The Washington herald., 1915-02-07

armed neutrality and he tells Of the italian lands
70 the ISrO In lStria and In oaInatIa for the 70
eovsTy Of which the nation longs.
Another article will be published next Sunday In
th1 SseI Of stories Of the sreat backgrounds Of the
war az Mr. Morgan them In his recent Journey
alOaS the route Of hapoIsOnI campaign.
VA1HEN the passenger on the train
" from Milan to Venice has looked
" out for an hour or more upon q
quiet and fruitful plain, where
the stately poplRrs OF Lombardy
stretch skyward to rival the noble bell
towers of the village churches, he sees
the landscape abruptly change from
smiling peace to frowning war. 1t is
as II he had come unwarned upon q
violent cross rip while sailing on a
smooth flowing river and been unex-
pectedly plunged into turbulent waters.
Ugly wrinkles suddenly disfigure the
face of the countryside where many
Tedou6ts fIrrow the earth. Yhile gray.
hand.
1t is another Of those old. unhappy
meeting places of the restless and con-
hictlng streams of humanity and COM
merce- The Tyrolean Alps. rising in
the north open their towering walls to
permit Lake Garda to play about their
rugged knees and let the River Adige
escape with its burden of melted snow.
And through those narrow mountain
passes the big yellow-haired northmen
nave been pouring down upon the lit
tie black headed men of the south as
long as the record of time has been
kept
The MinEIInE of Races.
Like glaciers in their irresistible
swift descent. the Huns. the Visigoths
ana the Ostrogoths. the Nandals. the
the Thuringians and all the Teutonic
tribes hurled themselves upon the
Lombard and Venetian plains.
Otten the conquering hosts came with
a
kettles to quarter themselves perma-
nently on the conquered land. But
WhoeYer breathed the soft, fragrant air
Of Italy quickly became italian and
mingled his blood with the subjugated
people. As one journeys today from
north to south. he cannot fail to see
the result and mark the sharp contrast
between the two national types. the
Po61s northern Italian ian being taller broader
compatriot in the lower half of the
peninsula.
After the close of that migratory
Italy remained for many centuries di-
vided against herself while her several
races were being slowly blended and
Thus when the modern military ma
tions of Europe rose, they found her
the richest spoil OF war. the most
And armies Of Spaniards, French and
AustriRns trampled her fields while in
the name of civilization they continued
The Cockpit of Europe.
As they conquered they prepared to
defend their conquest from envious
and covetOus powers by cTowning the
hills with the citadels and blocking the
valleys with the forts that the traveller
sees all about him while passing be-
tween Milan and Venice. One long
chain of fortifcations stretches seven
ty-five miles to Legnano and southwark
twenty-five miles from Verona and LO-
1ato to the mouldy walls of Mantua.
Within that roped arena lies the great
battle-ground Of Italy. which Freeman
>hristened the cockpit of Europe"
With a viceroy at Milan and an arch
duke at Florence. Austria had held
LOmbardy for nearly q century and
Tuscany for more than half century,
when the French revolution broke out
The Austrian Emperor at that time
seized upon the occasion to inaugurate
another Austrian Emperor bears the
heavy responsibility of having inauEu-
rated the great war that Tavages Eu-
rope today. Even stranger and closer
Euns the coincidence. For an assassi-
aatiOn of a Hapsburg archduke was
The immediate provocation of the pres
Snt strife. so then the perils of a Haps-
burg archduChess, Marie Antoinette,
Were the melting cause of the contiag-
ration which for twenty years wrapped
the Old World in its desOlating flames.
NapOIeOn's Debut.
Revolutionary France spranE forth
and repealed the allied monarchies. but
Austria refused to make peace with the
republic. which now had on its hands
the blood OF Marie Antoinette. Then 1t
was that a lOng-haired, twenty-siX-
year-old Corsican STRIPPING dashed
across the bridge of Lodi in the slow
waning OF May day in 1896 and cast
his gauntlet at the feet of Austria on
tho Lombardy plain.
Five Austrian armies were sped one
after another through the mountain
, defiIes and hurled upon the young. un-
known challenger. who, standing like
q boxer at the bottom of Lake Garda,
smashed them fast as they came.
once when two armies assaiicd him
from either side of the lake he had to
strike right and left and with his heels
kick of third army which threatened
to steal out of the fortress Of Mantua
and leap upon his back
For ten months that mill lasted in
pugilist laid low his white-coatcd ad-
NCrsary. Most OF those fields of NJ
pOIeon's first battles are framed by the
"ar windows of the train on that main
IUavelcd road Of tourists between Milan
and Venice. The old fortress OF Tomato
{ GlOwcTs upon one of them, with the
hills of CastiEliOne curvinE the south
.rrr horizon. Farther on rise the sleeps
OF Caldiero and far to the south the
church tower of Romeo looks out over
was put to rout by twenty-five
trumpeters. while only just beyond the
northern horizon lies the field of RivOli
amid its mountain crags.
F1eetluE Dream.
Leaving the cockpit Of Europe. the
victor hastened away TO the cockpit of
Asia. But his back was no sooner turned
than the Austrians came down through
the TyTOl again, and when nc returned
from Egypt and Syria he found them in
full possession OF their old Italian con-
7 quests. Then came the eagle flight over
the Alps. and once more Italy was free
Of the white coats except for Venice and
Venitia. In five years more she lost at
Austerlitz this last foothold on Italian
soil and the Tyrol and Dalmatia as well.
The kingdom Of Italy in 1870 for her
republics had vanished like a dream
at the rising of the French empire and
Napoleon now wore the iron crown of
the Lombards, extended from line far.
below Rome to the Swiss border and
around the head OF the Adriatic to Dal-
Snatia, which France held as her prov
lnce Of Illyria. But the empire and the
kingdom zoo were only a fieeting dream
in the brain of Napoleon, and as II
swiftly passed Lombardy and Tuscany
were restored to the Hapsburgs by the
congress of the nations at Vienna, along
with Venice, Venetia. the Tyrolean Tren-
tino and Dalmatia- which she never had
possessed In the old days.