Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/222

208 161. Not but that, in the present state of things, it may often be soldiers' duty to seize territory, and hold it strongly; but only from banditti, or savage and idle persons.

Thus, both Calabria and Greece ought to have been irresistibly occupied long ago. Instead of quarrelling with Austria about Venice, the Italians ought to have made a truce with her for ten years, on condition only of her destroying no monuments, and not taxing Italians more than Germans; and then thrown the whole force of their army on Calabria, shot down every bandit in it in a week, and forced the peasantry of it into honest work on every hill-side, with stout and immediate help from the soldiers in embanking streams, building walls, and the like; and Italian finance would have been a much pleasanter matter for the King to take account of by this time; and a fleet might have been floating under Garganus strong enough to sweep every hostile sail out of the Adriatic, instead of a disgraced and useless remnant of one, about to be put up to auction.

And similarly, we ought to have occupied Greece instantly, when they asked us, whether