Dr. Eduard Meyer has contributed an article to the Süddeutsche Monatshefte (Munich) on "Ancient Italy and the Rise of the Italian Nation." Dr. Meyer is professor of history in the University of Berlin, and is a brother of Dr. Kuno Meyer who recently attracted much attention in this country by severing his connection with Harvard University because of a prize "war poem" written by one of the undergraduates. A postscript reflects Dr. Meyer's present feeling toward Italy's defection:
The views which I have presented in this article are the fruit of long years of study and research; and I feel myself constrained to state explicitly that they are in no wise influenced by the events which we have experienced during the last few weeks. But it may be that a short postscript is necessary.
Italy has not won her present national unity by reason of her own strength; she owes it to the combinations of the changing world-situation and the victories of foreign powers, which her statesmen have known how to use to the best advantage.
According to Dr. Meyer, Italy's claim to be one of the great powers is not based on any actual ability to uphold that claim; it merely happens that her assertion has not been challenged.
She has claimed for herself the status of a great power on a par with the other large nations of the world; but she has not possessed the inner strength of herself to support such a claim without the help of stronger powers.
In August, 1914, Italy had the opportunity to decide her fate. If she could have made the choice then, if she could have gone into the world-war with all the might that she possessed and, staking her whole existence, have fought toward the highest goal, she might have won for herself a powerful and self-sufficient place in the world.
On account of his many utterances since the outbreak of the war, Ludwig Thoma's März (Munich), a weekly founded by him, has attracted much attention. An article entitled "Italy's Defection," in a recent issue, is most bitter in tone, accusing Italy of long-standing intrigue and treachery.
We know that Italy went still further from the fact that at the renewal of the alliance in 1912 in Paris she expressly announced that she would not march against France. It will be remembered how quick the French army command was to take stock of relations on the southeastern border, with the result that in the very first days of mobilization their troops were called from the Savoy Alps and by the eighth of August were giving battle on the Alsatian border.
But Italy still guarded the neutrality which she had proclaimed and with apparent reasonableness she was able to hold that the letter of the Triple Alliance did not compel her to enter the conflict. Laughing in her sleeve she could even give it out that her sympathetic neutrality would sufficiently guarantee to her allies certain suspended contracts of an economic nature. Neutral Italy furnished Germany to a considerable extent with products of its own land and others which were not unwelcome.
That the mobilization of an Italian army on France's borders might have been able to decide the war as far back as September, is a consideration which, in the face of this hypocritical neutrality, one cannot face without driving one's nails into one's flesh!