Italian memorandum to Lord Salisbury dated February 12, 1887, which preceded by a few days the first renewal of the Triple Alliance. This document, together with most of the others hereinafter mentioned, form part of the fœtid secret diplomatic history of Europe which investigation of the archives of the Russian, Austrian and German Foreign Offices by the Revolutionary Governments is now bringing to light. It will be salutary for the moral purification of the world if Labour Governments in Britain and France complete the process later on, and examine their own national cesspools "high-piled with the droppings of two hundred years," and clean out "the dead pedantries, unveracities, indolent, somnolent impotencies and accumulated dung mountains there," which Carlyle truly declared seventy years ago to be "the beginning of all practical good whatsoever."
Italy's object in joining the Triple Alliance was primarily to protect herself against France. She subsequently endeavoured to use it for her own ends as a lever to pursue her general imperialistic designs. Disappointed with the results, she gradually went over to the Anglo-Franco-Russian camp, while continuing down to the very moment of the outbreak of war to remain officially a member of the "Triplice." Then, after a frantic bargaining bout with both sides, she elected not only to abandon her old Allies, but to make war upon them. This by the way.
The writer of the Italian memorandum to Lord Salisbury, Count Corti (then Italian ambassador in London), proposed an understanding based upon the preservation of the status quo in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Euxine and Agean. But he also tried to pin Lord Salisbury down to recognise a potential Italian protectorate over Tripoli. "Great Britain," runs Corti's memorandum, "on her side is prepared to support, in the case of invasions by a third Power, the action of Italy on any other part of the North African Coast line, notably in Tripoli and Cyrenaica." But while Lord Salisbury was willing to come to terms with Italy in order to check French designs on Morocco, he was not at all disposed to lend himself to Italian adventures. His policy really was the status quo. So he declined, at least in writing, to be drawn. While expressing satisfaction at the prospect of Anglo-Italian co-operation for the
