5

The time has come to end this foolery! The time has come for
everything that draws breath to rise up against these systematic,
insane and stupid acts of destruction, perpetrated without any
military excuse or strategic object. The reason why we are at last
uttering a great cry of distress, we who are above all a silent
people, the reason why we turn to your mighty and noble country is
that Italy is to-day the only European power that is still in a
position to stop the unchained brute on the brink of his crime. You
are ready. You have but to stretch out a hand to save us. We have not
come to beg for our lives: these no longer count with us and we have
already offered them up. But, in the name of the last beautiful things
that the barbarians have left us, we come with our prayers to the land
of all beautiful things. It must not be, it shall not be that, on the
day when at last we return, not to our homes, for most of these are
destroyed, but to our native soil, that soil is so laid waste as to
have become an unrecognizable desert. You know better than any others
what memories mean, what masterpieces mean to a nation, for your
country is covered with memories and masterpieces. It is also the
land of justice and the cradle of the law, which is simply justice
that has taken cognizance of itself. On this account, Italy owes us
justice. And she owes it to herself to put a stop to the greatest
iniquity in the annals of history, for not to put a stop to it when
one has the power is almost tantamount to taking part in it. It is for
Italy as much as for France that we have suffered. She is the source,
she is the very mother of the ideal for which we have fought and for
which the last of our soldiers are still fighting in the last of our
trenches.