Brenner Monument

"After centuries of Athens and Rome, Italy, everlasting heir of all beauty and grief, ceases neither to create nor to suffer, conscious that her wingless victory lies grasped in the palm of her almighty destiny as of her God."

Thus wrote super-Pan Italian poet-soldier-philanderer Gabriele d'Annunzio, not long ago, and his versified words, deep cut in granite, now adorn the Brenner Monument.

King Vittorio Emanuele unveiled the monument last week. Signor Mussolini, fired to ecstasy by the granite-cut words, telegraphed to d'Annunzio [now in ostentatious retirement on the shores of Lago di Garda (TIME, July 5)]: MAGNIFICENTISSIME SCRIBES!

As everyone knows, Signor Mussolini's most robust hate obsession is inspired by a skulking fear that the blond Pan-German tide may some day engulf Italy as the Teutons engulfed Rome, by pouring down through the Brenner Pass. This lowest of the Trans-Alpine highways (4,495 ft.) is now held at its chief strategic points by Italy and constitutes one of her most passionately cherished spoils of war.