this was the most important factor. He then told me about his last meeting with Lloyd George. He had asked him his opinion, adding that, as he thought, England wanted to preserve the Habsburg Empire. According to him, Lloyd George had replied: “In this matter my opinion is the same as Gladstone’s. Austria has already done so much harm in the world that it must be destroyed.” I was gratified and encouraged by this interview.
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At the Ministry of War the subject of our troops was being attended to by General Montanari (the Under-Secretary of State), Colonel Vacchelli, Lieutenant-Colonel Zanghieri, and Major Sogno. With them I continued all the difficult negotiations about prisoners of war and the organization of the future army, almost daily until October 9th. I found them most considerate and obliging in their personal dealings with me, but there was a sustained struggle over every concession, however slight. At the beginning and conclusion of the negotiations I had a conversation on our affairs with General Giardino. He himself had not been much concerned with these matters, and in everything except purely technical questions it was Sonnino and the Consulta who had the decisive word.
I negotiated on several occasions with General Spingardi, to whom I had been referred for the discusssion of technical measures and details concerning the liberation of prisoners. While discussing matters with me, he exhibited a favourable attitude towards our requests. But in reality he hindered the whole of our movement, and was preventing the prisoners from being liberated. My experiences with him were remarkably similar to the difficulties which we encountered in Russia when dealing with the subject of prisoners. Two reasons were given for this action on his part. In the first place he did not favour the idea of liberating the prisoners for the purpose of forming an army, as this would restrict his sphere of influence, and on the other hand he was said to be an Austrophile, and therefore did not regard our movement with a favourable eye. At all events, the fact is that he stood in our way, and we had many unpleasant conflicts in our official dealings with him.
