1. The Della Chiesa family in 1862. From left to right: Giacomo, Mother, Baccino, Gianantonio and Giulia. Father behind.
It took some time for Benedict and Gasparri to develop the confidence and the contacts necessary to embark on serious peace diplomacy. During the first year of the war, they dedicated their diplomatic energies to the relief of suffering on all sides, among both soldiers and civilians. By the middle of 1915 they came to believe that the Papacy could and must now play an effective peace-making role. As a result, they moved beyond public appeals for peace to active peace diplomacy, a diplomatic offensive, as Garzia has described it,1 which culminated in the ‘Peace Note’ of August 1917 (see pp. 123–8). Even after the bitter disappointment of seeing the Note scorned and rejected by both sides, Benedict did not give up. Though he did little for some months after the Note, he returned to an active policy in November 1917, after the catastrophic Italian defeat at Caporetto, when he sought to negotiate with Vienna on Italy’s behalf. A year later, when the boot was on the other foot, when the Austrian Empire faced total defeat, he engaged in increasingly urgent diplomatic efforts to save it from collapse. All his efforts were fruitless, leaving the Vatican an impotent bystander when the First World War came to an end in November 1918.
Christmas 1914 marked the point at which Benedict first sought to intervene directly in the war, by appealing to the belligerent powers to accept a twenty-four-hour cease-fire in celebration of the birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’. His efforts were not successful: though he received a sympathetic hearing from the British, German and Austro-Hungarian governments, the French and Russians said no. It was his first major disappointment, his first rebuff, but he was to experience many more of them in the future, and they were to be increasingly bitter and disillusioning. This failure notwithstanding, early in the New Year, on 10 January, he published his ‘Prayer for Peace’ which he urged the bishops to commend to their clergy and faithful.2 The reception of this prayer in the Catholic world demonstrated the extreme difficulty of the Vatican’s position during the war. In both Belgium and France clergy, and even bishops, insisted on interpreting the purpose of the prayer in a manner tailor-made to fit the patriotic intents of their countries.3 And one bishop actually went so far as to change the text of the prayer, adding the words ‘On conditions honourable to our Fatherland’.4 What possible chance was there of developing mutual comprehension among Catholics of the two warring camps in these circumstances?
1. The Della Chiesa family in 1862. From left to right: Giacomo, Mother, Baccino, Gianantonio and Giulia. Father behind.
2. Giacomo and family in 1902. Back, second from left, Baccino, Mother, Giacomo. Far right, Giulia. Bottom left, her husband Pino Persico.
15. Benedict XV on his deathbed, January 1922; his friend Carlo Monti is on his knees, third from right
Of all the papal initiatives of this time, the one which was to bear most practical fruit was the decree published in L’Osservatore Romano of 23 December 1914, providing for ‘spiritual and material assistance to prisoners’.5 Even though the Vatican had already begun some relief operations earlier, out of this decree developed a vast array of papal humanitarian relief measures throughout the course of the war, and afterwards, which was comparable in extent to the great work of the International Red Cross. The main thrust of this humanitarian endeavour was obviously the welfare of prisoners of war. By the spring of 1915, an organization called the Opera dei Prigionieri had been set up in the Vatican, located in the offices of the Secretariat of State, and by the end of the war it had dealt with a staggering 600,000 items of correspondence, including 170,000 enquiries about missing persons, 40,000 appeals for help in the repatriation of sick POWs and the forwarding of 50,000 letters to and from prisoners and their families.6
As the conflict developed, Benedict’s first priority was to alleviate the condition of sick, wounded and invalid POWs in the camps, and to provide them with chaplains (of all faiths) and other services; in this regard, the visits of local bishops and clergy, and of the papal nuncios in Brussels, Munich and Vienna, to the POW camps was very important.7 The latter also inevitably involved the Vatican in negotiations over the condition of prison camps and the facilities provided there, as well as delicate questions of the maltreatment of prisoners.8 Particular attention was devoted to young soldiers who had been wounded and captured in their first battle – in September 1916, Benedict received an especially heartrending letter on this subject from a Mme Dumas, a widowed mother in the town of Nevers in France.9 There was also the special case of the fathers of large families.10 Another small but nevertheless important group were civilian internees, especially French and Belgian;11 the problems of humanitarian relief and moral condemnation of the actions of the military authorities became hopelessly intertwined when it was a case of civilian populations deported en masse, such as in Belgium in 1915. Nevertheless, the Germans agreed to halt Belgian deportations thanks to the intervention of Benedict and the nuncio in Munich, Mgr Aversa.12
Switzerland rapidly became a major centre of the Vatican’s relief humanitarian operations. The government of that neutral country was very anxious to assist in the Pope’s various projects for assistance to POWs and a succession of Vatican special envoys, first Mgr Marchetti-Selvaggiani and later Mgr Maglione (who became cardinal Secretary of State to Pius XII) took up residence in Freibourg and Berne to co-ordinate these joint efforts, and they were assisted by Count Santucci, a leading member of the ‘black’ aristocracy and president of the Banco di Roma.13 The presence of the Prussian, Bavarian and Austro-Hungarian legations in Lugano, following their departure from Rome, also made this papal ‘presence’ especially useful. By January 1917, 26,000 POWs and 3,000 civilian detainees had been given the opportunity to convalesce in hospitals or sanatoria in Switzerland.14
The negotiations for these relatively modest operations were not easy, but those for the exchange of prisoners between the two sides were extremely difficult and long-drawn-out, frequently breaking down due to mutual suspicion.15 The most difficult of all exchanges to arrange seem to have been those between Italy and Austria-Hungary – the Vatican never succeeded in bringing Italian or Austro-Hungarian POWs to Switzerland, and in February 1918, Maglione was still negotiating to obtain the release of sick Italian prisoners captured at the battle of Caporetto five months before: he did not succeed.16 The Vatican had almost as much difficulty brokering a truce to permit the burial of the dead on the Italo-Austrian front line in December 1915.17 The Italians’ record of looking after the interests of their captured soldiers during the First World War was not a good one.18 A major motive for opposing repatriation of POWs on both sides was the fear that such a measure would breed defeatism among soldiers at the front: Sonnino was particularly obdurate about this.19
Both during and after the war (see pp. 147–8), one of Benedict’s major concerns was the fate of children. In October 1916 he addressed an appeal to the clergy and laity of the United States for money to help feed the children of Belgium.20 But feeding the famished was not restricted to children; the Vatican was involved in a number of operations aimed at providing foodstuffs for populations in or behind the war zones. To quote a few examples, Lithuania, Montenegro in both 1916 and 1917, Poland in 1916, Russian refugees in 1916 and Syria and Lebanon from 1916 through to 1922.21 In the latter case, Benedict’s efforts were once again obstructed by Sonnino.22 Count Giuseppe Dalla Torre, a leading Catholic layman and editor of L’Osservatore Romano, wrote of this operation, ‘the Christians of Syria and the East, subject to diseases, famine and oppressive maltreatment, recognized in him [Benedict] their most effective protector’.23 The very specific reference to ‘Christians’ in that quotation was not accidental: the Vatican’s relations with The Sublime Porte, the Ottoman Government in Istanbul, had not been good for a long time, but they deteroriated further during the course of the war, due to the Turks’ treatment of Christian populations in their empire and most particularly, the massacres of the Armenians, who were considered disloyal. In April and May 1915 a campaign of what would now be called ‘ethnic cleansing’ was launched against the Christian, mainly Armenian, populations of Anatolia. In July, the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople, Mgr Dolci, was instructed to protest against the massacres; the governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary were also asked to bring pressure to bear on their ally to stop the killings, and Benedict himself sent an autograph letter on 10 September to the Sultan who, in his role as Caliph of Islam, was, like the Pope, a world-wide religious leader.24 The Pope’s intervention had only limited success; by the end of the war it was estimated that over a million Armenians had died, either killed outright by the Turks, or as a result of maltreatment or from starvation.25
