I have inserted this letter in my memoirs because I like to let the opponents, especially such eminent opponents, have their say. What reply I made to the professor I do not remember, but assuredly I did not leave uncontroverted the idea that I was pleased by the condescension with which he regarded my views as pleasing delusions! The morality that to-day is already beginning to influence the lives of individuals is not a fact handed down by tradition from the creation of the world, but a phase gradually won by social development and beginning to react on governmental life and to work on quite different factors from mere “hearts that glow calmly for peace.”
Italy at that time was trying to make war in Africa. It wanted to conquer Abyssinia; but that was not so easy. The Negus was victorious in many battles. The Italians had been obliged to withdraw from Fort Makoli. Then Menelik expressed his desire to enter into peace negotiations. General Baratieri sends Major Salsa into the enemy’s camp. But no conclusion of peace is reached. The Negus demands the evacuation of the newly acquired territories; whereupon Baratieri sends word that these propositions can neither be accepted nor be taken into consideration as a basis of further proceedings. So then, further prosecution of the war. Reënforcements are sent. The Riforma declares that Baratieri has done well in refusing the Negus’s overtures; they insult the dignity of the nation.
In place of Baratieri another generalissimo is to be shipped off, and the victory of Italy is assured. General Baldissera, Austrian born, who in the year 1866 had fought against Italy, is intrusted with this mission of conquest. So now let it be said that it can be something else than the most glowing patriotism that moves the mover of battles!...
And Menelik meantime? A French physician, drawn to the enemy’s camp during a journey of research, wrote from Oboch:
The Negus received me.... Is he really sad, or does he only put it on? He keeps affirming that he is to the last degree troubled about this war which has cost and will continue to cost the shedding of so much Christian blood. He is attacked—he defends himself; yet if he is too hard pushed and they want to try it again, then—Menelik seems confident as to the upshot of the war, but why so much blood?
Why, O swarthy Emperor? Because the white gentlemen in the editorial offices declare that it is the “duty demanded by honor.”
In Italy the protest of the people against the continuation of the war continues to grow louder. But since it is Republicans and Socialists who vote for the discontinuance of the campaign, their demonstrations are suppressed by the government. On February 29 a great anti-African banquet was planned in Milan, but forbidden by the prefecture. And on the next day comes the terrible news of the defeat in Adowa,—eight thousand men fallen—the rest put to flight—two generals killed—in short, a catastrophe; wild agony in Italy and sympathy throughout Europe. All the fury is concentrated on Baratieri because he attempted such a sortie.
Out of the multitude of reports about Adowa I have entered in my diary only one or two lines from Il Corriere della Sera of the eighth of March: “The soldiers of Amara, who are cruel brigands, hacked down the Italian wounded, mutilated them, and tore the clothes from their bodies.”
Gentlemen of the press, who have demanded the continuance of the war, does it not occur to your consciences that you are accessories in the mutilation of your fellow-countrymen? No, they demand that the blood of the fallen shall be avenged,—in other words, that still others, unnumbered, shall experience the same misfortune. L’Opinione writes:
Baratieri’s act was that of a lunatic; he wasted in a craven way the lives of eight thousand soldiers and two hundred officers. But our military honor remains unblemished. The material lost will be replaced within a month; our military power remains as it was. The country understands this and is ready to avenge the blood of the fallen. Those who think the contrary are a handful of people [that is to say, those who come out against the war—ah, why are they only a handful?], people without God and without a country. Nevertheless, these people can do no harm, for the nation is against them.