The Washington times., 1922-04-30
Written With blood of Wolf
and Lamb Well Diluted and
Well Mixed"
CREATION OF CONQUERORS
Egg Offering of Tchitcherin Is
Hailed Around World as
Serpent Creation.
BY GABRIELLE D'ANNUNZIO,
Foremost Poet. Dramatist, Soldier, Aviator
and POpuInr Lender In Italy.

copyright, 1922. by Universal Service
GENOA, April 29.-Perhap.
the readers of American newspa
pers have not forgotten some OF
my frank, crude considerations OF
the Washington and Cannes con
ferences.
The Washington conference was
not able to solve any of the ire.
mendous problems confronting 1T
but it served to place the Ameri.
can people squarely before 9
Europe unmasked, and to give
to Europe herself a view of hel
own faults and her own ruins.
The miserable end of the Came!
conference showed how doomed tt
failure is any attempt at recon
struction conducted by these Yht
insist obstinately that they mus
sharpen the ignoble and worn-ou'
instruments of the Paris peace con
ference.
A sure instinct had revolted in
the sound mind of the United
States against the treaty of Yer
sailles sealed with the signature
of the already trembling and con-
vulsed Woodrow Wilson. The
same sound instinct has advised
the United States to abstain from
appearing in the new Easter Con-
gress sitting at Genoa, convoked
during the holy days, / imagine,
as an allusion to the egg of Co
lumbus.
The Egg of Columbus.
Effectively, vaingloriously, the
nf 4 of
ference think that he had in his
pocket the egg of Columbus and
that he was going to make 1t stand
on the accustomed green carpet,
with his accustomed sleight-of-
hand, to the happy wonder of
those present as delegates.
There is nothing more comical
than the sudden indignation OF
this olds juggler who has been
obliged to acknowledge a greater
cleverness of sleight -of-hand than
both his adversaries.
The egg of Columbus was
placed on the carpet Unexpectedly
by the white hands of Herr Rath-
enau, who received Ii from the
still whittier hands of Mister
TchitCherin.
II is known that when the dis
coverer of America, at the table
of the Grandee of Spain, gave n
little knock at the end of the
egg, in order to make It stand in
the middle of the plate, all the
guests shrilled furiously. Through
the length of the centuries they
appear to me much less stpid,
much less ridiculous, than the
Genoa negotiators meeting in the
name of peace and becoming
angry at n treaty which seems
inspired by a spirit of peace.
The Germans and Russians for
give each other with Easter can
dor. They mutually condone their
debts. They promise reciprocal as
sistance, and, brother like, kiss one
another, forgetting their butcher
knives, their rivers of blood, their
devastations and the measureless
horrors of the recent past.
The anger of the entente truly
wants for both opportunity and
elegance.
Loyld George had an eXtraor-
dinarY occasion to give to his ac-
Customed poor irony, homeric
vastly. But instead of that ne has
preferred to feign Clumsily a sur
prised honesty and virtuous anger.
The feroCiOus constructors of
the Versailles treaty scream loudly.
but they thcmselvnS, with the same
tools have built this innocent
treaty of the Eas'or, which seems
written with the blood of the lamb
and the wolf well diluted and well
mixed.
This alliance of the conquered is
but the creation OF implacable con-
querors. The treaty OF Rapallo,
so mild and benign in its sober
articles, is but the announcement
of the atrocious revenge that is
being prepared. 1t is but dissim-
ulated defiance and a promise Of a
fight to a finish.
When the entente wanted to
rebuild great Poland, when the
entente wanted to place equivo-
cal Greece at Smyrna and on the
straits, when the crucified sides
of Russia and Germany the en-
tente wanted to draw q group of
of 1slam-the entente worked to
dismember Turkey, to tar her from
the Black Sea and 20 Jail the chief
of Islam-the Entente worked to
reunite the Russians and the Ger
mans against Western Europe
worked 10 reinforce an alliance OF
the two defeated empires with an
lslamic solidarity.
Never had a binder policy been
followed by a darker victory. Now
we are able to see that the entente
had no realization of what her
cause was worth--of what the
war meant. Now we are able to
see how the entente since the
first days of the arrnistice had lost
the sense of victory.
Some weeks before the armistice,
filled with anxious presage, I cried:
go Victory, thou shalt not be
mutilatcd."
Victory is forcc-entire and full
of light. Victory is energy--llber.
ator and creator. Victory is
splendid artificer-it does not dis
solve, but puts together-does not
crash, but cements-does not use
old materials with new art to edify
new spirits and new forms.
But, summed up, what has been
built by the victory that for al.
most four years the entente has so
obliquely administered?
Victory has lacerated and mutt
lated herself, as she has lacerated
and Lutilated Europe.
flaving thrown down the Rus.