The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Part 17

It was certainly to Italy's best interests to strike up a friendly agreement with the new state, if that were feasible, and some of the men in whose hands her destinies rested, feeling their responsibility, made a laudable attempt to come to an understanding. Signor Orlando, whose sagacity is equal to his resourcefulness, was one. In London he had talked the subject over with the Croatian leader, M. Trumbic, and favored the movement toward reconciliation[205] which Baron Sonnino, his colleague, as resolutely discouraged. A congress was accordingly held in Rome[206] and an accord projected. The reciprocal relations became amicable. The Jugoslav committee in the Italian capital congratulated Signor Orlando on the victory of the Piave. But owing to various causes, especially to Baron Sonnino's opposition, these inchoate sentiments of neighborliness quickly lost their warmth and finally vanished. No trace of them remained at the Paris Conference, where the delegates of the two states did not converse together nor even salute one another.

President Wilson's visit to Rome, where, to use an Italian expression, he was welcomed by Delirium, seemed to brighten Italy's outlook on the future. Much was afterward made by the President's enemies of the subsequent change toward him in the sentiments of the Italian people.

This is commonly ascribed to his failure to fulfil the expectations which his words or att.i.tude aroused or warranted. Nothing could well be more misleading. Mr. Wilson's position on the subject of Italy's claims never changed, nor did he say or do aught that would justify a doubt as to what it was. In Rome he spoke to the Ministers in exactly the same terms as in Paris at the Conference. He apprized them in January of what he proposed to do in April and he even contemplated issuing a declaration of his Italian policy at once. But he was earnestly requested by the Ministers to keep his counsel to himself and to make no public allusion to it during his sojourn in Italy.[207] It was not his fault, therefore, if the Italian people cherished illusory hopes. In Paris Signer Orlando had an important encounter with Mr. Wilson,[208]

who told him plainly that the allotment of the northern frontiers traced for Italy by the London Treaty would be confirmed, while that of the territory on the eastern Adriatic would be quashed. The division of the spoils of Austria there must, he added, be made congruously with a map which he handed to the Italian Premier. It was proved on examination to be identical with one already published by the _New Europe_.[209] Signor Orlando glanced at the map and in courteous phraseology unfolded the reasons why he could not entertain the settlement proposed. He added that no Italian parliament would ratify it. Thereupon the President turned the discussion to politico-ethical lines, pointed out the harm which the annexation of an alien and unfriendly element could inflict upon Italy, the great advantages which cordial relations with her Slav neighbor would confer on her, and the ease with which she might gain the markets of the new state. A young and small nation like the Jugoslavs would be grateful for an act of generosity and would repay it by lasting friends.h.i.+p--a return worth far more than the contentious territories.

"Ah, you don't know the Jugoslavs, Mr. President," exclaimed Signor Orlando. "If Italy were to cede to them Dalmatia, Fiume, and eastern Istria they would forthwith lay claim to Trieste and Pola and, after Trieste and Pola, to Friuli and Gorizia."

After some further discussion Mr. Wilson said: "Well, I am unable to reconcile with my principles the recognition of secret treaties, and as the two are incompatible I uphold the principles." "I, too," rejoined the Italian Premier, "condemn secret treaties in the future when the new principles will have begun to regulate international politics. As for those compacts which were concluded during the war they were all secret, not excluding those to which the United States was a party." The President demurred to this reservation. He conceived and put his case briefly as follows: Italy, like her allies, had had it in her power to accept the Fourteen Points, reject them, or make reserves. Britain and France had taken exception to those clauses which they were determined to reject, whereas Italy signified her adhesion to them all. Therefore she was bound by the principles underlying them and had forfeited the right to invoke a secret treaty. The settlement of the issues turning upon Dalmatia, Istria, Fiume, and the islands must consequently be taken in hand without reference to the clauses of that instrument.

Examined on their merits and in the light of the new arrangements, Italy's claims could not be upheld. It would be unfair to the Jugoslavs who inhabit the whole country to cut them off from their own seaboard.

Nor would such a measure be helpful to Italy herself, whose interest it was to form a h.o.m.ogeneous whole, consolidate her dominions, and prepare for the coming economic struggle for national well-being. The principle of nationality must, therefore, be allowed full play.

