humane policies were to be replaced by the dictates
of might--mercilessly executed. Its small peoples were to be
crushed, and its greater ones reduced to the status of vassals.
In a word, all its civilization was to be thrown away.
But, at the first cry of alarm every threatened people rose as
if by magic. No surprise was effective, no lack of preparation
deterred, no peril brought hesitation. One by one, all jealousies
were dissipated, all past differences were forgotten, the common
danger was recognized, and they united, as humanity had never done
before, in that resistance to German ambitions which the world now
sees as its one great event, past or present.
If this threat to civilization was thus met by Europe how much more
serious was the aspect which it presented to us in Japan! We were
more than mere participators in this civilization. We had grafted
upon our own life, old, balanced, remote, isolated, the creator
of great traditions, the newer and different ideas of Europe,
assimilating the best of them without losing these that were strong
and potent among our own. They had been fused into our life and,
in the process, had enabled us to make an enlarged contribution
to human progress. We had become so much a part of the world that
nothing in it was alien to us. We had always known, even from
the earliest times, what out people were, what they meant and what
they could do. We were in no wise ignorant of our own powers and
achievements but this new knowledge was akin to the addition of a
new sense.
When this threat against mankind came we also saw instinctively
that it was even more of a peril to us than to Europe. We saw that
civilization was not a thing of continents, or nations, or races,
but of mankind, that in the evolution of human forces, men were
one in purpose and need. If Europe was to be crushed, it was only
a question of time until all that Europe had done for the world
in America, or the Antipodes, or in the islands of the sea, would
follow it. Then would come our turn, then all Asia would be thrown
into tyranny's crucible, and the world must begin anew. It was
not a mere diplomatic alliance that drew us into the contest. Our
own struggles had not been those of aggression; but it was easy to
see what ruthless conquest meant even if it seemed to be far away.
Therefore, we acted promptly and we hope with efficiency and have
since carried on the work in the sphere allotted to us by nature
with a devotion that has never flagged. It has been our duty not
to reason why, but to help in saving the world without bargains,
or dickerings, or suggestions, thus bearing our part in the rescue
of civilization from its perils.
As we see our duty, and the duty of the world, only one thing is
left to do. It is to fight out this war which neither we nor any
other people or nation, other than the aggressors, have sought.
It must be fought to the end without wavering, without thought of
national or individual advantages. The victors are to be victors
for civilization and the world, not for themselves. The contest
upon which we are unitedly engaged will not only end this war; upon
its result will depend the extinction of all wars of aggression.
No opportunity must ever come again for any nation or people, or
any combination of nations or peoples, however, strong or numerous,
to seek that universal domination shown by experience to be
impossible, which, if it were possible, would mean the destruction
of human progress.
We are proud to be associated with America as Allies in so great a
cause. Our duty thus keeps pace with our obligation and both are
guided by our highest desires. We, like you, have enlisted until
the war is settled and settled right; you, like ourselves, have no
favors to ask, both merely ask that they may live their own lives,
settle their own problems, smooth out their common differences or
difficulties, and do their best, along with all other peoples, to
make the world a better, not a worse, place to live in.
[signed] K. Ishii
Tropical Interlude
I Tropical Morning
In the mornings--Oh, the tropical mornings
When the bells are all so dizzily calling one to prayer!--
All my thought was to watch from a nook in my window
Indian girls from the river with flowers in their hair.
Some bore
Fresh eggs in wicker boxes
For the grocery store;
Others, baskets of fruit; and some,
The skins of mountain cats and foxes
Caught in traps at home.
They all passed so stately by, they all walked so gracefully,
Balancing their bodies on lithe unstable hips,
As if music moved them that swelled in their bosoms
And was pizzicatti at their finger-tips.
II Tropical Rain
The rain, in Nicaragua, it is a witch they say;
She puts the world into her bag and blows the skies away;
And so, in every home, the little children gather,
Run up like little animals and kneel beside the Mother,
So frightened by the thunder that they can hardly pray.
"Sweet Jesu, you that stilled the storm in Galilee,
Pity the homeless now, and the travelers by sea;
Pity the little birds that have no nest, that are forlorn;
Pity the butterfly, pity the honey bee;
Pity the roses that are so helpless, and the unsheltered corn,
And pity me...."
Then, when the rain is over and the children's prayer is said,
Oh, joy of swaying palm-trees with the rainbows overhead,
And the streets swollen like rivers, and the wet earth's smell,
And all the ants with sudden wings filling the heart with wonder,
And, afar, the tempest vanishing with a stifled thunder
In a glare of lurid radiance from the gaping mouth of hell!
III Tropical Park
The park in Leon is but a garden
Where grass and roses grow together;
It has no ordinance, it has no warden
Except the weather.
The paths are made of sand so fine
That they are always smooth and neat;
Sunlight and moonlight make them shine,
And so one's feet
Seem always to tread on magic ground
That gleams, and that whispers curiously,
For sand, when you tread it, has the sound
Of the sea.
