New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-30
Italv's Declaration of War.

Germany Of half its value IN the eyes OF
the world. 1t was not an empty gesture
as Berlin too promptly asserted. Rather
il was but the prelude to something SO
vastly more absorbing that the prelude has
been lost sight of entirely. And yet the
Italian action has a value of its own, out
side of the military field, where 1t is quite
as Berlin says, an empty thing, because II
merely gives legal form to a condition
long existing.
Ii is interesting TO recall the relation OF
Rumania to Italy. The most deeply rooted
sentiment in the Rumanian mind is that
their race is Latin, Roman, as their name
signifies. Paris and Rome have been the
cultural sources of Bucharest, despite the
Hohenzollern sovereign. Indeed, 1t Is 10
Napoleon III that Rumania, like Italy,
owes its liberation and unity In no small
measure. The voice Of Rome, then, has
had an immediate echo, and we can see
what powerful weapon in German hands
the failure of Italy to make her gesture
was in the critical days of last summer.
But having recognized the relation between
Italian and Rumanian action, 1t remains
10 examine the case which is purely Italian
The reasons for Italy's previous failure
TO declare war upon Germany have re-
NAMED obscure. They have provoked much
bitter comment in Paris, London and Pc
trograd and they have never been salts
factorily explained in Rome. The usual
exclamation has been that German control
of Italian finance had been so complete and
Italian funds so generally diverted to Ber-
lin that nothing short Of a financial col
lapse would follow hostilities between
Rome and Berlin. But this has hardly
seemed convincing.
There have also been numerous tantas-
tic stories one Of the most familiar was
the assertion that a secret article IN the
Triple Alliance bound Austria and Ger
many to support the House of Savoy
against an internal revolution. Arguing
that the publication of such document
would have obvious perils for the Italian
Crown, it has been asserted that the ltal-
ian sovereign has exercised deciding IN
fuence in preventing Italy from doing that
which she has now done.
These speculations may now be dis
missed, because Italy has taken the final
step. What is significant is that this step
marks the final collapse of the whole edi-
fee which Bismarck erected in the years
when he guided German foreign policy, the
edifice which he handed over to the present
Emperor when William II began his mo-
mentous career. Thirty-five years have
passed since Bismarck pushed France into
Tunis and thus provoked bitter quarrel
between the two great Latin nations. 1t is
"A full generation since first Crispi and then
his sovereign went 10 Berlin and the cele-
brated bargain was made by which Italy
turned her back upon her ally of Magenta
and Solferino and became after fashion
one Of the guarantors of German possession
in Frances Irredenta Alsace-Lorraine the
bargain which for full thirty years pre-
vented the completion of the work of
achieving Italian unity; and Bismarck had
long been in his grave before France and
Italy at last perceived the folly Of playing
lne GeTIldU SdiIt.
II was not until the Kaiser made his first
memorable venture in world affairs, that
of Tangier, that the change began. Nor
was the change speedily completed. AS re-
Gently as the Tripolitan War, Italian war
ships seized the French steamships Ma
nouba and Carthage and sharp message
from Poincare, then President of the Coun-
Gil and now President of the Republic, I'M
chained new bitterness in Rome.
Yet if one were TO fix a date, it would
be fair TO say that the German gesture
at Tangier, the eruption of the Kaiser
into the Mediterranean and the subse-
quent conference at Algeciras marked the
coming Of Italy's deliverance from Ger
many. In that conference Italy sided
rot with Germany, but with France and
Britain. From that conference Germany
emerged actually defeated, having suf-
fered a loss of prestige, which was the
first evidence TO the world that German
craftsmanship had fallen into weaker
bands than those of the Iron Chancellor.
Three years later the Bosnian episode
opened real breach between Italy and
her allies, because it revealed the full eX-
tent of Austrian purpose in the Balkans.
When Italy attacked Turkey in the Tri-
politan War Austria massed troops on the
Trentine frontier, and many Germans,
notably Bernhard, advocated a German
attack upon Italy. After this moment
there was no real belief in Germany that
Italy would stand with the Central Pow
ers. And as Italy moved away from the
Triple Alliance and Britain moved tow
ard the Franco Russian Alliance German
supremacy on the Continent, achieved by
Bismarck, became involved and doomed.