The Mentor: Italy Under War Conditions, Vol. 6, Num. 23, Ser. No. 171, January 15, 1919 — A Reader’s Guide

You had to choose 'twixt liberty and guilt; There is no half-way house for human kind If human kind is still to breathe God's air. And so you placed your lips upon the hilt Of Freedom's sword, devoted soul with mind To this great task which frees sad Europe from despair.

Hence we who loved and love you, Italy,... Send winged words of greeting. You are free; Sun-smitten the cloud that hid the soaring dome Of Liberty, your Palace and your Home. We who are free greet you from sea to sea.

Mazzini, Garibaldi, great Cavour Watch now and greet you from their timeless place, Whence they behold the growth of your great race Which so they knit that long it should endure. Spectators of eternity, whose pure, Untarnished brows recall their ancient grace, Behold them once again, and in them trace The soul of freedom, splendid, patient, sure!

J. E. G. DE MONTMORENCY.

In _The Contemporary Review_.

THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION

ESTABLISHED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POPULAR INTEREST IN ART, LITERATURE, MUSIC, SCIENCE, HISTORY, NATURE, AND TRAVEL

THE MENTOR IS PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH

BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC., AT 114-116 EAST 16TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. SUBSCRIPTION, FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR. FOREIGN POSTAGE 75 CENTS EXTRA. CANADIAN POSTAGE 50 CENTS EXTRA. SINGLE COPIES TWENTY CENTS. PRESIDENT, THOMAS H. BECK; VICE-PRESIDENT, WALTER P. TEN EYCK; SECRETARY, W. D. MOFFAT; TREASURER, J. S. CAMPBELL; ASSISTANT TREASURER AND ASSISTANT SECRETARY, H. A. CROWE.

JANUARY 15, 1919 VOLUME 6 NUMBER 23

Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1919, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

_ITALY UNDER WAR CONDITIONS_

PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR THE MENTOR BY E. M. NEWMAN ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 23, SERIAL No. 171 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

_The Business of War_

None of the Allied Nations has had more or greater problems confronting it than Italy has. Manpower has not been lacking, but the want of raw materials for the making of munitions has been a serious handicap, and one that has been most difficult to overcome. Italy has been absolutely dependent upon her allies for steel and coal. After her declaration of war against Germany, she was left helpless. Badly as France and England needed these raw materials, they had to come to the assistance of their ally. For a long time the quantities received were insufficient, and a sustained offensive against Austria was impossible, for want of ammunition.

This condition was greatly improved when the United States entered the war, and Italy received from us vast quantities of steel, and sufficient coal came from England to supply her needs.

It must be borne in mind that when war was declared (August 1, 1914) practically all the industrial and commercial organizations in Italy were controlled by Germany. The largest banks and financial houses were German-owned. One of the most prolific sources of income, the electric and other plants operated by water-power, were in German hands.

Germany had a firm grip on the resources of the country. Her agents carried on a propaganda which required the utmost courage of the Italians to overcome, and let it be said to the credit of the Italian people, they risked financial ruin when they decided to enter the war on the side of the Allies.

The first result of their entry into the World War was to demoralize their securities and almost to destroy the value of their money. The _lira_, a coin which, before the war, was worth about 19 cents, decreased in buying power to about 11 cents. Bonds dropped alarmingly.

With the United States as an ally, loans have been made to Italy, her credit has been re-established, the _lira_ has gradually increased in value, and with steel and coal in sufficient quantities for all purposes, prosperity is returning.

It was the shrewd Bismarck who arranged with Signor Crispi, twice Premier, to come to the assistance of Italy. A loan was made, and the best Italian securities were obtained for a song. Ever since, the German grip has tightened. As a result of the war Italy will be restored to commercial freedom and she will have a new and much needed opportunity to expand.

The Ansaldo Company, a new and gigantic corporation, is now one of the largest munition plants in the world. Italy has tremendous resources in her water-power which is now being developed. Like her allies, she will be able to manufacture many of the things she needs.

Her airplanes are among the best that are made. Her engines are wonders of mechanical perfection. Her motor cars are unexcelled. Italy, prepared as she never was, is ready for the future.

