D 520 . 17 W24 Copy 1 uopy i D 520 .17 W24 Copy 1 Italy's Aim In The World War BY HERBERT D. WARD NATIONAL PRESS CLUB WASHINGTON, D. C. talian-Ameriean News Bureau. Chicago w 2- * ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR By HERBERT D. WARD, National Press Club, Washington, D. C. Italy is new born out of blood tra- vail. It counts hardly half a century of life. Sixty years ago Austria oc- cupied five provinces — Italian in his- tory, in geography, in language and in the will of their inhabitants: Lom- bardy, Venetia, The Trentino, Julian Venetia and Dalmatia. Lombardy was restored to Italy in 1859 by the help of France. In 1866 Venetia was liber- ated. The young Kingdom, in 1914 about the size of the State of Arizona, with 110,000 square miles of territory and a population of 36 million, found itself in its first years surrounded by a cor- don of hatred and jealousy. This last debutante in the society of European states, was disliked by France because Italian soldiers opposed French sold- iers who upheld the temporal power of the Pope. She was suspected by Ger- many because Garibaldi fought with France in 1871. She was hated by Austria — Austria the hovering hawk on the Italian Alps, because she wished to reconquer the two Italian provinces she had lost. In this dangerous isolation Italy had to have allies or be snuffed out, so she entered as third partner in the secret alliance concluded by Germany and Austria in 1879. This triple alli- ance was accepted by the Italian peo- ple as a humiliating necessity. It was the last resort to prevent a declaration of war on the part df Austria, and to secure a breathing peace. The seventh article which bound this paradoxical Trio together provided that absolute- ly no territorial change should be al- lowed in the Balkan peninsula without the reciprocal consent of the powers interested— namely, Austria and Italy Austria, by her attack upon Serbia in 1914, not only acted against Italian in- terests, but also automatically annulled the secret treaty. Italy found herself righteously free and on August 2d, 1914, three days before England de- clared war upon Germany, decided for neutrality. What a momentous deci- sion for France! At one o'clock the next morning the Italian Charge d'Af- faires in Paris received the news. He immediately hurried to Viviani, Presi- dent of the Council. Upon Italy's de- cision the fate of France depended. With unrestrained emotion the Presi- dent read the telegram. He immedi- ately ordered the mobilization of a million men from the southern fron- tiers on the German front. Italy's neutrality won the battle of the Marne and changed the history of the world. What did this decision mean for Italy ? It meant preparation for war. For in her renunciation of her part in the Triple Alliance, Italy pledged herself to act in the interests of the nation alone and in any way civilization should demand. Italy is Latin. France is Latin, and the Latin races have al- ways stood for international spiritual- ity as against Teuton brutality. The die was cast. Germany knew the logi- cal trend. Austria knew it and France and England knew it. Amid this new warfare of barbaric instruments, of a generation and a half of Teutonic intensive preparation Italy was al- most superhumanly handicapped. Italy had just emerged two years before from a disastrous war with Turkey, in which she had been betrayed by ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR Austria and Germany. She had only two large guns of Krupp make. The guns that France was forging for her were commandeered for French emerg- ency. She had no ammunition, no means of manufacturing any. In a military sense she was helpless, and to side with her future allies at that time would not only have been na- tional suicide, but would have serious- ly handicapped the allied cause. War industries, almost non-existent, had to be improvised. Stout hearts, stalwart men, had to be commandeered. Pa- triotism had to be fanned to white heat. The pro-Germanic pacifists, bribed by Von Buelow, had to be overcome. Italy began to seethe with idealism. Unconsciously, at first, then with na- tional conscience aglow, she was per- meated with the belief that armed neu- trality was a travesty at a time when the world was making its choice by nationalities whether right or might was the condition worth fighting for. "Is right more precious than peace?" was the question that men asked each other on the streets of Rome, Naples and Venice. This momentous question was answered in May, 1915, at a time when Russia was betrayed by the hire- lings of the Hun in Petrograd and when the Austrian armies were in vic- torious pursuit. This declaration of war against Austria, made when Italy was not yet ready to fight, made when a further delay might have proved fa- tal to her new allies, made at the psychological moment when France and England called upon her to come in if she possibly could, made when she was only half prepai'ed, created the second diversion that saved the day for civilization. It again proved that