ITALY'S DARK HOUR

Evening Star, Issue 16625, 7 January 1918, Page 4

ITALY'S DARK HOUR

No race in the modern world has had to _ fight harder or longer for national unity than Italy j none has more at stake than she in this, her dark hour. At the outset German ideas towards her were expressed by General Keim in this formula : " There must henceforth be only one thought in Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople—namely, to do everything without pity and without mercy. . . . This war must be waged against Italy in a cold-blooded manner. . . . Our aim must bo to disintegrate Italy politically and to ruin her economically." A reversion to the conditions imposed by Austrian dominance. There has never been anything much worse than those conditions. In her own name, and through the instrumentality N of puppet rulers, Austria fostered a system, which prohibited the education of the Italian masses, which deliberately encouraged brigandage, internal disorder and disruption; cast patriots and thinkers, untried, into'gaols with criminals perishing of pestilence. Mazzini" was in fetters awaiting execution when he first dreamed of concerted action by Young Italy in place of guerilla warfare. Italy, if she remembers, will fight to the last man rather than return to days like those.