The war will end with our victory; but in order to win, you, workmen, must produce more. We must have guns, shells, rifles and bombs in great quantities. Arms and munitions, at this moment, represent our salvation. To-morrow, when our factories again produce ploughs and spades and instruments for agriculture, we shall have the joy of a duty done. To-day, and until the barbarians are defeated for ever, instruments of war must increase in number under the impulse of your decisive will to win. (Loud applause and demonstration of affection and sympathy.) “NO TURNING BACK!” Speech delivered in the Augusteo at Rome, 24th February 1918. The speech delivered at the Augusteo in Rome may be included among those made by the most fervent patriots to rouse the country to a resolute effort after the Caporetto disaster. It was a summons to resistance, and a strong indictment against the heads of the Government in Italy which was responsible for the moral collapse which took place in the Army, due to the evil influences of blackmail and neutralist Parliamentarism at work in the country. The salient feature of this meeting was the leaving of the hall by the generals representing the “Corpo d’Armata” and the Ministry of War. But it was entirely owing to this meeting of exasperated patriots that the general policy of the then Prime Minister ceased to be lenient to the enemy’s sympathisers and that active resistance paved the way to the victory of the country in arms. I wonder if there is anyone among you who remembers a meeting in favour of intervention in the war, that we held three years ago in one of the squares in Rome? We were dispersed by the police, but we were in the right. We moved on, and history moved on with us. Three cities created history. But it does not matter. It is always the cities which create history; the villages are content to endure it. We, after three years of war, notwithstanding Caporetto, solemnly and truly reaffirm all that was deep, pure and immortal in those days in May. Remember! It was just in the May of 1915 that Italy was not afraid of knowing how to live, because she was not afraid of knowing how to die! _The Mistake of May._ But we made a great mistake then, that we have since paid for bitterly. We, who wished for the war, ought to have taken command of the situation. (Loud applause.) The Italian people—which is not the plebeian crowd which gets drunk in taverns, for twenty centuries of history have not civilised us for nothing—the Italian people had, even then, a vague apprehension of the dangers which threatened its mission.