each heart in the Roman kingdom was indeed a champion for human right. Now, having entered the war, what did it mean to Italy ? It meant first the renunciation of the bribe offered by Austria for a con- tinued benevolent neutrality. When Von Buelow, a hitherto persona grata in the peninsula, hurried down to stiffen the vast system of Teuton intrigue that had permeated Italy during the thirty years of unnatural alliance, he presented the alluring vision of Malta, Nice, Corsica and Tunis under Italian rule. But Austrian diplomacy went further. To compensate for the viola- tion of the agreement as to the Balkan equilibrium, contained in the seventh article of the treaty, it conceded as the price for marking time : 1. The relinquishment of the great- er part of the Trentino. 2. The adjustment of the eastern frontier in favor of a portion of the strategic requirements of Italy. 3. The proclamation of Trieste as a free city. 4. The possible surrender of certain islands on the Dalmatian coast. 5. The withdrawal of Austria from Albanian affairs, and the recognition of Italian sovereignty in Vallona. But Italy was not to be bribed. Bel- gium had shown her in what high re- gard the Prussian Empire held treat- ies, and Austria had demonstrated in Serbia how sacred they were to her. These vague promises might be bait for gudgeon, but not for Italy, even if she had not been moved by the stifled cries of tortured humanity. She cast these bribes into the Teuton's teeth. In 1912 Italy sold to the Central Empires 384 millions of lire of her excess productions. Neutrality could have doubled and tripled that revenue and made Italy rich. Italian agricul- turalists did not hesitate to make the decision that impoverished them. It meant to Italy the assumption of an enormous debt. Up to the first of May, 1917, the war cost Italy 18.5 bil- lions of lire. Since then the war has cost the nation a little over one billion a month. It meant the loss of 4 billion lire of German gold with which that industrial nation had for years forged the missing links in the successive processes of production and which she immediately withdrew, leaving behind worthless paper and national disor- ganization which resulted in the ser- ious depreciation of the lire on ex- change. That alone was a commercial catastrophe little understood in this country, and which will revive after the war unless American or English capitalists take the place of German economic expansion. It meant the creation of military establishments and arsenals, 66 in number that employ 35,000 hands. Private auxiliary es- tablishments were created under di- rect government supervision number- ing 950 with 400,000 hands; and also 1,200 other factories engaged in pro- ducing war material, employing 35,000 hands. As the best men had been called to the colors, the great majority ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR of these hands had to be intensively trained in improvised schools. As Italy produces no coal, and has to import 10 million tons a year at a price 100 per cent higher than five years ago, the price Italy pays for war is not small. Now the world asks the question. "For what purpose did Italy go into this war?" The fundamental reason for Italy's entering the war against the Central powers was that it is a war of demo- cratic liberty, or national independence and of a humane civilization. The cleavage between the spirit of the Ital- ian and that of the Hun is as sharp as it is between the American and the Hun, only the inhabitants of the United States have not personally experienced Teuton barbarity until within a year. In 1821 the Italian nation had become to all intents and purposes a secret society, sworn to resist all attempts at Germanization that Austria was forc- ing with physical and commercial murder upon the stricken people. The Italian watchwords were at that time "Away with the Barbarians!" "Death to the Germans!" Italy has not forgot- ten this. Outside of Italy, students of history know little of Austrian bar- barity in that country. In the 19th century Austria's method of civilizing conquered Italy consisted of rape, soaking their victims in turpentine and burning them alive, crucifying child- ren, burying patriots alive in quick- lime, and countless murders for the most trivial causes. Italy has not for- gotten these. It was most natural that she should side with Right against Might. So natural was it that before she entered the war thousands volun- teered over the French bolder to fight their hereditary enemy. Then Italian martyrdom began to tell. These dead heroes inspired by the spirit of Gari- baldi, enflamed the Italian populace to white heat. To them the unspeakable atrocities committed in Belgium became a clear vision. Had they not suffered like horrors of devilish government in Lombardy and Venitia, martyrdom in Dalmatia, untold cruelties in every por- tion of unredeemed Italy? No great- er spiritual indignation ever swept a nation into war, not even the Ameri- can nation, than that expressed by the common Italian people when