As for Fiume, even if the city were, as alleged, an independent ent.i.ty and desirous of being incorporated in Italy, one would still have to set against these facts Jugoslavia's imperative need of an outlet to the sea. Here the principle of economic necessity outweighs those of nationality and free determination. A country must live, and therefore be endowed with the wherewithal to support life. On these grounds, judgment should be entered for the Jugoslavs.

The Italian Premier's answer was equally clear, but he could not unburden his mind of it all. His government had, it was true, adhered to the Fourteen Points without reservation. But the a.s.sumptions on which it gave this undertaking were that it would not be used to upset past compacts, but would be reserved for future settlements; that even had it been otherwise the maxims in question should be deemed relevant in Italy's case only if applied impartially to all states, and that the entire work of reorganization should rest on this ethical foundation. A regime of exceptions, with privileged and unprivileged nations, would obviously render the scheme futile and inacceptable. Yet this was the system that was actually being introduced. If secret treaties were to be abrogated, then let the convention between j.a.pan and China be also put out of court and the dispute between them adjudicated upon its merits.

If the Fourteen Points are binding, let the freedom of the seas be proclaimed. If equal rights are to be conferred upon all states, let the Monroe Doctrine be repealed. If disarmament is to become a reality, let Britain and America cease to build wars.h.i.+ps. Suppose for a moment that to-morrow Brazil or Chile were to complain of the conduct of the United States, the League of Nations, in whose name Mr. Wilson speaks, would be hindered by the Monroe Doctrine from intervening, whereas Britain and the United States in a.n.a.logous conditions may intermeddle in the affairs of any of the lesser states. When Ireland or Egypt or India uplifts its voice against Britain, it is but a voice in the desert which awakens no echo. If Fiume were inhabited by American citizens who, with a like claim to be considered a separate ent.i.ty, asked to be allowed to live under the Stars and Stripes, what would President Wilson's att.i.tude be then? Would he turn a deaf ear to their prayer? Surely not. Why, in the case of Italy, does he not do as he would be done by? What it all comes to is that the new ordering under the flag of equality is to consist of superior and inferior nations, of which the former, who speak English, are to possess unlimited power over the latter, to decide what is good for them and what is bad, what is licit and what is forbidden. And against their fiat there is to be no appeal. In a word, it is to be the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon race.

It is worth noting that Signor Orlando's arguments were all derived from the merits of the case, not from the terms or the force of the London Treaty. Fiume, he said, had besought Italy to incorporate it, and had made this request before the armistice, at a moment when it was risky to proclaim attachments to the kingdom.[210] The inhabitants had invoked Mr. Wilson's own words: "National aspirations must be respected....

Self-determination is not a mere phrase." "Peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and p.a.w.ns in a game. Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any adjustment for compromise of claims among rival states." And in his address at Mount Vernon the President had advocated a doctrine which is peculiarly applicable to Fiume--_i.e._:

"The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relations.h.i.+p, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement, for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery."[211] These maxims laid down by Mr. Wilson implicitly allot Fiume to Italy.

Finally as to the objection that Italy's claims would entail the incorporation of a number of Slavs, the answer was that the percentage was negligible as compared with the number of foreign elements annexed by other states. The Poles, it was estimated, would have some 30 per cent. of aliens, the Czechs not less, Rumania 17 per cent., Jugoslavia 11 per cent., France 4 per cent., and Italy only 3 per cent.

In February the Jugoslavs made a strategic move, which many admired as clever, and others blamed as unwise. They proposed that all differences between their country and Italy should be submitted to Mr. Wilson's arbitration. Considering that the President's mind was made up on the subject from the beginning, and that he had decided against Italy, it was natural that the delegation in whose favor his decision was known to incline should be eager to get it accepted by their rivals. As neither side was ignorant of what the result of the arbitration would be, only one of the two could be expected to close with the offer, and the most it could hope by doing this was to embarra.s.s the other. The Italian answer was ingenious. Their dispute, they said, was not with Serbia, who alone was represented at the Conference; it concerned Croatia, who had no official standing there, and whose frontiers were not yet determined, but would in due time be traced by the Conference, of which Italy was a member. The decision would be arrived at after an exhaustive study, and its probable consequences to Europe's peace would be duly considered. As extreme circ.u.mspection was imperative before formulating a verdict, five plenipotentiaries would seem better qualified than any one of them, even though he were the wisest of the group. To remove the question from the competency of the Conference, which was expressly convoked to deal with such issues, and submit it to an individual, would be felt as a slight on the Supreme Council. And so the matter dropped.

