ITALY'S INTERVENTION IN THE WAR 3
text was not communicated to the Italian parliament until
March 1920.
The Socialist Party merely followed the current already
created by its opposition to the Libyan war. At first
Mussolini made a few vague protests against the c Teutonic
hordes5, but as soon as he realized that the party was
practically unanimous in its support of neutrality he beat
a retreat, made a violent attack on what he called, at the
end of August 1914, the nationalist delirium tremens, and put
his attitude to the party vote. At the beginning of Sep-
tember he proclaimed : c We are asked to weep over
martyred Belgium. We are watching a sentimental farce
staged by France and Belgium. These two gossiping old
women would like to exploit the gullibility of the world.
From our point of view, Belgium is only a belligerent power
like all the others.3
But as in private he had spoken quite differently—in
favour of intervention—on several occasions, he was shown
up as a hypocrite in the paper Resto del Carlino by some-
one who had overheard him and was annoyed at his double-
dealing. Mussolini, after a preliminary denial, feared his
prestige would suffer, and sought to save himself by his
favourite method of escape by rushing forward. If he
stayed on in the Socialist Party, his standing would be im-
paired, but if he left it he would lose his paper, he who needed
to ' talk to the people every day '. So he went to see Filippo
Naldi, who controlled the paper which had attacked him,
and came to an agreement with him to found a new paper.
The Popolo d'Italia appeared at Milan on November 15,
1914, as a c socialist daily', and Mussolini made his debut
with a bitter and malignant onslaught against the party he
had just deserted. His sudden change of face struck the
party and the workers, who had followed him so far in
blind confidence, as an act of treason. In the so-called
country of Machiavelli this raised an insurmountable
barrier, not only between the working classes and Mussolini,
but also between the working classes and the policy of
intervention.
Both industrial workers and peasants, socialist and
catholic, opposed the war. The Italian people felt that