There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not "mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The _carabinieri_ went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically at the Consulta, yet of vital force. There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a brief visit, consumed in conferences with the ministers? And Prince von Bülow had rallied to his assistance the Catholic Deputy Erzburger. Rome was seething with rumor. * * * * * The remarkable passivity of the Italian public during these anxious moments was due in good part, no doubt, to its thorough confidence in the men who were directing the state, specifically in the Prime Minister Salandra and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Sonnino, who were the Government. They were honest,--that everybody admitted,--and they were experienced. In less troubled times the nation might prefer the popular politician Giolitti, who had a large majority of the deputies in the Parliament in his party, and who had presented Italy a couple of years earlier with its newest plaything, Libya,--and concealed the bills. But Giolitti had prudently retired to his little Piedmont home in Cavour. All the winter he had kept out of Rome, leaving the Salandra Government to work out a solution of the knotty tangle in which he had helped to involve his country. Nobody knew precisely what Giolitti's views were, but it was generally accepted that he preserved the tradition of the Crispi statesmanship, which had made the abortion of the Triple Alliance. If he could not openly champion an active fulfillment of the alliance, at least he was avowedly _neutralista_, the best that Berlin and Vienna had come to hope from their southern ally. He was the great unknown factor politically, with his majority in the Chamber, his personal prestige. A clever American, long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to make his words significant, told me,--"The country does not know what it wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether there will be war!" That was May 9--a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome the same week--and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought....