Italy's Position
I
THE Italian declaration of neutrality in the present war, coming as it did most unexpectedly, was received with varying emotions in the chancelleries of Europe. Germany and Austria, who had evidently counted on the active support of an Italian army, scarcely veiled their disappointment in an urgent although correctly worded protest made by their ambassador at Rome, while England, France, and Russia were almost hysterically delighted on receiving the news that they had one less enemy to deal with.
While the exact terms of the Triple Alliance have never been publicly announced, the German-Austrian protest was predicated on the assumption that under them any two of the allies were required to defend the third in the event of an attack upon the latter. Although Germany had declared war against France, it was held that certain alleged acts of aggression committed by France constituted an attack upon Germany within the meaning of the treaty of alliance.
To this protest the Italian Foreign Minister, the Marchese di San Giuliano, replied that the acts complained of had unquestionably been offset by similar acts on the part of Germany, and that, petty incidents aside, the vital fact remained that Germany had declared war against France, which in the judgment of the Italian government absolved Italy from taking any part in the war as a member of the Triplice. Signore Giolitti, the former Italian Prime Minister, went even further than this, and was quoted by the Italian newspapers as saying that in his judgment Italy would have been perfectly justified as a member of the Triple Alliance in remaining neutral, even had Germany or Austria been actually and openly attacked.
Apart from the purely academic discussion as to what possible benefit to its members the Triple Alliance could have afforded under Signore Giolitti’s interpretation, the chief interest of those concerned in Italian affairs has been confined to speculation on the probable cause of Italy’s action. The present Italian government has on the one hand been accused of selfishness, and on the other hand has been praised for its patriotism and statesmanship. As a matter of fact both critics and admirers are partly right and partly wrong.
To any one familiar with Italian affairs and recent Italian political history, the underlying causes of the action of the Salandra ministry have been more or less obvious. Signore Salandra and his colleagues declared the neutrality of Italy because they believed such action to be for the best interests of their country, and because circumstances allowed them no option in the matter.
To understand their reasons, it is necessary to understand Italy’s original attitude toward the Triple Alliance, which has probably been ended forever by the declaration of universal war.
More than fifty years ago Massimo d’Azeglio said, ‘We have made an Italy, it now behooves us to make Italians.’ The effort to make Italians, in other words to transform Italy from a geographical expression into a nation, has been the life-work of almost every government since the time of Cavour. Depretis and Minghetti, during their long years of power, kept Italy in the straight path of economic development, free from the entanglements and cost of world-politics. Crispi, who succeeded them, inspired by his Sicilian imagination, dreamed of making Italy a first-class power, the equal of the great nations of the earth, regardless of the fact that she was then only a poor and weak community, as yet not united into the Italian nation she has since become.
The immediate results of Crispi’s policy were the Triple Alliance, organized just a quarter of a century ago, and the disastrous war in Abyssinia, which cost him his political life. The ultimate results were an ever-increasing burden of taxation for the army and navy, which her allies required Italy to maintain as the price of their support, and a disastrous panic.
The financial and commercial panic of 1887 was followed by a period of industrial depression which in its turn was followed by similar periods ten and twenty years later. Until quite recently the efforts of Signore Crispi’s successors have been directed to furthering national development at home by means of industrial and commercial progress, rather than by political advertisement abroad.
The Triple Alliance was renewed when it expired, and in support of it a large army and navy were maintained at really great national sacrifice. Italy had assumed the obligations of a great power, without a great power’s resources; but like a family of moderate means associating with millionaires, she was ashamed to confess her poverty and find friends in her own class. She preferred to make every sacrifice at home, to pinch and skimp in her housekeeping, so as to make a more or less impressive appearance among her rich associates.
That Italy’s wealth is rapidly increasing is undoubtedly true. During the last ten years her progress has been really extraordinary, and given another quarter of a century of peaceful development, she will undoubtedly become in fact the first-class power that many Italians already imagine her to be.
