sono essi la Vittoria;

dai loro elmetti ferrei

spicca il volo la gloria:

essi martiri e santi,

sono l’eroica Patria, essi. I Fanti![[2]]

But the highest praise of the people in arms is contained in the thousand bulletins of the Supreme Command. The unarmed also deserve praise, both those in cities—inevitably nervous and restless by reason of the association of thousands of human beings and the contact of thousands of temperaments—and those in the country. From the Valle Padana to the Tavoliere delle Puglie, from the vine-clad hills of Montferrat to the plains of the Conca d’Oro, the houses of the peasants stand empty, and with the houses the stables. The women have seen the father and the son depart together, the thoughtful territorial of over forty and the adventurous youth. It is useless to expect from the humble people of the proletariat a highly developed sense of nationality. It cannot possess what we have never done anything to cultivate. From the people who have exchanged the spade for the gun we simply ask for obedience, and the Italian people, the people of the country and of the factories, obey. A sad episode, some signs of restlessness are not enough to spoil this picture. It had been said that we should not hold out six months; that at the announcement of the names of the dead the families would rebel; that the sight of the maimed at the street corners would rouse the people to action. Three years have now passed—three long years. The mothers of the fallen take a sacred pride in their grief. The maimed do not ask to be called “glorious,” and refuse to be pitied. Food is scarce, but the people still resist. The troop trains go to the front adorned with flowers as in the May of 1915. The dignity and peace in the towns and in the country is simply marvellous! The national crisis, which lasted from August to October of 1917, and which is summed up in the two names of Turin and Caporetto, has been in a certain sense salutary. It was the repercussion of the great crisis which hurled Russia into the abyss.

[2]. As of old, Duty, of the steel hand, enchains even the ignorant by the magic of her glance. While as yet they can barely stutter her name, lo! they defend their mother, who is the mother of all.

And they are the war, and they are the battle front, and they are the victory. Glory is reflected from their steel helmets.

They, the soldiers, are the martyrs and saints and the heroic country.

The Russian Tragedy. Was there any definite motive in the Leninist policy which led Russia to make the “painful, forced and shameful Peace of Brest”? Yes! there was. The massimalists really believe in the possibility of revolution by “contagion.” They hoped to infect the Germans with the massimalist bacillus. They did not succeed; Germany is refractory. The very “minoritaries” are far from proclaiming themselves Bolshevists. And more, these “minoritaries,” who ought to represent the fermenting yeast, are continually losing ground. In three elections there have been three overwhelming defeats. The “majoritaries” triumph. They are the same now as in the August of 1914, accomplices of Pangermanism. They want to win. After Brest-Litowsk the Socialists lay low; after the Peace of Bucharest they kept silence.