ermany and Austria were the
aggressors--that is the Italian verdict which history will confirm.

On this side of the water the German apologists made as little as
possible of Italy's withdrawal--they were too busy trying to persuade
the American public that trivialities like the passage of a French
aeroplane or of a French automobile with two French officers in it,
across a corner of Belgium, thirty minutes before the German Army
invaded Belgium, proved that the French and Belgians began the war.
They sneered a little at Italian honor; they implied that scuttling
off was all that could be expected of a decadent Latin people; and
they hinted that, after the Kaiser had disposed of France, Belgium,
England, and Russia, he would punish Italy for her "flight."

At Berlin, however, the importance--military, political, and naval--of
Italy's withdrawal from the Triple Alliance was appraised at its true
value. The German Foreign Office employed alternately threats and
blandishments upon her. They warned her that, if she refused to back
up her allies, she would be treated without mercy at the end of
hostilities. When the policy of terrorizing failed, seductive promises
were held out--suggestions of an addition to Italian territory and of
a subsidy for military expenses. These also failed. Italy could not be
induced to send her million soldiers against the Allies. Then Germany
labored to prevent her from actively joining the Allies--and this
effort Germany is keeping up at the present moment, under the
direction of the sleek Prince von Buelow.

The Italians, who have in large measure a sense of humor, that
clarifying quality which Prussianization has destroyed in the Germans,
must have smiled when they heard the German envoys expatiate on the
beauties of neutrality, and, although they are a polite people, they
must have found it hard to keep from laughing when the agents of Dr.
Bethmann-Hollweg, who had just declared that a treaty is only a scrap
of paper, to be torn up at pleasure, tried to impress upon Italy the
sacredness of the treaty which bound her to the Triple Alliance.

Not content with these official, or officious, manoeuvres, the German
Government sent Socialist leaders into Italy to urge the Italian
Socialists not to consent to a war in behalf of the Allies; but they,
too, seem to have met with a chilly reception. The Italian Socialists,
like the rest of the world, wondered why it was that 5,000,000
Socialists in G