The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919 Read Online Free PDF Page B

uttered the only phrase for which he is still remembered: sacro egoismo , ‘sacred egoism’. This principle, he said, must guide foreign policy. His enemies pounced on the phrase; national interests should be decisive, but calling them ‘sacred’ was a nationalist twist, and branding them as ‘egoism’ appealed to those who saw politics as a mystical arena where national identities were locked in struggle.
    Sidney Sonnino became foreign minister in early November, pledging to uphold ‘vigilant neutrality’. Raised as a Protestant by his converted Jewish father and Scottish or Welsh mother, Sonnino was an outsider in Italian politics. He served two brief terms as prime minister before 1914. A taciturn man with no penchant for ideas, he never apologised and certainly never explained. Nevertheless, he rose in the war to become Catholic Italy’s most important civilian leader. At this stage, his and Salandra’s real objective could not be admitted. Parliament and the public wanted neutrality, as did the Church, and the army was not ready for war. 1 Even so, the Socialists smelled a rat; by early November, the party newspaper Avanti ! tagged Salandra as ‘the minister for war’. 
    Berlin sent a senior figure to try to persuade Italy to stay neutral. Prince Bernhard von Bülow, a former chancellor, was convinced the Central Powers had mishandled their former ally. Germany should have foreseen Austria’s refusal to take the Italians seriously. This was true, but he arrived with nothing but his good offices, seeking concessions without anything up his sleeve. Franz Josef refused to give up the south Tyrol, but he was very old; the Italians should wait calmly and let nature take its course. Bülow did not see that this was impossible. Europe was being torn apart by a war without precedent; whatever the outcome, and even if the fighting only lasted a few months or a year, as most people still expected, the prewar order would not be restored. Many middle-class Italians were convinced that they must strike, now or never.
    In January, Sonnino itemised Italy’s demands to Vienna. Trentino and Friuli as far as the River Isonzo should be transferred to Italy, while Trieste should be autonomous and neutralised, with no occupying forces. Pretending not to hear, the Austrians said that compensation should only involve Albania, in which Italy did indeed want a stake, as shown by its occupation of the port of Valona (now Vlorë) in December. As Austria did not control Albania, the retort was doubly irrelevant. Bülow did not help by suggesting the Italians would be satisfied by getting a fraction of the south Tyrol, because they accepted that Trieste was Austria’s lung. The Austrians suspected the German mediator had gone native.
    Early in February, Giolitti went public with his misgivings. Italy could, he said, obtain ‘a good deal’ of what it wanted without fighting. His statement was mere common sense to most Italians:
I certainly don’t consider war to be a blessing, as the nationalists do, but as a misfortune that must only be faced when the honour and great interests of the country require it. I do not think it is legitimate to take the country to war because of feelings about other peoples. Anyone is free to throw his own life away for an emotion, but not the country.
    Italy’s vital interests were not at stake: the Trentino would drop into its hands sooner or later, the Isonzo would become the north-eastern border and a compromise would be found for Trieste. Why, then, go to war? For Salandra and Sonnino, however, vital interests required mastery of the Adriatic. The south Tyrol, the Isonzo valley and Trieste were only the start; they wanted Istria and Dalmatia, virtual control of Albania, and a strong role in the Balkan hinterland. Austria would never grant these demands; even the Allies might balk at them.
    That Giolitti, with all his acumen, did not grasp the scale of Salandra’s and Sonnino’s ambition gives a