During the last decade her imports have increased steadily year by year, from Lire 1,813,416,108 in 1903, to Lire 3,637,770,589 in 1913; her exports from Lire 1,493,028,188 to Lire 2,503,913,622 in the same period; or an increase in both exports and imports during the decade of Lire 2,835,239,915, — 85 per cent. During the same decade the circulation of her banks has increased from Lire 1,236,030,000 to Lire 2,283,509,000, their reserves from Lire 862,629,000 to Lire 1,661,379,000, and their discounts from Lire 2,368,537,000 to Lire 3,899,857,000; while the amount on deposit in the Postal Savings Banks has increased from Lire 869,224,123 to Lire 1,948,561,882, and the number of depositors from 4,969,588 to 5,780,010. During the last seven years her railways have increased their passenger receipts from Lire 154,944,000 in 1906 to Lire 218,619,000 in 1913, and their freight receipts from Lire 246,115,000 to Lire 331,881,000; while from 1902 to 1912 her merchant, marine increased from 68,876,772 tons to 113,724,221 tons.
In 1903, 275,339 Italians emigrated across the seas, while ten years later the number of trans-oceanic emigrants had increased to 444,780, of whom 23,835 went to Brazil, 107,048 to the Plata, 310,991 to the United States, and 2906 elsewhere. It has been estimated that the Italian emigrants annually send back to the mother country some $50,000,000, of which probably $35,000,000 comes from the United States, while another $25,000,000 is annually spent in Italy by foreign tourists.
Though the sulphur industry has not recovered from its collapse of some years ago, and is in a far from flourishing condition, the production of the lead, silver, and zinc mines has increased 50 per cent in ten years. Manufactures are in a most prosperous condition generally, showing large increases in the last decade. The output of silk has remained almost stationary, but the production of chemicals, beet-sugar, spirits, and beer, has more than doubled. Italy’s lack of coal has been largely compensated by the development of her water-power, the number of ettowatt hours having increased from 454,634,034 in 1903 to 1,826,740,838 in 1913, or over 300 per cent.
Three years ago Signore Giolitti, the Prime Minister, deeming Italian economic conditions sufficiently satisfactory for his purpose, resolved to put the finishing touches to the structure of Italian nationality so carefully erected by his predecessors. Whatever may have been the immediate cause of the Italian-Turkish War, its underlying reason was undoubtedly the desire of the Italian government to complete the work of national unification by means of a fervid appeal to the patriotism of the people in calling upon them to fight, for Italy. For the moment Signore Giolitti’s policy seemed triumphantly successful. With Tripoli and Cyrenaica Italian colonies, Italians began to picture themselves embarked upon a career of world-conquest and of empire beyond the seas, with the glories of Imperial Rome reincarnate under the ægis of the House of Savoy. But the enthusiasm of victory and the dreams of military prowess were soon forgotten in the dull reality of paying the costs of conquest.
II
While Italy had been developing toward nationhood a revolution had been quietly taking place on Italian soil, which, scarcely noticed and hardly understood, had completely changed the form of Italian political life. Until recently, modern Italy, like all selfgoverning countries during the last half of the nineteenth century, had been ruled by a middle-class aristocracy, a bourgeois ruling caste, composed of merchants and shopkeepers, lawyers, physicians, and other professional men, who, by means of a limited franchise, were able to exclude the vast majority of the people from any share in government. But the proletariat, so long dormant, at last awakened to self-consciousness, and to a realization of its power, and the last Giolitti ministry was forced to grant universal manhood suffrage. The first election under the changed conditions was held last year, and inaugurated a new era in Italian history.
Despite the growing prosperity of Italy, the burdens of taxation have been constantly growing. The cost of the Triple Alliance has progressed greatly during the last ten years, and has made Italy one of the most heavily taxed countries in Europe, in proportion to her population. In 1890, the first year of the existence of the treaty, the total revenues of the kingdom were Lire 1,540,001,000, the total expenditures were Lire 1,617,241,000; twenty-five years later (1912—13) the revenue had increased to Lire 2,528,874,000 (about 40 per cent), and the expenditures to Lire 2,536,488,000 (about 37 per cent), while from 1901 to 1911, the population had increased only 6.6 per cent.
