A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The World Decision

R >> Robert Herrick >> The World Decision




The Venezelos-Zaimis situation was impossible in Italy, though the
circumstances were almost parallel, with Salandra and Giolitti. The
piazza knew the deep Biblical truth, "He who is not for me is against
me," and execrated the professed _neutralista_ Giolitti. But the Greeks,
it seems, are more easily managed by a "strong" government and a German
king. The end, however, is not yet in sight. It remains to be seen
whether the path of prudent passivity is the safe one, even selfishly.

* * * * *

Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza?
All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional
monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy
rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that
popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five
hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before
the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were
chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues of party
machines, by clever manipulation of trained politicians like Giovanni
Giolitti, who by their control of appointed servants--the prefects of the
provinces--can throw the elections as they will, can even disfranchise
unfriendly elements of the population. Manhood suffrage is not a precise,
a scientific method of getting at public opinion. It is possibly the least
accurate method of gauging the will of a people. Something other than the
poll is needed to resolve the will of a nation. And when that will is
determined it makes little odds what instrumentality expresses it. Even
the Giolittian Deputies, when brought to the urn for a secret vote on the
Salandra measures a week after the lively expression of popular will in
the piazza, voted--secretly--against their neutral leader, in favor of
war! They had been converted by the voice of the piazza--by other things
also in all likelihood. If their votes had been taken ten days before,
when Giolitti first arrived in Rome, the result would have been far
different: as Salandra and his colleagues knew. In the end the Italian
Parliament merely registered the will of the people, both men and women,
which expressed itself, as it always must, in diverse ways, through the
press, by the voice of the piazza, in public and private discussion,
flightily, weightily, passionately, timidly.

* * * * *

Will, individual or collective, is a mysterious force. What enters into
that act of decision which results in will is never wholly apparent, from
the least to the gravest matters. And no scheme of government, which
admits the right of the individual citizen, plain and exalted alike,
to be heard and obeyed, has discovered a perfect way of polling this
collective will of the nation. Our electoral representative method and
majority vote is surely rough, though better than the Bulgarian way. That
right to vote, for which our women are so eagerly striving, as thinking
men realize only too well, is an empty privilege. The will of a people is
inaccurately registered, not made, by the vote. The voice of the piazza
when deep enough and strong enough is as good as any other way, perhaps,
of determining the collective will of a nation in a crisis; surely far
better than the secret way of Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Further, the reason
of the piazza on any vital fundamental matter, such as war, which means
life or death, is as sure as your intelligence or mine, possibly surer,
because the piazza, having less to lose or gain, feels and believes and
acts more simply, basically. The Roman piazza, the people of Italy,
reacted to the crime against Belgium, to the atrocities committed on
priests and women and children, to the murders of the Lusitania,--all
deeds of that ancient enemy whose barbarism had now reappeared, after
centuries, under an intellectual and sophisticated mask with a blasphemous
perversion of religious sanction. They reacted also, it might be, to their
own sense of personal danger from an unprotected frontier dividing them
from this unscrupulous enemy, to the wrongs of some thousands of Italians
condemned to live under Austrian rule and fight her battles against their
friends. They responded also to the glory of Garibaldi's Thousand, who had
liberated their fathers from foreign domination and made a nation out of
Italy, and they responded to the great past of their people from whom the
essential elements of what men know to-day as civilization has spread over
the world. All these emotions were hidden in that one cry,--"Out with the
barbarians!"

The voice of the piazza, with its simple unanimity, its childlike
psychology, came nearer to expressing the soul of Italy than the German
Chancellor can comprehend, than any sophisticated diplomat, who has
associated only with "thinking" and "leading" people, can believe. The
Latin soul of Italy which cursed its politician and thrilled at the words
of its poet! That soul of a people which is greater than any individual,
which somehow expresses itself more authoritatively through the simple
people who must suffer for their faiths than through the intellectuals
and the protected members of a society....

"_Viva Italia!_" the tanned conscript leaning from the car window at
Subiaco shouted back to his friends and home. And the old men and girls
left in the fields raised their hats as the train passed and shouted in
reply,--"_Viva Italia!_" It was not English gold, nor the desire for
Trent and Trieste, that brought that cry to the boy's lips!