In a comment on the role of Benedict XV during the First World War, the leader of the future Italian Catholic party, Fr Luigi Sturzo, made the point that moral theology took a long time to catch up with the horrors unleashed by the new technology of warfare.26 But it was not merely theology which had to catch up, men’s imaginations took some time to come to terms with the appalling human effects of mines, submarines and aerial bombardment. Benedict was particularly revolted by the effects of the latter on civilian populations, which were very evident in and around the battle zones of north-eastern Italy, especially Venice, Treviso, Padua, Trieste and Pola. From early 1916 onwards, Vatican diplomacy accordingly devoted much attention to pleading with the military authorities to desist from these ‘barbarous’ practices.27 It had only limited success, despite the support of Orlando who suggested a thirty-kilometre ‘air-raid-free zone’: there continued to be bombardments of even ‘open cities’ right until the end of the war.28 Benedict was truly prodigal in his efforts to relieve suffering on all sides during the war. In the process, he spent an enormous amount of money – eighty-two million lire – and nearly bankrupted the Vatican.29 He got little in the way of reward during the course of the conflict: on the contrary, as we have already seen, he was attacked from all sides. Ironically, the lasting monument to his humanitarian efforts came not in any European state, but in Turkey of all places: in Istanbul a statue was erected in his honour, even before the end of the war.
The publication of the Apostolic Exhortation, ‘To the Belligerent Peoples, and their Rulers’, of 28 July 1915, marks a turning point in the development of Vatican policy during the course of the war; it was at this stage that Benedict and Gasparri committed themselves to active diplomacy in the cause of peace: ‘a peace offensive’ that would culminate in the famous ‘Peace Note’ of August 1917.30 Their decision to do so at this point was determined by two factors: Italy’s entry into the war was, as has been seen, causing serious problems for the Holy See, and the fact that it was clear the belligerent powers were unable or unwilling to initiate peace moves themselves.
The Exhortation, written to commemorate the first anniversary of the outbreak of the war, contained an apocalyptic warning of the dangers of not seeking a negotiated peace: ‘Abandon the mutual threat of destruction. Remember, Nations do not die; humiliated and oppressed, they bear the weight of the yoke imposed upon them, preparing themselves for their come-back and transmitting from one generation to the next a sad legacy of hatred and vendetta.’31 The phrase ‘Nations do not die’ was one of Benedict’s most evocative and memorable, and was followed by a very explicit invitation to the belligerents to go to the negotiating table:
It is not true that this conflict cannot be resolved without the violence of arms … Why not from this moment consider with a serene conscience the rights and just aspirations of peoples? Why not commence in good will an exchange, direct or indirect, of views with the purpose of keeping in mind as far as possible those rights and those aspirations and thus put an end to this conflict, as has happened in other circumstances? Blessed be he who first raises the olive branch of peace and extends his right hand to the enemy offering reasonable conditions for peace. The equilibrium of the world and prosperity and secure tranquillity of nations rest on mutual benevolence and the respect of the rights of and dignity of others, rather than on a multitude of armies and a formidable ring of fortresses.32
The reference to an ‘indirect’ as well as direct exchange of views was clearly intended as a hint that the Holy See would be willing to assist in the making of secret contacts.
In fact, Benedict and Gasparri had already actively engaged in a quite sustained peace ‘offensive’, that is they had striven to preserve the peace between Italy and Austria-Hungary throughout the whole period of the former’s neutrality, August 1914 to May 1915. After the failure of that episode in Vatican diplomacy, some prompting to resume their efforts and extend their scope must have come from the awareness that the Pope was increasingly being seen by a variety of groups as a major force for peace. In May 1915 the Pope received a delegation from the Dutch Roman Catholic State Party to discuss the possibility of a peace conference at The Hague.33 A month later came the visit of the American women peace activists, Jane Adams and Alice Hamilton Balch who, fresh from their own ‘peace’ conference at The Hague, set out to visit the European heads of state, including the Pope: they recorded with some surprise the enthusiasm, informality and cordiality of the reception which they received from Benedict.34 In this same period began the succession of approaches from Jewish groups and individuals in both France and America, pleading for the Pope to intervene in defence of Jews being maltreated in Russia or in territories under Russian occupation.35 Shortly before the publication of the Exhortation, the Vatican had been involved in an attempt to assist in bringing about a separate peace between Germany and Belgium and France. It conveyed an offer, on behalf of Germany, to restore Belgian independence and sovereignty, and to negotiate the future of Alsace-Lorraine with France.36 Cardinal Mercier’s reply to the suggestion that he should pass the offer on to his government was a decisive ‘no’, and Mgr Baudrillart, the head of the prestigious Catholic Institut de France, and also the author of the French reply to the declaration of the German Catholics of 1914, made it clear that such a proposal was wholly inopportune.37 Benedict blamed the failure of this démarche on the intransigence of the British.38 After the failure of this, the first major peace initiative since Italian intervention, Benedict desisted from major peace efforts until the autumn of the following year. In the meantime, he intensified his efforts to relieve suffering and to denounce the war, like the impassioned plea of his consistorial allocution of 15 December 1915 against ‘the fatal war on land and sea.39
December 1916 marked a watershed in the First World War, a moment when the increasing futility of the military stalemate induced one side at least – the Central Powers – to seriously consider a negotiated peace. The German peace initiative came, as was to be nearly always the case during the First World War, at a time of relative strength – the Central Powers had knocked Romania out of the war at the end of November and captured Bucharest at the beginning of December. On the other hand, during the Brusilov offensive in June 1916, the Russians had driven the Austro-Hungarian armies back to the Carpathian mountains, threatening the collapse of the Habsburg Empire; indeed, it would have collapsed but for repeated German intervention.40 In consequence, the government in Vienna was even more dependent than ever upon its German ally, and subservient to it: in effect, its satellite. The death of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria and the accession of his nephew Karl I to the Habsburg throne that same November represented a substantial change in the Austrian position. Henceforth, though young and inexperienced, the new Emperor would become increasingly anxious to negotiate his way out of the war in order to escape what seemed to be the war’s inevitable consequence – the collapse of the Empire. This latent division between the policies of the two Central Empires would provide both the Vatican and the Entente Powers with considerable opportunities for peace diplomacy in 1917 and 1918.
