Yesterday, I experienced a moment of great emotion when passing over the Isonzo. Every time that I have passed that river with my pack on my back, I have stooped to drink of its crystal waters. If we had not reached the other side of that river, the tricolour would not to-day be flying from San Giusto.
This is the real and true meaning of the war. If the tricolour flies from San Giusto, it is because twenty years ago a man of Trieste was the forerunner; it is there because in 1915 Italian soldiers threw themselves upon the Austrian defences, and all Italy took part in that act, from the Alpine detachments of the mountains of Piedmont, Lombardy and Friuli to the magnificent infantry of the Abruzzi, Puglie and Sicily and the soldiers of the generous island of Sardinia, too much neglected by the Government! And these generous sons have not yet risen up to take reprisals against the demagogues of Italy, because they are always ready to fulfil their duty.
Men of Trieste! The tricolour of San Giusto is sacred, the tricolour on the Nevoso is sacred, and still more so is that on the Dinaric Alps. The tricolour will be protected by our dead heroes, but let us swear together that it will be defended also by the living. (Prolonged applause.)
FASCISMO AND THE PROBLEMS OF FOREIGN POLICY
Speech delivered at the Politeama Rossetti, Trieste, 6th February 1921.
Just as, a few months before, at the time of Italy’s darkest hour, when the Bolshevist movement was at its zenith, Mussolini had addressed to the people of Trieste wise words of faith, so in the spring of 1921, the spring famous for anti-Socialist reaction, Trieste was once more the city he chose as the place best suited for the exposition of his analysis of the problems of foreign policy. On that occasion the patriotic and liberated town, which gave the first impulse of assault in the energetic offensive against the local Austrian Bolshevists, accorded to the leader of the new Italy hearty manifestations of general assent.
In order to indicate the direction which Italian foreign policy should take in the immediate future, it is a good thing to give a glance first at the general situation in the world, and at the forces and currents which are at work, with a view to finding out what may be the possible developments and results.
All the States of the world are in a condition of fatal interdependence. The period for splendid isolation is passed for everyone. It can well be said, that with the war the story of mankind has acquired a world movement. While Europe, severely weakened, struggles to recover her economic, political and spiritual balance, already beyond the boundaries of the old Continent a formidable clash of interests is shaping itself. I allude to the conflict between the United States and Japan, and to the accounts of recent episodes, from the Affair of the Cable to the Bill against the Yellow Immigration in California, which have occupied the papers. Japan has a population of 77 millions, and the United States 110 millions. That it was known that a struggle between these two States was inevitable is proved by the very significant fact that the book which had the widest circulation among all classes in Tokio was called Our Next War with the United States, a book which outlined the war between the continents for the dominion of the Pacific. The centre of world civilisation is tending to alter its position. Up to about 1500 it was in the Mediterranean; after the discovery of America, it shifted to the Atlantic; to-day its passage to the biggest ocean of the planet is indicated. I said, last time I spoke here, that we were approaching the “Asiatic” century. Japan is destined to be the fermenting element of all the Yellow world.
As the result of shifting the centre of civilisation from London to New York (which has already seven million inhabitants and will soon be the largest agglomeration of human beings on the earth), and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there are those who foresee a gradual economic and spiritual decay of our old Europe, and of our wonderful little continent, which has been, hitherto, the guiding light of all the world. Shall we live to see the eclipse of the European rôle in the history of mankind?
The European Situation. To this disquieting and depressing question we answer, “It is possible.” The life of Europe, especially that of Central Europe, is at the mercy of the Americans. Europe presents a troubled political and economic panorama, a thorny maze of national and social questions, and it happens that Communism is sometimes the mask of Nationalism and vice versâ. European “unity” does not seem to be any nearer realisation. Egoism and the interests of nations and classes exist in proud contrast. Russia is no longer an enigma from the economic point of view. In Russia there is neither Communism nor Socialism, but an agrarian revolution of the democratic lower-middle-class kind. She only remains an enigma from the political point of view. What foreign policy does Russia follow? Is it a policy of peace or war? The variety of facts which reach our ears make us continually waver between one opinion and another. Perhaps under the emblem of the sickle and the hammer is hidden—or not hidden—the old Panslavism, which to-day is dominated, besides, by the immediate necessity of extending the revolution to the rest of Europe, in order to save the Government of the Soviet in Russia. If Russia adopts a policy of war, the fate of the Baltic States (Lithuania, Lettonia and Esthonia) will be sealed. The fate of Poland would also be uncertain, and she might find herself driven against the unfriendly German wall by an eventual breaking loose of the Russian forces. There are serious conflicting interests between the different States of those north-east shores. There is a disagreement between Poland, Lithuania and Russia as regards Wilna and Grodno. The rights on the basis of history and statistics are with Poland. There are 263,000 Poles in the district of Wilna as compared with 118,000 Lithuanians, 8000 White Ruthenians and 83,000 Jews. The same figures, proportionately, are found in Grodno. As for Upper Silesia, which keeps the Polish and German worlds in a state of continuous agitation, the German statistics give these returns: 1,348,000 Poles, 588,000 Germans. Upper Silesia is, therefore, Polish, but its final destiny will be decided by the plebiscite summoned for the 15th March.