Between France and Italy the cordiality established mainly by the exertions of M. Barère has of late years undergone a marked change, and while the two Governments were endeavouring to smooth over their differences and deal amicably with each contentious matter as it cropped up, the press of each country was bombarding the other with taunts and reproaches which rendered the task of diplomacy unnecessarily difficult. And British publicists, for reasons which lie near the surface, felt inclined to take sides with their French colleagues, without perhaps investigating with sufficient closeness and care the origin of the estrangement. Those unfriendly utterances, some of them the effects of mere misunderstandings, run through contemporary political history like a red thread through a piece of white cambric.
Italy’s solicitude for friendship with France and Great Britain is prompted by interest as well as sentiment. For she sorely needs peace, recognizes the need, and is exerting herself to the utmost to insure it. And this indisputable fact might profitably serve as the starting-point of one’s reasoning on the subject, and likewise as a safe basis for the attitude of the statesmen interested. For a long time, it is true, the occupation of Tunis by France in 1887 was resented by every public man in the Peninsula. The ensuing tension was accentuated as much by the manner as by the policy of Crispi. The Abyssinian campaign made matters worse, seeing that the Abyssinians were believed to have received their arms and ammunition from the French. During all those untoward incidents, Great Britain was found on Italy’s side. The Franco-Italian war of tariffs raised mutual animosity to its highest power, after which a reaction set in which led to the conclusion of the Mediterranean agreements with France and England.
During the Lybian war Italy seized two French steamers, the Manuba and the Carthage, for alleged contravention of international law, and sent them to Cagliari. France protested, and M. Poincaré took up such a decided position in the matter and gave it such vehement expression that all Italy was unanimous in holding him as the destroyer of the good relations laboriously established by M. Barère and the Consulta. And the affront has not yet been forgotten. The next grievance had its source in the action of the British Government, which confided to France the protection of her Mediterranean interests, and encouraged the Republic to keep the bulk of its warships in that sea. This preponderance of the French fleet in Italy’s own sea was regarded by the Government of the Peninsula as an unfriendly act, owing to its special bearings on their relative naval strength there. And the author of this obnoxious innovation was believed to be the Republic, which had induced Great Britain to acquiesce.
Lately Italy asked for an economic opening in Asia Minor, into which every Great Power of Europe was penetrating. That the demand was not unreasonable is shown by the fact that it has since been complied with. In view of that contingency, therefore, it would have been well to examine it without bias, instead of opposing it with vehemence. For Great Britain is no longer the most puissant State in the Midland Sea, and circumstances may one day arise in which she will be in want of an ally there. And Italy is her most natural partner. The circumstances that she is a member of the Triple Alliance is no bar to this prospective co-operation. For the Triple Alliance is a defensive combination. It provides for a certain well-defined eventuality, but outside that sphere Italy is untrammelled.
The pith of the matter, then, is that British and French publicists are wont to lay undue stress on Italy’s alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. That engagement is but a single facet of her activity. There are others more enduring. She is obliged to protect her special interests and is also free to cultivate her special friendships. Paramount among those interests is the maintenance of peace, and chief of those friendships is that with Great Britain and France. Even the Triple Alliance was founded as an association for the prevention of war, and hitherto it has not drifted into aggression. Italy’s influence in that concern is growing, and together with it her facilities for upholding the pacific policy with which she has uniformly identified herself. And the more steadily her economic well-being and her political prestige develop, the greater will be the weight which as second member of the Alliance she can throw into the scale of peace.[16]
Italy occupies a unique position in the polity of Continental Europe. Whereas all other Great Powers owe much of what they have and are to successful wars, Italy is indebted for her rapid progress and growth chiefly to the arts of peace and the triumphs of diplomacy. And as she is an essentially pacific and cultured State, whose policy is inspired solely by national interests, it stands to reason that her statesmen will take heed not to endanger what she already possesses and what she may reasonably hope for in the future by any hasty move, and least of all by impulsively exchanging peace for war. In plain English, she will be guided by events, and it would be mere childishness to expect to see her rush into the arena, moved by a sudden outburst of sentimentality. And as yet the national interest is not deemed to have become a decisive motive. For this reason the importunity of her ex-allies is more likely to damage than help the cause in which it is employed. The Teutonic belligerents, too, are wasting their breath when they hold out the annexation of Tunis, Savoy, and Nice as the price of her co-operation, just as the Entente Powers would be doing were they to endeavour to entice her to their side by dangling maps of Italia irredenta and Valona before her eyes. Italian statesmen may be trusted to gauge the situation aright, and when the upshot of the mighty struggle can be forecast, to make no miscalculation. They may also be credited with decision enough to take their final stand in good time. But above all else, it should be borne in mind that Italy will be guided solely by the promptings of her national interests. She will hardly consider these sufficiently guaranteed by a scrap of paper, and still less by a German promise of one.
Respecting one important consideration Italian statesmen will hardly be content to suspend their judgment or to cherish illusions. However satisfied in mind they may be that their neutrality was warranted by the aggression of their German and Austrian allies, they cannot ignore the contrary thesis which is firmly held by every thinking German and Austrian in the two Empires. The Kaiser, his Chancellor, the Evangelical theologians, the men of letters of the Fatherland, Count Bernstorff in Washington, all hold that Germany and Austria are but defending themselves against unprincipled aggression. And the corollary of this declaration is that Italy is guilty of the monstrous crime of regarding her treaty obligations as a worthless scrap of paper. For the moment impunity is the result of powerlessness to punish the criminal, and will continue only as long as its cause is operative.
That this and other equally momentous aspects of the thorny problem are receiving due consideration may be taken for granted.
CHAPTER VII
THE TWELFTH HOUR
Although the Austrian ultimatum to Servia was so worded and the time accorded for a reply so limited as to ensure its rejection, misgivings were, as we saw, felt and uttered in Vienna and Budapest that Servia would knuckle down and execute the humiliating behests of the Ballplatz. For this was a consummation which was deemed highly undesirable. The carefully laid plan would have become difficult of realization had Austria’s terms been acquiesced in unreservedly. It would have rendered a military expedition superfluous and left Servia’s army intact. Hence the exhaustive precautions adopted for the purpose of provoking a negative answer to the ultimatum from Belgrade.