Meanwhile, Germany took the peace initiative. On 12 December, separate and different notes were handed to both the United States Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin, and to Cardinal Gasparri in the Vatican.41 The latter was conspicuous for the deliberate echoes of the language which the Pope himself had used in all of his pronouncements on peace but most notably in the Apostolic Exhortation of July 1915, and concluded by saying: ‘The Imperial Government is firmly confident that the initiative of the four Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) will find a friendly welcome on the part of His Holiness, and that the work of peace can count upon the precious support of the Holy See.’42 The work of peace could, of course, always count upon the support of the Holy See, nevertheless, the German peace note received a rather qualified welcome in the Vatican. The problem was that it contained nothing in the way of suggestions for heads of discussion, or even less, possible concessions: nothing concrete at all. Benedict and Gasparri were by no means convinced of the usefulness of the initiative, and it is clear that they were made to understand by De Salis that Britain and France would not welcome any support that they gave it.43 Peters concludes that ‘Benedict realised that if he offended the Entente Powers now, any future efforts would be met with antagonism’.44 With the palpable unenthusiasm of the Vatican’s eventual response to the note, and its unhappiness at the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, following the Allies’ rejection of the German Peace Note, there was a decided cooling in the relations between the Vatican and Berlin which was not to change until Benedict issued his own Peace Note in August 1917.45
Shortly after the German note was published, on 20 December 1916, the US President Woodrow Wilson made his own appeal for peace. The key sentence in the note – ‘The President is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerents, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing’46 – is strongly reminiscent of Benedict’s own appeal of July 1915, but had no more success in achieving its goal, coming too soon after the rejected German peace initiative. On 24 December, L’Osservatore Romano came out in support of Wilson’s initiative, but privately Gasparri was less enthusiastic.47 Within just over four months of his note Wilson had broken off relations with Germany. In the meantime, as indeed it had been doing for some previous time, the Vatican strove to avert the breach.
The cause of tensions between Germany and the United States was the former’s adoption of submarine warfare, against both enemies and neutrals alike. As J. A. Salter points out, the First World War ‘was as much a war of competing blockades, the surface and submarine, as of competing armies. Behind these two blockades the economic systems of the two opposing countries were engaged in a deadly struggle for existence.’48 To the British and French naval blockade of their coasts, the Central Powers, chiefly Germany, replied with submarine warfare, and the Germans eventually decided upon the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking without warning. As the sinkings took their toll and anger stirred in America, Benedict had tried to intervene. His attitude towards both the blockade and submarine warfare was a complex one. He regarded both as essentially immoral, and both as probably violations of international law. He was almost certainly right. Hardach argues:
Such procedure (sinking without warning) was clearly contrary to established international law, but so, too, was the unrestricted blockade of the Central Powers by the Allies from March 1915 onwards. Hence during and after the war, the Germans tended to regard the one as offsetting the other under international law. But to all save the Germans there was a marked distinction between the confiscation of goods and the sinking without warning of ships, together with their helpless crews and passengers.49
In the autumn of 1915 Gasparri had denounced ‘the appalling and immoral submarine warfare’ and condemned Germany’s U-Boat campaign to the Canadian bishop, Mgr MacNally.50 On the other hand, there was a feeling in the Vatican that the USA was not an impartial neutral, that it was helping one side – the Allies – against the Central Powers, and for largely selfish reasons. Certainly, the United States was effectively committed to the Allies because of economic ties.51 Benedict particularly deplored the United States’ arms trade with Britain and France, especially when it was carried on in passenger vessels, thus providing an excuse for their sinking by the Germans. As early as April 1915, in an interview published in a pro-German New York newspaper, Benedict had called upon the United States to enforce an arms embargo against both sides.52 In 1916, the Pope went so far as to claim that the arms trade was ‘contrary to the law of nations’: though he was a lawyer by training, strictly speaking his judgement was wrong.53 Even so, there is no evidence to support Zivojinovic’s claim that the Vatican believed the sinking of passenger ships which carried arms was justified.54
The Vatican’s hope that, despite the increasing tensions with Germany, the United States would remain neutral were based on the plausible assumption that the German and Irish Catholic groups in America would continue to influence public opinion in a neutralist direction. It also had reason to believe that United States Jewish opinion, which was hostile to Russia, could also be mobilized in support.55 Thus Benedict regarded Wilson’s proposal for a ‘League for Peace’, on 28 May 1916, as a sop to Irish and German voters.56 The Vatican urged restraint after the sinking of the Arabic in 1915 and Zivojinovic grudgingly admits that when on 1 September 1916, the German Ambassador Bernstorff told the United States Secretary of State Lansing that passenger liners would not be attacked, ‘The Pope was credited by some for this concession on Germany’s part’.57 As late as February 1917, Benedict was prepared to be a go-between in an attempt to seek both the end of the blockade and of submarine warfare.58
The United States declaration of war in April 1917 was greeted with dismay and perplexity in the Vatican. Commenting on the sour response of L’Osservatore Romano, the Tablet declared rather patronizingly, ‘These are not easy matters for the Roman mind to grasp’, but at least it had the decency to admit that ‘Had not the President as short a time ago as last Christmas sent out the great peace message?’59 He had indeed, and A. J. P. Taylor, speaking of Wilson’s decision, says, ‘It was ironical that he abandoned neutrality just when his mediation might have achieved some purpose at last.’60 Gasparri was rather more cynical about Wilson’s decision, claiming that it had been prompted by an overweening desire to be present at the peace conference.61 For Benedict, the American decision was another tragedy, threatening to prolong the war even further.
