The World Decision | Page 3

of Teutonic
diplomacy. There was the "Giornale d'Italia" that spoke for the Vatican,
and the "Idea Nazionale" which voiced radical young Italy. And so on
down the list. But there was a perfectly applied censorship which
suppressed all diplomatic leaks. So one read with perfect confidence
that Prince von Bülow 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 cafés, 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