with the battle cry of "Right against Might" they cried for war and stormed the Austrian Alps. Our own war psy- chology interprets the depth of the Italian feeling. Italy entered the war with as high altruistic ideals as did the United States, but with an ex- perience and knowledge of what the Hun is that we did not possess. She entered with purely humanitarian im- pulses. But when in the war, Italy could not renounce her national egoism. Aside from her purely altruistic mo- tives that governed her emotions, there poised steadfast before her vision the second principle that President Wilson laid down in his speech at a joint ses- sion of the two houses of Congress on February 11, 1918, a principle that meant to Italy her national existence. To ignore that fundamental principle of national unity would make Italy a traitor to herself. President Wilson said: "Second — That peoples and prov- inces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that "Third — Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interests and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or com- promise of claims amongst rival states." This principle of national determina- tion is accepted by Italy as her second- ary and yet most vital aim in this world war. Her claims are geographi- cal, ethnological, defensive, clear, ir- refutable. Let us see what they are: In 1851 Lord Palmerston, in a note of protest against the German Con- federation, because, asserting a claim to the basin of the Adige, it wanted "to add countries geographically di- vided from Germany," asserted in the face of Europe this static principle "Italy to the Brenner Alps." In his memoirs Napoleon wrote: "Italy is bounded by the Alps and the sea; her natural limits are defined with as much precision as though she were an island." The summits of the Alps, forming a convex natural barrier ? round tVie peninsula, beginning at Ventimiglia, taking in Piedmont and Lombardy, gradually sloping down through Friuli, Istria and Dalmatia. were the natural boundaries assigned by the ancient Romans to their land. ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR They are as natural a boundary line as the Pyrrenees are to France and Spain, as the Andes are to Chile and Argentina. These summits divide the watersheds. On the northern side the tributaries of the Danube and the Rhine have their rise; on the southern side the Tessin, the Oglio, the Adda, Adige, the Brenta, the Piave and many other Italian streams and rivers have their birth. With the Alps as Italy's natural and geographical frontier, she is protected from invasion in that there are only three or four passes through which a foreign army could descend upon the plains. These passes can easily be fortified against invasion. An army corps is enough to guard them all. As it is, the great Austrian tri- angle in the Trentino slices into the throat of Italy and opens upon Italy at least thirty doors of attack. The main avenues of military descent are through Stelvio, past Giudicaria, by the Adige, past Ala, to the west of Asiago, and in the northeast between Bolsano and Brixen, to the Piave, men- acing Venice.* At the present hour in every valley Austria holds the highest positions which she has strongly for- tified, while Italy holds the lowlands, difficult to defend. Such a situation is impossible to a nation inheriting centuries of servitude and suffering, but with no loss of patriotic zeal to recover her boundaries and to effect her political union. But Italy not only aspires to front- iers bounded geographically by the Alps, but the greater part of her frontiers are bounded by the 'sea. While Italy's head may be said to lift itself proudly towards the Alps, her lungs are the Adriatic and the Tyr- rhenian seas. It needs only one glance at the map to see that without the Dalmatian coast and the Cursolaria Islands the whole Italian coast line is as exposed to invasion as at Brescia, Verona and Venice with Austria domi- nating the Trentino. The whole Ital- ian coast line from Venice to Otranto is low lying, without ports, anchorage or shelter from the north wind. Venice and Brindisi are her only ports, and these lie 1,300' kilometers apart. Moreover, neither is practicable for the modern superdreadnaught. The Cursolari Islands are nature's bridge between Dalmatia and Italy. Each peak is a signaling station. Behind each island lies a natural harbor, a deep lurking base. The Dalmatian coast is like gigantic granite lace with hundreds of harbors, ports of refuge, natural bases of assault. The Adri- atic is now an Austrian sea because Austria possesses the only natural bases that are each and all Italian in tradition, inheritance and sentiment. Italy's aspirations in this war are not for conquest, but for the freedom of enslaved European nations and notably for her own. But she cannot aspire to national freedom without possessing the means of national safety. This the invaders of a hundred years have filched from her. It is not a question of conquest, but of national right and security. It is not natural