g his dead. Not by the
flicker of an eyelid did he give token of what was working deep
down in that French heart of his. I heard an Italian officer
tell him that the French had started the most regrettable
affair by firing on the Italian ships. The officer spoke this
falsehood under the glazed stare of the French dead and the
protesting gaze of the wounded. The French captain nodded his
head, remarked, 'Oh yes! of course. Now we must only pick up
the wounded,' and, with all the gentleness of a mother beside
her child's sick-bed...." A very good account of this shocking
episode is contained in _A Political Escapade: The Story of
Fiume and d'Annunzio_, by J. N. Macdonald, O.S.B. (London,
1921). His narrative is extremely well documented--he appears
to have been a member of the British Mission. "It is
incomprehensible," says he, "how officers and men could attack
the very post that they had been sent to defend. Moreover, they
were over 100 strong and fully armed, whereas the French
garrison was small and had no intention of putting up a
defence." One of the lesser outrages described by Father
Macdonald, since it was not attended with fatal results, was
that which happened to Captain Gaillard, who from his window
saw an Italian lieutenant shoot and kill with his revolver an
unarmed Annamese. The captain cried out with rage, and when his
room was entered by fifteen men carrying rifles with fixed
bayonets and they ordered him to go with them, Madame Gaillard
tried to intervene and received a blow on the arm dealt with
the butt end of a rifle. At this juncture an Italian officer
appeared and roughly told Gaillard to come without further
delay. A mob of civilians and soldiers who were outside greeted
Gaillard with a shower of blows, and while they went along the
street, the officer escorting him kept up a volley of abuse
against France and England. Very fortunately for Gaillard he
was brought into the presence of an Italian officer to whom he
was personally known. This gentleman, looking very uneasy,
refused to give the name of his brother-officer, but caused the
Frenchman to be released.]

[Footnote 45: Cf. _The Balkan Peninsula_ (English translation).
London, 1887.]

VII

FURTHER MONTHS OF TRIAL

D'ANNUNZIO SPREADS HIMSELF--THE WAVE OF ITALIAN IMPERIALISM--THEIR WISH