neutral and, as I was obliged to assume that the Austrian and perhaps also the German Embassies were watching me, I had no right to compromise anybody. One episode I remember. When I visited the Italian historian, Professor Lumbroso, who was publishing the “Rivista di Roma,” he was taken aback, for he heard that I had been knocked on the head in Prague at the beginning of the war and, as a conscientious historian, he had published an article on my death. “You will live long,” he said.
Rome gladdened me. The result of my observations and information was that, for the time being, the Italians would remain neutral, and that, if they should march, it would be rather against the Austrians than with them. Against England, Italy would not fight and with France she had a secret agreement, dating from November 1902, that pledged her to neutrality in case of war. In this war Germany had hardly acted according to the defensive spirit of the Triple Alliance since she had declared war upon France and Russia; and Austria had been positively disloyal towards Italy by ignoring Clause VII of the Triple Alliance which bound her to inform Italy of the action to be taken against Serbia—a characteristic display of Austrian contempt for the Italians. Therefore Italy had declared her neutrality as early as July 31, 1914. Moreover, her expedition to Valona had seemed to foreshadow active intervention on the side of the Entente, though it foreshadowed also a dispute about the Balkans, especially with the Southern Slavs.
By December 1914 and January 1915 a strong movement had begun for Italian participation in the war. Giolitti, the former Prime Minister, was attacked for favouring Germany and Austria. In reality he was opposed to war because he believed that Austria would make the necessary concessions without it; but he was not for peace at any price, particularly if Austria would not give way. I thought it unlikely that Austria would give way—people in Vienna were too puffed up. They felt no fear of Italy against whom the Austrian military clique, with General Conrad von Hoetzendorf, the Chief of General Staff, at its head, had long wanted war, regardless of the Triple Alliance. It had taken Aehrenthal all his time to defend himself against Conrad, as the Italians well knew.
The Position of the Vatican.
The bearing of the Vatican had been at first decidedly pro-Austrian and pro-German. Statements were circulated by the
