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Updated: June 29, 2025
It may have been the literal fact that the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation.
The episode was thus described by the Italian minister, Giolitti: "On the 9th of August, 1913, about a year before the war broke out, I, being then absent from Rome, received from my colleague, San Giuliano, the following telegram: 'Austria has communicated to us and to Germany her intention to act against Serbia, and defines such action as defensive, hoping to apply the casus foederis of the Triple Alliance, which I consider inapplicable.
At last they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy.
Giolitti was the champion and spokesman of the nation, and his estimate of its aspirations alone carried weight. And now once more the Dictator, acting through his parliamentary lieutenants, organized another anti-governmental demonstration which humiliated the Cabinet and impaired its authority as a negotiator. Of this favourable diversion the Austrians availed themselves to the full.
A clever American, long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to make his words significant, told me, "The country does not know what it wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether there will be war!" That was May 9 a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome the same week and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought....
I saw the uproar melt away in the soft darkness of the Roman nights, leaving the cavalry at their vigil before Santa Maria Maggiore, guarding the repose of Giovanni Giolitti. I can testify that the "piazza" was composed very largely of perfectly respectable folk like myself. It varied more or less as chance gatherings of men will vary.
As Italy seethed and boiled, threatening to break into revolutionary violence, while the King received one respectable nonentity after another, who each time after a very brief consideration declined the proffered responsibility, Giolitti must have thought that the life of the politician is not an easy one. He was stoned when he appeared on the streets in his motor.
The Salandra cabinet, which had resigned as a protest against the machinations of Giolitti, was returned to power. Through every city, town, and hamlet from Savoy to Sicily, thronged workmen, students, business and professional men, even priests and monks, waving the red-white-and-green banner and shouting the national watch-words "Italia Irredenta," and "Avanti Savoia!"
In the persons, indeed, of Mazzini and Giolitti, we may find a picture of the two aspects of pre-war Italy, of that irreconcilable duality which paralyzed the vitality of the country and which the Great War was to solve.
It was not only rash: it was bad politics! But what Giolitti and men of his stripe the world over cannot understand is that the people are never as crafty and wise and mean as their politicians. The people are still capable of honest emotions, of heroic desires, of immense sacrifices. They love and hate and loathe with simple hearts.
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