impossible, in fewer months than the years that would have seemed needful, the most gallant, determined and tenacious armies that have yet been marshalled in this war.  Nothing compelled you, save the spirit of emulation, the same mad love of duty, the same passion for justice, the same idolatry of the given word which, that it may be sure of doing all that it promised, performs far more than it would have dared to promise.

4

Now, during the last few weeks, a new combatant has entered the lists, one who occupies a place quite apart in the sacred hierarchy of duty and honour and in the moral history of this war.  I speak of Italy; and I pay her the tribute of homage which is her due and which I well know that you will render with me, for you of all nations are qualified to do so.

Italy had no treaty except with our enemies.  Her first act of justice, when confronted with an iniquitous aggression, was to discard this treaty, which was about to draw her into a crime which she had the courage to judge and condemn from the outset, while her former allies were still in the full flush of a might that seemed unshakable.  After this verdict, which was worthy of the land where justice first saw the light, she found herself free; she now owed no obligations to any one.  There was nothing left to compel her to rush into this carnage, which she could contemplate calmly from the vantage of her delightful cities; and she had only to wait till the twelfth hour to gather its first fruits.  There was no longer any compact, any written bond, signed by the hands of kings or peoples, that could involve her destiny.  But now, at the spectacle, unforeseen and daily more abominable and disconcerting, of the barbarian invasion, words half-effaced and secret treaties written by unknown hands on the souls and consciences of all men revealed themselves and slowly gathered life and radiance.  To some extent I was a witness of these things; and I was able, so to speak, to follow with my eyes the awakening and the irresistible promulgation of those great and mysterious laws of justice, pity and love which are higher and more imperishable than all those which we have engraved in marble or bronze.  With the increase of the crimes, the power of these laws increased and extended.  We may regard the intervention of Italy in many ways.  Like every human action and, above all, like every political action, it is due to a thousand causes, many of which are trifling.  Among them we may see the legitimate hatred and the eternal resentment felt towards an hereditary enemy.  We may discover an interested intention to take part, without too much risk, in a victory already certain and in its previously allotted spoils.  We may see in it anything that we please:  the resolves of men contain factors of all kinds; but we must pity those who are able to consider none but the meaner sides of the matter, for these are the only sides which never count and which are always deceptive.  To find the real and