its people
the greatest calamity that can befall a land. It held out until it was
literally submerged and carried away by the flood of Germanophobia of
which the passage which I have quoted speaks. I witnessed the rising
of this flood. When I arrived in Milan, at the end of November, 1914,
to speak a few sentences at a charity-fete organized for the benefit
of the Belgian refugees, the hatred of Germany was already storing
itself up in men's hearts, but had not as yet come to the surface.
Here and there it did break out, but it was still fearful, circumspect
and hesitating. One felt it brewing, seething in the depths of men's
souls, but it seemed as yet to be feeling its way, to be reckoning
itself up, to be painfully attaining self-consciousness. When I
returned to Italy in March, 1915, I was amazed to behold the
unhoped-for height to which the invading flood had so swiftly risen.
That pious hatred, that necessary hatred, which in this case is merely
a magnificent passion for justice and humanity, had swept over
everything. It had come out into the full sunlight; it thrilled and
quivered at the least appeal, proud and happy to assert itself, to
manifest itself with the beautiful tumultuous ostentation of the
South; and it was the "neutrals" that now hid themselves after the
manner of unspeakable insects. That species had all but disappeared,
annihilated by the storm that was gathering on every hand. The Germans
themselves had gone to earth, no one knew where; and from that moment
it was certain that war was imminent and inevitable.

In the space of three months a stupendous work had been accomplished.
It is impossible for the moment to weigh and determine the part of
each of those who performed it. But we can even now say that in Italy,
which is governed preeminently by public opinion and which, more than
any other nation, has in its blood the traditions and the habits of
the forum and the ancient republics, it is above all the spoken word
that changes men's hearts and urges them to action.

2

From this point of view, the admirable campaign of agitation and
propaganda undertaken by M. Jules Destree, author of _En Italie_, was
of an importance and possessed consequences which are beyond
comparison with anything else accomplished and which are difficult to
realize by those who were not present at one or other of the meetings
at which, for more than six months, indefatigably, travelling from
town to town, from the s