The increased cost of living, due to many causes other than increased taxation, coupled with a disproportionately small increase in wages, spread a spirit of great discontent throughout proletarian Italy, which found its first opportunity of effective expression at the first election held under universal suffrage. Dissatisfied Italians are nothing if not thorough in the means they employ in the effort to redress their grievances. There are four political parties in Italy which are frankly revolutionary and seek by varying methods to overturn the House of Savoy and the constitution. The Republicans and Socialists took part in the last election with the avowed purpose of using the present constitution for its own undoing: in other words, with the expressed intention of bringing about the social revolution by peaceful and quasiconstitutional means. The anarchists and syndicalists declined to go to the polls, preferring to follow a policy of propaganda by act; in other words, they seek to overturn society by any unlawful means, such as the general strike or open and active violence. These four revolutionary parties work in sympathy and harmony with one another, and probably include a large majority of the Italian proletariat.
III
At the meeting of the first Parliament elected under universal suffrage Signore Giolitti found himself confronted by a Chamber of Deputies containing more than a third of Socialist and Republican members, supported outside by a large, well-organized, and enthusiastic constituency, composed of all the revolutionary elements, and a constitutional majority composed of several minority groups held together in a ‘bloc’ by the force of Signore Giolitti’s personality, by gratitude for favors already given, and by the hope of favors yet to come.
Signore Giolitti is the most experienced, the most resourceful, and the ablest politician in Italian public life. He has been four times prime minister, and during the intervals between his ministries he has made and destroyed governments almost at will. For fifteen years he has been the dictator, or rather, the ‘ boss,’ of Italy. When he came back to power after the general election the problem before him was peculiarly difficult. His hold upon the Chamber, and therefore upon political life, was more precarious than ever in his career. For the first time he was confronted by a well-organized and uncompromising opposition, which refused to be pacified and declined to be bought. His own followers were frightened by the strength of their opponents, and like all middle-class politicians were inclined to compromise with the proletariat on the first trial of strength.
Two questions gave him the greatest cause for alarm. The first was the demand of the admirably organized union of the employees in the state railways for an increase in their pay, amounting to nearly Lire 15,000,000. The second was the necessity of meeting the deferred payment of the cost of the Turkish War.
It was generally recognized that the railway employees were pitifully underpaid; but with a deficit in the budget, and with the highest passenger and freight rates on earth, the problem of granting the demand of the men presented very serious difficulties.
The question of paying the price of victory over the Turks was even more delicate. Signore Giolitti’s friends had made the boast that the war in Tripoli was fought without borrowing a penny, and without increasing taxation. The statement was at the time generally believed, and Signore Giolitti acquired much fame as a remarkable financier. He naturally dreaded the repercussion upon his own fortunes of the discovery of the actual state of affairs. He and his supporters insisted that the sacrifice entailed by membership in the Triple Alliance had been more than compensated by the complaisance of Germany and Austria in keeping the ring while Italy and Turkey fought. These financial sacrifices in the past were, they claimed, the only cost of the Turkish War. As a matter of fact, while the Giolitti ministry borrowed no money abroad, it did borrow money at home by the issue of treasury notes to the amount of about Lire 250,000,000, which of course, have had to be redeemed. There has been a general impression among Italians that by some mysterious financial magic the Turkish war was paid for out of economies. It actually cost, from the beginning of hostilities up to December 31, 1913, Lire 1,149,758,000, or, roughly, $230,000,000. In addition to this the new colonial budget, including the cost of the desultory war, which still requires the presence of 100,000 men in Africa, amounts for the present year to Lire 84,000,000, making the increase in the army budget for this year, in a time of nominal peace, the sum of Lire 250,000,000.
Signore Giolitti is no longer young, his health was not of the best, and he was tired of office. The problems before him, problems of his own creation, were more than he cared to attempt to solve, and quite unexpectedly he resigned. He shifted the burdens of power to the shoulders of Signore Salandra, a deputy, who had held office in a previous government. Signore Salandra retained three members of the last Giolitti cabinet, including the Marchese de San Giuliano as Foreign Minister.
The Salandra government began its career by dodging responsibility wherever it was possible. The grievances of the railway servants were referred to a commission, with the promise to the men that some increase would be made in the rates of pay, while the increases in the budget were laid at the door of Signore Giolitti and his colleagues.
Signore Salandra was beginning to dream of a quiet and uneventful official career when the syndicalist general strike of last June rudely awakened him. The general strike disclosed the fact that the anti-dynastic and revolutionary forces in Italy are so well organized and so powerful that no government can afford to ignore them. For two days all Italy, and for a week Romagna and the Marches, lay at the mercy of the mob.
