In the little "Trattoria" near Piazza Colonna, in which most parliamentary men meet in preference to the big, gilded, French-style restaurants, where the food is excellent, the wine taken with a gay murmur from large barrels showing at the back, and where hardly any "outsider" or any foreigners dare enter, so modest is the appearance of the establishment, half-a-dozen world-known writers, politicians, and journalists were enjoying a "fritto di pesce," abundantly accompanied by the light wine, "delli Castelli." The subject of the conversation was, of course, the war. All the sympathies were on the side of the Entente. A copy of The Times was passed from one to another, and the most important news was translated for the benefit of the few of the company who were not familiar with English. A well-known writer of military criticism in one of the principal Italian papers, a former Major in the army, produced a letter from one of his sons, now fighting with the French army in Alsace. The letter was very enthusiastic about everything and everybody at the front; the young man was one of the very last to manage to join the voluntary corps, Italy having, since December last, stopped completely the granting of passports to young men liable for military service.
The wonderful work of the "Dante Alighieri," the society which has been struggling hard during the last years to keep the Italian language alive in the provinces under foreign domination, the last poem of D'Annunzio on the war, the concentration of troops near Verona, were, in turn, subjects of conversation. I got the impression that for them the question was not, "Are we going to war?" but, "When are we going to war?"
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Italy has suffered very much already for this war. All her commerce with the Continent has been stopped, as well as her shipping lines trading with Constantinople and the Black Sea. The shortage of petroleum, coal and wood has hit many of her industries, and some foodstuffs have increased considerably in prices.
Moreover, the annual tide of foreigners which is the principal resource of many Italian towns has not come this year, and Italy begins to realise that if she is not going to war now, she has made enormous financial sacrifices to equip her army. She will have shared all the disadvantages of the fighting countries without being able to get any of the recompense.
It is now for Italy to make a great decision. If she believes in her destiny, if she feels that there are in her energies, intelligence, and possibilities of taking her real place amongst the great Powers of Europe, she has to fight.
If she feels she is not equal to such a task, then she had better become at once the first of the defensive countries and renounce all her dreams of empire; she had better sell her fleet, economise on armaments, and invest the money saved in first-class hotels, casinos, and spas. She has certainly beauty and natural advantages enough to out-rival Switzerland, Spain, or Norway.
But the modern Italian is rather tired of being the citizen of a country admired only for her blue skies, her Roman monuments, and her rich museums. He is more proud of her industrial enterprise, of the wide expansion, of the wonderful progress of his country in the last fifty years, than of the fair pages of her history. He will not hear about renouncing what he calls the third renaissance of Italy.
That is why I believe Italy is going to fight.