Though the United States entry into the war might have seemed to make the prospect of peace even more remote, by the summer of 1917 there were factors in the general situation which suggested that some peace initiative at this point might have had success. Since the beginning of the year there had been tentative approaches on both sides. The brother-in-law of the Austrian Emperor, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, had sought to open a channel of communication on his behalf with the French,62 an initiative which had received support from the Vatican.63 By February 1917 there were rumours of developing talks between representatives of Britain and France, and Austria-Hungary in Switzerland. Carlo Monti repeatedly asked both Benedict and Gasparri about the truth of these rumours and about alleged Vatican involvement in them: both repeatedly denied the rumours, but some evidence suggests that they might have been thrifty with the truth in their answers to Monti.64 It seems unlikely, however, that the Vatican was actively involved in these talks because Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, told Benedict that any peace initiative on the Pope’s part would displease Britain.65
The contacts which did take place were indicative of increasing war-weariness in both camps. The Russian Revolution of February was an instructive example of what could happen under the strain of war – economic, social and political breakdown. These were just the sorts of evils which Benedict and Gasparri, and others like Erzberger and Karl I, had been warning about. The mutinies among French troops following the failure of Nivelle’s offensive in the spring of 1917 brought home to the Allies the grave risks they now faced. Again, by the summer of 1917, various international congresses were putting on the pressure for peace negotiations. In February Catholic MPs from various countries had met to discuss peace in Switzerland;66 in Stockholm, representatives of Europe’s Socialist parties met to talk peace and there were rumours of a secret masonic congress dedicated to that end.67 All these developments must have weighed on Benedict’s mind. As Taylor says, ‘The Summer of 1917 saw the only real gropings in Europe towards peace by negotiation.’68
The most promising and interesting of all the aspects of the situation in the summer of 1917, and the one which undoubtedly influenced Benedict most in his decision to publish a ‘Peace Note’ in August, was the situation which had developed in Germany. Though militarily Germany was in a strong position, at home the war effort was potentially threatened by unprecedented parliamentary dissent. Led by Matthias Erzberger, a ‘respectable’ majority emerged in the Reichstag which passed a ‘peace resolution’ in July.69 Erzberger was in a uniquely powerful position for a civilian politician in wartime Germany. A major exponent of the Catholic Centre Party, he had run the country’s propaganda and intelligence-gathering operations abroad, including Italy.70 In early 1915 he had been sent on two missions to Italy to dissuade her from entering the war, and in the course of them had established contact with the Vatican, meeting Benedict on two occasions, and had been instrumental in securing the consent of the German High Command to Benedict’s request for a truce on the Nieuw Chapelle battlefield in order to bury the dead.71 By the summer of 1917, Erzberger had been converted from an ‘annexationist’ to a ‘disannexationist’ viewpoint and was the Vatican’s white hope in Germany, the man it believed who would work as its agent of peace within the Empire. Aside from his parliamentary influence, Erzberger had already demonstrated the influence which he could exercise within the Imperial Government by his success in securing prisoner exchanges at Benedict’s request.72
Monticone talks about the ‘German origins’ of Benedict’s Peace Note.73 In one sense he is right: Benedict believed that Germany was the key to a successful peace process. Unlike the Allied Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary were in control of large areas of occupied territory, most especially Belgium, whose restitution was for the Allied Powers the sine qua non of any settlement.74 Benedict therefore began from the premise that only the indication of a willingness on Germany’s part to evacuate occupied territory would persuade the Allied Powers to come to the negotiating table. Benedict and Gasparri made careful preparations for what was to become their major peace initiative. In May, in anticipation of a ‘peace note’, Benedict was in contact with the Emperor Karl and Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary75 and sent Mgr Pacelli as nuncio to Bavaria, and therefore effectively papal representative to Germany in place of Aversa who had died the previous month.76 During the course of several conversations with Chancellor Bethman-Hollweg and the Kaiser himself, Pacelli hammered out heads of discussion on which Germany would be prepared to negotiate peace:
1. General limitation of armaments
2. Establishment of international courts
3. Restoration of the independence of Belgium
4. Alsace-Lorraine and other such territorial questions were to be settled by agreements betweens the countries concerned
It was on this that Benedict based his own Peace Note. The problem was that by August Bethman-Hollweg had been ousted by Hindenburg and Ludendorff and replaced by Michaelis, a colourless bureaucrat who more or less did their bidding.
In content, Benedict’s note of 1 August (actually sent to the governments of the belligerent powers on the 15th) was a considerable improvement upon both his own previous pronouncements, and the German and American notes of the previous December. It did not content itself with vague references to ‘exchanges of views’ or ‘the rights and just aspirations of peoples’. It set out, systematically, proposals for bringing the war to an end and securing a just and enduring peace:
1. A simultaneous and reciprocal decrease of armaments
2. International arbitration
3. True freedom and community of the seas
4. Reciprocal renunciation of war indemnities
5. Evacuation and restoration of all occupied territories
6. An examination in a conciliatory spirit of rival territorial claims77
Belgium, northern France and the German colonies were explicitly mentioned by name under no. 5, and no. 6 talked equally explicitly of ‘territorial questions … pending between Italy and Austria, and between Germany and France’; in addition, Benedict went beyond the status quo ante bellum by insisting on the need to examine ‘the remaining territorial and political questions, and particularly those which concern Armenia, the Balkan states, and the territories which form part of the former kingdom of Poland’.78 This was the first time during the course of the war that any person or power had formulated a detailed and practical schema for a peace negotiation.
