WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

THE CAPORETTO DISASTER 491
many without rifles. This gave us some idea of the extent of
the defeat and of the demoralisation that had followed defeat.
But we were reassured by accounts we received of the
Duke of Aosta's army and of the forces under the command
of General Diaz.
One little episode brought vividly to our minds the vastness
of this war. Before we left Genoa, the wooden shutters
were clamped down on the sea side of our railway carriages
to shut out the light, lest we provide a target for stray German
submarines cruising in the Mediterranean off that coast.
The following day, we witnessed a spectacle that filled us
with pride, a convoy of British tramps steaming in perfect
order under the protection of a couple of British destroyers.
It was a faultlessly marshalled answer to scoffing admirals
who ridiculed the notion of tramps keeping station.
At Rapallo, where we arrived on November 4th, we met
Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino, and we were to judge
the value of the civilian leadership enjoyed by Italy in her
testing hour. They were seriously disturbed by the gravity
of the position, but they were both men of undoubted
courage, and never have they displayed that courage more
conspicuously than at this crisis in their country's fate.
Baron Sonnino was more responsible than any individual
Italian statesman for bringing his country into the War and
disaster meant for him the eternal reproach of having led
Italy to her ruin. He must have realised all that as he entered
the conference chamber at Rapallo. Nevertheless, I
found him as resolute as ever to fight to the end of the issue
he had forced by his personality. Never a word of surrender
or of compromise did this dour and unbending diplomat
utter. I discovered at the Rome Conference that he was
entirely destitute of the war mind. His whole thought was
centred in the aims and manoeuvres of the diplomat. He had
no understanding of war, its requirements, appliances or