Sometimes the band, of a warm night,
Makes music in that little park,
And lovers haunt, beyond the bright
Foot-paths, the dark.
You can almost tell what they do and say
Listening to the sound of the sand,--
How warm lips whisper, and glances play,
And hand seeks hand.
IV Tropical Town
Blue, pink and yellow houses, and, afar,
The cemetery, where the green trees are.
Sometimes you see a hungry dog pass by,
And there are always buzzards in the sky.
Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell,
A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear
A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell.
Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell
That holds the town asleep, save, once a year,
The Easter festival....
I come from there,
And when I tire of hoping, and despair
Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far,
Beyond that length of lazy street, to where
The lonely green trees and the white graves are.
V Tropical House
When the winter comes, I will take you to Nicaragua--
You will love it there!
you will love my home, my house in Nicaragua,
So large and queenly looking, with a haughty air
That seems to tell the mountains, the mountains of Nicaragua,
"You may roar and you may tremble for all I care!"
It is shadowy and cool,
Has a garden in the middle where fruit trees grow,
And poppies, like a little army, row on row,
And jasmine bushes that will make you think of snow
They are so white and light, so perfect and so frail,
And when the wind is blowing they fly and flutter so.
The bath is in the garden, like a sort of pool,
With walls of honeysuckle and orchids all around;
The humming birds are always making a sleep sound;
In the night there's the Aztec nightingale;
But when the moon is up, in Nicaragua,
The moon of Nicaragua and the million stars,
It's the human heart that sings, and the heart of Nicaragua,
To the pleading, plaintive music of guitars!
[signed] Salomon De La Selva.
Latin America and the War
In common with many other parts of the world, even some of those
immediately involved, Latin America received the outbreak of the
European War with dismayed astonishment, with a feeling that it
could not be true, with mental confusion as to the real causes and
objects of the conflict. A survey of newspapers from Mexico to
Cape Horn during August, 1914, to the end of that year shows plainly
that for several months public opinion had not cleared up, that the
conflict seemed to be a frightful blunder, a terrific misunderstanding,
that might have been avoided, and for which no one nation in
particular was to blame.
The deep love of Latin America for Latin Europe undoubtedly
meant great sympathy for France; England, too, the great investor
in and developer of South America, was watched with good feeling;
but Germany has done much for Latin America commerce and shipping
facilities, a work performed with skillfully regulated tact, and
very many sections of the southern republics were loath to believe
that a nation so friendly and so industriously commercial had
deliberately planned the war.
But as time went on evidence accumulated; the martyrdom of Belgium
and Northern France, the use of poisonous gas, the instigation of
revolts in the colonies of the Entente Allies, the sinking of the
"Lusitania," the shooting of Nurse Cavell, and above all the proofs
of the enormous military preparations of Germany, slowly convinced
Latin America that a great scheme had long been perfected; the book
of Tannenburg which showed huge tracts of South America as part of
the future world dominion of Germany was seen to be no crazy dream
of an individual but the revelation of a widely held Teutonic ideal.
Many incidents occurring in the United States and Canada, such as
explosions and fires in factories of war materials, exposure of spies
and diplomatic intrigue, demonstrated a callous abuse of American
hospitality which the more southerly lands took to heart as
lessons; their dawning perception of the network of German effort
was further clarified by the floods of Teutonic propaganda which
covered every Latin American Republic and which was in many instances
speedily ridiculed by the keen-witted native press.
Frank in their expression of opinion, no sooner had Latin Americans
resolved in their own minds the questions of responsibility for
the war than they gave utterance to their opinions; journals avowed
themselves pro-Ally, large subscriptions were raised in many sections
for the relief of the European sufferers, particularly Belgium,
and a number of young men joined the Entente armies. In Brazil,
which was always supposed to have a German bias on account of her
large German colonies, some of the foremost publicists and writers
voluntarily formed the "Liga pelos Alliados" (League in favor of
the Allies) with the famous orator, Ruy Barbosa, at its head, and
the prince of Brazilian poets, Olavo Bilac, as one of its most
active members; the League was organized early in 1915 and its
meetings were characterized by the warmest pro-Ally utterances;
many members of the Brazilian Congress joined it, and I never heard
any Administrative protest on the score of neutrality.
Later in the same year Bilac, who is the object of fervent admiration,
for Latin America often pays more attention to her poets than to
her politicians, showed that he foresaw the entry of his country
into the conflict by a passionate appeal to the youth of Brazil
to fortify themselves with military discipline, in 1916 repeating
his "call to arms" in a tour throughout that great country. By
this time the whole of Latin America was lined up, the overwhelming
mass of press and people declaring pro-Ally, and especially
pro-French, sympathies, while the few ranged in the opposite camp
generally had special reasons for their choice, consisting of some
individual Germanic link. The fact of the prevalence of pro-Ally
feeling, long before any of the American countries became politically
aligned is, I think, a remarkable tribute to the response of Latin
America to the weight of genuine evidence; no propaganda was made
by any one of the Allied governments, and the solidification of
public opinion was due to Latin American feeling and not to outside
pressure.