that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her
assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than
the Allies had on the Italian? Did you know that she called up the
class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France,
hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have
mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to
think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a
clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51
divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it,
forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners? Did you
know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant
tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France
less than forty per cent.? And, finally, had you realized that Italy
made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population,
than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of
her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle? There is
your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks,
"The Italians didn't do much, did they?"

Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom
as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is
the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria,
Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new
province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area
of approximately 6,000 square miles.

[Illustration: THIS IS NOT VENICE, AS YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE, BUT TRIESTE

The sails of the fishing craft are of many colors, yellow, burnt-orange,
vermilion. At the head of the canal, its stately columns reflected in
the turquoise waters, the Bourse rises like some ancient Roman temple]

Trieste, which, with its suburbs, has a population of not far from
400,000, with its splendid terminal facilities, its vast harbor-works,
its dry-docks and foundries, its railway communications with the
hinterland, and, above all else, its position as the natural outlet for
the trade of Austria, Bavaria and Czecho-Slovakia, constitutes not only
Italy's most valuable prize of war, but, everything considered, probably
the most important city, commercially at least, to change hands as a
result of the conflict. Curiously enough, Trieste is t