Speculation as to how a man of blood and iron might have dealt with the situation is of little interest in comparison with actual events. Signore Salandra appears to have been so fearful of losing his majority in the Chamber of Deputies that he permitted the strike to run its course, until the strike leaders in their own good time brought it to an end.
On the adoption of the budget, Parliament was prorogued and Signore Salandra, somewhat weakened in public estimation by his handling of the general strike, turned his attention to repairing the damage to his political reputation caused by a week of lawlessness.
IV
It was fortunate for Italy that when her two allies, Germany and Austria, went to war without consulting her and with an unexpectedness that has no parallel in history, she had at the head of her Department of Foreign Affairs one of her few statesmen. The Marchese di San Giuliano is a Sicilian, the head of an old and wealthy family, whose estates are near Catania, on the northern slope of Etna. He was trained by Francesco Crispi, and has had wide experience in the Chamber of Deputies, in diplomacy, in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and in the Senate, where he now sits. More than almost any man in contemporaneous Italian public life, he has the faculty of gauging public opinion and of understanding just how far government can go with popular support. He has unquestionably been of the most vital service to his country, and to his chief, in solving the crisis precipitated by the declaration of war.
The problem which confronted the Salandra ministry was two-fold: first, what was its duty to the allies of Italy? second, what was its duty to Italy herself?
The first branch of the problem was of comparatively easy solution: neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary had been attacked, in fact they had deliberately and in cold blood brought on the war. Italy as a faithful ally was therefore left free either to join them or to remain neutral; and for reasons that will presently appear she chose the latter course.
The second part of the problem was far more complicated, but nevertheless was capable of only one possible answer, for the objections to her joining the allies were quite as obvious as were the advantages of neutrality.
The objections were sentimental, economic, and political. The Triple Alliance has never been popular with the Italian people. It has, to be sure, flattered their pride to feel that their friendship has been sought by two of the great nations of the earth; and when Crispi concluded the Triplice, Italians, closing their eyes to realities, deluded themselves with the belief that membership in the alliance necessarily made them the equal of their allies. It was, however, not long before they found a disposition on the part of their two associates, and especially on that of Germany, to treat Italy, not as their equal, but as the junior partner in the firm.
The losses of the tariff war with France, which deprived Italy of her best market for wine, and which was the indirect outcome of the Triple Alliance, were never made good by her connection with the two Teutonic powers; so that years ago Italians had begun to ask themselves whether the loss of French commercial friendship, and the sacrifices they were obliged to make in supporting a great army and navy, were not too large a price to pay for the German and Austrian alliances.
The act of good will which permitted Italy to fight Turkey without fear of outside complications scarcely made amends for what the Triple Alliance had cost her in direct expenditure and in indirect loss. But most potent of all the reasons for the unpopularity of the Triple Alliance is the racial fact, which from the beginning of all time has made it impossible for the Latin and Teuton either to understand or like each other. Added to this is the more recent but more intense hatred of the Italians for the Austrians. Every Italian believes that the Trentino and Trieste ought to belong to Italy. The spirit of nationality will not down, and so long as the Austrian Italians call to their brothers across the border to come and deliver them from the Austrian yoke, the spirit of Italia Irredenta will dictate the reply. Were the matter to be left to a vote of the Italian people, they would far rather march against Austria for the liberation of their brothers than with Austria for the conquest of the world.
Economically the risk of war was greater than any possible gain. For the first time in the history of modern Italy she finds herself on a really sound industrial basis. With expanding manufactures and commerce, with agriculture flourishing, and with a general and marked increase in prosperity, she has at last definitely emerged from economic mediævalism into the new and modern conditions of contemporaneous Europe. She is already holding her own with her industrial rivals in many fields of endeavor, and given a few more years of successful effort, she ought to be able to appropriate for herself a large share of the world market in directions which she is rapidly making peculiarly hers.
It is not surprising that the capitalistic and industrial classes of Italy saw no allurement in the suggestion of gambling the certainty of economic prosperity against the possibility of military glory.
V
Strong as were the sentimental and economic objections to following the fortunes of the Triple Alliance, the political objections were even more insuperable.
