From the personal diaries of Cardinal Giulio Felicetti
Tuesday 7th of June 1904
Whether screams and gunfire or atrocious dreams be the culprit I have accepted at last that I will not sleep tonight, and I might as well spend my time recording the anguishes that afflict me before tomorrow brings new death and horrors to my soul. I have been trapped in this infernal world for only a couple of weeks and I cannot envision how much longer I can withstand this torment. All this for the sake of mountainous Savoy and a people who will gain nothing whether they shall remain Italian or become French but have hundreds of thousands of graves among their homes. This is no longer war like we once knew but an unholy desecration of what it is to be human, there is no honor left nor any sense of purpose but a senseless river of blood that winds its way through the mountains.
I cannot stop thinking about those men I met last week. I had visited their battalion despite my old age and had endeavored to help them for the little I can with the construction of the trenches we so desperately needed. I did my small part and I flattered myself that they respected me for it, we dined together on the same meager rations, and they told me of their homes and families in their myriad local languages. I left that place with hope for the future and the expectation that this would be like those glorious days in Naples gone for over forty years. The next day shone with a brilliant sun, and we could be forgiven for forgetting we were at war, a fine day for a picnic I thought. The French were awfully quiet that morning and I was talking with general Ottaviani on where to best direct our artillery to keep the enemy out of Lyon when it happened. A green-grey mist arose from the enemy line as if the fires of Hell itself had been let loose upon the world and this miasma crept meter by meter until it reached the very trench I had helped to dig the day before. Our brief confusion was then turned into the most abject horror as the screams began, such haunting cries that I have never heard in my life. I am used to the screams of the dying calling for help but this was something else entirely, an animal bellow of pure terror and pain that was soon mixed with the sounds of their guns firing into the fog in desperate hope of somehow surviving their hell. The infernal chorus lasted for fifteen minutes before silence smothered the field, the French did not even attempt to advance but merely observed the effects of their grisly experiment.
When the fog had cleared and it was safe, I joined the men who were sent back to the stinking trench and tried to search for survivors. I had no such luck. The totality of death was incomprehensible to me and those around me, not only had the pack animals died but all those who burrow had crawled out of their holes to die, not even insects had been spared. Then I stumbled upon the remains of the first man, a bloody mess who had clawed at his neck and face to try and breathe before finally being forced to commit the sin of suicide, something I pray that the Lord will forgive him for. Again and again, this scene repeated itself, and each time I asked God why he would allow for such a thing to happen, how was this senseless brutality allowed to exist.
I still have no answer, and dawn forces me to witness another day of carnage, but I beg that it will not be by gas.
Tuesday 16th of August 1904
We have managed to advance a couple of hundred meters to the Col de Malval and it seems that we will not need to worry about any crossings of the Rhone in the next week. General Ottaviani has properly taken advantage of the change in weather to get us in positions that will be less vulnerable to gas attacks even though the stinking mess that are the fields around Lyon remind us of what we must fear with every waking moment. I did not understand why Ottaviani was so eager all of a sudden about having the wind at our back, someone had to explain the situation to me as if I were someone's senile grandfather. I used to be able to see moves and countermoves days ahead of others but now it feels as if my mind were in a dense soup and my thoughts need to struggle to emerge. I find myself staring into space and thinking of dead faces when I should work to prevent new death, but I cannot help it, it takes so much effort to do something and I am so afraid that my actions will have me wake up to those horrible screams.
I have entirely ceded control of this battle to Ottaviani as it seems that it may last for several more months and I do not believe I can contribute anything else to it. I now mostly wait for letters from the rest of the front and give new directions when needed. Today I received news from General de Riseis and he has managed to capture Valence for us after killing over one hundred thousand enemy soldiers, although our losses were much the same. Conditions appear to be similar in every battle where we put our trust in numerical superiority to overcome the horrors we cannot resist otherwise. But I must permit myself a smile for this victory as it brings us a step closer to an end to the fighting, I sent de Riseis my most glowing compliments in the hope that he can escape the numbness that has taken me.
Despite this, I have been greatly disappointed on another front as I received the news of the Pope's abandonment of Dalmatia after spilling so much blood for it these twenty-five years. Though I understand his political reasoning I cannot help but feel that the Papacy should embody more than cynical pragmatism and our friendship should be something that is not denied in difficult times. What is the worth of our word on the world stage if it cannot be assured that we will aid our allies?
Perhaps that is why the Germans have abandoned us, I must make sure to write to them in the hope that they might come to our aid one last time, though I do not believe they shall. I will begin writing now.
