Further light is shown upon this rotten spot in our Governmental diplomacy management abroad by an article entitled "Scrap our Alien Consuls," written by T. B. Donovan and published in a London paper, February 20th, 1916, short extracts from which read as follows:
"Look up in Whitaker's Almanack for 1914 our Consuls in the German Empire before the war—and cease to wonder that we were not better informed. Out of a total of forty old British Consuls more than thirty bear German names! Other nations were not so blind.... Glance through the following astounding list. In Sweden, twenty-four out of thirty-one British Consuls and Vice-Consuls are non-Englishmen; in Norway, twenty-six out of thirty; in Denmark, nineteen out of twenty-six; in Holland and its Colonies, fourteen out of twenty-four; in Switzerland nine out of fourteen—and several of the few Englishmen are stationed at holiday resorts where there is no trade at all.
"And we are astonished that our blockade 'leaks at every seam'!...
"This type of British Consul must be replaced by keen Britishers who have the interests of their country at heart and who are at the same time acquainted with the needs of the districts to which they are appointed. If we could only break with red tape, we could find numerous men, not far beyond the prime of life, but who have retired from an active part in business, who would gladly accept such appointments and place their knowledge at the disposal of their fellows....
"The state of things in our Consular Service is such as no business man would tolerate for a moment."
Turning attention to our diplomacy on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Near East, those in the Secret Service knew that during the early days of the war at least our Foreign Office had nothing much to congratulate itself upon with regard to its representatives in Italy.
For the first eight months of war an overwhelming volume of supplies and commodities, so sought after and necessary to the Central Powers, was permitted to be poured into and through that country from all sources. Even the traders of the small northern neutral states became jealous of the fortunes that were being made there. Daily almost they might be heard saying: "Why should I not earn money by sending goods to Germany when ten times the amount that my country supplies is being sent through Italy?"
The tense anxiety, the long weary months of waiting for Italy to join the Entente, are not likely to be forgotten. When at last she was compelled to come in, it was not British cleverness in diplomacy that caused her so to do, but the irresistible will of her own peoples, the men in the streets and in the fields; the popular poems of Signor D'Annunzio, which rushed the Italian Government along, against its will, and as an overwhelming avalanche. The popular quasi-saint-like shade of Garibaldi precipitated matters to a crisis.
"It is interesting as an object lesson in the ironies of fate to compare the fevered enthusiasm of the Sonnino of 1881 for the cultured Germans and Austrians, and his exuberant hatred of France, with the cold logic of the disabused Sonnino of 1915, who suddenly acquired widespread popularity by undoing the work he had so laboriously helped to achieve a quarter of a century before. European history, ever since Germany began to obtain success in moulding it, has been full of these piquant Penelopean Activities, some of which are fast losing their humorous points in grim tragedy."
Thus wrote Dr. E. J. Dillon in his book of revelations, "From the Triple to the Quadruple Alliance, or Why Italy Went to War." From cover to cover it is full of solid, startling facts concerning the treachery and double-dealing of the Central Powers. It shows how Italy was flattered, cajoled and lured on to the very edge of the precipice of ruin, disaster and disgrace; how she had been gradually hedged in, cut off from friendly relationships with other countries, and swathed and pinioned by the tentacles of economic plots and scheming which rendered her tributary to and a slave of the latter-day Conquistadores; how for over thirty years she was compelled to play an ignominious and contemptible part as the cat's-paw of Germany; how Prince Bulow, the most distinguished statesman in Germany, also the most resourceful diplomatist, who by his marriage with Princess Camporeale, and the limitless funds at his disposal, wielded extraordinary influence with Italian senators and officials as well as at the Vatican, dominated Italian people from the highest to the lowest; how, in fact, the Kaiser's was the hand that for years guided Italy's destiny. The book is a veritable mine of information of amazing interest at the present time, given in minutest detail, authenticated by facts, date, proof, and argument. But it is extraordinary that in this volume of nearly 100,000 words, written by a man who perhaps, for deep intimate knowledge of foreign politics and the histories of secret Court intrigue, has no equal living, not a word of commendation is devoted to the efforts made by our own British diplomacy or to the parts played by His Britannic Majesty's Ministers and Ambassadors. There is, however, a remote allusion on his last page but one, as follows: "The scope for a complete and permanent betterment of relations is great enough to attract and satisfy the highest diplomatic ambition." This seems to be the one and only reference.
As quoted in other pages of this book, the reader will perhaps gather that Dr. Dillon, who has been brought much in contact with the Diplomatic Service and who has exceptional opportunities of seeing behind the scenes, believes in the old maxims revised; for example: De vivis nil nisi bonum.
A brief resumé of the material parts of this book which affect the subject matter of the present one shows that on the outbreak of the European war Italy's resolve to remain neutral provoked a campaign of vituperation and calumny in the Turkish Press, whilst Italians in Turkey were arrested without cause, molested by blackmailing police, hampered in their business and even robbed of their property. But Prince von Bulow worked hard to suppress all this and to diffuse an atmosphere of brotherhood around Italians and Turks in Europe.