4 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
war was being prepared without their consent and against
their interests. The government itself could think of
nothing better than to appeal to ' sacred egoism \ National
territory had not been invaded, which, as Clemenceau said,
was unfortunate. A group of former socialists and anarcho-
syndicalists demanded war in the name of the ' revolution \
but in this the working class could not follow them. Musso-
lini, who had driven them down the road of absolute
neutrality, was least qualified to bring them back. Not for
him was the part of the apostle, proclaiming his error and
winning by his confession the right to preach the new truth.
Embittered and vengeful, he left the Socialist Party : c you
shall pay for this', he promised on the evening of his
expulsion. He found himself opposed not only by the
extremist feeling on which he had relied up to the last
moment, but by the moral revulsion which his attitude
provoked. In this way Mussolini, in 1914-15, contributed
more than anyone to the wall of prejudice which grew up
between the Italian people and the war.
On the other hand the supporters of a c revolutionary \
' democratic3 war were soon swamped by a flood of
adherents from the most reactionary quarters, who saw in
any sort of war their opportunity of reversing the red
verdict of the 1913 elections. The conservative spirit of
the bourgeoisie inclined them to neutrality, but with the
threat to their authority in commune and parliament they
became converts to the war, hoping to be done with a
policy of reform which encroached on their privileges
and raised new social strata into the political life of the
country.
For here was a fundamental weakness, due as much to
the absence of a real ruling class as to the gulf between the
masses and the new state. The Italian bourgeoisie^ as it has
often been pointed out, succeeded in organizing the state
less through their own intrinsic strength than because a
series of international events had hastened their victory
over the feudal and semi-feudal classes : the policy of
Napoleon III in 1852-60, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866,
the defeat of France at Sedan and the resulting development
of the German empire. The Risorgimento was carried