D URING the last few years Italian politics have been full
of surprises and of what on the surface appear to be contradictions. Nothing perhaps surpasses the present crisis, not only for its serious aspect, but because of the complete circle which the political parties have followed, drawn by the cunning hand of Giolitti.
In May, 1915, D'Annunzio of the Golden Mouth, the Apostle of Patriotism and of the spirit of " Italianitit," as against Teutonic sentiment and interference, was smothered in roses by the Italian people, who were now willing to fight with the Allies at a time when Russia was in retreat and the horizon looked dark. Only a few days before Italy's official inter- vention—May 24th—ten thousand people of many classes marched through Rome to the Foreign Office,- expressing the change which had swept over the country in three words, which they repeated as a ceaseless dirge, and in slow rhythmic unison with their steps : " Mort 'a Giolitti ; wort 'a Giolltti."
Giolitti, ex-Dictator of Italy, four times Prime Minister for a period longer even than Cavour and Depretis, sought refuge that day in the house of an old servant. His name was a byword and a reproach, but it was hardly as a humiliated failure that he retired to his country house near Turin. In Napoleonic fashion he left strongholds all over Italy guarded by well-trained minions, prefects and syndics, which had to be demolished one by one throughout the war, a campaign which sapped up precious time and energy and was never completely successful. Moreover, he possessed the gift of knowing when to be silent and when to speak. His rare utterances during the war (he never ranted and never quoted Dante) were treated more like the judgments of an oracle than the opinions of an ex-minister in disgrace. His followers smiled and were braced to fresh efforts to obstruct the war, while those eager to push on loyally under unusually difficult circumstances listened to his ironical commentary on the doings of Italy and the Government with anger, yet fear. The patriots tried to feel that they had freed themselves from Giolitti for ever, and that he was now only a symbol of the evil and degradation of their former national life. All the same, this man of nearly eighty, execrated and apparently vanquished, still possessed the power of sending electric currents all over Italy each time he spoke, and each time that he moved from his villa at Cavour to Turin or Rome.
In the autumn of 1919, in the month of Victory and of Hope, the possibility of Giolitti's return to power was not thought of. To have fought, to have won, and then to return to the old order of things under the Prince of Opportunists, to become again a colony of Germany, could hardly have been entertained by even the maddest of his followers.
Yet this is what has happened. More than this. Giolitti is carried in triumph to power as though he had won the war ; and the men who most hated and mistrusted him now look to him to work miracles.
War is over, but there is no peace, and none can be looked for until the Adriatic problem is solved. Giolitti says : " I could have obtained the Pact of London plus Fiume " ; and again : " I could have given you social reform." And Italians, sick at heart, smarting from the failure of their diplomatists, weary of Nitti, who was quick to see and slow to act, frightened of the great Slav power rising by magic in the place of Austria, blaming " the vanity of the French, the hypocrisy of the English, the
• mystic folly of the Russians and the guttapereha decalogue of Wilson," rally round the ablest man in Italy.
For the student of history an absorbing study is before him for the lover of Italy it is a tragic one. Giolitti watches tha friendly overtures of so many conflicting parties and settles whom he will befool the first. The question is whether the group of young Italians, which includes Salvemini and Prezzolini, is strong enough as yet to stem the dangerous tide. These men follow the advice given by Senator Villari forty years ago that at all costs the truth must be told if new Italy is to prosper. Had Prezzolini's remarkable pamphlets on " Caporetto " and " Vittorio Veneto " been allowed publication in 1917 and 1913 when they were written, instead of a few weeks ago, a great deal of good would have been achieved and many misunder- standings with the Allies would have been cleared away. With courage and patriotism, apt to be misinterpreted by the National- ists, he calls Caporetto a victory and Vittorio Veneto a defeat : for, whereas the one placed the mirror of Truth before the eyes of an awakened Italy, the other caused her to lose her head. Through the fanaticism of the Nationalists the precious elements in the patriotic life of Italy ran riot after Vittorio Veneto, and people became " infatuated with the puerile idea of measuring the greatness of the victory by territorial conquests." Pressing social reforms were neglected because Fiume absorbed everyone : even the children discussed the question on their way to school.
The strangest outcome of this state of things is perhaps the fact that D'Annunzio, who marched into Fiume with his Arditi " in defiance of the Italian Government and of the Allies in order, as he thought, to serve his country—this " Poet-Soldier," once the symbol of Italianita, has been the chief, though unconscious, elector of socialists to power.
As Prince of Nationalists, D'Annunzio has brought disaster on the country he sought to save ; and instead of Fiume, he
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