The several Treaties of peace, the conferences of the Allies, were a long sequence of disappointments to the people of Italy. The incomprehension of the real state of things in that country reached such a degree that had Socialism in Italy been endowed with a more violent vitality Bolshevism would have flourished. The propaganda of the Socialist party increased daily on ground most favourably prepared by the general discontent and received moreover the collaboration of the so-called _Popolari_—a kind of Social Catholic party that in theory was to take the place of the clericals. Whether their leader, Don Sturzo, a man of remarkable power, realised the sacrilegiousness of using Catholic priests to pervert the minds of the peasants or not, the Popolari brought their violences to such a pitch in some provinces that they not only matched, they surpassed the Reds.[4] Naturally, these parties and the men who were not supposed to belong to them, but were flattering them in case of an eventual revolution, were wont to represent the war and the sacrifices that had been made by the country as the cause of all the social and economic difficulties. To them, the only consequence of the war was the destruction of what had been laboriously done between 1870 and 1915. It was at this juncture that some people banded together their aspirations, which seemed in the main to be the realisation in the Adriatic of all the value of what they called “their mutilated victory.” They had mostly been in the trenches, and they clustered round Gabriele d’Annunzio who led them to occupy Fiume, which was still under the control of the Allies. The Allies left the whole affair to Italy and had the Italian government, or a strong party, backed d’Annunzio and his friends, the course of events would have been different. The country wanted Fiume, certainly, but with what will did they want it? With a will that was national at last, because it was not moved exclusively by Irredentism, and did not identify itself with the will of the upper classes, but was a feeling with the whole people. They had deserved it; they were conscious of a right acquired through the common trial of the whole nation. It was, however, more a velleity than a will. The new spiritual life was quivering, it could express itself in a puerile gesture of the hand towards the object of its passion, but it could not yet express itself in action. Will or velleity—it was certainly the first manifestation of a really national life striving against the paralysing scaffolding of its political organisation. The professional politicians had been trained when politics were merely a question of technical detail, when to be a Deputy meant merely a job as a bargainer, to get the votes of the people for a party on the understanding that the party would satisfy the arbitrary and personal requirements of its electors, with the possibility of coming to power any day in one of the incredible