I am not attempting to write history. I am guessing like another, seeking causes in a complex state of mind. We shall have to go back. Secret diplomacy may be the inveterate habit of Europe, especially of Italy. The new arrangement with the Allies has never been published, probably never will be. One suspects that it was made, essentially, before Italy had broken with Austria, before, perhaps, she had denounced her old alliance on the 5th of May at Vienna. And yet, although inveterately habituated to the mediaevalism of secret international arrangements, Italy is enough filled with the spirit of modern democracy to break any treaty that does not fulfill the will of the people. The Triple Alliance was really doomed at its conception, because it was a trade made by a few politicians and diplomats in secret and never known in its terms to the people who were bound by it. Any strain would break such a bond. The strain was always latent, but it became acute of late years, especially when Austria thwarted Italy's move on Turkey--as Salandra revealed later under the sting of Bethmann-Hollweg's taunts. It was badly strained, virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would have done so had she been prepared for the consequences, had the Salandra Government been then at the helm.
There is another coil to the affair, not generally recognized in America. Austria in striking at Serbia was potentially aiming at a closer envelopment of Italy along the Adriatic, provision for which had been made in a special article of the Triple Alliance,--the seventh,--under which she had bound herself to grant compensations to Italy for any disturbance of the Balkan situation. Austria, when she was brought to recognize this commission of fault,--which was not until December, 1914, not seriously until the close of January, 1915,--pretended that her blow at Serbia was chastisement, not occupation. But it is absurd to assume that having chastised the little Balkan state she would leave it free and independent. It is true that in January Austrian troops were no longer in Balkan territory, but that was not due to intention or desire! They had been there, they are there now, and they will be there as long as the Teutonic arms prevail. It is a game of chess: Italy knew the gambit as soon as Austria moved against Serbia. The response she must have known also, but she had not the power to move then. So she insisted pertinaciously on her right under the seventh clause of the Triple Alliance to open negotiations for "compensations" for Austria's aggression in the Balkans, and finally with the assistance of Berlin compelled the reluctant Emperor to admit her right.