The responses to the Peace Note were disappointing. The initial Allied response was summed up by an article in The Times. Headed ‘German Peace Move’, the article went on to say, ‘More peace proposals’ have been put forth. This time they emanate from the Vatican’.79 The British Government was, in fact, slow to respond, sending only a letter of acknowledgement. The French never replied at all, combining their resentment of Britain’s unilateral action with their usual suspicion of the Papacy: Clémenceau dubbed Benedict’s plan as ‘a peace against France’.80 Of all the Allied Powers, Italy was the most overtly and publicly hostile. Its reply came from Sonnino in a debate on foreign policy in October in the Italian Senate where he dismissed the Pope’s proposals as inadequate.81 Sonnino’s hostility was motivated by a number of factors. In the first place, his intelligence sources had convinced him that the German High Command were not really serious about giving up Belgium, which was eventually proved to be the case.82 He was also concerned that in any detailed negotiations over territorial questions, Italy’s claims to the terre irredente would be brushed aside because of Italy’s lack of military progress. The double-dealing of Britain and France earlier in the year make this a plausible scenario. Finally, Sonnino was tenaciously opposed to any increase in international prestige and profile which a successful peace initiative would bring the Pope, fearing that Article 15 would be set aside by his allies, and that Benedict would be allowed a representative at the talks, if not the presidency of them. The reaction of the Central Powers was equally disappointing. Despite the Emperor Karl’s genuine support for Benedict’s initiative, given the hopeless dependence of the Habsburg Empire upon German military support he was obliged to follow the lead given in Berlin. What was most striking was that the replies of the Central Powers omitted all mention of territorial questions.83 The problem was that real bargaining power lay with the German High Command, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the Kaiser and the Prussian military caste. They were not inclined to budge: as Kennedy points out, in the summer of 1917, especially after the success of the German U-Boat offensive in the Atlantic and the failure of the Russian offensive on the Eastern Front, ‘Germany seemed on the point of victory.’84 Benedict had overestimated the power of civilian politicians like Erzberger, and underestimated that of the military. Erzberger was actually prosecuted for treason after his conciliatory Ulm speech in 1917.85
It was precisely the need to crush the power of German militarism which Woodrow Wilson gave as his reason for rejecting the practicability of Benedict’s proposals in the letter he sent which effectively served as the official reply on the part of the Allied governments. Wilson argued that Germany simply could not be trusted: ‘We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of any thing that is to endure’,86 and he implied that only a change of regime in Germany in a democratic direction would provide the necessary preconditions for peace.87 As O’Neill says, ‘the [President’s] Note very clearly closed the door to the initiation of peace in the near future … the other replies to the Pope’s Note cease to have interest in the face of Mr. Wilson’s answer. They came as an anti-climax.’88
By the spring of 1917, Wilson had already emerged as the dominant figure on the Allied side, and therefore as the future leader of the world, and this was confirmed by his reply to the papal Peace Note of August. As such he would brook no rivals. This Calvinist idealist, who was ‘convinced of his own moral and intellectal superiority’, was also notoriously anti-Catholic (though not at election time), and tended to see all Europeans as parochial and unenlightened, including Benedict.89 According to Zivojinovic, Wilson’s ‘Peace without Victory’ speech of January 1922 swept Benedict and his peace efforts aside.90 The only ‘victory’ which the Pope could claim over the President was a moral one: the famous ‘Fourteen Points’ speech made by Wilson in January 1918 was so close in content and formulation to Benedict’s note that the only conclusion to be drawn is that it was heavily inspired by it.91
The Pope and his Secretary of State were inevitably bitterly disappointed by the responses to the Note and the ultimate failure of their initiative: Benedict told one of his friends that it was the bitterest moment of his life when he heard of the rejection of the Note by Wilson.92 Though there were many positive responses from bishops, clergy and laity throughout the world, there were equally many hostile ones. A preacher in the church of La Madeleine, Paris, exclaimed, ‘Holy Father, we do not want your peace.’93 The hardest of all to swallow were the responses which the Note elicited in Benedict’s homeland: in Naples he was denounced as ‘the German pope’.94 Posterity has been kinder to the papal peace initiative of August 1917. Enrico Serra, the distinguished Italian diplomatic historian, for example, has remarked that:
it seems legitimate to conclude, on the basis of the tragic military events which followed, that the note was anything but premature. So much so that France and Britain decided to make contact with Vienna, while the new Italian prime minister, V. E. Orlando, proposed to establish direct [diplomatic] relations with the Holy See.95
The failure of the Peace Note was soon overshadowed by events in Italy; in late October and early November 1917 Italy suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Austro-Hungarians, backed by German forces. Within less than three weeks, the Italians were driven back from their positions on the river Isonzo, on the far side of the Austro-Hungarian frontier, over 120 miles to the river Piave, and only succeeded in stabilizing the exposed northern end of that line with great difficulty. In the rout, they lost nearly 300,000 men, not to mention precious stores and guns.96 In this great national crisis, the Church, and especially the rural clergy of the Veneto region, were called upon to play a vital role to restore morale. On 12 November, the Italian Prime Minister, Vittorio Emmanuele Orlando, asked Benedict to order the bishops to tell the people of the front-line areas to stay put, in order to diminish the stream of panic-stricken civilian refugees who were hampering the efforts of the Italian armies to re-group.97 In fact, information reached the Vatican that in areas on the line of retreat of the Italian forces, both Italy’s military and civil authorities behaved badly, often abandoning their posts; in the resulting chaos, and amidst widespread looting by Italian troops, the local bishops and clergy were often the only focus of authority.98 Behind the lines, bishops and clergy were often also the main providers for those same refugees, church property being used for these as well as military purposes.99 Benedict showed great patriotic concern, and his feelings were inspired in part no doubt by the fact that the estate of his sister Giulia lay only eight kilometres behind the Piave. And as Carlo Monti noted in his diary, the Pope was also afraid for his only nephew, Pino, who was fighting at the front; unknown to Benedict, Monti tried several times, unsuccessfully, to persuade the authorities to send him to the rear.100 As Benedict noted with a certain irony, the same Italian ministers and officials who had often been responsible for obstructing his humanitarian efforts for prisoners, etc., now besieged the Vatican with requests for information about their sons or nephews taken prisoner by the enemy: ‘You would not believe how many people are turning to us to have news.’101
Sonnino’s hostility to the Peace Note, and indeed all papal peace initiatives, did not prevent the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from seeking to use Vatican diplomacy to extricate Italy from her perilous predicament after Caporetto. On 14 November, the Secretary-General of the Ministry urged on Sonnino the necessity ‘to take advantage of the Vatican, whose close links with Germany at the time of the papal note of last August we know about. The Vatican could be able to guarantee the word of the enemy sovereigns.’102 When Gasparri was asked his opinion on this proposal he replied that Italy could not expect much more than the parecchio of Giolitti (i.e. that which Giolitti believed Italy could have obtained from Austria-Hungary in 1915 simply by remaining neutral, which was a lot – parecchio), because things had changed since then.103 By the end of the month the situation at the front had settled itself, and the Italian government abandoned its initiative. But Vatican diplomacy was still needed to help Italy: Benedict sought to persuade Germany and Austria-Hungary not permanently to annexe the Italian territory which they had conquered in October and November.104 By the New Year, despite the reinforcements from her allies, Italy’s plight was such that the Italian Finance Minister, Francesco Nitti, was again seeking the Vatican’s good offices to negotiate a separate peace with Austria-Hungary (see p. 132).