that Italy having gone to war would be content to receive as the price of her spilled blood less than Austria offered as a bribe for benevolent neutrality. She scorned the bribe, but will demand the same as her inalienable right. So much in brief in regard to Italy's essential boundaries; but what of Italian Irredenta? I will first consider the Trentino, which geographically includes to the north of it the upper Adige. Napoleon, in creating an Italic Kingdom included with its borders the Trentino and the Department of the Haut Adige, bord- ered by the crest of the Alps. This region reverted to the Austrians after his work was undone. This province is to Italy what Alsace and Lorraine are to France. The Trentino is the south- ern part of the mountainous basin of the Adige. It includes the broad lat- eral valleys that are historical feeders to the city of Trent. This ancient prin- cipality is, and always has been the centi'e of Italian language and senti- ment within the whole territory of 6,330 square kilometers. The official Austrian census asknowledged this fact when it reported that out of 380,000 in- habitants 370,000 were Italians. In cities and towns where there were no garrisons, only one per cent were of alien Germanic blood. As a province Trentino has never ceased to revolt against its Austrian rulers and to turn its eyes southward for liberation. Owing to the fact that the northern part of the Trentino, the Upper Adige, lies in a mountainous strategical posi- tion, next to the Austrian natural bor- der, alien infiltration has been per- sistent and overwhelming. Chains of fortresses were built and manned. Cities and towns and passes were oc- *This was written prior to the Italian Drive of November, 1918, which crushed Austria, driving her from Italy, redeem- ing the Italian Irredenta," and resulting in the capitulation of Germany a few days later. ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR cupied. Previous to the war 180,000 Germans occupied the territory to forty or fifty thousand Italians. And yet that enslaved region was not Ger- manized in language. Romanized for two thousand years, even conquest could not overcome either the native tongue or native aspirations. Taking the Haut Adige and Trentino as a whole, as it naturally is, three quarters of its whole nationality is Italian and belongs by boundary, blood and right to Italy. If I had space I could write pages of the fair cities, picturesque towns in that great captured triangle known to geographers as Venetia Triden- tina. Each offers irrefutable claims to be part of its motherland in architecture, customs and speech. Ro- vereto and Riva have that exquisite character peculiar to Venice. Italian- ism breathes in each school, in the facial lines of houses and churches, in the unmistakable art of Ala, Arco, Cavalese, Predazzo, and a hundred other tiny cities of the Trentino. Each an Italian picture of its own. From behind the veil of Austrian lies the average tourist looked upon the fair region as the "Southern Tyrol." Bae- deker is German. It was only thought- ful historic insight and also the war that could uncover a deathless, ever- revolting Italian nationalism that prayed and schemed for freedom from its hereditary oppressors. And now the hour has struck. The intellectual and political aspirations of the Tren- tino, hitherto suffocated, will have their full reward. Patriots, familiar with torture and dungeons will know the Austrian no more as an interloper, but only as an undesirable neighbor beyond the Alps. The Trentino and the Upper Adige will naturally revert to Italy not as a price of war, but as a restitution. Italy has no thirst for conquest, but like a Roman mother, she will gather back to her bosom her children who through years of uncounted misery have bewailed their separation. After a thousand years of Austrian domina- tion, in spite of persistent Germaniza- tion, in spite of centuries of despair, in spite of the wearing down of the fine edge of sentiment, we have a peo- ple clamoring for the right of a free choice to be admitted into the Roman family. They cry that the monstrous weight of centuries of slavery be for- ever lifted. By the cataracts of the Adige bounding toward the sun, by the prayers of an enslaved people, by the justice that will be dealt out when this war is won, this reparation will be accomplished. I will now consider Julian Venitia, which includes within its borders the question of Eastern Friuli, Gorizia, Trieste and Istria. The last river that rises from the gorges of the eastern end of the Alps, and defines her nat- ural limits is the Isonzo, which empties into the Gulf of Trieste. This river receives on its left bank two tributaries, the Idria and the Vip- acco, whose sources determine the nat- ural eastern boundaries of northern Italy. The territory within these two tributaries includes the scene of some of the fiercest and most violent fight- ing in this war. It takes in the pla- teau of the Carso, the towns of Tol- mino, Canale, Gorizia, Gradisca, Mon- tefalcone, Aquileia, Grado