The effect upon public sentiment and opinion in Italy, where emotions are tensely strong, and sympathy with suffering is more flexible and diffusive than it is even among the other Latin races, was instantaneous. One statesman who is, or recently was, a partisan of neutrality, remarked to Dr. Dillon that "German Kultur, as revealed during the present war, is dissociated from every sense of duty, obligation, chivalry, honour, and is become a potent poison, which the remainder of humanity must endeavour by all efficacious methods to banish from the International system. This," he went on, "is no longer war; it is organised slaughter, perpetrated by a race suffering from dog-madness. I tremble at the thought that our own civilised and chivalrous people may at any moment be confronted with this lava flood of savagery and destructiveness. Now, if ever, the opportune moment has come for all civilised nations to join in protest, stiffened with a unanimous threat, against the continuance of such crimes against the human race. Europe ought surely to have the line drawn at the poisoning of wells, the persecution of prisoners, and the massacre of women and children." The real cause of the transformation of Italian opinion was no mere mechanical action; it was the inner promptings of the nation's soul. The tide of patriotic passion was imperceptibly rising, and the cry of completion of Italian unity was voiced in unison which culminated on the day of the festivities arranged in commemoration of the immortal Garibaldi. Signor D'Annunzio, the Poet Laureate of Italian Unity, was the popular hero who set the torch to the mine of the peoples which, when it exploded, instantly erupted parliamentary power, Ministers' dictation, and the influences of the throne itself. It shattered the foul system of political intrigue built up by the false Giolitti and developed the overwhelming sentiment of an articulate nation burst into bellicose action against the scientific barbarians; by which spontaneous ebullition Italy took her place among the civilised and civilising nations of Europe. Most people who have followed events closely are convinced that Turkey could, with judicious diplomacy, have been kept neutral throughout the war. It was whispered in Secret Service circles that a very few millions of money, lent or judiciously expended, would easily have acquired her active support on the side of the Entente. One need not probe further back in history than to the autumn of 1914 to ascertain the blundering fiasco that was made in that sphere of our alleged activities.