For sentimental and economic reasons the Salandra ministry felt that they ought not to go to war, for political reasons they felt that they could not. Under certain conditions it might have been possible sufficiently to overcome the anti-Teutonic prejudice of the Italian people, so that they would have given a half-hearted support to the Triplice; it might even have been possible to reconcile the bourgeoisie to the necessary economic loss involved in an unpopular war; but it is extremely doubtful if Signore Salandra could have obtained the support of the proletariat in a war waged against another Latin nation.
The general strike of last June, revealing as it did the marvelous organization and discipline of the Italian proletariat, demonstrated beyond peradventure the existence of an Italy within Italy, of which until then the rulers had been absolutely ignorant.
The Italian proletariat have other fish to fry than foreign conquests. They are engaged in the effort to overthrow the existing form of government at home, peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary. They have no sympathy either with the desires of tire Hapsburgs or with the ambitions of the Hohenzollerns, regarding both as the natural enemies of laboring men in general and of Italians in particular. The only inducement which would cause them to throw their influence on the side of the war, would be some strong appeal to their passions or their imagination. They generally supported the war with Turkey, while it lasted, as they were inspired by the hope of a renewal of Italian world-power. When Tripoli had been conquered and the proletariat discovered that they were no nearer greatness than before, they forgot their disillusionment and the hope of foreign conquest, and once more turned their thoughts to the social revolution within the boundaries of their own country.
The natural impulsive chivalry of the Italian nature would undoubtedly cause the proletariat to sink their domestic differences, and fly to arms were their national or racial sympathies awakened. No government would have the slightest difficulty in carrying with it the vast majority of the Italian people in a war against Austria in defense of the Italians of Trieste or the Trentino, or against. Germany in behalf of the Latins of France. But no government would find it possible to unite the country in a war of aggression against nations of the Latin race, or to count on the support of the Italian masses in any war, unless their sympathies or passions were aroused. There can be no question that Signore Salandra realized that a declaration of war against Russia or France would have been the signal for a general strike in Italy, which might have resulted in the fall of the dynasty.
Manifest as were the objections to war, the advantages of neutrality were equally so. During hostilities Italy is in a position to lose less than any other neutral. It is almost inconceivable that her neutrality should be unintentionally violated, while it would be to no power’s advantage to violate it intentionally. Happily surrounded by sea on all sides but one, she is protected on the north by the natural barrier of the Alps, reinforced by the buffer neutral state of Switzerland between Germany and a part of Austria and herself. On the northwest she touches southeastern France, and on the northeast, southwestern Austria,— in both cases belligerent territory, it is true, but far removed from the scene of war. None of the belligerents wants her sword thrown in the scale against it, while all know that, failing her active support, her neutrality is of vital importance. She is in the delightful position of being feared and courted by all, with nothing to lose and everything to gain by her neutrality.
So long as the war lasts Italy must necessarily be one of the chief sources of supply for both sides, as her ports are open and her shipping, so much as there is of it, is free to carry freight and passengers to and from all parts of the world. Her manufactures, her commerce, and her agriculture will be greatly stimulated, and should hostilities last for any time, will receive an impetus which will endure afterwards. No matter who wins she must profit, for she is like a broker in an active market, who makes his commissions, no matter whether prices rise or fall.
Should Germany and Austria conquer, on the dismemberment of France which will follow conquest, Italy will probably fall heir to Nice and Savoy, taken from her by Napoleon III over half a century ago, as the price of his friendship in her quarrel with Austria; not that Germany loves Italy, but because, in dismembering France, it will be necessary to take Nice and Savoy from her, and Italy is the only power to whom they can be given. Whereas, if Germany and Austria lose, the Trentino and Trieste with the control of the Adriatic, and possibly Albania, will very naturally be the payment for Italian neutrality.
Both victor and vanquished will emerge from the war in a greater or less degree of exhaustion, while most of the neutrals will have suffered severely from the cost of defending their neutrality. Italy, if wisely guided, will, on the other hand, find herself on the conclusion of peace more prosperous than ever, with her people more united than at any time since the beginning of the Turkish War, with her dynasty more popular than in years, and with discontent, for the moment at least, somnolent; more respected and honored among the nations; more powerful, — in short, appreciably nearer the realization of her dream of becoming a first-class power.