There is about the Italian defeat at Caporetto a certain element of hubris. Just at the moment that the offensive of the Central Powers was getting under way on the Isonzo front, Gasparri, on the Italians’ behalf, had been taking soundings with the Emperor Karl about a peace based on the cession of Trento in exchange for an Italian colony.105 Later that month Orlando asked Benedict to tell Germany not to wage war upon Italy, as she was doing with such effect at that time: Gasparri in reply pointed out that Italy should not have declared war on Germany and Victor Emmanuel III should not have visited Alsace-Lorraine …’.106 In fact, Benedict and Gasparri showed considerable sympathy towards Italy throughout the conflict, and it could even be said that the Vatican’s policy of impartiality towards the belligerents was temporarily abandoned for the sake of Italy when Gasparri gave warnings to Nitti about an imminent Austro-Hungarian offensive in 1917.107
Though in the long term, the rallying of Catholic clergy and laity to the patriotic cause was to do a great deal of good for Church–State relations in Italy, at the time some Italian authorities and newspapers showed scant gratitude or even recognition of the fact. In early 1918, both Prime Minister Orlando and the Vatican were contacted by a number of bishops in the front-line areas protesting about numerous cases of their clergy being prosecuted for defeatism, spying and contacts with the enemy.108 Another victim of Italian suspicion and paranoia in the wake of the Caporetto defeat was Giuseppe Dalla Torre, head of Italian Catholic Action, who was later investigated by the ‘Commission of Inquiry into Caporetto’ for encouraging defeatism.109 More seriously, the interventionist and anti-clerical press, returning to their longstanding accusation that Benedict was a pawn of the Central Powers, and in search of a scapegoat for Caporetto, cited the Peace Note as having spread defeatism among the Italian troops at Caporetto.110 The more malicious changed the Pope’s regnal name from Benedetto XV (meaning ‘blessed’) to Maledetto XV (meaning ‘accursed’). And British newspapers took up the cry; The Morning Post and The Times blamed the lack of resistance at Caporetto on Benedict.111 Of course, Benedict’s famous condemnation of the ‘useless slaughter’ in the Peace Note could just as easily have affected the morale of the armies of the Central Powers as well as those of Italy, France or Belgium.
By the beginning of 1918, Benedict’s worst fears about the wider consequences of the war were being realized. The Bolsheviks had carried out their revolution and civil war was spreading throughout Russia. Unrest was also spreading in the belligerent states, especially the Central Powers. In a letter to the Emperor Karl, Benedict warned about the increasing influence of subversive elements in all the countries at war.112 Karl hardly needed to be told; he had his own problems. Widespread strikes, a naval mutiny in Dalmatia and open agitation among the various minority nationalities for ‘self-determination’ were beginning to tear his empire apart.113 But even at this stage all was not lost: the Entente Powers, for example, remained convinced that the survival of Austria-Hungary would still be essential to the maintenance of the post-war balance of power. In the same letter to Karl, Benedict therefore urged upon him the view that the only way out of the desperate situation in which the Habsburg Empire found itself was to seek peace at once, by appealing to President Wilson: ‘In the present international situation, it is not England or France but the President of the great American Republic alone: only he can bring about peace or the continuation of the war, and he wishes to dictate the peace in the time that remains of his presidential term.’114
Who said that Benedict was old-fashioned, out-of-touch, ignorant, prejudiced and blind to the importance of the United States? The Vatican’s peace diplomacy continued into April when Gasparri reiterated to Nitti the need for peace negotiations between Italy and Austria-Hungary, but without success.115 In August, Benedict had resolved not to engage in any further initiatives,116 but the autumn brought a different situation, the impending collapse of Austria-Hungary. As late as October 1918 Benedict was still seeking to persuade Orlando of the continuing validity of the original Entente view, now somewhat eroded by events, that it was necessary to preserve Austria-Hungary.117 Yet it is also clear that both Benedict and Gasparri were pragmatists: when they saw that it was impossible to save the Habsburg Empire they turned their attentions to Poland, arguing that this overwhelmingly Catholic state would provide a more than adequate substitute as a bulwark against both Germany and Russia.118
It can be argued that the failure of Benedict’s peace diplomacy was due principally to three powers, Britain, the USA and Germany. Britain repeatedly made it clear via its envoys to the Vatican that it did not welcome the Pope’s peace efforts. As De Salis explained to Gasparri, the British were not only fighting for Belgium, but for Sterling as well.119 In other words, they were engaged in a struggle for economic supremacy with Germany, not to mention naval mastery. They might consider a negotiated peace with Austria-Hungary, but a ‘draw’ with Germany was out of the question, whatever the cost. France and, even more so, Italy were effectively clients of Britain. However much they might resent that status, they were obliged out of economic weakness to follow the British line; and Sonnino had his own good reasons for not wanting Benedict’s impartial mediation.
The USA, or at least Wilson, was determined to play the role of arbiter in the conflict, whether it was at peace or war. Crusading, anti-European idealism and Wilson’s international ambitions were the driving forces behind American policy towards the war, and her attitude towards Benedict’s peace efforts. It was, therefore, pretty clear from the beginning of 1917 that unless a papal peace initiative elicited strong and practical support from the European powers at war, Wilson would oppose it. Britain, in its turn, after the American entry, was not prepared to gainsay Wilson’s policy because of its dependence on the USA for any hope of winning the war.
