The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the Ægean | Page 6

must, she insists, possess
henceforward a strong and easily defended northern frontier. She is
tired of crouching in the valleys while her enemies dominate her from
the mountain-tops. Nor do I blame her. Her whole history is punctuated
by raids and invasions launched from these northern heights. But the
new frontier, in the words of former Premier Orlando, "can be defended
by a handful of men, while therefore the defense of the Trentino salient
required half the Italian forces, the other half being constantly
threatened with envelopment."
As I have already pointed out, the annexation of the Upper Adige
means the passing of 180,000 German-speaking Austrians under Italian
sovereignty, including the cities of Botzen and Meran; the ancient
centers of German-Alpine culture, Brixen and Sterzing; of Schloss
Tyrol, which gives the whole country its name; and, above all, of the
Parsier valley, the home of Andreas Hofer, whose life and living
memory provide the same inspiration for the Germans of Tyrol that the
exploits and traditions of Garibaldi do for the Italians.
That Italy is not insensible to the perils of bringing within her borders a
bloc of people who are not and never will be Italian, is clearly shown
by the following extract from an Italian official publication:
"In claiming the Upper Adige, Italy does not forget that the highest
valleys are inhabited by 180,000 Germans, a residuum from the

immigration in the Middle Ages. It is not a problem to be taken
light-heartedly, but it is impossible for Italy to limit herself only to the
Trentino, as that would not give her a satisfactory military frontier.
From that point of view, the basin of Bolzano (Bozen) is as strictly
necessary to Italy as the Rhine is to France."
No one has been more zealous in the cause of Italy than I have been; no
one has been more whole-heartedly with the Italians in their splendid
efforts to recover the lands to which they are justly entitled; no one
more thoroughly realizes the agonies of apprehension which Italy has
suffered from the insecurity of her northern borders, or has been more
keenly alive to the grim but silent struggle which has been waged
between her statesmen and her soldiers as to whether the broad
statesmanship which aims at international good-feeling and abstract
justice, or the narrower and more selfish policy dictated by military
necessity, should govern the delimitation of her new frontiers. But,
because I am a friend of Italy, and because I wish her well, I view with
grave misgivings the wisdom of thus creating, within her own borders,
a new terra irredenta; I question the quality of statesmanship which
insists on including within the Italian body politic an alien and
irreconcilable minority which will probably always be a latent source
of trouble, one which may, as the result of some unforseen irritation,
break into an open sore. It would seem to me that Italy, in annexing the
Upper Adige, is storing up for herself precisely the same troubles
which Austria did when she held against their will the Italians of the
Trentino, or as Germany did when, in order to give herself a strategic
frontier, she annexed Alsace and Lorraine. When Italy puts forward the
argument that she must hold everything up to the Brenner because of
her fear of invasion by the puny and bankrupt little state which is all
that is left of the Austrian Empire, she is but weakening her case. Her
soundest excuse for the annexation of this region lies in her fear that a
reconstituted and revengeful Germany might some day use the Tyrol as
a gateway through which to launch new armies of invasion and
conquest. But, no matter what her friends may think of the wisdom or
justice of Italy's course, her annexation of the Upper Adige is a fait
accompli which is not likely to be undone. Whether it will prove an act
of wisdom or of shortsightedness only the future can tell.

The transition from the Italian Trentino to the German Tyrol begins a
few miles south of Bozen. Perhaps "occurs" would be a more
descriptive word, for the change from the Latin to the Teutonic, instead
of being gradual, as one would expect, is almost startling in its
abruptness. In the space of a single mile or so the language of the
inhabitants changes from the liquid accents of the Latin to the
deep-throated gutturals of the German; the road signs and those on the
shops are now printed in quaint German script; via becomes weg,
strada becomes strasse, instead of responding to your salutation with a
smiling "Bon giorno" the peasants give you a solemn "Guten morgen."
Even the architecture changes, the slender, four-square campaniles
surmounted by bulging Byzantine domes, so characteristic of the
Trentino, giving place to