o des
Fleurs, the Cercle, the hotels. And above each of them, where once was
only good music, good wines, beautiful flowers, and baccarat, now droop
innumerable Red Cross flags. Against the snow-covered hills they were
like little splashes of blood.

War followed us into Italy. But from the war as one finds it in England
and France it differed. Perhaps we were too far west, but except for the
field uniforms of green and the new scabbards of gun-metal, and, at
Turin, four aeroplanes in the air at the same time, you might not have
known that Italy was one of the Allies. For one thing, you saw no
wounded. Again, perhaps, it was because we were too far south and west,
and that the fighting in Tyrol is concentrated. But Bordeaux is farther
from the battle-line of France than is Naples from the Italian front,
and the multitudes of wounded in Bordeaux, the multitudes of women in
black in Bordeaux, make one of the most appalling, most significant
pictures of this war. In two days in Naples I did not see one wounded
man. But I saw many Germans and German signs, and no one had scratched
Mumm off the wine-card. A country that is one of the Allies, and yet not
at war with Germany, cannot be taken very seriously. Indeed, in England
the War Office staff speak of the Italian communiques as the "weather
reports."

In Naples the foreigners accuse Italy of running with the hare and the
hounds. They asked what is her object in keeping on friendly terms with
the bitterest enemy of the Allies. Is there an understanding that after
the war she and Germany will together carve slices off of Austria?
Whatever her ulterior object may be, her present war spirit does not
impress the visitor. It is not the spirit of France and England. One man
said to me: "Why can't you keep the Italian-Americans in America? Over
there they earn money, and send millions of it to Italy. When they come
here to fight, not only that money stops, but we have to feed and pay
them."

It did not sound grateful. Nor as though Italy were seriously at war.
You do not find France and England, or Germany, grudging the man who
returns to fight for his country his rations and pay. And Italy pays her
soldiers five cents a day. Many of the reservists and volunteers from
America who answered the call to arms are bitterly disappointed. It was
their hope to be led at once to the firing-line. Instead, after six
months, they are still in camp. The families some brought with them are