The World Decision | Page 3

von B��low had driven to the Consulta at eleven-fifteen yesterday, and having been closeted with Baron Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, or with the Premier, Signor Salandra, or with both, for forty-seven minutes, had emerged upon the street smiling. And shortly after this event Baron Macchio, the Austrian Envoy, arrived at the Consulta in his motor-car and had spent within the mystery of the Foreign Office twenty or more minutes. The reader might insert any fatal interpretation he liked between the lines of this chronicle. That was quite all the reality the Roman public, the people of Italy, had to speculate upon during weeks of waiting, and for the most part they waited quietly, patiently. For whatever the American prejudice against the dangers of secret diplomacy may be, the European, especially the Italian, idea is that all grave negotiations should be conducted privately--that the diplomatic cake should be composed by experts in retirement until it is ready for the baking. And the European public is well trained in controlling its curiosities.
It was sufficiently astonishing to the American onlooker, however, accustomed to flaming extras and the plethoric discussion in public of the most intimate affairs, state and personal, to witness the acquiescence of emotional Italians in this complete obscurity about their fate and that of their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, signifying belief in the sureness of war--soon. There was little animation in the caf��s, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied deputies sat in gloomy silence over their thin consommations. Even the 1st of May passed without that demonstration by the Socialists against war so widely expected. To be sure, the Government had prudently packed Rome and the northern cities with troops: soldiers were lurking in every old courtyard, up all the narrow alleys, waiting for some hardy Socialist to "demonstrate." But it was not the plentiful troops, not even a lively thunderstorm that swept Rome all the afternoon, which discouraged the Socialists: they too were in doubt and apathy. They were hesitating, passing resolutions, defining themselves into fine segments of political opinion--and waiting for Somebody to act! They too awaited the completion of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin. The first of May came and went, and the carabinieri, the secret police, the infantry, the cavalry with their fierce hairy helmets filed off to their barracks in a dripping dusk, dispirited, as if disappointed themselves that nothing definite, even violence, had yet come out of the business. So one caught a belated cab and scurried through the deserted streets to an empty hotel on the Pincian, more than half convinced that the Government meant really to do nothing except "negotiate" until the spirit of war had died from the hearts of the people.
Yet much was going on beneath the surface. There were flashes to be seen in broad daylight. The King and his ministers at the eleventh hour decided not to attend the ceremonies at Quarto of the unveiling of the monument to the Garibaldian "Thousand." Now, what could that mean? Did it indicate that the King was not yet ready to choose his road and feared to compromise himself by appearing in company with the Francophile poet D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was more rapid, day by day.
There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not "mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The carabinieri went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically at the Consulta, yet of vital force.
There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a