the other allied peoples, the Italian nation has
been served by a Cabinet which defeated many of the objects it was
striving after.

[99] March 16, 1916.

Studying Italian politics since the war broke out is like threading
the Cretan Labyrinth in a dense fog. The fog, curiously enough, which
now seldom lifts, would seem to form an integral part of the politics.
For one of the maxims of the present chief of the Consulta, Baron
Sonnino, is that secrecy is the soul of efficacy. And as thoroughness
marks his action whenever it is quite free, the mystery that enwraps
the schemes and designs of King Victor's Government is become
impenetrable. One may form a faint notion of the stringency with which
this un-Italian occultism is observed by the eminent Jewish statesman,
from the circumstance that during the crisis that preceded the war,
only one of his colleagues was kept informed of the progress of the
conversations with Austria, and that was his own chief, Professor
Salandra. As for the nation at large, it was so out of touch with the
Government, and so led astray concerning the trend of events, that for
months it confidently anticipated an accord with the Central Empires.
Again, down to the day on which Baron Sonnino read out his last
declaration in the Chamber (Dec. 1), officials of the Ministry had
rigorous instructions not to give any one even a hint as to whether
Italy would or would not sign the London Convention, renouncing the
right to conclude a separate peace.

For a long time previously Italy's aloofness had preoccupied the
Entente, and to the accord between the two there continued to be
something lacking. The Italian Government, dissatisfied with the
degree of help received from Great Britain, was not slow to indicate
it in official conversations with our Ambassador. Happily, the silence
of our Foreign Office and the secrecy of Baron Sonnino concealed the
rifts of the lute until most of them were said to be repaired. In the
meantime Italy persisted in concentrating on the Isonzo and the Carso
all her efforts to help the Allies against the Turks and the Bulgars.
The expeditions to the Dardanelles, Salonika and Serbia evoked her
moral sympathy, but could not secure her military co-operation. The
generosity of the Entente, and of Britain in particular, towards
Greece was an additional stumbling-block, and the offer of Cyprus to
King Constantine an abomination in her eyes.

That Italy's impolitic aloofness co