Signor Orlando knew that if he had adopted the suggestion and made Mr.

Wilson arbiter, Italy's hopes would have been promptly extinguished in the name of the Fourteen Points, and her example held up for all the lesser states to imitate. The President was, however, convinced that the Italian people would have ratified the arrangement with alacrity. It is worth recording that he was so sure of his own hold on the Italian ma.s.ses that, when urging Signor Orlando to relinquish his demand for Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, he volunteered to provide him with a message written by himself to serve as the Premier's justification.

Signor Orlando was to read out this doc.u.ment in Parliament in order to make it clear to the nation that the renunciation had been demanded by America, that it would most efficaciously promote Italy's best interests, and should for that reason be ratified with alacrity. Signor Orlando, however, declined the certificate and things took their course.

In Paris the Italian delegation made little headway. Every one admired, esteemed, and felt drawn toward the first delegate, who, left to himself, would probably have secured for his country advantageous conditions, even though he might be unable to add Fiume to those secured by the secret treaty. But he was not left to himself. He had to reckon with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was as mute as an oyster and almost as unsociable. Baron Sonnino had his own policy, which was immutable, almost unutterable. At the Conference he seemed unwilling to propound, much less to discuss it, even with those foreign colleagues on whose co-operation or approval its realization depended. He actually shunned delegates who would fain have talked over their common interests in a friendly, informal way, and whose business it was to strike up an agreement. In fact, results which could be secured only by persuading indifferent or hostile people and capturing their good-will he expected to attain by holding aloof from all and leading the life of a hermit, one might almost say of a misanthrope. One can imagine the feelings, if one may not reproduce the utterances, of English-speaking officials, whose legitimate desire for a free exchange of views with Italy's official spokesman was thwarted by the idiosyncrasies of her own Minister of Foreign Affairs. In Allied circles Baron Sonnino was distinctly unpopular, and his unpopularity produced a marked effect on the cause he had at heart. He was wholly dest.i.tute of friends. He had, it is true, only two enemies, but they were himself and the foreign element who had to work with him. Italy's cause was therefore inadequately served.

Several months' trial showed the unwisdom of Baron Sonnino's att.i.tude, which tended to defeat his own policy. Italy was paid back by her allies in her own coin, aloofness for aloofness. After she had declined the Jugoslavs' ingenious proposal to refer their dispute to Mr. Wilson the three delegates[212] agreed among themselves to postpone her special problems until peace was signed with Germany, but Signor Orlando, having got wind of the matter, moved every lever to have them put into the forefront of the agenda. He went so far as to say that he would not sign the Treaty unless his country's claims were first settled, because that doc.u.ment would make the League of Nations--and therefore Italy as a member of the League--the guarantor of other nations' territories, whereas she herself had no defined territories for others to guarantee.

She would not undertake to defend the integrity of states which she had helped to create while her own frontiers were indefinite. But in the art of procrastination the Triumvirate was unsurpa.s.sed, and, as the time drew near for presenting the Treaty to Germany, neither the Adriatic, the colonial, the financial, nor the economic problems on which Italy's future depended were settled or even broached. In the meanwhile the plenipotentiaries in secret council, of whom four or five were wont to deliberate and two to take decisions, had disagreed on the subject of Fiume. Mr. Wilson was inexorable in his refusal to hand the city over to Italy, and the various compromises devised by ingenious weavers of conflicting interests failed to rally the Italian delegates, whose inspirer was the taciturn Baron Sonnino. The Italian press, by insisting on Fiume as a _sine qua non_ of Italy's approval of the Peace Treaty and by announcing that it would undoubtedly be accorded, had made it practically impossible for the delegates to recede. The circ.u.mstance that the press was inspired by the government is immaterial to the issue. President Wilson, who had been frequently told that a word from him to the peoples of Europe would fire their enthusiasm and carry them whithersoever he wished, even against their own governments, now purposed wielding this unique power against Italy's plenipotentiaries.

