These pent-up feelings now found vent in a series of meetings and demonstrations against Germany as well as Austria and their Italian allies. Italy's spiritual heritage from the old Romans asserted itself in impressive forms and unwonted ways, and the conscience of the nation loudly affirmed its claim to be the main directing force in a crisis where the honour and the future of the country were at stake. And within four days of this purgative process a marked change was noticeable. Giolitti's partisans--hissed, jostled, mauled, frightened out of their lives--lay low. Many of them publicly recanted and proclaimed their conversion to intervention. The chief of the German Catholic party and friend of the Vatican, Erzberger, was driven from his hotel to the German Embassy as a foreign mischief-maker, contrabandist and spy. Some of the Press organs, subsidized or created by the Teutons, were obliged to disappear. The honest neutralist journals, yielding to the nation, veered round to the fallen Cabinet. In a word, the political atmosphere, theretofore foul and mephitic, became suddenly charged with purer, healthier elements--Buelow's plot was thwarted and Giolitti's role played out. The Salandra-Sonnino Cabinet was borne back to office on the crest of this national wave, and Italy declared war against Austria. But only against Austria. For the Cabinet, restored to power, became a cautious steward, and took to imitating him of the Gospel who hid his talents instead of augmenting them. This restriction of military operations to the Habsburg Monarchy struck many observers as singular. In truth the motives that inspired the Government have never been authoritatively divulged. That every Italian Cabinet since Crispi's days had made a marked distinction between Germany and Austria was notorious. That Di San Giuliano felt as strongly attracted towards Berlin as he was repelled by Vienna may be gathered from the official but still unpublished dispatches that exist on the subject. But that in a war not of two individual nations, but of groups of States, one--and only one--of these should be singled out as the object of aggression aroused something more than mere curiosity. And this feeling was intensified when it became known that on the eve of the diplomatic rupture Buelow, ever on the alert for the interests of his country, had induced the Italian Government to conclude a convention with Germany for the protection of private property in case of active hostilities. For Germany possesses in Italy property valued at several milliards of francs, whereas Italy claims as her own almost nothing in the German empire. Who can read the riddle?