The World Decision

by Robert Herrick

The master politician, the ex-Premier, the heir to Crispian policies, was received at the railroad station by a few faithful friends, much as Boss Barnes or Boss Penrose, returning from a voluntary exile in New York or Pennsylvania, might be received by a few of the "boys." They were Deputies from Montecitorio frock-coated and silk-hatted, like politicians all the world over, not a popular throng of a hundred thousand Romans singing and shouting, such as a few days later was to gather in the piazza before the same station to greet the poet, D'Annunzio. It is well to understand the significance of this unobtrusive coming of the political leader at the moment, to realize what sinister meaning it had for the existing Government, for the Italian nation, for the Allies—for the world.

The Italian Deputies who had been elected two years before, long before even the astutest politician had any suspicion of the black cloud that was to rise over Europe, were Giolittian by a great majority. Giolitti was then the chief figure in Italian politics and controlled the Chamber of Deputies. The Giolitti "machine," as we should say, was the only machine worth mention in Italy. Rumor says that it was buttressed with patronage as American machines are, and, more specifically, that Giolitti when in power had diverted funds which should have gone into national defense to political ends, also had deferred the bills of the Libyan expedition so that at the outbreak of the war Italy found herself badly in debt and with an army in need of everything. Soldiers drilled in the autumn of 1914 in patent leathers or barefooted and dressed as they could, while the Giolittian clubs and interests flourished. Also it was said that the prefects of the provinces, who in the Italian system have large powers, especially in influencing elections, were henchmen of the politician. I do not know how just these accusations may be, nor how true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe—it being the way of politicians the world over.

However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been, the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme—one of those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation, not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say. Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives: they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's old allies, disguised as patriotically neutralista sympathies. He had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter, maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew, the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world.

* * * * *

It has been said, I do not know with what truth, that Prince von Bülow had informed the ex-Premier of Austria's ultimate concessions even before they were presented to Salandra and Sonnino, and consequently that Giolitti was precisely aware of the situation when he reached Rome. It is easy to believe almost anything of a diplomacy that dealt with Giolitti in the private rooms of a hotel after the downfall of the Salandra Government…. At any rate, Giolitti went through the forms correctly: he called on the Premier Salandra, the Foreign Minister Sonnino, who laid before the ex-Premier the situation as it had shaped itself. Even the King received him in private audience. So much was due to the leading politician of Italy, who controlled, supposedly, a majority of the existing Parliament. In a sense he held the Salandra Government in his hand, after the opening of the Chamber, which could not be long delayed.

Then the politician spoke. Rather, to be precise, he wrote a little note to a faithful intimate, which was meant for the newspapers and got into them at once. It was a very innocent little note of a few lines in which he confided to "Caro Carlo" his opinion on the tense national situation: better stay with the old allies—the Austrian offers seemed sufficiently satisfactory. This may well have been a sincere, a patriotic judgment, as sincere and patriotic as Bryan's resignation from the American Cabinet a few weeks later. But Italians did not think so. Almost universally they gave it other, sinister interpretations. Giolitti had been "bought," was nothing more than the knavish mouthpiece of German intrigue. Giolitti became overnight traditore, the arch-conspirator, the enemy of his country! It must have staggered the politician, this sudden fury which his innocent advice had roused. And, to condemn him, it is not necessary to believe him to have been a knave bought by German gold.

It is important to realize what happened overnight. Giolitti had become the most hated, most denounced man in all Italy, and in so far as he represented honest neutralista sentiment the cause was dead. If that was what the Salandra Government wanted to achieve, they had got their desire. If, as the politicians say, they were "feeling out" popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to form and shout in the streets. "Traditore," hissed with every accent of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in danger—or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double lines of troops. Cavalry kept guard, all day and half the night, before the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, ready to sweep through the crowded streets in case the mob got out of hand. Other troops poured out of the barracks over the city, doing piquet a mato on all the main streets and squares of the city.

Giolitti had, indeed, swayed events,—"told the people what they wanted,"—but not in the expected manner. He had revealed the nation to itself, drifting on the verge of war, and they knew now that they wanted nothing of Giolitti or neutrality or German compromises. They wanted war with Austria. The remarkable fact is that a nation which had submitted in passivity to absolute ignorance of the diplomatic exchanges, waiting dumbly the decision that should determine its fate,—of which it could be said that a large number, perhaps a majority, were neutral at heart,—suddenly overnight awoke to a realization of the political situation and rejected the prudent advice of their popular politician, denounced him, and inferentially proclaimed themselves for war. At last they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy.

Then the Salandra Government did a bold, a dramatic thing: it resigned in a body, leaving the King free to choose ministers who could obtain the support of the Giolitti following in Parliament. It was inevitable, it was simple, it was sincere, and it was masterly politics. The public was aghast. At the eleventh hour the state was left thus leaderless because its real desires were to be thwarted by a politician who took his orders from the German Embassy.

Thereupon the "demonstrations" against Giolitti, against Austria and
Germany, began in earnest.