Week 143

 

On August 4^th 1919, the Popolo d'Italia opened with a leading column delivered from Rome by Gaetano Polverelli – a rejection of the ongoing “self-serving” campaign to “put the war on trial” promoted by former “neutralist-defeatists” forces for their own electoral interests, first among them the chief editor and owner of Turin based La Stampa, Alfredo Frassati (“Against the campaign of nefarious Frassati”), which followed Mussolini's own examination of the same issue on the previous day (“Us and them”). Against the narrative pushed by the “socialist-Giolittian front”, Polverelli offered an explanation of the true process which had taken Italy from the intervention to the eventual affirmation of Vittorio Veneto (“Our path to Vittorio Veneto”). The piece – published in letter form and dated from August 2^nd – might have been submitted by Polverelli (as he himself insisted in the end) as a series of pointers for a more explicitly polemic piece while, on the other hand, Mussolini had chosen a more detached approach in his opinion piece of the previous day, stressing, as was customary to him, the moral significance of the interventionist choice both above “partisan arguments” and beyond the practical consequences of the conflict. Along this line Mussolini had insisted on the difference between a criticism of the leadership, of the “conduct of the war” and one attacking the experience and significance of the war as well as the motives of the interventionist choice.

Dear Mussolini,

I am of the certain opinion that the nation doesn't and won't follow La Stampa in the latter's indictment of the war, and in its negation of it. Regardless of any arguments and sophistications, we have won the war, and it's pointless for Frassati to speak gloomily of a tragedy of the Motherland […]

On the other hand, there is no point in rejecting something that has happened already and persisting in the attempts to prove it should have been avoided. Frassati is neither a historian nor a man of action because, in either case, he should realize we are in 1919, while he is still stuck in the Giolitti-Bulow period of 1915.

Frassati is nothing more than a petty partisan, and an election-day journalist.

Nonetheless, even limited to its 100,000 readers in Northern Italy, the anachronistically neutralist campaign of La Stampa is a nefarious one, in so far as it contributes to depress the public sentiment, and aims at replacing the psychology of victory with a psychology of defeat, while the former should instead remain as the maximum result of a victorious war.

A sentiment of victory plays a role of absolute prominence in the ascension of a people, and to realize this fact, one only has to look at the development of England after their victories over Spain, over Holland, and over Napoleon. […] The rise of Germany after their victory over Napoleon III. A psychology of victory empowers a people with self-confidence, awakens all of their energies, pushes them confidently towards action.

On the other hand, the psychology of defeat (which saddled Italy with its burden for fifty years after Custoza) creates self-doubt, uncertainty, smothering every impulse for development, in every field and branch of action.

Therefore Frassati's campaign, which I can only explain with base partisan purposes, is a crime against the nation.

1 – Frassati, for his partisan ends, seems to assume that the Great War ended in Caporetto. The episode is transformed into epilogue and supreme climax. Therefore he speaks of tragedy, of disaster, of failure, with the gloomy tone of a funereal speech […] at the somber altar of a lost, forsaken Motherland.

It's false, and a fabrication. Caporetto was one episode, nothing more than one episode. The war didn't end in Caporetto, but in Vittorio Veneto, the greatest event of our kindred since Rome, one of the most decisive battles in the history, not of Europe alone, but of the world. Frassati could have sung his “De Profundis” over the ruins of the Motherland, if the army and the people of Italy had fallen. But the Italian people offered proof of an unyielding resolve […] like no other people. In the eye of the impartial historian Italy proved stronger than Germany. Those considerations on Caporetto should be turned around entirely. […]

2 – The war solved our historical problem – Polverelli resumed, after listing a few examples of Allied military misfortunes to illustrate that Caporetto had not been an “episode” exclusive to Italy – completing the cycle opened by the old Piedmont in 1915 […] Our victory made the unity and independence of the Nation on the east front complete.

Our victory destroyed the Austrian Empire, our formidable hereditary enemy. In 1848 the small Piedmont had stood up against the giant. At the end of the cycle, in 1918, after Vittorio Veneto, Italy has become one of Europe's giants, and Austria is no more!

