the German Alliance, but it had left its Allies, Germany and
Austria-Hungary, because it recognized that the War was unjust, and
had remained neutral for ten months. Then, entering into the War
freely and without obligation, there was one road for it to follow,
that of proclaiming solemnly and defending the principles of democracy
and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that the break with the
two countries with which Italy had been in alliance for thirty-three
years became a matter not only of honesty but of duty solely through
the injustice of the cause for which they had proclaimed an offensive
war. It was not possible for Italy to go to war to realize the dream
of uniting the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered the
system of Alliance of the Central Empires and had stayed there long
years while having all the time Italian territories unjustly subjected
to Austria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands to the
Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence of the affirmation of the
principles of nationality, not the reason for going to war. In any
case, for Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agreement
the most absurd limitations, which had confined its war aims within
exceedingly modest limits, which had no share in the distribution
of the wealth of the conquered countries, which came out of the War
without raw materials and without any share in Germany's colonial
empire, it was a matter not only of high duty but of the greatest
utility to proclaim and uphold all those principles which the Entente
had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its war policy and its war
aims. But in the Paris Conference Italy hardly counted. Without any
definite idea of its own policy, it followed France and the United
States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. There was no affirmation
of principles at all. The country which, among all the European
warring Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to its
resources and should have made the greatest effort to free itself