Reliance was also placed on “human kindness” and other sentiments of humanity, of brotherhood and love, which ought, it was maintained, to bind all the different branches of the species “man” together regardless of barriers of land or sea. Another illusion! It is very true that these feelings of sympathy and brotherliness exist; our century has, in truth, seen the rapid multiplication of philanthropic works for the alleviation of the hardships both of men and of animals; but along with these impulses exist others, profounder, higher and more vital. We should not explain the universal phenomenon of war by attributing it to the caprices of monarchs, race-hatred or economic rivalry; we must take into account other feelings which each of us carries in his heart, and which made Proudhon exclaim, with that perennial truth which hides beneath the mask of paradox, that war was of “divine origin.”
It was also maintained that the encouragement of closer international relations—economic, artistic, intellectual, political and sporting—by causing the peoples to become better acquainted, would have prevented the outbreak of war among civilised nations. Norman Angell had founded his book upon the impossibility of war, proving that all the nations involved—victors and vanquished alike—would have their economic life completely convulsed and ruined in consequence. Another illusion laid bare! Lack of observation. The purely economic man does not exist. The story of the world is not merely a page of book-keeping; and material interests—luckily—are not the only mainspring of human actions. It is true that international relations have multiplied; that there is, or was, freer interchange—political and economic—between the peoples of the different countries than there was a century ago. But parallel with this phenomenon is another, which is that the people, with the diffusion of culture and the formation of an economic system of a national type, tend to isolate themselves psychologically and morally.
Internationalism. Side by side with the peaceful middle-class movement, which is not worth examination, flourished another of an international character, that of the working classes. At the outbreak of war this class, too, gave evidence of its inefficiency. The Germans, who ought to have set the example, flocked as a man to the Kaiser’s banner. The treachery of the Germans forced the Socialists of the other countries to fall back upon the basis of nationality and the necessity of national defence. The German unity automatically determined the unity of the other countries. It is said, and justly, that international relations are like love; it takes two to carry them on. Internationalism is ended; that which existed yesterday is dead, and it is impossible to foresee what form it will take to-morrow. Reality cannot be done away with and cannot be ignored, and the reality is that millions and millions of men, for the most part of the working classes, are standing opposite one another to-day on the blood-drenched battlefields of Europe. The neutrals, who shout themselves hoarse crying “Down with war!” do not realise the grotesque cowardice contained in that cry to-day. It is irony of the most atrocious kind to shout “Down with war!” while men are fighting and dying in the trenches.
The Real Situation. Between the two groups, the Triple Entente and the Austro-German Alliance, Italy has remained—neutral. In the Triple Entente there is heroic Serbia, who has broken loose from the Austrian yoke; there is martyred Belgium, who refused to sell herself; there is republican France who has been attacked; there is democratic England; there is autocratic Russia, though her foundations are undermined by revolution. On the other side there is Austria, clerical and feudal, and Germany, militarist and aggressive. At the outbreak of war Italy proclaimed herself neutral. Was the “exception” contemplated in the treaties? It seems as if it were so, especially in view of the recent revelations made by Giolitti. If the neutrality of the Government meant indifference, the neutrality of the Socialists and the economic organisations had an entirely different character and significance. The Socialist neutrality intended a general strike in the case of alliance with Austria; no practical opposition in the case of a war against her. A distinction was made, therefore, between one war and another. Further, the classes were allowed to be called up.
If the Government had mobilised, all the Socialists would have found it a natural and logical proceeding. They admitted, therefore, that a nation has the right and duty to defend itself by recourse to arms, in case of attack from outside. Neutrality understood in this way had necessarily to lead—with the progress of events, especially in Belgium—to the idea of intervention.
The Bourgeoisie is Neutral. It is controversial whether Italy has a bourgeoisie in the generally accepted sense of the word. Rather than the bourgeoisie and lower classes, there are rich and poor. In any case, it is untrue that the Italian middle classes are, at the moment, jingoist. On the contrary they are neutral and desperately pacifist. The banking world is neutral, the industrial classes have reorganised their business, and the agrarian population, small and great, are pacifists by tradition and temperament; the political and academic middle classes are neutral. Look at the Senate! There are perhaps exceptions, young men who do not wish to stagnate in the dead pool of neutrality; but the middle classes, taken as a whole, are hostile to war and neutral. As a conclusive proof, compare the tone of the middle-class papers to-day with that shown at the time of the Libyan campaign, and note the difference. The trumpet-call which then sounded for war is muffled now. The language of the middle-class Press is uncertain, wavering and mysterious, neutral in word but, in effect, in favour of the Allies. Where are the trumpets that summoned us in the September of 1911? The secret is out, and ought to make the Socialists, who are not stupid, stop and think. On the one side are all the conservative and stagnant elements, and on the other the revolutionary and the living forces of the country. It is necessary to choose.
We want the War! But we want the war and we want it at once. It is not true that military preparation is lacking. What does this waiting for the spring to come mean?
Socialism ought not, and cannot, be against all wars because in that case it would have to deny fifty years of history. Do you want to judge and condemn in the same breath the war in Tripoli and the result of the French Revolution of 1793? And Garibaldi? Is he, too, a jingoist? You must distinguish between one war and another, as between one crime and another, one case of bloodshed and another. Bovio said: “All the water in the sea would not suffice to remove the stain from the hands of Lady Macbeth, but a basinful would wash the blood from the hands of Garibaldi.”
Guesde, in a congress of French Socialists held a few weeks before the outbreak of war, declared that, in case of a conflagration, the nation that was most Socialist would be the victim of the nation that was least. To prove this, notice the behaviour of the Italian Socialists. Look at them in Parliament. Treves lost time by quibbling. At one moment he exclaimed, “We shall not deny the country.” In fact the country cannot be denied. One does not deny one’s mother, even if she does not offer one all her gifts, even if she does force one to earn one’s living in the alluring streets of the world. (Great applause.)
Treves said more: “We shall not oppose a war of defence.” If this is admitted, the necessity of arming ourselves is admitted. You will not open the gates of Italy yet to the Austrian army, because they will come to pillage the houses and violate the women! I know it well. There are base wretches who blame Belgium for defending herself. She might have pocketed the money of the Germans, they say, and allowed them a free passage; while resistance meant laying herself open to the scientific and systematic destruction of her towns. But Belgium lives, and will live, because she refused to sell herself ignobly. If she had done so, she would be dead for all time. (Great applause, and cries of “Long live Belgium!” The cheering lasts for some minutes.)