[CHAPTER XII
POSTBELLUM VAGARIES]
It seems incredible that we who have chanted "Peace on earth, good-will to men" for upward of two thousand years, professing the Christian religion and enjoying its benefits, should have in the year 1914 proceeded to discredit our professions and our protestations.
It is interesting to have lived in those times, for it brought into one's thoughts and imagination sentient recognition of qualities or characteristics of individuals and of peoples which, until the advent of the war, one didn't know existed. Students of events curious to know and to understand the factors and forces that had shaped the world, geographically, politically, socially, religiously, were obliged until 1914 to rely upon the written records of the past. After that they had but to observe daily events or read of them in the public press to become apprised of what is meant by world progress. It has been a universal belief that greater reform, politically and socially, flowed from the French Revolution than from any premeditated, organized violence that the world has ever seen. In the years preceding that momentous event the peoples of Europe, and more especially those of France, were living in a state of intellectual and physical oppression which is almost impossible for the individual of average intelligence and education to appreciate. Although republican forms of government had frequently existed and had been conducted in many instances with much success, there was no indication that any of them had left the smallest trace of democracy in Europe, and the idea of social equality on a physical, intellectual, moral basis did not exist. I fancy there is scarcely an observer of the events which transpired during the Great War, or a person who gives any concrete thought to the matter, who will not admit—indeed, who will not maintain—that the results which have issued and which shall issue from that conflict and particularly those that have to do with men's relationship to each other in every walk of life, whether it be governmental or individual, conductual or spiritual, will be so radically changed that the issues of the French Revolution will seem trivial compared with them.
It was vouchsafed me to be in a position during the last year of the war to see at short range and sometimes from a vantage-point the workings of the minds of a people who have had liberty, unity, and nationality on their tongues and in their hearts for half a century and more. The Italians were in the lime-light from the day Germany threw a brand laden with explosives and poison gases into the different Christian countries of Europe. Her conduct as a whole since that time has been one of dignity, honesty, responsibility, and the exponent of the highest ideals of nationality. Whether or not she succeeded at any time in gaining the complete and absolute confidence of her allies, it would be difficult to say. To get the confidence of an individual or a country you must trust them, and the more implicitly you trust the greater will be the confidence and the finer the quality. Every one knows that Italy's alliance with Austria was an unnatural one and the majority of her people have always believed that the issue of it would be disastrous. Even the most shallow student of history knows that Austria stood menacingly over Italy during the entire period of the unholy alliance, but never more insultingly so than in 1912, when she veritably defended Turkey, while Italy was at war with that country. When Italy decided to throw her lot in with the Allies, there is no doubt whatsoever that it was with the hearty approbation of the vast majority of her people. The treaty which her minister of foreign affairs, Sonnino, made with the Allies, and which is known as the Treaty of London, and which sets forth what Italy was to have when victory was hers, although not known to the people, was satisfactory to the government, and one who reads it now can readily understand why it was so. The question was—would it be satisfactory to other governments? Was it an instrument consistent with the new liberty? Was it not at variance with what was going to be considered a fundamental right of the people, the principle of self-determination?
Italy's conduct during the first two years of the war drew forth the approbation, the praise, and the admiration of the whole world. The quality of approbation was undoubtedly merited. Whether the quantity was merited is another question. Then came their colossal disaster of Caporetto, the explanations of which have been many—some partially satisfactory, others not at all. One of the undeniable results of it was that upward of a half-million of her vigorous fighting men were marched into Austrian detention-camps and prisons. The results of this defalcation upon Italy and upon her internal resistance everybody knows. It was a greater shock to Italy and far more sinister in its effect than it was upon the Allies. Following it, she gave an example of capacity to put her house in order, and to present a solid front, the like of which has rarely been given by any country of the world. She cleaned her house to good purpose. How thoroughly she cleaned it no one can possibly know who was not permitted to enter it. The account which she gave of her courage and her strength when the enemy attempted to cross the Piave, in June of 1918, and which she gave in maintaining her lines in the mountains against an enemy infinitely superior in numbers, was the earnest of her honesty and determination.
There were, however, some things that awaited, and still await, satisfactory explanation. When the war began Italy had a population of about thirty-six millions, Austria-Hungary about fifty-four millions. Italy had an army of upward of four millions of men. It was currently estimated that Austria-Hungary had an army of between six and seven millions. It is believed by the Italians that the greater part of the dual monarchy's army was on the Italian front, and Italy convinced herself that she was standing out practically alone against an army of greatly superior numerical strength and larger military reserves. She admitted that a few Allied divisions were with her, but she maintained that she was giving far more to the western front than she received from all the Allies. There is no doubt that there were a hundred thousand Italians in France, both in the lines and behind them, and there is likewise no doubt that there was no such number of Allied soldiers in Italy. She had called to the colors boys born in 1899 and 1900. Indeed, youths of the 1899 class were sent to the front after the military reverses of October, 1917. Italy looked upon this in the light of a sacrifice which she was obliged to make in order to resist the forces of the empire which was at her throat. She believed that the Italian front was of signal importance to the alliance as a whole, and she made no secret of the fact that she was counting on the immediate assistance of American divisions. Her government frequently said that very nearly a tenth of her entire population was in the United States, and that America had always been her most trustworthy friend, and that two hundred thousand American soldiers would not only be a great moral force, but would impart fresh vigor to the national resistance.