_The Food Problem and How It Is Met_

How to keep the soldiers supplied with sufficient nourishing food was one of the first and most serious matters the Italian Government had to consider. As everyone knows, the principal articles of food consumption among Italians of every station, rich or poor, are macaroni and spaghetti. The staff of life of the Italian people, they are made almost entirely of flour.

Italy never has grown enough wheat to supply her needs. Under war conditions her imports fell to such an extent that little or no wheat could be obtained. Hence the country faced a critical situation.

The first step was conservation. It was ruled that macaroni and spaghetti could be served only on certain days. Manufacturers were restricted in the amount they could make. Then flours of mixed cereals were used.

Italians are great lovers of bread. To meet a shortage, every available acre of ground where wheat would grow was cultivated. If the men on the farm had gone to war, the women took their places. The Government encouraged and aided the farmers in every possible way, and then when aid came from the United States, in addition to sacrifices and restrictions in Italy, the situation improved.

Fruit and vegetables are plentiful and, for these times, reasonably cheap. Italians are not great meat-eaters; they have sufficient meat for their needs, and by adhering rigidly to the regulations they have been able to keep the army fully supplied.

The Adriatic and the Mediterranean abound with fish of almost every variety. Fishermen are therefore able to meet the country's needs. Next to macaroni and spaghetti the Italians like fish, and as it is far cheaper than meat, for the poorer classes it forms a food which they can afford to buy.

Olive oil, formerly used in great quantities, many of the people even drinking it, is now on the restricted list, and can be obtained only in limited quantities.

Bread, as in America, is mixed with other cereals, and for civilians practically no white bread can be obtained. In the army, there are no restrictions--the best of food is given to the soldiers. They obtain meat, butter, milk, sugar and other edibles denied wholly or in part to civilians.

As in France, wine is a part of the regular rations. Various welfare organizations see that the people do not suffer for want of food. Irrigation and intensive farming, in which representatives of all classes are now helping, is aiding in the solution of the food problem.

_Educational Conditions_

War did not seriously interfere with the grammar and high schools throughout Italy. It is in the higher schools, such as the universities, the medical colleges and in the technical schools that a changed condition is seen. Women came to the aid of the country in the crisis which called so many men to the colors. Many of the teachers in the elementary schools are women and girls, who are ably taking the places of the men whose positions were made vacant.

For the schools where higher education is taught, it is quite a different and more complex problem. To teach in a university or in a medical college certain qualifications are absolutely essential. Years of study and preparation are needed, and for this work but a limited number of women were available.

On the other hand, the necessities of war called to action thousands of young men who otherwise would have attended the various schools for higher education. As a result the number of students in practically all of these schools has fallen off materially, and there has not been the need for so many professors.

The Government is anxious not to discourage higher education; in fact, it is doing all it can to maintain it, as was evident in the establishment of the Camp Universities. It was inevitable that the attendance at the higher schools could not be maintained as in peace time, and the reduction in the number of pupils fortunately made possible a corresponding diminution of teachers.

By a system which permitted the return of professors in service at the front, although only for a limited period, the efficiency of the various universities and colleges was continued through the war. Students co-operated with the Government, some even giving up their furloughs to attend school.

Education for the youth of the land is still compulsory. The standard of wages among teachers remains very low, and out of proportion to the increased cost of living, but the recipients seem willing to sacrifice comfort for the general good.

Old men, who in their youth taught school, volunteered to return to a labor of love. It was this spirit which made possible the maintenance of education. Italy is a poor country, but her sons and daughters are eager to learn, and, poor as they are, they are willing to make sacrifices rather than give up attending school.

Many of the art students are gone, and some of the schools are closed. Beppo the model is no longer to be found on the steps of the Piazza Espagne, but the love of art has sufficed to keep some of the art schools going, no matter how rigorous the conditions.

Music is in the soul of the Italian, and the conservatories will continue in session as long as there is a pupil left. On the whole, educational conditions are as good as present-day circumstances will permit.

