between the Cabinet at Rome and the High Command.]

Addressing at Pec detachments from a number of British Batteries on the
29th of May, Bissolati had said: "Officers and men of the British Force,
I bring you the greetings of the Italian Government and the thanks of
the Italian people. I greet you not only as an Italian Minister, but as
a comrade in arms, for I consider it the greatest privilege of my life
to have been in this war a soldier like yourselves. Our hearts beat with
joy to see you here, because there is no Italian, however humble his
station, who does not know how great is the debt of Italy to Britain for
the brotherly help afforded her during the tragic vicissitudes of the
glorious story of her Resurrection. We all remember how your fathers
helped to create the Italian nation.... To-day we find ourselves
fighting side by side in the same campaign, we to redeem this territory
from the Austrian yoke, you to maintain the liberty of your national
existence from the German menace, both of us, moreover, to set the whole
world free from the peril of falling under the dominion of that race,
hard in temper as a granite rock, which finds in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire a willing ally in its rapes and aggressions. I am here, then, to
thank you, not only as an Italian, but as a man, and I am filled with
joy at the thought that the British, even as the Italians, are showing
themselves to be, now as always, the champions of justice, and the
defenders of liberty and right. The sacrifices which we are making
together, the mingling of our blood upon the battlefield, will render
even stronger the agelong, traditional friendship between our two
nations.

"Viva l'Inghilterra! Viva l'Italia!"