ITALY ALL IN!

Taranaki Daily News, 22 November 1917, Page 2

ITALY ALL IN!

THJi ENEMY HUE FACES. i'UNOJiiwus and swarm. A great man of war .said to me lately in regard to some naval problem, "We ought to strike hard that in the secret of success for navies as for armies, to ho always on the aggressive, hitting the enemy/' (wrote George A. B. Dewar from Home to The Daily Mail, prior to the Italian reverse). It is the secret of success in war not for armies and navies alone, hut for nations in th.'ir whole home policy, in the front they offer to the enemv.

Now i.ur "optimists," so-called, arc annoying, because, whatever happens, they vow the war goes grandly and the enemy is breaking up . the pessimists are as had with their moanings and eroalcings abount the impossibility of beating ''sixty million Germans."' But worse than either is the type busy in hi? idle way with some poltroon's device for detaching this Power or that from the German group—instead of striking hard at the enemy, in the field, on - the water, at the base. This type, always diffident and full of vain dodges, does not trust or back up our Army and Navy. His one idea is to get somehow to. the end of the war and crawl out by detaching from the enemy group now Turkey, now Bulgaria, now Austria. To bribe or otherwise entice them out and so m:ike Germany's position hopeless for some years to come—that is the idea, It does not signify that such a craven • "draw" will only bring- Germany on ns again within a dozen years from now, nor doe? id signify that we can only bribe out Bulgaria at the cost of Serbia; Austria at the cost of Italy as well as Serbia; Turkey at the price of our own eternal disgrace. What would America say about the .proposal to get in again with the nation which hutehers the Armenians with less compunction than we kill a fly? 1 fancy it would be something emphatic, A NOBLE CRUSADR7R'. Italy did not go to. war in May, 1915, —when the Allied cause was at its nadir —simply for lier own ends. She is quite as good at idealism, as lofty in her views as to humanity, as any nation, old or new, of the Entente. But, frankly, she did go to war with the resolve to release her people and her lands from the Austrian grip. How has Austria treated these people during the last half-century, let us say. and how is she treating, them to-day ? As to the latter part of the question I wish T could put before every reader of this article a photograph of the murder of a noble Italian crusader. T!ie Austrians took Lieutenant Battisti prisoner, and they hanged him like a vulgar criminal. It happens that an Austrian officer Cook a wonderful snapshot of the incident. Battisti is seen marching afrtong a guard of assassins to the' scaffold. About his set face and whole mein, the face and mein of a hero, is not a sign of flinching— Death stands above me, .whispering low I know not what into my ear. Of his strange image/all I know

Is there is not a word of fear. Battnti no more shrank from the Austrian scaffold than did the Italian patriot Angelo- with his little dagger shrink from the sword of Weisspricss, first duellist of the old Austrian Army, in (ieorge Meredith's storv.

This hanging of Battisti was typical Austrian. T merely mention it because There is no doubt, the Austrian in the artist of bis age in this branch of "work, ing people off" quite in the Drmnis manner; their attendants, after nothing we would dream of calling trial, being priest, doetor and executioner. !

That is the law and the custom; and I am writing of the year 1017, not:of the Middle Ages.' PriPi-t,'doctor, and executioner—the first to "work.off" your opponent in the spirit, the' last lo work him off in tin? flesh. Such is ill? system, and one cannot deny there U a certain sense of completion about it. But why the doctor? Is he there to ease the last moments of the sufferer? Xot at all: the doctor is to fake care Austria does not lose a .potential subject. 'He is indispensable in certain cases, for the system does not suffer the hanging of women who are pregnant. And this is the system which, because (t produces gentlemen sometimes and stylists, we are to deal lightly with, to .lctach from the German group. Why, it is like detaching Lucifer from sin. The Austrian tradition is in . many' •ivays a curously interesting one. It is a ■picturesque survival; and in a drab, modern world we want, where it is practicable, to conserve suits of armor. Moreover, the Austrian lias a. certain precocity by reason of his refinements. He is often a stylist. POWERFUL AUSTRIAN ARMV. Hut for all this is it good enough to deal lightly with the Austrian because of these things, and because he haR not abused us fiercely since the South African War. arid because he happens, through bis geographical position, nqteto face us just across the water? He is, after all, cutting Italian throats and hanging Slavs, wliich is aiding Germany to do the same by us and France.

We must, from motives of policy and self-preservation ultimately, and in loyalty to our Allies, regard Austria as "a dangerous and subtle enemy. Austria is dangerous because her army, in 'spite of all the gibes levelled at it, is a great weapon. It is the army that binds the Austrian Empire and rivets the whole system with steel. The army consists of the Pretnrians of the Kmperor. The officers' uniform is their politics, the rank and file are welded by an iron discipline, the. races cunningly interwrought to spy on one another anil ward off mutiny. There have been mutinies, of course; desertions; but the hard fact remains (iiat a great Austrian army faces our Allies to-day which would otherwise be facing us.