I have lived among our brave soldiers in the trenches and listened to them talking in their little groups. I have seen them during their bad times and in epic moments of enthusiasm. And when, after the sad 24th October, there was a certain distrust of them, I would not allow it, because it seemed to me impossible that the soldiers, who had won battles in circumstances more difficult than those prevailing in any other theatre of war, had become all at once weak cowards, who fled at the mere crackling of a machine-gun. And it was not so, because if it had been, no river would have stopped the invading forces, and if we stopped them on the Piave, it means we could have resisted also on the Isonzo. (Applause.)
I was reading in the train last night a book of poems written in the trenches by a Captain Arturo Arpigati. The literature of the war is the only readable literature, but it must have been written by men who have really been at the front. In this verse I recognised my one-time fellow-soldiers, the humble and great soldiers of our war. Here it is:
Col vecchio suo magico sguardo
il Dovere, nume d’acciaio
gli inconsci anche soggioga.
benché ne balbettino il nome,
ecco, essi, la madre difendono
ed è la madre di tutti;
e sono essi la Guerra,
e sono essi la Fronte,