s ministers and his generals.

"I do not know whether the field headquarters of the King of Italy or
of King Albert of Belgium is the most unpretentious, but certainly
both monarchs live in circumstances of extreme simplicity. My
recollection is that when I last had the honor of visiting King
Albert's headquarters, the bell in what I must call the parlor did not
ring, and the queen of the Belgians had to get up and fetch the tea
herself.

"When I had the honor of being received by the King of Italy I found
his majesty in a little villa which only held four people, and the
king was working in a room of which the only furniture which I can
recall consisted of a camp bed close to the ground and of exiguous
breadth, a small table, and two chairs of uncompromising hardness. The
only ornament in the room was the base of the last Austrian shell
which had burst just above the king's head and has been mounted as a
souvenir by the queen.

"When a prince of the House of Savoy lives in the traditions of his
family, and shares all the hardships of his troops, it needs must that
his people follow him. And so they do.

"The hardy Alpini from the frontiers, the stout soldiers of Piedmont,
the well-to-do peasantry of Venetia, the Sardinians, who are ever to
the front when there is fighting to be enjoyed, the Tuscans,
Calabrians, and those Sicilians once so famous amongst the
legionaries, are all here or at the depots training for war.
Mobilization must have affected two and a half million Italians at
least. There have been fairly heavy losses, and fighting of one kind
or another is going on in every sector that I have visited, and every
day, despite the great hardships of fighting on the Alpine frontier,
the moral of the army remains good, the men are in splendid health,
and Italy as a whole remains gay and confident, less affected on the
whole by the war than any other member of the grand alliance.

"There are certainly more able-bodied men of military age out of
uniform in Italy than there are in France, or than there are now with
us. Except volunteers, no men under twenty are at the front. There are
large reserves still available upon which to draw. The army has been
more than doubled since the war began.

"The Italian regular officers, and the officers of reserve, are quite
excellent. The spirit of good comradeship which prevails in the army
is most admirable, and the corps of officers reminds me of a large
family which is p