nment had made
was unknown to them; but surely Mr. Trevelyan is paying meagre tribute
to their idealism and liberal thought when he implies they would have
been elated by a knowledge of the details of the Treaty. Ought not,
rather, a people imbued with the afore-mentioned virtues to have
threatened with death a Minister who should attempt to carry through
so scandalous an instrument? "The broad reason why the Italians joined
our side," says Mr. Trevelyan, "was because they were a Western, a
Latin and a Liberal civilization." Mr. Bartlett, who ponders his words
with legal precision, thinks that "Italy was not inspired by any very
noble principles of right and justice when the War began, nor until
long after it had swept over the greater portion of Europe ... nor was
she spontaneously moved by any sentiment of human justice. She was
cool, calculating and business-like. She weighed carefully in the
balance the advantages and disadvantages she might derive from the
pending struggle; she saw on which side the profit might lie, and with
that commercial prudence for which her people are renowned she set her
own price on the value of her aid to the Entente." But if the long
hesitation was nothing more than governmental prudence, and if the
nation as a whole was out of sympathy with such ideas, how came it
that, after the plunge was taken, no less than 300 deputies left their
cards on Signor Giolitti? The country was, through various causes,
swept into the War; and in considering whether this was in harmony
with or in opposition to the desires of the majority I think one
should pay at least as much attention to the deputies who acted as to
the crowd who shouted.... The country was swept into the War, and a
Bologna newspaper (_Resto del Carlino_, March 21, 1915) has published
a telegram from Sonnino to the Italian Ambassadors in Paris, London
and Petrograd, which announced that Italy was joining in the World War
for the purpose of destroying the strategical advantage enjoyed by
Austria in the Adriatic. But at the same time the Southern Slavs must
be prevented from gaining a similar position, and so the coast must be
neutralized from Kotor to the river Voju[vs]a. Sonnino expressly gives
Rieka to the Croats. It is not only this which lends great interest to
the document, but the fact that Italy's entrance into the War was
determined five weeks before the signing of the Treaty of London and
two months before she actually declared war