Of course, the plans of the Salandra ministry may at any moment come to nothing. Some utterly unexpected event may completely upset the calculations of the government. The sympathy of the Italians for the French, and their growing sympathy for the English, together with their antipathy to the Teutons, may cause an uprising of the people on behalf of France and England, should Germany crush them. While on the other hand, the disgust of the Austrians at Italian neutrality may at any moment precipitate a crisis which will lead to hostilities.
It does not, however, seem probable that Italy will depart from the course she has set herself. The costs and difficulties of war and the advantages of neutrality are both so great that Italy will undoubtedly prefer to be ruled by national self-interest rather than by any passing emotion.
It may be urged, as it has been by the Germans and Austrians, and also by a section of the French and English press, that in remaining neutral Italy has been influenced entirely by selfish motives. The German and Austrian newspapers have called upon her to remember her treaty obligations and declare for the Triple Alliance; the English and French newspapers have urged her to listen to the call of old friendships and declare for the Triple Entente. Both, however, ignore the fact, that a nation’s first duty is to itself, and that no government has the right to allow sentiment to interfere with the duty it owes its own people.
In proclaiming neutrality, the Salandra ministry strictly adhered to the letter and the spirit of the Triple Alliance. To have fought with Germany and Austria would have been quixotic; to have fought against them would have been wrong. Neutrality was, in every way, not only the best policy that Italy could have followed, but as we have seen, it was probably the only course open to the government at the time.
There is, moreover, in Italian neutrality a moral advantage to the world at large that ought not to be ignored. If it is strictly maintained, when the proper time comes she will be able to offer her services as mediator to both sides, with more prospect of success than any other neutral could possibly have.
It may very well be that in this war of extermination one side or the other will win so conclusively that mediation will be out of the question. Should the Teutons conquer overwhelmingly, the destruction of France will be inevitable; while, should the Teutons be crushed, the dismemberment of both the German and the Austro-Hungarian empires will follow as a matter of course. In either event the victor will scarcely tolerate the services of the peacemaker.
But should the war result in the general financial and physical prostration of both combatants, — and such an outcome is not impossible, — our very civilization will be menaced unless a satisfactory peace can be concluded. Any arrangement for the cessation of hostilities that is not conclusive will result in a renewal of the war at the moment that either side has sufficiently recovered to take the field once more. Under such conditions a lasting peace can be brought about, only by a neutral power, and of the neutrals hardly any is likely to be of use. The smaller powers, including those of South America, do not carry sufficient weight, while there is a jealousy of the United States and a prejudice against us in certain quarters which would doubtless make our services unacceptable.
Italy, on the other hand, would probably be least objectionable to the largest number of powers. Her influence is important, and her strength is great. If she can preserve even the semblance of the friendship of the belligerents, she will be in the best possible position to assist them in the settlement of their differences, whenever conditions may arise which will make such settlement possible.
VI
The early history of the Salandra ministry did not give promise of very great strength or of much capacity. It was openly opportunist, inclined to disingenuousness, and, to say the least, neither vigorous nor particularly courageous. It followed a policy of postponing action whenever possible, and of shifting responsibility to the far broader shoulders of its predecessors. Its course in reference to the demands of the railway servants, the increased military budget, and especially its handling of the general strike, gave faint hope to any friend of Italy that it would be capable of rising to meet a really great emergency.
But to the surprise of Europe, from the moment that Austria served her ultimatum on Servia an entirely new spirit seemed to dominate the Italian government. It set itself a definite objective which it has pursued unswervingly ever since. Weakness gave place to strength, hesitation to fixity of purpose, and with a tact, a courtesy, and a firmness worthy of the best diplomatic traditions, it has gone about its business serenely, unmindful alike of the abuse of Germany and Austria and of the blandishments of England and France.
It can scarcely be unfair to Signore Salandra to credit the change in the conduct and character of his government to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, and it can safely be assumed that the Marchese di San Giuliano is responsible for the transformation of Italian policy from vacillating weakness and failure into what seems to be complete success.
The very difficult task of preserving neutrality could not have been begun with more sagacity or a greater display of wise statesmanship. Whether the Marchese di San Giuliano is to succeed or fail time alone can tell. If he fails he will at least know that he has failed in a good cause, while if he succeeds the world will appreciate that he has not only saved Italy but has done much for the civilization of our time.