TIMELY INFORMATION ON EVE OF THE WAR.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15343, 4 October 1917, Page 5

TIMELY INFORMATION ON EVE OF THE WAR.

MILAN, July 23 Some historic unpublished details of vital historic interest ,about the part played by Italy on the eve of the great war towards the salvation of Franc were divulged yesterday in the narrative which Senator Guglielmo Marconi contributes to the Rome daily Bulletin l'lnformazione : Germany knew we would not back her savage attack against the liberty of Europe, nor, in fact, did she attribute much importance to our neutrajity. Her game was far deeper and more treacherous. Germany wanted Italy to leave France in doubt as to Italian intentions On the morning of July 30, 1914, one day before Germany declared war upon Russia, and two days before she declared war upon France, the. Marquis di San Giuliano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed the French Ambassador, M. Barrere, that ItaLy would not rally to Germany's side in a war of aggression. This assurance was telegraphed immediately to Paris, but was insufficient to reassure France completely, seeing that on our part there was no official declaration of neutrality. On August 2. two days before England declared war against Germany, the Italian Government decided upon a policy of neutrality. Our Ambassador being then absent from Paris, the news was forthwith communicated to our Charge d'Affaires there in a despatch which arrived at 1 o'clock in the morning. Without a moment's hesitation, our representative hurried to seek audience with the French Premier, M. Viviani, who entered the room, turned deadly pale and shrank back, feeling instinctively that nothing but Italy's resolve to join hands with Germany could have constrained an Italian diplomat to rouse himself at that .unearthly hour. But no sooner had M. Vi.viani perused the despatch than he gave tull vent to his emotion. Before another half-hour had the French Prime Minister had already ordered the mobilisation of nearly a million men whom France would otherwise have been obliged to maintain on her eastern and southern frontiers to guard against possible attacks from Italy. It was that million men which arrested the German advance, won the Battle of the Marne- and saved France 'from being i trodden under the savage heel of Teuton militarism. Had there been the faintest hesitation, the slightest vacillation on Italy's part, had any Italian politician done a tenth part of what Bismarck did .when he tampered with the famous Ems' telegram which resulted in the Franco-Prussian War, France would not have dared to withdrawn a single soldier from the Italian frontier, and the world's history would have taken a stupendously different course.