My brothers of the trenches, Citizens! I have never before felt my inefficiency as an orator as deeply as I do now in the face of the greatness of the events and your memorable and imposing manifestation. What can I say to you, when this manifestation is already more than a speech, a hymn—more than a hymn, an epos? We have arrived at this day after many hardships. I see here, gathered round the monument of the Cinque Giornate, which is the altar of Milan, those who fought first and last, those of the trenches who are the survivors of the sacrifice of devotion, who marked with their blood the destinies of the country, and the disabled who feel themselves no longer maimed since Italy has become great. I see beside them the refugees, who will soon return to their lands and deserted hearths. I remember what I said last year; we must love these brothers of ours, warm them by our firesides, and still more in our hearts. And I see the people of Milan joined together like all the Italian people in a superb act of love. How many different events in the course of a year! Do you remember these days a year ago? Do you remember last year at the Scala when we swore that the Germans should not pass the Piave? And they did not pass, and the then line of resistance became afterwards the line of advance towards victory. Even in the darkest hours I did not despair, and paid homage to the fighters. We saw in those days the first “poilus” and “tommies”; it was the Entente coming to cement the Alliance in our trenches. After a year of faith and sacrifice has come victory. We think with gratitude of the fine leaders who led us on to victory, but also, still more, of the anonymous mass of soldiers, our marvellous people, who resisted the invasion on the Piave, and from the Piave sprang forward to rout the enemy. Remember it here—here where we held the first meeting for war—here, with Filippo Corridoni. (The crowd give a prolonged ovation to the memory of Filippo Corridoni.) We wanted the war, because we were obliged to want it, because it was imposed by historical necessity. To-day we have realised all our ideals; we have secured our national aims; the Italian flag to-day flies from the Brenner to Trieste and Fiume and Italian Zara. We did not know then that there were Italian infantry on the other side of the Adriatic. Now, in all the cities and villages on the eastern shore, the Italians have planted the flag of their country, because that shore, which is Italian, must remain Italian. We have also accomplished the international aims of our war. When we said, four years ago, that the red flag must wave over the castle at Potsdam, the dream appeared madness. To-day the Kaiser has fled, and with the passing of the Hohenzollerns passes militarism.