New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-03
ITALY A CINDERELLA.
Abused in the Triple Alliance, She
Is Justified In Going to War.
To tho Editor Of The Tribune.

To tho Editor Of The Tribune.
siri In your esteemed paper OF yesterday
read n letter by a certain Mr.. B. Viola, IN
answer 10 another by one Of his namesakes
while It Is painful, for an italian, to read
such things as Mr.. b. Viola wrote, yet his
case Is not at oil surprising, nor Is II new
I do not know who this gentleman Isl but
Judging from the tenor OF his writing, think
he Is one Of those lost souls who have no
country, or some other sort Of individual who
conceais his real identity under an assumed
name. I would never have dealt with him.
but the inexactness Of his statements com
pels me TO do so.
First, he asks; who compelled italy to 20
into this allisnce?" Nobody" he answers.
Now, let me tell Mr.. B. Viola that the ALL
snce Of Italy with the Teutonic empires was
forced on her by the artful and wicked
subterfuges OF Bismarck, who knew no law,
in order TO preserve to Germany the conquest
made. Bismarck wished Italy in the alliance
because this alliance was necessary to his
political system.
As for Austria, II Is a we'll known fact that
having seen that cordial relations with Rus
sia were impossible, she turned to Italy for
an alliance; because It was not possible for
her to guard against this nation should Rus
STA attack her. It was the time (1881), when,
at the suggestion Of Bismarck, the Viennese
government undertook we'll directed jour
nalistic campaign, In which the idea was
launched to have Italian royalty visit Vienna.
The Count di Robilant was then Ambas-
sador to Vienna, and he wrote from that
capital to Mancini that the King should abb
stain from that visit, as II was not necessary.
But this could not suit the Iron Chancellor,
who. once more, with his usual brutality, re-
sorted 10 the sharp and imperative method.
This time the menace came from the mouth
Of one Of his most faithful mouthpieces, tha
historian Treitschke, In the form Of the
Roman Question"
Bismarck desired that Italy, once for all,
should participate In the Triple Alliance, and
he desired that she should decide without
hesitation, or humiliation and punishment
would befall her. The Pope would furnish
him the means: "The law of guarantee opens
the door of Italy to all Europe"
It is a long "via Crucis" for Italians to re
member those infamous deeds whose eulmi-
nant points were: The Tunisian question, the
imposed visit of King Humbert to Vienna and
the odious Roman Question"
There is another statement in Mr.. Viola's
letter that deserves an answer He speaks OF
Italy having enjoyed "all the benefits during
these years (the duration Of the Triple Ali
ence)" but what benefits? Tunis is deed OF
Bismarck, who saw in the reciprocal position
Of Italy and France, in the Mediterranean
Sea, the seed Of discord between the two ma
TONS as he himself wrote in a memorandum
of 1868.
In 1891 the treaty of commerce and an
Italian loan TO be launched in Paris failed on
account of Bismarck. Again, In 1882, when
the first treaty Of the Triple Alliance was
signed, it was understood to remain secret
but Bismarck first violated the pact when,
twenty days after its signature, he alluded in
the Reichstag to the existence of the treaty,
leaving rs exposed to the attacks of the
angered rench government. Some time later,
October q, Count Kalnoky initiated his ex-
ample before a Hungarian delegation. Truly,
to the Italian people, the treaty was nothing
but a series of disappontments and bitter
nesses. Never before had tho governments
of Berlin and Vienna been so rude and in
different toward Italy. Italy was the real
Cinderella of the alliance, forgotten ana NAL
treated.
As to Austria Hungary's contention that
she had to protect herself against "Serbia's
revolutionary Vaccinations" etc, as an ex-
cuse for the horrible war, it is nothing but a
monument o. falsehood. The assassination
of the archduke and his consort was a mere
pretext, for all the world knows, from the
declaration of one not suspected of triple
fobia, ex-Premier Giovanni Giolitti before
the Italian Chamber, November, 1910, that
Austria had already planned to crush Serbia
| in 1913. and for that purpose asked the late
Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Mar
quis di San Giuiano, if Italy would support
her.
/ All the above, Mr.. B. Viola should know, is
history, and history, like mathematics, is not
an opinion
! Regarding the future development OF the
war, | beg Mr.. Viola not to disturb himself.
| Italy will and can protect herself without any
outside aid. Ii there should be any serious
blow aimed at her, that blow will not come
| from Austria. Somehow, everybody seems
able to beat Austria" said George Bernard
Shaw And besides, what terrible beating
she took from Serbia and Russia before the
German officers assumed full control Of the
Austrian army Oh! what a splendid show of
/ incapacity!
| As TO Germany, we shall see; nobody ever
said that Germany should monopoize all the
victories Who knows? Probably she will
get from Italy what she escaped from the
Allies J. TORTORA.
! Brooklyn, June o. 1915.
! Irich EmjpratiOn EXtenuated