WHO ARE THE HUNS?

396
Italy's Betrayal of her Allies.
no one be disquieted. I should be the first of the House of Savoy
that had ever broken his word." And then he broke it out
of fear of the howling hooligans of the street. "Only I and the
canaille would have been capable of acting thus," this weak
puppet of a king under the dominance of the mob, is said to
have exclaimed. But his actions were as ruthless as those
of his ministers,—those gentry who had so recently been loud
in their praises of "benevolent neutrality," without giving a
thought to any subsequent and shifty interpretation of old
agreements of 1901 and 1912. 1
In the universal orgy and delirium of war all honest policies
were bound to be smothered and submerged. "The Angler with
the Artificial Fly," (the life work of King Edward and the
title of the only book Sir Edward Grey ever wrote) hooked a
new fish—which now writhes and flounders on its gory hook—
all for the benefit of England. 2
1 Italy's evil conscience is very clearly seen in its anti - German press
("Corriere della Sera," "Secolo," and so on), which pretends to find a necessity
for the war by saying that Germany and Austria-Hungary are really pursuing
a policy of revenge on account of Italy's betrayal and breach of faith in August,
1914. Italy was consequently thrown into the arms of the Triple Entente!
This is real Italian brigand thought, which, out of fear and an evil conscience,
endeavors thus to impute its own motives to the Central Powers!
2 Against the will of the saner politicians, the original majority in the
Senate, the House of Representatives, and almost all the former ministers,
—the King, the street mob and the bribed press, have made this war.
Here is a picture of the latest "Cousin of His Majesty," the War-fomenterin-chief,
Gabriele d'Annunzio, which is at the same time a picture of the whole
shameful nation of degenerates which follows him:
The Socialist organ "Avanti" writes in the issue of the 16th of May:
"What signs of corruption and moral degradation! In Milan the rejected of
all men and the renegades are carried about in triumph by the beardless youth.
In Rome the hired mob, which has been fed from the troughs of the bureaucracy,
has been getting drunk on the blatant speeches of Gabriele d'Annunzio.
And what speeches 1 The singer of all kinds of criminal decadence has incited
a grateful audience in the Theatre Costanzi to betake themselves on Thursday
to Montecitorio, and to force the deputies, who were there to decide Italy's
political position, to declare for war and assume the offensive. Here is an
incitement to open treachery. D'Annunzio as leader and inspirer of the national
conscience ! This brings a flush of shame to one's cheeks. This fellow, a public
example of abhorrent indecency, who always showed the greatest contempt
for all the laws which rule the lives of ordinary decent citizens, who made