2 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
widened the rift between him and the circle grouped round
Turati and Treves in Milan. Mussolini favoured anarchistic
revolt; c a hundred dead at Ancona and all Italy is in
flames', he thought, without, incidentally, stirring from his
editorial office. Left to itself and disowned by the General
Confederation of Labour, the revolt flickered out. Here
and there sparks from the conflagration flared up into
strikes of protest.
From Milan Mussolini viewed the spectacle with keen
satisfaction. c We record events', he wrote,c with something
of the legitimate pleasure that an artist must feel on con-
templating his own work. If the proletariat of Italy is now
acquiring a new psychology, fiercer and more unrestrained,
it is to this paper that it is due. We can understand the
fears of reformists and democrats faced with a situation
which time can only make worse.' This on June 12, a few
weeks before Serajevo.
When the world war became inevitable, the whole of
Italy was in favour of neutrality, that is unwilling to in-
tervene on the side of the central powers, which at that
time was the only danger. The whole of Italy, with the
exception of the nationalist group, which was afraid of
letting slip the chance of a c good war 3, and of Sonnino,
who judged—wrongly—that the Treaty of the Triple
Alliance must automatically come into play.
For months Italian diplomacy carried on simultaneous
negotiations with both sides ; Salandra, in October, invoked
c sacred egoism'. At the beginning of 1915 Sonnino, who
had been at the Consulta since November, was still in favour
of an agreement with Austria, and if she had made up her
mind at once to yield c the Trentino and something beside '
the Salandra government would have anticipated and
carried out theparecchio policy.1 Austria's hesitations drove
the Italian government towards the Entente, and interven-
tion on this side was virtually decided on in March, by
three people : the king, Salandra, and Sonnino. The
Treaty of London, signed on April 26, was known only to
them; the other ministers were ignorant of it, and its
l This was the policy advocated in January 1915 by Giolitti, who thought
Italy might gain all she wanted by remaining neutral.