V


_Italy Decides_

Whatever one may think of the piazza voice, whether the disposition is
to sneer with the German or to trust with the democrat in its spontaneous
expression, it is a matter of history now that Italy's decision had been
made before the question came to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, a
fortnight or more before the reluctant ambassadors of the ex-Alliance
backed into their waiting trains and departed homeward across the Alps.
It is a significant fact of personal psychology that the crisis of a
decision takes place before action results to calm the disturbed mind. So
it was with Italy. Her decision had really been taken when the Lusitania
sank, when the politician, in face of this fresh outrage, advised the
safer course of neutrality, which would amount to a connivance with her
former associates in their predatory programme. _Traditore!_ meant but
one thing--a betrayal of the nation's soul. In the light of more recent
events, since Italy entered the war, there are probably many Italians who
secretly wish that the safer counsel had prevailed, that, like Greece and
Rumania, Italy had "preserved a benevolent neutrality" in the great war,
even possibly that she had concluded to make her bed in the Teutonic camp.
If the world is to be Teutonized, they would argue, why put one's head in
the wolf's jaw! There are prudent people of that stripe in every nation,
but since the end of May they have kept silence in Italy. And it should be
forever remembered to her honor that Italy made her decision in face of
Teutonic successes. If the military situation did not look so black for
the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black
enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx.
Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no
successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only
on winning cards. There were heavy clouds in the east, merely a sad
silence along the western wall. It was long past Easter, when England
had boastfully expected to open the Dardanelles and the truth was
beginning to appear that Constantinople might never be reached by the
allied operations in Gallipoli. Italy threw in her lot with the Allies
in a dark hour, if not the darkest.

The great decision which had lain in solution in the hearts of the
people was evoked by events and made vocal by the flaming words of
D'Annunzio, interpreted by a faithful king, who resisted the temptation
to dethrone himself by calling Germany's hired man to power, and finally
registered by the Deputies at Montecitorio on May 19. It was virtually
made, I say, the tumultuous week that came on the resignation of the
Salandra Government. What followed the return of the ministry to power
was merely automatic, as peaceful as any day's routine. Parliament was
called to meet on Wednesday, the 19th. The Sunday afternoon before, the
piazza, and the palace and all other elements of Roman citizenship met
in a great gathering of content and consecration at the foot of the
Pincian Hill in the Piazza del Popolo, again the day after in the
Campidolgio above the Forum. How fortunate a people are to have such
hallowed places of meeting, steeped in associations of great events!

It was a warm, brilliant, sunny day, that Sunday, and in the afternoon
every one in Rome, it seemed, was as near the Piazza del Popolo as he
could get. The meeting was addressed by a number of well-known Romans
of varied political affiliations. But the high note of all the speeches
was a fervid patriotism and harmony. Rome was calm, believing that it had
chosen nobly if not wisely. On the Campidolgio, D'Annunzio again sounded
the tocsin of the heroic Thousand, and lauded the army which had been
belittled by the followers of Giolitti. Already the troops were leaving
Rome.... Then Parliament opened. The meeting of the Deputies if memorable
was short. The square and streets about Montecitorio had been carefully
cleared and held empty by cordons of troops. There was to be no shouting,
no demonstration within hearing of Parliament. Long before midday the
Chamber was crowded with all the notables who could gain admission. The
proceedings were extremely brief, formal. All knew that the die had been
cast: what remained was for the army to accomplish. The Premier Salandra
made a brief statement summarizing the diplomatic efforts that his
Government had undertaken to reach a satisfactory understanding with
Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book,"
which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was
generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on
the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount
to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King
and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the
period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized
both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The
measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of
more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the
negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some
were out-and-out _neutralistas_, and some few were Socialists who had
the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians
must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza
raised its voice, since their leader had fallen from his high place?
Possibly they had never been with Giolitti on this vital national
question. At least, the fact illustrates how representative government
does roughly perform the will of its people when that will is clear
enough and passionate enough: the will registers itself even through
unwilling instruments.

After the vote had been taken, the Chamber adjourned, and when the
following day the Senate ratified, unanimously, the action of the
Chamber of Deputies, Parliament was dissolved. Many of the members
enlisted and went to the front. Since the end of May Italy has been
autocratically governed. The decrees of the King and his ministers
are law--an efficient method of governing a country at war, avoiding
those legislative intrigues that latterly have threatened the concord
of France.

It is noteworthy that the Italian Senate voted unanimously for war.
The Senate is not an elective body. It is composed of dignitaries, old,
conservative men from the successful classes of the nation, who are not
easily swayed by the emotions of the piazza. From this unrepresentative
body might have been expected a show of resistance to the Government's
measure, if, as Giolitti and the German party asserted, there was a
serious sentiment in the country in favor of neutrality which had been
howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have
been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of
the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg
slur.

