LAND AND .WATER 
May 8, 1915) 
HE INTERVENTION OF ITALY. 
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Btepjf ^ seems quite clear that the next tew days 
■ will decide whether the pivot of neutral 
intervention, Italy, will come into the war or 
not. 
There are three neutrals worth considering — 
and only three (no one outside the newspai)er 
owners in this country imagines intervention from 
elsewhere). These three are the Northern Balkan 
group — that is, the Bulgaro-Roumanian, the 
Greeks, and the Italians; and of these by far the 
most important is, of course, the Italian neutral. 
In a certain fashion Bulgaria and Roumania 
balance each other, but Roumania was always 
more ready to engage upon the side of the Allies 
than was Bulgaria to engage upon the side of 
the Austro- Germans. The intervention of Rou- 
mania when it came, or if it came, would haA^e a 
positive object, not indeed independent of the vic- 
tory of the Allies, but progressively obtainable as 
that victory was gradually approached. Roumania 
had for her object (and still has) the occupation 
of territory governed by Hungary though in- 
habited by Roumanians. She further lives in 
a lively fear that if she does not intervene, this 
capital popular object of redeeming what is cer- 
tainly national territory will be lost. The Court 
of Roumania is Prussian, and that is the main 
force against the intervention of Roumania. 
Bulgaria also wants territory which is nation- 
ally Bulgarian and which Austrian policy de- 
flected after the second Balkan War into the hands 
of Serbia. But this territory which Bulgaria de- 
sires to occupy is close to the Grecian boundary and 
close to the ^gean, and a quarrel with the Allies 
would further cut off Bulgarian territory during 
the war from all access to the outer sea. 
The temptation of Bulgaria depended much 
more upon passion than upon reason. She had a 
great deal to lose if she made a mistake and 
jumped too early, for she would have made of 
Russia a permanent and implacable enemy, and 
the Allies, once victorious, would have left her 
no opportunity for such treason in the future. 
She had very little to gain unless she moved after 
it was perfectly safe to move. 
The Greeks, had they intervened early, under 
the leadership of the man who is perhaps the best 
statesman in Europe (and almost the only man of 
outstanding ability which the Parliamentary sys- 
tem has produced in our time), would have had 
immediate and definite advantages. They would 
have had a claim to all that doubtful land, Greek 
in soul and language, but politically a prey to any 
intervener, which rings all round the ^Egean. 
With every week that passes the reward they 
can hope for grows less. The balance against 
their intervention was the certainty of very con- 
siderable losses in a population already tried by a 
double war and in an adventure which is ad- 
mittedly one of extreme difficulty. Their smaller 
craft would be useful upon the sea, their numbers 
against the Dardanelles, but had the experiment 
failed, even with their aid, that aid would have 
been wasted. 
Now, in the matter of Italy the question of 
intervention is something altogether different. 
Italy is a Great Power. Italy has had months in 
which to prepare, and during the latter part of 
those months has been preparing with great in- 
dustry. She is in a position which no other Power 
connected with this war can boast : a position of 
preparation undertaken after the lesson of the war 
had been learned. She knows, for instance, the 
supreme importance to-day of vast quantities of 
artillery ammunition, and that is why she has 
stopped so much cotton on its way to Germany. It 
will be a pretty piece of historical irony if the 
American cotton, which the imperfection of the 
British blockade designed for our enemies, should 
after all be turned against them and should be 
discharging missiles to our profit. Italy has also 
had ample time to acquaint herself through the 
Intelligence Department of her Government with 
the dispositions of tlie German Powers. She 
knows in a way that we can never know what their 
public opinion is and what their abilities are for 
meeting her upon her own frontier, for she has 
been neutral and the recipient of not a few truth- 
ful communications all this long time. The enemy 
has told her things not always false, with the ob- 
ject of persuading her of his ultimate victory. 
She knows the worst. Her governing men are 
under no danger of exaggerating, as are those of 
France, Britain, or Russia, but particularly of 
Britain, the strength of the enemy. Italy has fur- 
ther the very great advantage of being able to 
choose her own moment. Lastly, she has the ad- 
vantage of entering fresh into the struggle at a 
time when her enemy, if she chooses to have an 
enemy, is approaching exhaustion. 
The arguments against Italy's intervention are 
political arguments clearly appreciable. There is 
first of all the obvious truth that anyone who can 
keep out of this tornado is well out of it. The 
Italian people have been im_mensely enriched by 
the power to produce peacefully and to trade while 
nearly aU the rest of Europe had sunk its energies 
in a violent conflict for life. The Italian popula- 
tion, monuments, and treasures have remained 
intact. 
More important than this negative factor was 
the highly positive factor that Italy could get one 
great part of what her people desired without loss 
by mere occupation of adjoining territory at the 
end of the war upon the defeat of the Austrians 
and the Germans. Heavy fighting would not be 
likely until an army reached the hills, but what 
the Italian people and the tradition of their 
modern resurrection really desire is not the defeat 
of an enemy beyond the mountains. It is the re- 
construction of a complete Italy upon this side of 
the mountains. The Istrian Peninsula, Pola, 
Trieste, and even Fiume, are upon the hither side 
of the hills : part of the Italian plain. 
Now, it is conceivable that at the end of a 
great campaign, in which the combatants 
v?ere exhausted, even upon the victorious 
side, the Italians would have no more to 
do than to walk in and occupy this northern 
corner of the Adriatic. The valley of the 
Trentino, or at least the lower Italian-speaking 
part of it, would follow as a matter of course. And 
Italy would appear at the end of the struggle play- 
ing upon a rather smaller scale the part Roumania 
played after the second Balkan War : demanding 
a moderate accession of territory, to which she was 
really attached, and no more — and that without 
fighting. 
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