In the case of Germany, the calculation by her military commanders after the failed Brusilov offensive was that Russia could be pushed into capitulation, thus opening up vistas of territorial acquisitions in Poland, the Baltic States and western Russia that were in fact largely realized by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918. This powerful temptation to return to the policy of the Drang nach Osten, the imperialistic and colonizing drive to the East, coupled with the very correct perception that the survival of the Prussian military monarchy in an age of mass politics would require more than a negotiated ‘stalemate’ peace, ruled out accepting papal mediation in August 1917. The fact that 1917 was the four-hundredth anniversary of the start of the Lutheran Reformation did not augur well for the success of papal efforts in Protestant Germany anyway. And, of course, Austria-Hungary was capable of no independent response at all, utterly tied as she was to Germany.
Faced by these brutal realities, Benedict’s patient, gentlemanly diplomatic efforts were to no avail. Zivojinovic has argued that Benedict was old-fashioned, out of touch and irrelevant, and J. D. Gregory has claimed that the Vatican was ‘a fifth-rate diplomacy’.120 But these were not the reasons for the failure of Benedict’s effort; in any case, both claims are highly contentious. The turbine of modern, mass, total warfare produced forces that were not susceptible to a diplomacy based essentially on morality, on Catholic social doctrine, however much that doctrine might be in tune with the aspirations of other peoples, and even the principles of Wilsonianism. What Benedict was ultimately fighting against was nationalism (and militarism) in a variety of forms, and his failure to save Austria-Hungary was ultimately due to that as well.
Perhaps the cause of the failure of Benedict’s peace diplomacy was more fundamental than all the explanations advanced so far. His was a fragile, high-risk strategy which depended absolutely upon the Vatican’s ability to convince its diplomatic interlocutors of its impartiality and neutrality. But what are impartiality and neutrality? How could the Vatican under Benedict be truly impartial and neutral? Certainly, many politicians and journalists, and consequently sections of the population, in the warring countries had serious doubts about the impartiality and neutrality of the Vatican during the First World War. In the Entente countries that scepticism was widespread and in the case of France, it was deliberately fostered by anti-clerical propaganda hostile to the Vatican. The machinations of French representatives and journalists in Rome did much to put the Vatican in a bad light in the eyes of French.121 The interviews which Benedict gave to the French journalist Latapie in June 1915, and to the American pro-German journalist Weygand in April of that year were particularly damaging.122 There was rather less hostility towards the Vatican in the Central Powers, though Germany was prone to periodic waves of anti-Vatican feeling, the most notable example being when the Te Deum was sung in all Roman churches (except St Peter’s) to celebrate the British liberation of Jerusalem from the infidel Turks in December 1917.123
Just how justified these doubts about the impartiality and neutrality of the Vatican were during the war hardly matters: they were the unfortunate reality in which Benedict had to conduct his diplomacy. But it also has to be said that some attitudes and actions of the Vatican during the war did justify these doubts, like its suspicions towards Italy, its sympathy towards Austria-Hungary and its preference for a peace based on the status quo ante bellum, which was increasingly at odds with the war aims of the Entente Powers. There were even moments when the Vatican very clearly abandoned its self-imposed neutrality. One was the episode in which Gasparri gave a warning to Italy about an impending Austro-Hungarian military offensive, and another was even more serious than that. In April 1916, Gasparri, presumably with Benedict’s blessing, sought to persuade the German High Command to make special efforts to halt the Russian advance on Constantinople.124 Though the initiative was aborted half-way through, Morozzo Della Rocca, an Italian historian very sympathetic to Benedict, asks, ‘Was this true neutrality?’125 Of course it was not.
The lesson of Benedict’s peace efforts would appear to be that, though entirely sincere in their aims, i.e. to relieve suffering and stop the war, they were undermined by the hard reality that the Vatican had its own agenda and its own interests. The Papacy is a moral and religious power, not a secular and territorial one. Even so it has its own interests which can be at odds with those of other powers and thus ultimately make it impossible to be entirely impartial. But what alternative was there to Benedict’s high-risk policy? He could, perhaps, have pursued his humanitarian relief efforts, and made moral condemnations of the horrors and atrocities of war, and scrupulously abstained from any diplomatic involvement. This was the alternative which Merry Del Val, who opposed Benedict’s strategy throughout the war, would undoubtedly have followed. But such an approach would never have been acceptable to Benedict; he was temperamentally incapable of being so passive in the face of events. His charity and courage and above all his sense that duty obliged him to act, forced him to follow the policy which he did, with all its risks and dangers, its contradictions and its limited chances of success.
Though it failed to stop the war, Benedict’s peace diplomacy eventually bore its fruits. In the short term, it gave an immense boost to the diplomatic standing and influence of papal diplomacy, which was to be of great importance in the post-war period. In the longer term, it laid the foundations for a new peace-making role for the Papacy which has been continued by the majority of Benedict’s successors, most notably Pius XII at the beginning of the Second World War, John XXIII during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Paul VI during the Vietnam War and John Paul II during the Gulf War.
1. Garzia, pp. 106–7.
2. A copy of prayer is to be found in AFDC, ‘Libretto usato dal S. Padre Benedetto PP XV nella Basilica Vaticana per la preghiera della pace’.
3. Peters, p. 124.
4. As quoted in ibid.
5. L’Osservatore Romano, 23 December 1914.
6. Dalla Torre, pp. 1289–90 and Jankowiak, p. 221: according to Peters, branches of the Opera were eventually established in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
7. AAES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 1401, fasc. 535–6, ‘Visite di Mons. Valfré di Bonzo ai prigionieri italiani nei campi di Mathausen e Katzehan’. The nuncio at Munich was responsible for visits to German prisoner-of-war camps.
8. Ibid.
9. ASV, SS, Guerra, 1914–1918, rub. 244, fasc. 8, 22452, letter to Pope, 26 September 1916.
10. Ibid., 24154, letter to Pope, December 1916.
11. See AAES, Italia, 1369/1372, fasc. 517, and AAES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 1340, 492, ‘Belgio-Germania, Per la liberazione dei civili belgi detenuti in Germania’; Cardinal Hartmann was asked by the Vatican to mediate with German authorities on their behalf.
