763.72/6238½
The Ambassador in Italy (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 13.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I think it may interest you to have some of my impressions after a week in England. I am much struck but not in any way surprised to find that, so far as a casual observer can see, whatever stirring there may be on the part of a small if noisy element, the people at large are overwhelmingly firm in their determination to stand by the Government and to see it through to the end. I feel sure, however, that my friend and colleague here, who knows England thoroughly, keeps you informed as to everything that is important.
[Page 37]Baron Sonnino’s visit to London, accompanied by the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, de Martino, has attracted some attention here, and I have wondered if it has not something more behind it than that which the press accords to it in its very brief explanation to the effect that he had not been here for ten years and that he came to return the visit of Lloyd George to Rome last winter. I saw those gentlemen yesterday afternoon, but only for five minutes, as when I called Sonnino was on the point of going to keep an engagement with Lloyd George, after which Lloyd George had a War Committee meeting. I did not get a great deal of information in reply to my inquiry as to what they had accomplished or discussed at the Paris Conference, but I drew from de Martino an expression of great interest in what was meant by the President’s statement that he was studying the different plans for re-organization, et cetera. He asked me what the President meant by this and what the plans were. It was easy for me to say that I did not know enough to enlighten him on this point, but that I did know enough to feel that the President had already laid down the principles on which he felt the re-organization should be made, and that it seemed to me that if Italy desired to obtain the benefit of the help of the United States, it would be well for her to endeavor to align herself with the United States so that her aims might be in accord with those which the President had already enunciated. He said he was going to say that to Sonnino, who had already left.
I see from the extracts in the morning press from the Italian papers that the Nationalist press in Italy is attacking Sonnino for what it terms his surrender of Italian claims at the Paris Conference. The Moderate press is excusing what he did there as a necessary concession to England, but it is apparent that the newspapers in Italy as elsewhere know very little of what was really done at the Paris Conference beyond what was made public in Paris.
Your speech to the Press Association representatives in New York is the subject of much comment and praise in the press here this morning; that part of it in which you speak of the necessity of overcoming German might by armed force and rescuing the world from the perils of German military subjugation is especially commented on in warm terms of approval. For myself I want to say that I agree with you absolutely, remembering as I do how little effect starvation had on the South, which subsequently collapsed from want of material of war—not from want of food, which it had long undergone. I feel sure that your proposition is absolutely sound—that Germany can only be beaten on the field of battle. I think that it is universally recognized here that it was the coming in of America that saved the situation. From policy or from pride [Page 38] they may refuse to admit it publicly, but I do not believe that any well-informed man denies the fact.
The foregoing are merely my impressions but I think that in the main they give a reflection of the situation as it exists here to-day. Lloyd George said in a talk last night to press representatives that he could assure them that he had never known the spirit in France more resolute and determined than it is at present. Based on the assumption of the correctness of this statement, I would say that our entry into the war is the thing which has brought about this change.
Believe me [etc.]