763.72/9320½
The Ambassador in Italy (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 1.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I am sending by this pouch the translation of the last communication received by me from Baron Sonnino, under date of March 9th, relating to the Convention or stipulation touching the conscription for military service of the citizens of the one country by the Government of the other.79 The substance of this communication has already been telegraphed you on March 10th, being my 1464 [1462],80 and I hope that the agreement arrived at will appear as satisfactory to you as it has done to me.
Baron Sonnino has been laid up for over two weeks suffering I learn from boils or carbuncles; he has, however, continued his work, which, indeed, seems to have been the cause of his illness, and though no one has been able to see him personally, he himself signed the Note referred to above. Just what the effect of his illness would be on the Government it is hard to tell. It is said in some circles that Orlando and Nitti are drawing closer together; while in other circles it is said that Orlando considers Nitti as a serious rival for the Premiership and knows that Sonnino does not want this post, but prefers the Ministry for Foreign Affairs—also that Sonnino has the confidence of the country and likewise of the Allies. Furthermore, a statement which Nitti made the other day in which he claims to have unearthed what is now called here the “Silk Waste Scandal”, was taken by Orlando as claiming credit which the latter thought belonged to him as the Minister of the Interior, under whom comes all the Secret Service work relating to internal affairs. This, according to the rumor, has caused some coolness on Orlando’s part towards Nitti. Italian politics and political combinations, however, [Page 111] change so rapidly that I would not like to prophesy what the future combinations may be. It can only be said with certainty that Sonnino has hitherto been the chief force for carrying on the war to the bitter end that his influence has impressed itself on both of the younger men—that is, Orlando and Nitti, who, I believe recognize—both of them, the necessity of following this policy through to the end.
Orlando is now in London having gone there from the front, where he and Nitti and the Minister of War and one or two other Ministers went last week to see the King, and—it is said, to learn on the ground the feeling of the Army. Several reasons are assigned for Orlando’s visit to Paris and London, one of which is that he has gone to make it plain to France and England that Italy must be furnished more coal and more grain, and that British and French troops must be left here to help withstand the expected attack of Austria and her allies against this weakest link in the Allied chain,—if they expect Italy to be able to hold out on the Piave Line, or, indeed, at all.
There is another rumor to the effect that this visit has a further object and relates Orlando’s visit to the story hinted at in the press some time back about a meeting of a British high official and an Austrian high official in Switzerland for purposes of discussing Austria’s making a separate peace. You will know much better than I what foundation there was for this rumor, and I give you the one relating to Orlando’s visit simply for your information.
I have been informed by Signor Nitti that the Italian Loan subscriptions have reached about six milliards of Lire. I do not know, however, what form all of these subscriptions have taken. He is looking forward with great interest to the expected visit of Mr. Crosby; and I myself am doing the same, for I feel that anything which can be done to show the Italian people that we are drawing closer to them will have a great effect in strengthening their morale. The morale of the Army is, I am assured, exceedingly good, but unquestionably the morale of the people needs bolstering up in view of all the writing that goes on in the press and all the talk that goes on outside about approaching peace negotiations, as the result of the Notes and speeches which have been made on this subject by leading public men on one side or the other.
If the stories about Austria’s wishing to make peace are true, she appears to be going about it, so far as Italy is concerned, in a somewhat curious way, unless indeed she feels she has some good reason to believe that her attempt to destroy Italian cities and kill numbers of the civil population will terrorize Italians into insisting on stopping the war. She not only has increased immensely her attempts at destruction of cities in the war zone, such as Venice, Treviso and [Page 112] Padua, but has just sent a dirigible or dirigibles to drop bombs on Naples, where the night before last some fifteen people were killed and some forty were wounded in a dirigible raid. Apparently the raid on Naples has not affected the spirit of the people in the least, though in Venice, where so many of the men have left and the remaining population are mainly old men, women and children, the continued air raids have got on the nerves of the people and arrangements have had to be made to remove them to a certain extent. We had quite an alarm here just after day-break which proved to be the result of the return of the dirigible from its innocent diversion of killing civilians in Naples, it having taken a course which indicated that it was returning by way of Rome. All the lights were extinguished and street cars and other traffic were stopped, but the dirigible did not come this way. The story got out that the Vatican which has its own electric plant, kept its lights burning, and some color is given to the report by the fact that the press this morning contains a statement that the Vatican will extinguish its lights along with the rest of the city should any future alarm be given.
As I forward regularly weekly reports containing a resumé of the political news given in the press from day to day, I do not feel it necessary to do more than send you in these letters what may be termed “inside information”, or information which will throw a light on what is sent in those reports.
I will say in closing, however, that I consider the situation here, especially among the civil population is sufficiently serious for us to avail ourselves of every occasion and means to show the people that we are doing more and more all the time to aid and sustain them. They certainly rely more and more on America for this, and I feel it important for us to do as much as lies in our power to justify their expectation.
I am [etc.]
- Communication of March 9 not printed; for correspondence previously printed on this subject, see ibid., supp. 2, pp. 648 ff.↩
- Ibid., p. 695.↩