CURRENT AFFAIRS 111 110 THE CLASS STRUGGLE she is necessarily worse than those who have entered the struggle before her. Only that we have not seen the others when they were plotting, manoeuvring, calculating. When we first beheld them they were in the midst of the combat, a prey to the fiercest passions. They therefore appealed to our sympathies, no matter how thoroughly we disapproved or condemned their actions.
Human nature is so constituted that it is inclined to deal lightly with crimes de passion. So we did not think of the sordid motives that actuated the entrance into the war, of some at least, if not all the combatants which were fighting in the arena, and saw only the titanic struggle itself. We were overawed by its vastness, and largely fascinated by the fury of the passions which it unloosed. But Italy, sitting at the crossways and offering herself to the highest bidder, shrewdly and cynically calculating which bid to accept, was simply revolting a challenge to all decency and morality.
And her conduct since she has entered the war was in full harmony with her conduct before she took the fatal step, being dictated by the same selfish motives. Because of her extreme selfishness Italy has been the cause of more Allied military reverses than any other of the Allies, with the possible exception of Russia under the old regime. Italy was at least one of the principal causes, if not the principal cause of the failure of the Allies in the Balkans, a prolific source of disasters everywhere else. their support, or to keep them quiet at least, is to appeal to their low instincts which are fed on what are euphemistically called national interests and national aspirations, in this case: control of the Adriatic, Albania, etc. etc. And that is just what Italy has been doing: conducting a separate little war of her own with Austria, an interfering with all the Allied plans which did not suit her particular purposes. If her own little war has now turned into a big disaster, Italy has only herself to thank for it.
And there will be but few outside her own borders that will weep with her.
But if there are few that weep with her, there are many that worry over her discomfiture. For notwithstanding their separate selfishness the nations engaged in this war are in fact engaged in one world war in which an injury to one is an injury to all, at least to all on the same side of the battle line. Italy disaster is, therefore, an Allied disaster. But how can the Allies avoid such disasters without giving up the innate selfishness of each which has brought them into the war?
It is interesting to read in this connection the explanations which are offered for the disaster, and the suggestions made as to how avoid such disasters in the future. On November 2nd, the Tribune pub lished a long editorial on the subject, evidently from the pen of Mr. Frank Simonds, one of the best military critics in this country, which is fairly representative of the intelligent opinion on the subject in this country. The opening paragraphs of this article read as follows. Writing to Robespierre in 1794, the young Napoleon Bonaparte set forth his whole conception of war. He said: The management of a war is exactly like the siege of a fortress. You must concentrate your fire on a single point. Once the breach is made the equilibrium is destroyed, resistance becomes fruitless and the place is captured. Attacks should never be scattered, but concentrated. You must divide in order to find food and unite for fighting. Unity in command is essential to success. Time is everything. The more one studies the Napoleonic campaign the more clearly one perceives how completely this Napoleonic doctrine is In this connection, it may be of interest to note that the extreme reactionaries in Italy, like the extreme reactionaries in Russia under the old regime, are pro German, anti war, and for a separate peace. If Giolitti has not played the role of a Stuermer or Protopopoff it is not because he would not have liked to, but because he did not have the chance. But the presence of the Giolitti kind of peace advocates in Italy has served to accentuate the underlying selfishness which brought Italy into the war. You can appeal to the working class and other idealistic elements of a nation in the name of democracy and the wrongs of humanity.
But you cannot gain the support of the elements that follow the Giolittis in all lands on any such plea. The only way to gain