and San Gio- vanni — all Italian in name, architecture and feeling. To the north, in the Jul- ian Alps, are the two mountain passes, almost impossible to storm, easy to defend, through which the Austrian hoi'des made their inroads — the Plezzo pass, known as the "Key to Italy," and eastward, the Prevaldo pass called "The Main Gate of Italy." Only a predetermined foe or conqueror could refuse this defensive Italian land to its mother state. Since 1500 Gorizia and Aquileia, the mother of Venice, have been under foreign rule. Both from their earliest history are basically Italian. After four centuries of annexation they are as Italian in language, sentiment and architecture as Rome. The whole ter- ritory of Friuli, the plain of Carso and Istria were Roman two hundred years before Christ. It was under the dom- ination of the Venitian Republic and the Patriarchs of Aquileia before the Hapsburgs filched it. Auerbach well put the case when he said: "Venice, by her civilization, and her arts, has im- planted Italianism all along the eastern facade of the Adriatic." All this re- gion, including Trieste and its terri- tory, Goritz and Gradisca, and Istria have 872,000 inhabitants, of which, in spite of all Austrian disguises, 358,000, or 43 Der cent, claim Italian nation- ality. The balance is divided between 267^000 Slovenes and 171,000 Serbo- Croats, who by their diversity and the fact that they were to a great extent ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR forced immigrants, can in no way counter balance the intellectual or economic influence of the Italian ele- ments. The United States, through its mem- bers of Congress, elected by the free American people have declared that Austria, the catspaw of Germany must be destroyed. President Wilson has in- dicated that she must be dismembered. As important as Antwerp to Belgium is the port of Trieste to Italy. Ger- many has long schemed for Trieste as an integral part of her political and economic conquest of the Levant and the far East. As a port Austria has made comparatively little use of it. As a political bridgehead it is vital to Austria in her domination of the Ad- riatic. The question is to be met fair- ly. Is the Adriatic to be an Austrian or an Italian sea when the war is over ? If Austrian, then Italy has shed her blood in vain. Only 27 per cent of Austrian maritime trade has passed through Trieste to 63 per cent through Hamburg and Bremen. Through it only 21 per cent of the total imports passed and 18 per cent of the exports. It is not for commercial purposes, but for an ambitious Teutonic policy to menace Italy and control the Mediter- ranean that Austria holds this import- ant base. After centuries of alien dom- ination, independent fighting, freedom, the reversion to Austria in 1815 through the Congress of Vienna, Tri- este has maintained a living, aggres- sive hostility to Germanization. Ex- amples of this hatred might be quoted by the score. The Italian flag has never been concealed in Trieste. When in 1869 the new Italian kingdom was born, the inhabitants of Trieste pro- claimed to Victor Emmanuel that all united Italians "Should have constantly before their eyes and in their hearts the cause of their brothers, deprived of the joys of freedom." The last census of 1810 proves the Italian nationality of the city. There were 118,959 Italians and 29,439 Ital- ian citizens, to 11,856 Germans, 56,- 916 Slovenes and 2,403 Serbo-Croats. Since 1866 Austria has flooded this Adriatic littoral with Slavs and Slov- enes in her attempt at denaturing the original Italian element. To sub- merge latinism by shameless and forced immigration has been her base policy. She has done to the Littoral what Ger- many did to Alsace and Lorraine. She superimposed the Slavic tongue as the official language. She subsidized Slavic schools. She altered Italian names on civil registers. Even the clergy was ordered to introduce the Slavic liturgy in the churches; but this the Pope re- fused to sanction. These peasants, im- ported from Carniolia, from Styria, from Carinthia, fishermen and tillers of the soil, of intelectual inferiority, have through military force and iniquitious law assumed an economic and political preponderance over the Istrian penin- sula. It is as if the Italian settlement of 600,000 in New York City or the 1,500,000 Hebrews were to assume the hegemony of the state. The absolute "Slavization" of the government offi- ces in Trieste and in all the cities of the Julian region, completed the final enslavement of the Italian population. This artificial infiltration imposed upon this whole territory so infuriated the native element that when Italy enter- ed the war thousands of the irreden- tists from Friuli, Gorizia, Istria and Trieste deserted into Italy and enlisted en masse. Since the war began Aus- tria has imposed over three hundred death sentences in Trieste alone. The whole Julian region has given more heroes and martyrs to the cause of freedom than any other part of Italy. The three ports, Venice, Trieste, Fiume, control the