The views thus recorded are not to be regarded as the expression of an individual idiosyncrasy. The German treatment of the historical monuments of France and Belgium proved clearly enough that the Teutonic mind had discarded (let us hope temporarily) all reverence for ancient works of art as being a sentiment which was incompatible with the general policy of the nation; and we had abundant proof that the existence of what we reckon the greatest and most permanent treasures of civilisation was believed by our late enemies to be of infinitely less account than the smallest and most transient operation of their aggressive warfare. Of course, there were certain artistic people in Germany who would have regretted the destruction of the great masterpieces and might have felt concerned on receiving the news of such a catastrophe; but there is hardly a man of Teutonic race who would not have found excuses for the soulless creatures who then directed the activities of the nation, and would not repeat the criminal heresy that national necessity abrogates international obligations. It is the irony of fate that the Germanic enemies of Italy, under the stress of war embraced a doctrine which was first preached by an Italian--a very young and unbalanced personage named Marinetti--who in his initial Manifesto of Futurism, dated 1909, declared that his sect “wished to destroy the museums and libraries which cover Italy with as many cemeteries.” “Would you,” he wrote, “waste the best of your strength by a useless admiration of the past? To admire an old picture is to pour our sensitiveness into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward in violent gushes of action. The admirable past may be balsam for invalids and for prisoners; but we will have none of it, we, the young, the strong, the living Futurists. Come, then, seize the pickaxes and hammers! Sap the foundations of the venerable cities. We stand upon the extreme promontory of the centuries: why should we look behind us?” This whole manifesto, indeed, might well have been written by a Prussian officer of the school which one trusts the war has dislodged; and the ninth article of the Futurist doctrine, which says “We wish to glorify war, militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the anarchist, the beautiful inventions that kill, and the contempt for women,” reveals a startling similarity to the creed of the German, as one saw it in those terrible years.