* * * * *

As I crossed the Piazza Colonna the morning Parliament opened, my
attention was caught by a small crowd before a billboard. First one,
then another passer-by stopped, read something affixed there, and,
smiling or laughing, passed on his way. In the center of the board was
a small black-bordered sheet of paper, with all the mourning emblems,
precisely resembling those mortuary announcements which Latin countries
employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the
Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of
noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with
Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the
piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have
bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety
was not among the Deputies voting at Montecitorio. Later I read in a
Paris newspaper that Giolitti was to spend the summer as far away from
the disturbance of war as he could get, in the Pyrenees, but it was
rumored in Paris that the French Government, having intimated to its
new ally that it did not wish to harbor Giolitti, the Italian politician
was forced to remain at home. I believe that once since the "Caro Carlo"
letter he has spoken to his countrymen, a patriotic interview in which
he announced that he had been converted to the necessity of the war with
Austria! Thus even the politician comes to see light. But Giovanni
Giolitti, as the black-bordered card said, is dead politically.

* * * * *

With the votes of Parliament the Roman part in the drama, the
civil part, was ended. Rome began to empty fast of soldiers, officers,
officials. The scene had shifted to the north, where the hearts of all
Italians were centered. There was a singular calm in the city. One
other memorable meeting should be recorded, on the Saturday afternoon
following the Parliamentary decision. If popular manifestations count
for anything, the dense throng in the Campidolgio and later the same
afternoon before the Quirinal Palace demonstrated the enthusiasm with
which the certainty of war with Austria was accepted.

There are few lovelier spots on earth than the little square of the
Campidolgio on the Capitoline Hill and none more laden with memories
of a long past. Led by a sure instinct the people of Rome crowded up
the steep passages that led to the crest of the hill, by tens of
thousands. In this hour of the New Resurrection of Italy, the people
sought the hearthstone of ancient Rome on the Capitoline. About the
pillars of the Cancelleria, which stands on Roman foundations, up the
long flight of steps leading to the Aracoeli, even under the belly of
the bronze horse in the center of the square, Italians thrust themselves.
Rome was never more beautiful than that afternoon. Little fleecy clouds
were floating across the deep blue sky. The vivid green of the cypresses
on the slope below were stained with the red and white of blooming roses.
In the distance swam the dome of St. Peter's, across the bend of the
Tiber, and through the rift between the crowded palaces one might look
down upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was
that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the
destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit
of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men
and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither
hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were
already joining the colors.

The flags of the unredeemed provinces together with the Italian
flag were borne through the crowd up the steps of the municipal palace
to wave beside Prince Colonna, as he appeared from within the palace.
Mayor of Rome, he had that afternoon resigned his position in order to
join the army with his sons. Handsome, with a Roman face that reminded
one of the portrait busts of his ancestors in the Capitoline Museum
close by, he stood silent above the great multitude. The time for oratory
had passed. He raised his hands and shouted with a full voice--"_Viva
Italia!_" and was silent. It was as if one of the conscript fathers had
returned to his city to pronounce a benediction upon the act of his
descendants. The people repeated the cry again and again, then broke
into the beautiful words of Mameli's "L'Inno,"--"_Fratelli d' Italia._"

Then the gathering turned to cross the city to the Quirinal, where the
King had promised to meet them. The way led past one of the two Austrian
embassies in the Piazza Venezia--a danger spot throughout the agitation;
but this afternoon the crowd streamed by without swerving, intent on
better things. On the Quirinal Hill, between the royal palace and the
Consulta, where the diplomatic conferences are held, the people packed
in again. The roofs of the neighboring palaces were lined with spectators
and every window except those of the royal palace was filled with faces.
On the balcony above the palace gate some footmen were arranging a red
velvet hanging. Then the royal family stepped out from the room behind.
The King, with his little son at his side, stood bareheaded while the
crowd cheered. On his other side were the Queen and her two daughters.
King Victor, whose face was very grave, bowed repeatedly to the cheering
people, but said no word. The little prince stared out into the crowd
with serious intensity, as if he already knew that what was being done
these days might well cost him his father's throne. The people cried
again and again,--_"Viva Italia, viva il re"_; also more rarely, _"Imperio
Romano!"_ At the end the King spoke, merely,--_"Viva Italia, mi!"_

Perhaps the presence of the German and the Austrian Ambassadors,
who that very hour were at the Consulta vainly trying to arrange a
bargain, restrained the King from saying more to his people then.
Possibly he felt that the occasion was beyond any words. His face was
set and worn. The full passion of the decision had passed through him.
His people had desired war, and he had faithfully followed their will.
Yet he more than any one in that crowd must know the terrible risk, the
awful cost of this war. Those national aspirations for which his country
was to strive,--Trent and Trieste, Istraia and the Dalmatian coast, in
all a few hundred miles of territory, a few millions of people,--the
well informed were saying would cost one hundred and fifty thousand
Italian soldiers a month, to pick the locks that Austria had put along
her Alpine frontier! No wonder the King of Italy met his people after
the great decision in solemn mood.

