e people as a whole exhibited indifference, which causes
Garibaldi to complain most bitterly. And if it had not been for the
genius of Cavour and his collaborators, for the diplomatic support of
England, the alliance with Prussia and, above all, for the French
army, the redemption of the country would have been delayed. No doubt
the Church had an enormous influence upon the people, no doubt in the
surviving mediaeval States--the duchies and republics--whose government
belonged to the privileged classes, there was little to awaken popular
interest; no doubt great masses of the people were untouched by
education and the spread of new ideas--if freedom is a new idea; no
doubt the peasants in various parts of the country were in as
deplorable a plight as the peasants of to-day, which has had as one
effect the inexpansive manner, as Italian officers have testified,
with which the redeemed peasants of the Trentino and elsewhere often
welcomed their redeemers. And the Italian peasants of 1859 may be
pardoned for imagining that this world never would be made so good as
to include their own salvation. One can find sufficient excuses for
what occurred in Italy. Will not the Italians excuse, rather than
praise, the very, very small number of Yugoslavs who have stood out
against Yugoslavia? When Italy had been united did no Italians choose
rather to go into exile?

HOW CAVOUR WOULD HAVE TREATED THE SLAVS

Some Italians were so intoxicated with the success of Garibaldi's
troops and the French army that they began to see dangerous visions.
Once again, on December 28, 1860, they were warned by the great
founder of their country. "Let us avoid," wrote Cavour,[45] "every
expression which could permit one to suppose that the King's
government aspires not merely to the possession of Venice, but also to
that of Triest, with Istria and Dalmatia. I know well that in the
towns of the littoral the population is fundamentally Italian by race
and sentiments, but that the rest of the country belongs exclusively
to the Slavs.... Every word which touches this question, however
lightly it be uttered, would become a dangerous weapon in the hands of
our enemies. They would know very well how to use them in order to
raise up England against us, for that Power would also not look with
favour on the Adriatic Sea becoming, as in the days of Venice, an
Italian Sea." Cavour's opinion as to the towns was presumably based on
such researches as were made i