THE BROKEN ALLIANCE AND ITALY
Reading edition
“Twenty years and more you’ve forced me to wear this chain”
For the guardianship, therefore, of these treaties the government of the kingdom of Italy found itself constrained to notify the Imperial Austrian Government on the fourth of this month, May, 1915, that it must withdraw all of its proposals of agreement, denounce the treaty of the alliance, and declare its own liberty of action. Nor, on the other hand, was it more possible to leave Italy in isolation without security and without prestige, just at the moment in which the history of the world was taking on a decisive phase.
Everything else we must forget from this moment, and remember only this: to be Italians, to love all Italy with the same faith and fervor. The forces of all must be cemented into one single heart; only one single will must guide all toward the wished for end; and force, and art, and will must find their expression one, alive, and heroic in the army and navy of Italy and in the august leader who conducts them toward the destiny of the new history.
Antonio Salandra. President of the Ministerial Council. Rome. May 20, 1915.
