WHO ARE THE HUNS?

Italy's Betrayal of her Allies. 397
The translated text of the various notes is given in the
original, page 572 et seq.
The madness of the spy-fever seized upon Italy in
its turn and led to the most degraded forms of brutal excess,
such as the demolition of the furnishings of the Hotel Métropole
in Milan. These organized outbursts of sheer animalism in
Milan, a town in which the mob raged and ruled in its anarchistic
fury and looted and devastated some eighty German and
Austrian shops in a single day, took place with the open assent
and toleration of the police and the military. It was only
after it was too late that the latter intervened in an energetic
way. The same conditions prevailed at Turin and at Ancona.
The "Avanti" of Milan declares that the new Prefect had
ascertained that 980 dwellings had been looted, 672 business
quarters destroyed and a great number of valuable goods stolen
from the houses of Italians during these riots of the mob.
Apart from all this there were other acts and outrages
which were quite Russian in their character. The German
Consulate in Milan was stormed by the mob on the afternoon
of May 28th, 1915, without the slightest effort being made by
a disgusting traffic of his talent, added new and shameful pages to the Italian
"Chroniques Scandaleuses," whose name dishonors even the List of Bankrupts,
who, in conclusion, on account of his unbridled excesses, sought refuge in
France, from whence for some years he used to hurl his spite and his reproaches
against Italy and the Italians,—this D'Annunzio it is who suddenly appears
in the character of a leader and counsellor of the nation, and as a prophet of
war! Such triumphs cannot pain us. When that class which declares that
it moulds the destinies of the nation furnishes an example of moral paralysis
such as this it must certainly make every effort to withstand the severest
tests. Nevertheless the most terrible disillusions are in store for it. The orgy
of patriotism, of which D'Annunzio is a symbol, is only the outward sign
of an approaching decay. And when the war comes, when affliction, want
and agony descend upon our country, and the unhappy situation of our people
is rendered still worse by the oppression of the wretched working classes,
then, as always, the people alone will have to endure these consequences.
For the poet will once more have crossed the Alps, to revel in his heathenish
pleasures among strangers, there to enjoy in comfort the fruits of these heroic
labors of his which have plunged the Italian people in a bath of blood.. . ."
What can be the worth of a people that will follow a leadership such
as this ?