The Great Events by Famous Historians

In December, 1910, a congress of Italian Nationalists was held in Florence, and at that gathering, which was attended by several hundred persons, including numerous well-known names, many aspects of Italian national life were examined and discussed. The various speakers impressed on their hearers the importance of Nationalism as the basis for all political thought and action. The weakness of the country, the contempt which other nations felt for Italy, the unsatisfactory state both of home and foreign politics, and the poverty of a large part of the population, were all traced to the absence of a sane and vigorous patriotism. The strengthening of the army and navy, the development of a military spirit among the people, a radical change of direction in the conduct of the nation's foreign policy, and the ending of the present attitude of subservience to all other Powers, great or small, were regarded as the first

desiderata

of the country. The Turks, too, who since the revolution of 1908 had become particularly truculent toward the Italians, especially in Tripoli, also came in for rough treatment, and various speakers demanded that the Government should secure adequate protection for Italian citizens and trade in the Ottoman Empire, and that a watch should be kept on Tripoli lest others seized it before the moment for Italian occupation arrived. Signor Corradini insisted that there were worse things for a nation than war, and that the occasional necessity for resort to the "dread arbitrament" must be boldly faced by any nation worthy of the name.

The congress proved a success, and the ideas expressed in it which had been "in the air" for some time were accepted by a considerable number of people. The Nationalist Association was founded then and there and soon gathered numerous adherents; a new weekly paper, L'Idea Nazionale, commenced publication on March 1, 1911 (the anniversary of Adowa), and rapidly became an important organ of public opinion, while several dailies and reviews adopted Nationalist principles or viewed them with sympathy. Italian Nationalism has no resemblance to the parties of the same name in France, Ireland, or elsewhere; indeed, it is not really a party at all, for it gathers in Liberals, Conservatives, Radicals, Clericals, Socialists even, provided they accept the patriotic idea and are anxious to see their country raised to a higher place in the congress of nations even at the cost of some sacrifice.

Italy, according to Professor Sighele (Il Nazionalismo ed i Partiti politici p. 80 sq.), must be Imperialist in order to prevent the closing up of all the openings whence the nation receives its oxygen, and to prevent the Adriatic from becoming more and more an Austrian lake, to prevent even the Mediterranean from being closed around us like a camp guarded by hostile sentinels, and to provide a field of activity for our emigrants wherein they will enjoy that protection which they now lack, and which only a bold foreign policy, a thorough preparation for war, and a clear Imperialist attitude on the part of the rulers of the State can give them.

For some time the Government continued to appear impervious to the Nationalist spirit and professed to regard the movement as a schoolboy's game. But it could not long remain indifferent to so wide-spread a feeling. Italy's relations with Turkey were rapidly approaching a crisis. The new Ottoman régime, while it was proving no better than the old in the matter of corruption, inefficiency, and persecution of the subject-races, had one new feature—an outburst of rabid chauvinism and of hatred for all foreigners, but especially for Italians, whom the Young Turks regarded as the weakest of nations. Never had Italian prestige fallen so low in the Levant as at this period, and the Italian Government did nothing to retrieve the situation. In Tripoli, above all, where Italy's reversionary interest had been sanctioned by agreements with England and France, the position of Italian citizens and firms was rendered well-nigh intolerable. Turkish persecution reached such a point that two Italians, the monk, Father Giustino, and the merchant, Gastone Terreni, were assassinated at the instigation and with the complicity of the authorities, without any redress being obtained.