I believe Machiavelli once said that a war which is necessary is also just. Viewed from this sober, practical, political standpoint, which leaves out of account all moral considerations, has this war been necessary? Is it not, indeed, directly mad? Nobody threatened Italy; neither Austria-Hungary nor Germany. Whether the Triple Entente was content with blandishments alone history will show later. Without a drop of blood flowing, and without the life of a single Italian being endangered, Italy could have secured the long list of concessions which I recently read to the House—territory in Tyrol and on the Isonzo as far as the Italian speech is heard, satisfaction of the national aspirations in Trieste, a free hand in Albania, and the valuable port of Valona.
Why have they not taken it? Do they, perhaps, wish to conquer the German Tyrol? Hands off! Did Italy wish to provoke Germany, to whom she owes so much in her upward growth of a great power, and from whom she is not separated by any conflict of interests? We left Rome in no doubt that an Italian attack on Austro-Hungarian troops would also strike the German troops.

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