ileges restricted to its members.
It may not be irrelevant to state that during one phase of the war
combined action of the kind alluded to would have given the Allies the
active help of one or two neutral countries. Nay, if the exportation
of British coal alone had been restricted to the belligerents, the
hesitation of those countries between neutrality and belligerency
would have been overcome in a month.

Italy and Bulgaria, being the two nations whose attitude would in the
judgment of German statesmen have the furthest reaching consequences
on the war, were also the object of their unwearied attentions. And
every motive which could appeal to the interest or sway the sentiment
of those peoples was set before them in the light most conducive to
the aims of the tempter. Those painstaking efforts were duly rewarded.
Bulgaria, before abandoning her neutrality, had contributed more
effectively even than Turkey to retard the Allies' progress and to
facilitate that of their adversaries.

For Italy's restiveness Germany was prepared, but it was reasonably
hoped that with a mixture of firmness, forbearance and generosity that
nation would be prevailed upon to maintain a neutrality which the
various agents at work in the peninsula could render permanently
benevolent. And from the fateful August 3, 1914, down to the following
May, the course of events attested the accuracy of this forecast. At
first all Italy was opposed to belligerency. Deliberate reason,
irrational prejudice, religious sentiment, political calculation,
economic interests and military considerations all tended to confirm
the population in its resolve to keep out of the sanguinary struggle.
The Vatican, its organs and agents, brought all their resources to
bear upon devout Catholics, whose name is legion and whose immediate
aim was the maintenance of peace with the Central empires. The
commercial and industrial community was tied to Germany by threads as
fine, numerous and binding as those that rendered Gulliver helpless in
the hands of the Lilliputians. The common people, heavily taxed and
poorly paid, yearned for peace and an opportunity to better their
material lot. The Parliament was at the beck and call of a dictator
who was moved by party interests to co-operate with the Teutons, while
the Senate, which favoured neutrality on independent grounds, had made
it a rule to second every resolution of the Chamber. In a word,
although Italy might wax querulous