_Protection of Art Work_

When Italy entered the war, a commission was immediately appointed by the Government to consider measures for the protection of the country's art treasuries. Under the direction of the curators of galleries and museums, a civil engineer or architect was placed in charge of each principal building in all the art centers of northern Italy. The persons so appointed set about devising individual means adapted to the shielding of walls, towers, statues and pictures from attack by air and water, from shell and fire. In Venice the chief works and structures selected for protection were the Doges' (Dukes') Palace, with its rich arcades, sculptured façade and splendid halls, the superb Church of St. Mark, the medieval Loggetta, or vestibule, on the east side of the Campanile, the Church of St. John and St. Paul, the San Rocco School, the noble equestrian statue known as the Colleoni Monument, and the Academy of Fine Arts, with its canvases by Bellini, Carpaccio, Palma Vecchio, Tintoretto and Titian.

At Padua, Donatello's equestrian monument of Gattamelata, erected in 1453, and the sepulchral church of St. Anthony of Padua received special care; likewise the Gate of the Scaligeri, Verona; the early Renaissance Colleoni Chapel and some precious frescoes at Bergamo; Leonardo da Vinci's immortal canvas, "The Last Supper," in the refectory of the abbey-church of Santa Maria della Grazie at Milan; the Fountain of Neptune and the Church of San Petronio at Bologna; the early Christian edifice of San Vitale, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (a queen of the fifth century) and the Tomb of Dante, in the deserted old city of Ravenna; and at Cremona, in the Church of Sant' Agostino, the famously beautiful altar-piece of the Madonna and Two Saints, by Perugino. The most renowned works of art in Rome, including the statue of Caesar in the Capitoline Museum, were padded and boarded up, and from Firenze and Naples rare examples of Italian craftsmanship, guarded through the centuries--manuscripts, statuary, paintings, tapestries, metalware, mosaics, glass--were carried away to safety, some of them to the vaults of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Titian's masterpiece, the "Assumption of the Virgin," was laboriously removed from the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice and transported by boat and wagon to a place of security against attack by the Vandals. Tintoretto's "Paradise," the largest oil painting in the world (72 feet by 23 feet) was unframed and removed from the wall of the Hall of the Great Council in the Palace of the Doges. Ceiling paintings were taken down, rolled around great sticks thirty inches in diameter, hermetically sealed in copper cylinders, and stored in crypts to rest until the joyous day of their unrolling. Altogether, seven thousand square yards of canvas were thus protected from attack and pillage. Statues were wrapped in mattresses and covered by brick flooring; the beloved horses above the doorway of St. Mark's were lowered and taken away. Domes were roofed at an angle of sixty degrees, so that aerial bombs would glance harmlessly off. In the defence of Venetian art treasures alone, sixty men worked for three months to wall in everything delicate and beautiful.

"Even Rheims and Louvain could not offer such tempting morsels to the vandal wrecker as Venice and Rome," writes Herbert Vivian in "Italy at War." "Venice, mistress of medieval art as well as queen of the sea, girded her armor on,--like the army, donned a vesture of gray-green. Just as in Holy Week the more signal emblems veil themselves in respectful mourning for the Passion, so, in war time, the monuments of Venice hide in their hoods, as though to proclaim sympathy with the nation's anxiety. At St. Mark's ... the venerated mosaics on the lunettes are blotted out by modern masonry, the golden cupolas are shapeless bags, the pillars and arches have become a brick fortress that goes on to engulf all that fairy portico of the Doges' Palace hard by. Where are the four famous horses of golden bronze, brought from Constantinople to defy the world through seven centuries from the portals of St. Marks? It was a sad scene when on May 27, 1915, a silent crowd watched their descent for conveyance to a safer stable. In the interior of the holy house heaps and heaps of heavy sandbags huddle against the porphyries and malachites and alabasters, throttle the carved columns, scale walls, bury pulpit, choir, altars and baptistery. Such are the bulwarks which Italian foresight provided against probable forays of the Hun."

In time of peace all the world flocked to Venice. In war time many changes were necessary. Many of the people who make up the inhabitants of the earth were barred from the city, not only by regulations, but by cannon and walls of steel. It required influence even for an Italian to get into Venice. For an American to enter the city, it was necessary to get special permission from the Minister of Marine, and he had to present the best of reasons before that permission was granted.

Several times the city was menaced by the Austrians and once it was near capture. Time and again, fleets of airplanes dropped bombs, destroying churches, hospitals and other property, as well as killing non-combatants.

