Golden Sand in the Streets of the Eternal City.

Wilson in a Foul Mood.

Special to The Great Project

(1 January) On New Year’s Day a century ago, “in a royal train provided by the Italian government, President Wilson and his wife headed for Rome,” the fourth of the Allies that fought the Germans to a stand-still.

So writes historian Thomas Fleming: “As the train wound through the snow-covered Alps, the monks of Saint Bernard’s Abbey were forced to slaughter six of their famous rescue dogs because they had run out of food.”

“Oblivious to such details, the president reveled in the adoration of the Italian people.”

“His arrival in the Eternal City,” Fleming reports, “was a replay of his reception in Paris. Masses of Romans chanted “Viva Wilson, god of peace.”

Low flying planes dropped flowers on his triumphal procession. There were pictures of him in every shop window.

The streets were sprinkled with golden sand, a tradition that went back to ancient Rome’s days of imperial glory.

But as with Wilson’s arrival in Paris and London, Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and his fellow politicians already viewed Wilson with not a little anxiety.”

Wilson and the Roman leaders do not see eye-to-eye on the fate of territories taken by the Germans. In this case it was the Italian claim to the Dalmatian coast and other territories promised them in prior negotiations earlier in the war, including portions of the Turkish empire

 

in the Middle East.

 

 

 

 

 

Reports historian Fleming, “One of the most outspoken proponents of this view was an editor named Benito Mussolini, whose Milan newspaper proclaimed on January 1, 1919, that “imperialism is the eternal, the immutable law of life.”

In the midst of his Rome sojourn, the Italians surprised Wilson by telling him that famous visitors to Rome “normally made a gift of $10,000 to the poor.”

 Wilson did not have the money to pay the gift. Writes Fleming, “This bit of theater was patently designed to make the president look bad.”

Wilson takes an unexpected jab at the conservative Italian leaders.

In an interview he creates a sensation when he declares that the Italian people are the most Wilsonian in Europe. Wilson remarks that “New York had become the biggest Italian city in the world, thanks to recent immigration.”

Was the Italian prime minister going to claim New York too?

On January 4^th Wilson is preparing his departure from Rome, and he plans to give a speech to the Italian people from the balcony where he was staying in Rome.

In the planned speech to the Romans, Wilson intends to urge the Italians to abandon the policy of territorial acquisition, supported by their conservative prime minister Vittorio Orlando.

“To Wilson’s dismay,” reports Fleming, “the plaza abutting his residence remained devoid of people. Troops had cordoned it off, leaving Wilson without an audience.”

“The president made some intemperate remarks to the press and left Rome at nine o’clock that evening in an exceedingly foul mood.”

But outside of Rome and along the route back to Paris, the adoration returned.

“Before a huge crowd in Milan in a bluntly radical speech, “he proclaimed the superiority of the working class,” and appealed for the establishment of a league of nations to solve the world’s conflicts, and reject the world’s system of military alliances that led to such a devastating war.