No one denied the truth of these statements, but cogitating on them one is led to certain reflections, and they are: With an army of four millions of men, why is it they were able to put only a million and a half on the front? I understand that men were needed for munition factories, for the essential industries that provide for war consumption, and for the maintenance of the civil population; that fields must be tilled, mines must be worked, water power must be guarded, and railways must be manned. These things have to be done in every country, but soldiers do not do them. Other countries have militarized workmen, but they do not count them when they are enumerating the man strength of their army. In reality Italy had called to the colors all her healthy men between eighteen and forty-five in order that she might more easily manage them, govern them, discipline them.
The outsider who sees Italy through the veil of her statesmen's oratory and polemics knows her only pleasantly masked. One is led to think sometimes that they are more concerned with the appearance than the substance. It often looks as if they were banking too much upon her great and glorious past, and not looking to the furthering of conditions that make for the happiness and efficiency of their people. The conditions produced by the war have reminded the politicians in control that the people love their government in proportion to the benefits they derive from it, and I fancy it has at times felt that the people were not giving it that strong support which is rooted in love and consideration. "Four-fifths of the Italians have always lived on the war footing," said Prime Minister Orlando in one of his speeches to Parliament. He meant to convey that the Italians, being accustomed to hardships and sacrifices, could stand war better than others. He claimed to see in this a source of strength. Yet he must have known that the soldiers lying down by the roadside in the days of Caporetto, awaiting with Mohammedan indifference the coming of the Austrians, were replying to the officers who were urging them to retreat to some place of reorganization: "We have always lived on polenta, and we shall always have it, and it will always taste the same even if the Austrians win." Though not responsible for the sins of the past, it seems incredible that the authorities were not aware of this wide-spread feeling among the people.
It is in the hour of great trial that our conscience shows us, as in a mirror, all our past shortcomings, and it admonishes us that we reap what we have sown. Reviewing the past, the Italian Government must have known that it could not have the unswerving loyalty of a people who for fifty years had been fed on promises, big words, and magniloquent speeches covering illiterateness, oppressive taxation, obstacles to activity, and necessity of emigration. It is not with words alone that one gives happiness to a nation and receives love and support. Emigration and Bolshevism are the two symptoms of the disease that threatens the nation. Nearly a million Italians emigrated in 1913, and socialism has a firmer footing in Italy than in any other country. Surely these facts have far-reaching significance. The conclusion is that there can be little doubt that men had to be called to the colors so as to manage them better with martial discipline. Possibly it was a wise measure and a necessary prologue to the rigid censorship and to Sacchi's decree, which was a kind of lettre de cachet.
I have often asked myself, What is the Italian's most dominant characteristic? What is his most conspicuous idiosyncrasy? One day I answer it in one way, another in another. But on mature reflection I think it is that he believes what he wants to believe and that he does not trust any one implicitly. He trusts his own fellow citizen least of all. He says he trusts him, but when he puts him in a position of trust he puts somebody in to watch him and to report on him. The Italian has not that confidence in his fellow human beings that a normal man has in his honest wife, that a normal mother has in her dutiful child, that a normal lover has in his trusted innamorata. I am so prejudiced in the Italian's favor that I must defend even his infirmities. For centuries Italy was divided and weak, and countless times she has been the tool of the ambitious, the insatiate, and the predatory. She has been used over and over by more powerful nations as tongs to get their chestnuts out of the fire. For every favor she has received she has had to pay dearly, and she has learned by sad experience that promises are usually made of fragile material. Leaving out the treatment she received from France and England in the nineteenth century, more particularly during the years when she was big with nationality and unity, and during the period when she gave birth to these beloved terms, the treatment she received from these nations in 1911 and 1912, while she was waging the Libyan War, still rankles in her bosom. Despite Salisbury's promises and his parable of the stag, they recall England's disparagement of her initiative and of her conduct of her righteous War. They recall the sinister frenzy that France displayed when they took the S. S. Carthage into one of their ports because they believed she was carrying aeroplanes to the Turks, and the S. S. Manouba because she had Turkish passengers camouflaged as doctors and nurses. She recalls also that when the Hague Tribunal practically decided in her favor, neither France nor England displayed the slightest graciousness.