Page:Cesare Battisti and the Trentino.djvu/20

 this prerogative was lost entirely: it was simply annexed to the German province of Tyrol, even losing its name: not only this, but with the Tyrol, was forced to become, in 1818, a part of the Germanic Confederation, which always opposed its cession.

At the Congress of Frankfort, in 1848, the Trentino deputies made a formal request that Trentino be released from this monstrous union, basing their demand on the principle of nationality, which principle had been the reason for calling the Congress. They simply asked that Trentino be annexed to the, which at that time was under Austrian rule. But this just and modest request was unanimously rejected by vote.

One of the German deputies, undoubtedly a direct ancestor of the present Boche, explained his vote thus: "I wear German spectacles, and therefore see the world as German.... I only say: Beati possidentes. We have southern Tyrol (as the Germans called Trentino), and therefore we shall keep it. That is how I understand the right of the people! Nor do I think that I am asking too much when I propose the expulsion of these Trentino deputies who, with their request for separation, have pronounced their own death sentence....."

The people of Trentino refused to be intimidated by this and other threats; when in 1866 their hopes of being freed with Venice failed, they renewed their efforts to obtain at least an administrative separation from the Tyrol, but always in vain. Then it was decided to elect to the Diet at Innsbruck deputies who would pledge themselves not to attend, in the hope of obstructing the functions of the Diet, and in this way secure autonomy. This method proved fallacious, as the Germans took advantage of the absence of the Italians to administer the common funds in a manner scandalously favorable to the German part of the province, arousing in our country and in Parliament the most violent but at the same time the most useless protests.

Then another tactic was tried: not absence from the Diet, but full attendance for the purpose of holding up measures Page eighteen