12. The Tablet, 4 April 1917.
13. Panzera, pp. 321–2.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 323.
16. Ibid.
17. Diario, I, pp. 308–9, 17 December 1915.
18. Procacci, p. 156.
19. Diario, II, pp. 324–6, 21 and 24 May 1918.
20. The Tablet, 21 October 1916.
21. AAES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 1329, fasc. 484, Lithuania, 1915–1916, ‘Soccorsi della S. Sede in favore dei Lituani provati dalla guerra, sussidi’; 1415, fasc. 561–2, Montenegro, 1916–17. ‘Vettovagliamento della popolazione’, and 1418, fasc. 562–6, Siria-Libano, 1916–1922. ‘Vettovagliamento della Siria e del Libano’. From the correspondence in these files it is clear that, as always, hostility between belligerent powers made negotiations for humanitarian work very difficult.
22. Diario, II, pp. 363–4, 13 September 1918.
23. Dalla Torre, p. 1290.
24. J. D. Gregory of British Legation to the Holy See to Grey, PRO, FO, 371, 152040, 16 October 1915. See also ASV, SS, Guerra 1914–1918, rub. 244, f. 64, 1915–16, Correspondence between Benedict XV and Sultan Mohamed V, and A. Riccardi, ‘Benedetto XV e la crisi della convivenza multireligiosa nell’Impero Turco’, in Rumi (ed.) (1990), pp. 83–128.
25. Riccardi, p. 89
26. De Rosa (1977), p. 183.
27. See the correspondence with the Austrian and German governments in AAES, Italia, 843, fasc. 308–10, ‘Bombardamenti di città indefese’ and Diario, I, pp. 242–4, 7 July 1915 and p. 339, 28 January 1966.
28. Ibid.
29. Lo Bello, p. 63.
30. Garzia, pp. 106–7.
31. La CC, 66 (1915), vol. 3, 7 August 1915, p. 259.
32. Ibid.
33. Zivojinovic (1978), p. 48.
34. Adams, pp. 12–19.
35. Korecs, p. 340 and Zivojinovic (1978), p. 22.
36. Diario, I, pp. 250–1, 17 July 1915.
37. Garzia, p. 111.
38. Diario, ibid., p. 251.
39. La CC, 66, 3 (1915).
40. Kennedy, pp. 337 & 339.
41. O’Neill, pp. 689–90.
42. Ibid., p. 691.
43. O’Neill, p. 696.
44. Peters, p. 141.
45. Monticone, p. 13.
46. O’Neill, p. 694.
47. Diario, I, p. 525, 16 December 1916.
48. Salter, p. 1.
49. Hardach, p. 37.
50. Spadolini, p. 178 and Zivojinovic (1978), p. 51.
51. Kennedy, p. 349: ‘The dependence of US exporters on European markets had made Washington far less neutral towards Germany.’
52. Wiegand interview, Zivojinovic (1978), p. 46.
53. Leslie, p. 242.
54. See Bruti Liberati, p. 132.
55. Korecs, p. 341.
56. Diario, I, p. 379, 29 May 1916.
57. Zivojinovic (1978), pp. 50 and 70.
58. Epstein, p. 127.
59. The Tablet, 21 April 1917.
60. Taylor, p. 42.
61. Diario, II, p. 67, 7 April 1917.
62. Poincaré, p. 68.
63. Diario, II, p. 33, 13 February 1917.
64. Ibid., II, pp. 35–7, 13 February 1917.
65. Ibid.
66. Panzera, p. 333.
67. Serra, in Rumi (ed.) (1990), p. 59.
68. Taylor, p. 42.
69. Epstein, pp. 173–4.
70. Ibid., p. 163.
71. Ibid., pp. 119–20 and 126–7.
72. Ibid., p. 126.
73. Monticone, p. 14.
74. Ibid.
75. Rumi (ed.) (1990), p. 40.
76. Diario, II, p. 85, 17 April 1917.
77. As quoted in O’Neill, pp. 822–3.
78. Ibid.
79. The Times, 15 August 1917.
80. O’Neill, p. 823.
81. Garzia, p. 167.
82. For the replies of the Central Powers see ASV, SS, Guerra, 1914–1918, rub. 244, fasc. 79, protocol 5482.
83. Diario, I, Appendice Generale, doc. 15.
84. Kennedy, p. 347.
85. Epstein, p. 281.
86. O’Neill, p. 825.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid., p. 825.
89. Taylor, p. 43.
90. Zivojinovic (1978), p. 63.
91. Serra, in Rumi (ed.) (1990), p. 61.
92. See Zivojinovic (1978), p. 39.
93. As quoted in Morozzo Della Rocca (1996), p. 550.
94. ASV, SS, Guerra, 1914–1918, rub, 244, fasc. 82, letter from S. Castellano, 28 August 1917.
95. Serra, in Rumi (ed.) (1990), pp. 59–60.
96. Diario, II, p. 214, 23 November 1917.
97. Ibid., II, p. 206, 12 November 1917.
98. Ibid., II, pp. 215–18, 25 and 26 November 1917.
99. Ibid., II, p. 215, 25 November 1917.
100. Ibid., II, p. 197, 4 November 1917 and p. 203, 23 November 1917.
101. Ibid., II, p. 205, 10 November 1917.
102. DDI, Quinta Serie, vol. IX, documento 438, 14 November 1917.
103. Ibid., document 233, Gasparri a Nitti, 14 December 1917.
104. Benedict and Austrian annexations PRO, FO, De Salis.
105. Diario, II, pp. 187–8, 26 October 1917.
106. Ibid., II, 1914, 31 October 1917.
107. Warning re offensive. Margiotta-Broglio (1963), p. 349.
108. See for example, ASV, SS, Guerra, 1914–1918, letter of the Bishop of Padua to Orlando, 18 February, 1918 Portogruaro.
109. AAES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 216, 49301, Vol. VI, 93–100.
110. Diario, II, p. 306, n. 98.
111. AAES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 216, 49301, Vol. VI, 93–100.
112. Rumi (1990), p. 40, letter of 28 February 1918.
113. Cornwall, p. 118.
114. Rumi (ed.) (1990).
115. Diario, II, p. 388, 25 October 1918.
116. Ibid., II, p. 362, 7 August 1918.
117. Ibid., II, p. 388, 25 October 1918.
118. Ibid., II, p. 390, 27 October 1918.
119. Ibid., II, p. 39, 22 February 1917.
120. Zivojinovic, p. 13 and Gregory, p. 89.
121. Hachey (ed.), p. 18.
122. Diario, I, pp. 236–7, 26 June 1915.
123. Ibid., II, 15 December 1917.
124. Morozzo Della Rocca (1993), p. 550.
125. Ibid.
