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Speech delivered at Milan, 20th October 1918.

Immediately after the end of the war a group of journalists and politicians, belonging for the most part to the Republican and Radical democracy, took the initiative in a movement supporting the future work of the League of Nations. Later, however, this initiative had to be abandoned by those who were loyal to victory, because it seemed clear to them that the pseudo-idealism of the Allies would prejudice the legitimate interests of the Italian nation. The following speech, however, shows clearly the generosity of Italian ex-soldiers disappointed by the realism of other countries’ national aspirations.

The Executive Committee of the Wounded and Disabled Soldiers has asked me to speak on the order of the day expressing support of the idea of the League of Nations, which, already preconceived in Italy, is now so nobly advocated by President Wilson, and which proclaims the determination of the Italian people to co-operate effectively in bringing about its realisation. I shall do so shortly, as the question is not new, but is already understood throughout the country.

The disabled soldiers have taken the initiative, and it is significant, as only those who have suffered most from the war have the right to say what the peace ought to be, not those who have wilfully opposed it and would have led us to defeat or—not wishing that the people should suffer defeat—to continuous war.

This is the hour particularly suited to the discussion of these problems. Already a League of Nations seems to be in the process of realisation; in the trenches the different peoples are mixed up and are associating with each other. The humblest peasant, dreaming of return to his native village after the hard experiences of the trenches, has widened his spiritual horizon and, for a time, breathes a world atmosphere.

In the other nations, the question has already come under discussion in the papers, the universities and the Parliaments. It could be said that Italy was behindhand, but we might reply that in a certain sense we have forestalled the others. There have been epochs in our history when Italian thought has been almost too universal, but I think perhaps at those times the universality of our literature, our philosophy, our art, of our spirit, in fact, was our highest and noblest title to greatness.

But, without returning to the Middle Ages, two men of the nineteenth century, Cattaneo and Mazzini, prove that Italian thought led, and that the other nations followed the furrow we were the first to plough.

This war may be divided into two periods: the first, from the outbreak of hostilities to the American intervention; the second, from the American intervention up to to-day. In the first, the war has a national and territorial character. The names of Metz, Trento, Fiume and Zara occur frequently, and can be said to sum up our aims. The territorial questions come first. The systemised jurisdiction of the world is not yet spoken of; the war is world-wide in its direct and indirect repercussion in as far as England has already made use of her colonies, since Australians and Indians came to fight in Europe, but it is not yet world-wide in its extension and aims. The second period began with the April of ’17. Already, in the first period, English politicians had begun to disregard the territorial problems; but this process was shaped, hurried on and definitely settled by the intervention of America. But in my modest opinion, the national and territorial questions must not be underrated too much; that would be to play into the hands of the anti-war agitators and the Germans. These are questions of justice. It is a good thing to remember that Wilson, in all his messages, though he certainly made a transposition of values, never failed to establish that vindication of national rights, without which the settlement of Europe and the world of to-morrow in general could have no definite meaning.

When we speak of a League of Nations we must take into account certain dispositions. Cesare Lombroso used to divide men into two categories: the “misoneists” and the “philoneists”: the misoneists, who accept the revealed truths, lean upon them and sleep upon them; the philoneists, who are restless, impatient spirits and as necessary to the world as the wheels and shafts to a cart. For the first the so-called kingdom of the impossible has always extensive boundaries, but the war has enormously reduced that kingdom. That which yesterday was a misty, fantastic Utopia, to-day has become reality and fact.

Our enemies talk too much about the League of Nations. There are furious “Wilsonites” of the latest kind in Austria and in Germany. Now I must say that seeing this kind of people bleating like lambs makes a certain impression on me. (The simile is that of a Republican German paper printed at Berne.) They are the same who burnt the cities of Belgium, who sank ships without leaving a trace, or gave orders to that effect; they are the same who carried off men and women in their retreat. They shout “League of Nations,” but we cannot be mixed up with them. There is evidently an underlying motive. But they will be unmasked by the victorious armies of the Entente.

Some people say, Would not this League of Nations be a substitute for victory? No! on the other hand, it presupposes victory. Wilson has talked of absolute victory.

It is said, in a Socialist review, that a League of Nations is impossible if the Allies gain a military victory, because the desire for revenge would lurk in the depths of the German mind. Now there are three hypotheses as regards the way in which the conflict may end. The first is the victory of the enemy, and this has already fallen through. If this had come about, there would not have been a League of Nations, but a master at Berlin and slaves in the rest of Europe, which would then have become a German colony. The second is a war which ends in neither victory nor defeat; and this is the most repugnant and inhuman of all, as it would leave all the problems unsolved, and give a peace which was only a truce. The third is the solution which is now shaping itself gloriously upon the horizon—our victory. There is no danger of the spirit of revenge being fostered by the Germans to-morrow, because we allies in war would remain allies in peace. Germany will find herself face to face with the same coalition which defeated her, and will have to resign herself to the fait accompli. The League of Nations will be formed without Germany, against Germany, or with Germany when she has expiated her crime by being defeated.

Some people say: “Does it not seem very dangerous to go back to universality, after the experiences of the past?” Ernest Renan must have been up against this problem when he wrote: “The nation which entertains problems of the religious and social order is always weak. Every country which dreams of a kingdom of God, lives on general ideas and carries out work in the interests of the universe, sacrifices through this its own particular destiny and weakens and destroys its efficiency as a territorial power. It was thus with Judea, Greece and Italy. It will, perhaps, be thus with France.”

Renan was a great man, but his prophecy has not been fulfilled. France during the nineteenth century entertained universal ideas, but with the outbreak of war she recovered her national spirit. Internationalism may be dangerous when a single nation advocates it, but to-day all the nations of the world are seeking each other, in order to lay the foundations of a lasting and pacific means of co-existence. Besides this, the racial, historical and moral sense of every nation has been developed by the war. It is not a paradox but a reality that the war, while it has made us find ourselves and exalted the national spirit, has, at the same time, carried us beyond those boundaries which we have defended and conquered.

There is no danger of the levelling of the national spirit as the result of contact with other nations. Solid foundations are needed for national unity, and for this reason the condition of the working classes must be raised. No nation can become greater in which there are enormous masses condemned to the conditions of life of prehistoric humanity.

Another paradox of this war is that the nations fighting against the Germans have not yet formed a peace alliance. The peace manifesto to the peoples of the world ought to have come from Versailles. This could help, among other things, to make the German crisis more acute. It has not been done yet. The people intuitively felt the necessity. Sometimes truths are arrived at more quickly by intuition than by reasoning, and the people felt that that was the path to follow. And we are upon that path to-day. Not long ago Clémenceau said that the liberation of France must be the liberation of humanity.

It is true that to put the idea of the League of Nations into practice would present difficulties, especially at first. According to me the problems which will have to be faced and solved are of a political, economic, military and colonial order. In a month’s time you will have reports upon these subjects, and I do not wish to tire you with hasty anticipations.

We have arrived at a decisive point in history. While we are gathered here the battle is raging; there are millions and millions of men who are fighting their last fight. Let us swear that all this has not been in vain, but that these sacrifices must mark a new phase in the history of humanity. Let us say to ourselves that all that can be tried will be tried, in order to make the purple flower of liberty spring from the blood shed in the cause of freedom, and that justice shall reign sovereign over all the peoples of the renewed world!