The strain was more than many of the inhabitants could bear and they sought safety in flight. The result was almost to drain the city of its normal population, which was evident in its almost deserted canals and streets.

The soft, musical voices of the gondoliers were occasionally heard. A few gondolas were left, but very few, and there was no longer any singing. The beautiful hotels, where so many of us had lived in comfort and luxury, were either closed or converted into hospitals.

Most of the shops around St. Mark's Square closed. The famous glass and lace factories shut their doors. Picture postcards and photographs were taboo. The Government did not permit them to be mailed.

No damage has been done to the Basilica of St. Mark. A bomb dropped in front of it, but did not hit it. During the war this famous temple was, however, but a shadow of its former glory. It no longer glistened with Byzantine mosaic. Its golden covering was removed or covered with sandbags. Beside the Doges' Palace was a thing of brick supports, destroying its beauty. The ugliness of boarding and sandbags saddened the visitor who recalled the Venice of former days.

Motor and passenger boats plying along the Grand Canal were discontinued; there were no passengers. A few ferries remained for those who still lived in the city.

Venice has not been seriously marred. Much damage has been done to churches and hospitals, but most of this can be repaired. Only a careful search of the city would reveal the damage done by bombardment.

Within a few churches and buildings art objects have been destroyed that can never be replaced. It should comfort the lovers of Venice to know that the city gives no outward evidence of destruction. The inhabitants will soon return, the hotels will reopen, St. Mark's and the Doges' Palace will be restored to their former appearance, and Venice will once again reign in splendor as the Queen of the Adriatic.

Rome still sits proudly on her seven hills, undismayed, undisturbed by the ravages of war. There is little real difference to be seen in the Italian capital as it is and as it was before the war. In the evening hours, when all Rome goes for a promenade or a drive, the Corso is as crowded as ever. One sees more uniforms, but otherwise the scene is similar to that of peace times.

Romans still love to dine on the sidewalks, partake of their ices, and sip their wine and coffee at little tables placed where pedestrians are supposed to pass. They attend the theater, the opera and the various other places of amusement of which they are so fond.

The main difference in the city's aspect is in the dress of the people. Officers are seen only in field uniform, privates in the gray of the battle-field. Women no longer attempt display, only the simplest effects are seen. All ostentation in the wearing of gowns and jewelry is frowned upon.

None has suffered more than the nobility. Most of them being of moderate means, the war brought many sacrifices, endangering slender purses and curtailing most needed comforts. A number have had to sell their prized art treasures to keep from actual want.

The beautiful Palace on the Quirinal is now a hospital. Many of its nurses are the noble women of Italy. The city is filled with welfare organizations.

Buried in the heart of Rome, its ruins telling us the story of the birth of civilization, lies the Forum, unchanged, unaffected by the world struggle. It speaks of days that were, of other wars, of Caesar, who, like the Kaiser, was ambitious, of Marc Antony who sacrificed everything for love of a woman, of Cicero, and others whose deeds and words have made history.

Above the ruins of the Forum is the Palatine. Here once lived the Caesars. Their palaces once covered the hill from which they looked down upon Rome. The Golden Palace of Nero has been obliterated by time, just as the chateaus and beautiful structures of northern France have been leveled by the invading Germans.

Fortunate is the world that the treasures of Rome are intact. St. Peter's and all the wonderful churches still stand unharmed. The Vatican with its storehouse of treasures remains as it was. Art galleries containing world's masterpieces are preserved for posterity.

Rome is still the Rome familiar to travelers. Its hotels are filled, not with tourists, but with officers and their families. Its streets are still throbbing with life, it remains one of the most interesting cities on this spinning globe.

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL SERIAL NUMBER 171

Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1919, by the Mentor Association, Inc.

ITALY UNDER WAR CONDITIONS

By E. M. NEWMAN, _Traveler and Lecturer_

_MENTOR GRAVURES_--A BANK IN VENICE, PROTECTED AGAINST ATTACK · A MARKET SQUARE IN ROME · AN ITALIAN KINDERGARTEN SHATTERED BY A BOMB · TAKING DOWN THE HORSES OF ST. MARK'S · CHURCH OF ST. MARK'S BOARDED UP FOR PROTECTION · PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, ROME