strategical future and economic life of the Latin sea. Two of these are still Austrian. Which is the natural maratime power — Aus- tria or Italy? Which is the nation of sailors? Which nation represents the freedom of the seas, the international opportunity of commerce ? The nation that possesses Trieste and Fiume is mistress of the Adriatic. Fiume lies within the Julian Alps, that natural boundary that terminates near Portori, opposite the island of Veglia. For many centuries it has been an international football, tossed from one ownership to another. The town itself is old Roman and was destroyed by Charlemagne. It was once a fief of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. It be- longed to Venice for one year. Final- ly it went over to the control of Aus- tria. Maria Teresa in 1776 made it a present to Hungary. In 1848 the Croa- tions took possession. Again it was restored to Hungary, and today it is governed by "provisional statute" whatever that may mean. No one knows to whom at the present time ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR this property of several square kilo- meters belongs. But we do know, that in spite of all barterings, vicissitudes, this plaything of the powers has re- tained its Italian character. It has ever aspired to be a part of the Italian kingdom. Of its diverse population, sixty-five per cent are Italian, and a plebiscite would quickly decide the na- tional determination of the city. And yet Italy recognizes that the only legitimate claim besides hers is Croatian. This small country of a popu- lation of a little over two and a half millions calls for a port of outlet. Were the future independence of Croa- tia assured, even then she would be demanding a strategical position out of all proportion to her real needs. In 1912 the total imports and exports out of the harbor of Fiume reached a total of 3,882,103 tons, of which Croatia was only responsible for four per cent. There are only two routes from central Europe to the East, that golden East that is the vision of the Tuetonic Empire. The one crosses the Balkan penninsula, and either through Solonika or Constantinople becomes the Berlin-Bagdad express. The other leads through Trieste or Fiume, via the Adriatic. The United States has vowed to shatter this Germanic dream. Fiume can never again belong to Aus- tria, nor to Croatia, unable to defend its vast opportunity. It must either be a part of Italy or become a free port. If the Allies, at the peace table, bar- ring all Teutonic outlet on the Adria- tic, should decide this momentous ques- tion in the favor of a free port, as Constantinople should be, then I do not think that Italy would say "Nay". If a popular vote of Fiume should de- cide this question, there would be only one patriotic answer. It is to be re- membered that Croatia has already a port in Segna, 50 kilometers south of Fiume, that could more than meet the demands of Croatian shipping. Italy will never dispute Croatia's right to an outlet on the sea. When the war is over, the Adriatic will have its just rulers. With them Italy will join hands in a common purpose to maintain the right of national aspirations. But whatever happens Trieste and Fiume must be eternally protected from the Hun. Italy will protect Trieste. She can protect Fiume. So can the allied powers in making it a free port, if they so determine. The coast state of Dalmatia is sep- arated geographically from Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Dinaric Alps. This natural barrier is an extension of the Julian Alps and, therefore, the direct geological continuation of the preal- pine zone of the Venetian Alps. Moun- tain ranges are the natural political frontiers of nations. Physical geogra- phy has been recognized as a final argument in adjudicating disputed boundry lines. But, besides this un- answerable physical fact, Dalmatia has been Roman for 2,000 years, since Octavius"civilized" the brigand Illir- ians who occupied this coast country. Dalmatia subsequently gave to Rome four emperors. One of these, Diocle- tian, founded Spalato, the most im- pregnable harbor on the Dalmatian coast. Indeed this littoral fairly ex- hales Roman life. Why should it not after eighteen hundred years of Italian life ? As I write I have before me photographs of Roman ruins, Roman palaces, Roman domes, Roman arches surmounted by the winged lions of the Republic of Venice, lions which the barbarians could not wholly subdue, only mutilate. Here is the cathedrial at Severnico, the palace of Diocletian at Spalato, the palace of the Rectors at Ragusa. Dalmatia gave to Italy Fortunio, its first grammarian; Elio Saraca, the great Italian physician of the Seven- teenth Century, Ugo Foscolo, one of Italy's greatest poets, and the works of the notable architect, Georg- io Orsini. For centuries Italy bound Dalmatia to western civilization, nor will she renounce the fruits of her art, her genius, her centuries of intellect- ual overlordship for the mere fact that of 620,000 mixed inhabitants 160,000 are Italians with their hearts