Wednesday 2nd of November 1904
I broke down crying today when I heard that General Cattaneo has successfully defended Marseilles. I cannot explain why I had this reaction because it is tied up in so many different factors. On the one hand, over two hundred thousand Christians have died in a single battle, and I can no longer be insensitive to this loss of life in this mechanical and crooked manner of fighting. On the other hand, with this victory, there are no further French field armies left anywhere in the south of the country. The only significant enemy forces remaining are fighting off guerrillas somewhere in the north of Spain. The main part of the war is over, we need only wait a little while for blessed coveted peace.
In anticipation of this conclusion, I have received messages from Pope Innocent where he asks for counsel on how far to progress the conflict and which conditions should be requested. Firstly, I categorically refused a large-scale continuation of the war with the aim of territorial expansion because, while we have the upper hand at the moment, France can still call upon a large number of reserves and it would be extremely costly in terms of lives to achieve a goal of that magnitude. However, I fully understand that a status quo peace would dishonor the memory of our brave soldiers and it would be equally unacceptable. A compromise between these positions will have to be diplomatic and economic in nature. I have begun to draft a treaty that will force France to accept the injustice of their aggression and declare their use of chemical weapons as an atrocity against the rules of warfare. This will be followed by a prohibition on the use of those inhuman weapons and the payment of a pension to the Italian and Spanish cripples, widows, and orphans that have been made during this conflict.
Now, I am well aware that if anyone can be expected to betray their accords it would be the French, but this treaty is more a warning to the rest of Europe about the evils that such a war can wreak and a call into question of the dignity of any government that chooses to use weapons of that kind. This is joined with the fact that there is little else that we could demand from our enemies in terms of lands since the only Italians that still live outside of our realm are those in the Austro-Hungarian domains.
I will now manage to return to Rome for the first time in months, but it feels like whole years have passed since I first left with an optimistic spirit. My return will be even more important since I have received reports that the Pope is ill, and factions have begun to form among the cardinals. Though I would dearly love to become pontiff myself, I understand that mine would be a brief papacy that would bring only further instability after it. My current hope is that I may be able to finish my work and see a true Pope in control, one that can resist the excesses of modernity while maintaining a modern state in due order. For this purpose, I believe that Cardinal Fatta should be chosen to take the tiara for his understanding of the mistakes of Callixtus and his proven experience in government. I have written to him in the last week to probe his interest and he seems strongly inclined to my suggestion so that we will meet when I return to the city.
If this goes through, then I can retire safe in the knowledge that I have done as much as possible to save our Holy Mother Church.
Author’s note:
Cardinal Felicetti retired from political life at the end of the last Dalmatian War and only made a brief public appearance during the inauguration of Innocent's successor before dying peacefully in the summer of 1906.
Felicetti's undeniable political talent propelled him to the Archbishopric of Milan at the age of 35 where he caught the eye of pope Callixtus IV who elevated him to the Curia at 43. During the reign of Callixtus, he distinguished himself as a general in the Sicilian War and as a capable administrator of the recently conquered Milan. Historians long wondered why neither he nor Cardinal Lisi were elected in the following conclave, but the Vatican Diaries have shown this to be, in a way, part of Felicetti's plan where he supported Innocent XV in the hopes of gaining a malleable pontiff to hold the post until Lisi faded away.
Unfortunately for him, Innocent would prove to be an uncommonly long-lived pope, the longest-reigning pope after Peter in fact. During this period, Felicetti would be the main architect of the great diplomatic shift that turned the newborn Italy away from its traditional French alliance towards a German relationship that had alternate fortunes. As long as Bismarck was present at the chancellery, the alliance remained strong and there was a mutual agreement of non-interference into the relative spheres of influence. When Wilhelm II came to the throne, this policy broke down, and competition over Spain in particular frayed relations until the ultimate severance of this alliance in the Autumn of 1903.
Overall, Felicetti's legacy is mixed, with a notable decrease in recent years. His impact on Italian foreign policy is undeniable but it has to be seen as an ultimate failure, or at the very least a disappointment. The German alliance was consistently unable to dissuade the Franco-Austrian bloc from their wars of reconquest while excluding the possibility of a rapprochement between Rome and Paris. And finally, the ultimate loss of Dalmatia and the collapse of the alliance left Italy out in the cold at the end of Innocent's papacy. The general consensus is that Felicetti would have been a much better politician if his talents had been directed elsewhere, forging closer bonds with disgruntled neighbors rather than exacerbating a conflict with no clear military solution.
