As the Serbian Society of Great Britain observed in a letter of welcome
which they addressed to Baron Sonnino on the occasion of a visit to
London, they were convinced "after a close study and experience of the
Southern Slav question in all its aspects and some knowledge of the
Adriatic problem as a whole, that there is no necessary or inevitable
conflict between the aspiration of the Southern Slav people towards
complete unity and the postulates of Italian national security and of
the completion of Italian unity; but that, on the contrary, there exist
strong grounds for Italo-Southern Slav co-operation and friendship." The
Italian Government, however, had now got almost their whole country
behind them, and in the months after the War so many Italians had become
warlike that they were enchanted with the picture drawn by Gabriele
d'Annunzio: "And what peace will in the end be imposed on us, poor
little ones of Christ? A Gallic peace? A British peace? A star-spangled
peace? Then, no! Enough! Victorious Italy--the most victorious of all
the nations--victorious over herself and over the enemy--will have on
the Alps and over her sea the _Pax Romana_, the sole peace that is
fitting. If necessary we will meet the new plot in the fashion of the
Arditi [units of volunteers employed on specially dangerous
enterprises], a grenade in each hand and a knife between our teeth." It
is true that the other poor little ones of Christ, the Franciscans, who
are greatly beloved by the people of Dalmatia, from whom they are
sprung, have hitherto preached a different _Pax Romana_. The Dalmatian
clergy, who are patriotic, have been rather a stumbling-block in the
way of the Italians. A very small percentage of them--about six in a
thousand--have been anti-national and opportunist. At one place a priest
whom his bishop had some years ago had occasion to expel, returned with
the Italian army in November 1918 and informed the bishop that he had a
letter from the Pope which reinstated him, but he refused to show this
letter. He was anxious to preach on the following Sunday; the bishop
declined to allow him. Then came unto the bishop the chief of the
Italian soldiery and he said unto him: "Either thou shalt permit this
man to preach or I will cause thine office to be taken from thee."
Unfortunately the bishop yielded, and the sermon, as one would imagine,
was devoted to the greater glory of the Italians. Sometimes the
Italians, since their occupation, have made a more humorous if not more
successful use of the Church. On Palm Sunday, after the service a number
of peasants, in their best clothes, were walking through a village
holding the usual palm leaves in their hands. They were photographed,
and a popular Italian newspaper printed this as a full-page coloured
illustration. It was entitled: "Dalmatian Peasants on their way to pay
Homage to Admiral Millo."
This policy of a grenade in each hand and a knife between the teeth
makes a powerful appeal to the munition firms. And others who feed the
flame of Italo-Slav hatred are, as Gaetano Salvemini, the
anti-chauvinist, pointed out in the _Unita_ of Florence, those
professional gladiators who would lose their job, those agents of the
Italo-German-Levantine capitalism of the Triest Chamber of Commerce who
want to be rid of the competition of Rieka and think that this can only
be obtained by annexation, and also those Italian Nationalists who
believe that the only path to national greatness is by acquiring
territory everywhere. No light has come to them from the East; the same
arguments which are now put forward by such societies as the "Pro
Dalmatia" could be heard in Italy before she possessed herself of
Tripoli. One heard the same talk of strategic necessities; one heard
that nearly all the population was waiting with open arms for the
Italians; one heard that from a business point of view nothing could be
better; one heard that the Italians without Tripoli would be choked out
of the Mediterranean. And what have been the fruits of the conquest of
Tripoli? No economic advantages have been procured, as Prezzolini wrote,
no sociological, no strategic, no diplomatic benefits. A great deal of
money was thrown away, a vast amount of energy was wasted, and thousands
of troops have to be stationed permanently in the wilderness. That
expedition to Tripoli, which was one of the gravest errors of Italian
politics, was preceded by clouds of forged documents, of absurdities, of
partial extracts out of consular reports, of lying correspondence which
succeeded in misleading the Italians.