wickedness and the selfish greed that lurk behind it, exploiting the
generous emotions of the young and brave; for the irony and bitter
fatuity of _any_ war-cry in a world that should be purged of war.

* * * * *

And so I came to Palmanova to supervise the loading of shell, in the
company of Captain Shield and another Ordnance officer. Shield had
travelled much and mixed with Italians on the borders of Abyssinia. He
told me that with no other European race were our relations in remote
frontier lands more harmonious. They and we have, he said, a perfect
code of written and unwritten rules to prevent all friction. He told me,
too, of a young Englishman out there, quite an unimportant person, who
had a bad attack of sun-stroke and whose life was in great danger. The
only hope was to get him through quickly to the coast, and the shortest
road lay through Italian territory. So application was made to the
Italian authorities for a right of passage, which they not only granted,
but mapped out his route for him, for it was difficult country and
unfamiliar to our people, and sent a guide, and had a mule with a load
of ice waiting for him at every halting-place along the road, and so
saved his life, treating him with as much consideration and tenderness
as they could have been expected to show to a member of their own Royal
Family.

* * * * *

Palmanova lies just within the old Italian frontier, a little white town
surrounded by a moat, which in summer is quite dry, and by grassy
ramparts shaped like a star. It was first fortified by the Venetian
Republic four hundred years ago, and again by Napoleon. It can be