The Italy of 1915 resumed a movement which had been the one of Dante, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour. The interventionists were following the tradition and the fates of the Nation.

Giolitti and Frassati remained out of and against of this movement because of their partisan motives. But a part is not the Nation.

Furthermore – continued Polverelli – looking now at the matter from a more concrete perspective, the Italian intervention, by preventing a German affirmation, had secured the failure of any attempts of establishing a German hegemony over the European continent.

Frassati might object that we have built another hegemony. But the German power would have been a reality, while the French power is appearance. […]

The French victory, with its corollary of attempted and pretended hegemony, may cause at first a few inconveniences to Italy. But, in a few years, when the artificial deliberations of Versailles leave the ground to real values, and Germany is able to breath again, we'll have this situation:

Germany with 70 million men, again on the rise, but not such as to represent a danger to us.

France with 40, forced again to warily keep watch on the Rhine

Italy with 50 million men, undergoing a full development of growth and expansion, possibly the most dynamic element in the whole Europe […] A youthful Italy, no longer facing its enemy of 52 millions (we aren't afraid of Yugoslavia's 12 millions), while France and Germany neutralize each other and the British Empire is already showing its cracks.

3 – The Austria Giolitti wished to find an agreement with was the same Austria of Conrad, which kept bringing up new ways to attack us at every Spring. Harmony between Italy and Austria wasn't impossible because of us […] but because of Austrian arrogance.

Our neutrality would have given undisputedly, absolutely the victory to the Central Empires. Hence Germany in Morocco and Austria down to Albania and the Aegean.

With the obvious consequence of Italy being surrounded by a strong alliance of less than cordial neighbors – and therefore forced to increase its military expenditure, regardless of the neutralist complaints over current and past war expenses.

Instead, today (see Nitti's interview [on the advancement of the demobilization process]) a few soldiers and a few border patrols are enough.

While, again, all the other powers were forced to maintain sizable armies or fleets even after the conclusion of the conflict, Italy alone

can be safe within the marble shield of the Alps and choose, if She wishes so, to move to [the adoption of] the armed nation.

4 – And what about Tisza? Frassati forgets about him […] but we have a better memory. Austria would have declared to cede the Bishopric of Trent, but only as a temporary necessity and under duress. Then it would have, maybe one year after their victory, sent an army against us to retake – as stated by Tisza – what they had lost in Italy. […]

The Italian situation – insisted Polverelli – had improved enormously due to the intervention, compared to the necessity of maintaining an armed neutrality to protect the fruits of any terms reluctantly signed by the Austrians.

5 – War left us a legacy of economical troubles. But what would have been the difficulties of neutrality, caught in the middle of the Allied hostility and their exclusive monopoly of wares and shipping? Furthermore we are talking about temporary difficulties, while the consequences of the war would have been permanent. […]

6 – They say that, while Giolitti was in favor of absolute neutrality, Frassati leaned towards the intervention “on the other side”, to conquer Tunis and other pieces of the French loot. That's understandable. But, if this is the case, then Frassati wasn't brave enough to stand up and proclaim his imperialism. And, since he lacks courage, he is […] a “failed imperialist”, who has sought shelter with the “Spartakusism” [it's a play on words – a conflation of Spartakismo e Pussismo], like a true-born German. Except that true-born Germans may have a few excuses, for falling into the hands of Bolshevism, out of despair, after their defeat.

But an Italian bourgeois, after victory...

It pains to say, he must truly be one insincere electoral speculator […]

8 – Contrary to [what] Frassati [claims] – continued Polverelli after a few more sarcastic quips – Caporetto needs a “reverse commentary”, that is [one which] highlights the admirable resolve of our people which, from that blow, fiercely standing back, was able to walk the path to Vittorio Veneto, ending forever the Hapsburg Empire.

We need to highlight the value of our race, which made recourse to all the energies and faith of its deepest heritage. We need to pay homage […] to our youth, to our peasants, who stood their ground on the Piave, of the people who held fast, firm in their belief that Italy should rise while Austria had to fall. […]