fixed on Rome. These are the original proprie- tors of the land, inheritors of the spirit of Italy. Shall the spirit of the Kaiser working through his subject, the Croates, the spirit of vindictive denat- uralization, or that of Italy, the liber- ator, rule this important line of coast? Civilization sees only one possible an- swer. I do not need to mention again the strategic importance of Dalmatia. The key of the Adriatic is Cattaro. This commands the Dalmatian archipelago, 10 ITALY'S AIM IN THE WORLD WAR which commands Pola, which in turn commands Trieste. There can never be peace with two masters in the Adria- tic. The power that possesses the east- ern coast is lord of the western coast. Tallyrand affirmed this self evident fact. Without the complete control of the Adriatic, Italy is a suppliant slave. Nor does she ask more than to round out her little kingdom to its natural, geographical borders that I have des- cribed in order that, like Switzerland, she may be strong and independent of the whims of border powers. Even then the kingdom will have no more territory than the states of Arizona and Rhode Island combined. Is this imperialism ? Can hostile propaganda in these United States fool a fair minded people by the claim that Italy went into this war from im- perialistic motives, when she went in to liberate, not to enslave; to free her own people agonizing under the heel of a predatory and brutal govern- ment? A plain statement of fact is enough to disconcert the Hun. I abso- lutely deny any existence whatsoever of the least taint of conquest in any of the Italian aims for entering this war. As I said at the beginning, imperial- ism grows on conquest and exists on despotism. There can be no empire making without these two basic qual- ifications. Italy only wishes to gather under her wings her brood of stolen chicks, beaten, starving, poor little plucked provinces, and mother them in- to strength and happiness. How das- tardly to call that maternal longing imperialistic ! President Wilson's words reverber- ate in Italian ears. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" rings in every soldier's ears. We are willing, if need be, to send then millions of fighters ifco- Europe to make men free. Belgium, France, Serbia, Roumania, are not the only nations enslaved by the Hun. Italy is one, as much so as France; and the restoration of Italia Irredenta and the strategic coast of the north- ern Adriatic to Italy is as much a sac- red promise of the United States as it is a national Italian necessity. Compared with England, France, and even the United States, Italy can- not be said to have a colonial empire. Great Britan with an island popula- tion of a little over 46 millions, holds two dependencies in Europe, 11 in Asia, 19 in Africa, 23 in America and 10 in Australasia, with a total population of 437,947,432 within 13,745,766 square miles of territory. France with a popu- lation of 47,830,581 administers col- onies with a population of 47,830,581 and 4,776,032 square miles of terri- tory. The colonies of the United States have a population of 9,138,006 with 125,344 square miles of territory. The Philippines are densely populated. Ger- many held colonies in Africa with a population of 13,419,500 and 931,460 square miles, and in Asia with a popu- lation of 168,900 and 200 square miles. This she filched from China. On the Pacific she had 96,160 square miles of islands with a population of 357,800. Italy's total colonial possessions lie in Africa. These are Lybia (including Tripolitania and Cirenaica), Erithrea and Somaliland. Owing to its barbaric nature the size and population of the latter is unknown. Lybia has a popula- tion of about a million. Its size is ap- proximately 1,033,000 square kilomet- ters. Erithrea has a population of 2,- 830,000 with an approximate area of 1,160,000 square kilometers. Italy can- not be called in any sense a land grab- ber, for the greater part of her colonial territory is wild, underpeopled, bar- baric, unproductive. Her colonies are a liability, not an asset. I have given these dry figures so that at a glance the charge of imper- ialism, outside of her borders, as with- in, could be disproved. The spirit of modem Rome is to civilize, not to tor- ture, to free, not to enslave. If it should happen that at the peace table a new colonial distribution should take place, a new adjustment of territories should be made, Italy will accept her share without making a demand. To believe for a moment that the Hun should ever be allowed again to ex- ploit, flay, murder helpless nations is to deny the part of the United States as a spiritual belligerent in this war. Italy yields to none of her allies in her unselfish participation. She will spend her last drop of blood, her last lire to cut ont the claws of the German beast that Europe may be free. This Freedom must include herself. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 394 283 9 «£g|gfe492 MacDonald-Kaitchuck Printing Company Chicago Copy 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 394 283 9