* * * * *

The crowd melted from the Quirinal Square in every direction, content.
Some stopped to cheer in front of the Ministry of War, which these days
and nights was busy as a factory working overtime and night shifts.
People were reading the newspapers, which in default of more vivid news
contained copious extracts from the "Libro Verde." Yet the "Green Book"
was not even now completed!

The politician had spoken, the poet had said his fiery word to the
people, the piazza had hurled its will, Parliament had acted and gone
its way, the army staff was hastening north. Yet the Austrian Ambassador
and his German colleague had not taken the trains waiting for them outside
the Porta Pia with steam up. It was a mystery why they were lingering on
in a country on the verge of hostilities, where they were so obviously
not wanted any longer. Daily since Parliament had voted they had been at
the Consulta--were there now in this solemn hour of understanding between
the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with
Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that
at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real
gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic
dullness of perception made her first real offer--the immediate cession
and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a
thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer
be deferred to the vague settlement time of the "Peace." I do not know
that if she had frankly started the negotiations with this essential
concession, it would have made any real difference. I think not. Her
maximum was insufficient: it nowhere provided for that defensible
frontier, and it was but a meager satisfaction of those other aspirations
of nationality which she despised. It still left a good many Italians
outside of the national fold, and it still left Italy exposed to whatever
strong hand might gain control on the east shores of the Adriatic. At all
events, in this last moment of the eleventh hour, if the ambassadors had
been authorized to yield all that Baron Sonnino had begun by asking, it
would not have kept Italy from the war--now.

Elsewhere I have dealt with the legal and strategic questions involved
in the "Green Book." These diplomatic briefs, White or Yellow or Orange
or Green, seem more important at the moment than in perspective. They
are all we observers have of definite reason to think upon. But nations
do not go to war for the reasons assigned in them--nothing is clearer
than that. Like the lengthy briefs in some famous law case, they are
but the intellectual counters that men use to mask their passions, their
instincts, their faiths. According to the briefs both sides should win
and neither. And the blanks between the lines of these diplomatic briefs
are often more significant than the printed words.

While Baron Macchio and Prince von Bülow, the Ballplatz and
Friedrichstrasse, Baron Sonnino and his colleagues were making the
substance of the "Green Book," the people of Italy were deciding the
momentous question on their own grounds. The spirit of all Italy was
roused. Italian patriotism gave the answer.

* * * * *

"_Viva Italia!_" the boy conscript shouted, leaning far out of the
car window in a last look at the familiar fields and roof of his
native village. "_Viva Italia!_" the King of Italy cried, and his
people responded with a mighty shout,--"_Viva Italia!_" What do they
mean? In the simplest, the most primitive sense they mean literally
the earth, the trees, the homes they have always known--the physical
body of the mother country. And this primal love of the earth that
has borne you and your ancestors seems to me infinitely stronger,
more passionate with the European than with the American. We roam:
our frontiers are still horizons.... But even for the simple peasant
lad, joining the colors to fight for his country, patriotism is
something more complex than love of native soil. It is love of life
as he has known it, its tongue, its customs, its aspects. It is love
of the religion he has known, of the black or brown or yellow-haired
mother he knows--of the women of his race, of the men of his race,
and their kind.

Deeper yet, scarce conscious to the simple instinctive man, patriotism
is belief in the tradition that has made you what you are, in the ideal
that your ancestors have seeded in you of what life should be. Therefore,
patriotism is the better part of man, his ideal of life woven in with
his tissue. Men have always fought for these things,--for their own
earth, for their own kind, for their own ideal,--and they will continue
to give their blood for them as long as they are men, until wrong and
unreason and aggression are effaced from the earth. The pale concept
of internationalism, whether a class interest of the worker or an
intellectual ideal of total humanity, cannot maintain itself before
the passion of patriotism, as this year of fierce war has proved beyond
discussion.

Italian patriotism, which in the last analysis Italy evinced in
making war against Austria, was composed of all three elements. Italian
patriotism is loyalty to the Italian tradition, hence to the Latin ideal
which is fighting a death battle with the Teutonic tradition and ideal.
Teutonism--militaristic, efficient, materialistic, unimaginative,
unindividual--has challenged openly the world. Italy responded nobly
to that challenge.




VI


_The Eve of the War_

Rome became still, so still as to be oppressive. Her heart was
elsewhere,--in the north whither the King was about to go. Rome, like
all the war capitals, having played her part must relapse more and more
into a state of waiting and watching, stirred occasionally by rumors and
rejoicings. The streets were empty, for all men of military age had gone
and others had returned to their normal occupations. Officers hurried
toward the station in cabs with their boxes piled before them. And the
sound of marching troops also on the way to the station did not cease at
once.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.