At a critical time, Glolltti visited Rome and attempted a coup which would have committed the nation to active participation in the war on behalf of the nations with which she is now locked in a life and death struggle. D'Annunzio's voice, which was the real voice of Italy, was raised against such a move and so stirred were the people in his audience that they rushed enraged to the streets and threw up barricades behind which they fought for the preservation of the country's honor against those who would betray them to the kaiser and his intriguers.
Cries "Always Forward."
On May 19, 1915, the Italian parliament declared war and the next day D'Annunzio issued an impassioned statement declaring that "This day the people of Italy have once more become healthy; they have recovered their strength and their liberty. Be they few or be they many, one against one, one against four or one against ten— forward. Always forward to the charge. Victory is only to those who believe in victory, who swear by victory."
D'Annunzio was among the first to manifest an intense interest in aviation. When the Wright brothers were in Europe he passed a great deal of time with them, and it was through his influence largely that the Italian government consented to consider seriously what until then had been regarded as a fantastic dream. The airplane at that time was an unstable and perilous machine. Nobody knew this better than the inventors, and it was only with the greatest reluctance that Orville Wright one day consented to take the poet with him in a short flight. 