As we saw, he would have done this during his sojourn in Rome, but was dissuaded by Baron Sonnino. His intention now was to compel the delegates to go home and ascertain whether their inflexible att.i.tude corresponded with that of their people and to draw the people into the camp of the "idealists." He virtually admitted this during his conversation with Signor Orlando. What he seems to have overlooked, however, is that there are time limits to every policy, and that only the same causes can be set in motion to produce the same results. In Italy the President's name had a very different sound in April from the clarion-like tones it gave forth in January, and the secret of his popularity even then was the prevalent faith in his firm determination to bring about a peace of justice, irrespective of all separate interests, not merely a peace with indulgence for the strong and rigor for the weak. The time when Mr. Wilson might have summoned the peoples of Europe to follow him had gone by irrevocably. It is worth noting that the American statesman's views about certain of Italy's claims, although originally laid down with the usual emphasis as immutable, underwent considerable modifications which did not tend to reinforce his authority. Thus at the outset he had proclaimed the necessity of dividing Istria between the two claimant nations, but, on further reflection, he gave way in Italy's favor, thus enabling Signor Orlando to make the point that even the President's solutions needed corrections. It is also a fact that when the Italian Premier insisted on having the Adriatic problems definitely settled before the presentation of the Treaty to the Germans[213] his colleagues of France and Britain a.s.sured him that this reasonable request would be complied with. The circ.u.mstance that this promise was disregarded did not tend to smooth matters in the Council of Five.

The decisive duel between Signor Orlando and Mr. Wilson was fought out in April, and the overt acts which subsequently marked their tense relations were but the practical consequences of that. On the historic day each one set forth his program with a _ne varietur_ attached, and the President of the United States gave utterance to an estimate of Italian public opinion which astonished and pained the Italian Premier, who, having contributed to form it, deemed himself a more competent judge of its trend than his distinguished interlocutor. But Mr. Wilson not only refused to alter his judgment, but announced his intention to act upon it and issue an appeal to the Italian nation. The gist of this doc.u.ment was known to M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George. It has been alleged, and seems highly probable, that the British Premier was throughout most anxious to bring about a workable compromise. Proposals were therefore put forward respecting Fiume and Dalmatia, some of which were not inacceptable to the Italians, who lodged counter-proposals about the others. On the fate of these counter-proposals everything depended.

On April 23d I was at the Hotel Edouard VII, the headquarters of the Italian delegation, discussing the outlook and expecting to learn that some agreement had been reached. In an adjoining room the members of the delegation were sitting in conference on the burning subject, painfully aware that time pressed, that the Damocles's sword of Mr. Wilson's declaration hung by a thread over their heads, and that a spirit of large compromise was indispensable. At three o'clock Mr. Lloyd George's secretary brought the reply of the Council of Three to Italy's maximum of concessions. Only one point remained in dispute, I was told, but that point hinged upon Fiume, and, by a strange chance, it was not mentioned in the reply which the secretary had just handed in. The Italian delegation at once telephoned to the British Premier asking him to receive the Marquis Imperiali, who, calling shortly afterward, learned that Fiume was to be a free city and exempt from control. It was when the marquis had just returned that I took leave of my hosts and received the a.s.surance that I should be informed of the result. About half an hour later, on receipt of an urgent message, I hastened back to the Italian headquarters, where consternation prevailed, and I learned that hardly had the delegates begun to discuss the contentious clause when a copy of the _Temps_ was brought in, containing Mr. Wilson's appeal to the Italian people "over the heads of the Italian government."

The publication fell like a powerful explosive. The public were at a loss to fit in Mr. Wilson's unprecedented action with that of his British and French colleagues. For if in the morning he sent his appeal to the newspapers, it was asked, why did he allow his Italian colleagues to go on examining a proposal on which he manifestly a.s.sumed that they were no longer competent to treat? Moreover a rational desire to settle Italy's Adriatic frontiers, it was observed, ought not to have lessened his concern about the larger issues which his unwonted procedure was bound to raise. And one of these was respect for authority, the loss of which was the taproot of Bolshevism. Signor Orlando replied to the appeal in a trenchant letter which was at bottom a reasoned protest against the a.s.sumed infallibility of any individual and, in particular, of one who had already committed several radical errors of judgment.

What the Italian Premier failed to note was the consciousness of overwhelming power and the will to use it which imparted its specific mark to the whole proceeding. Had he realized this element, his subsequent tactics would perhaps have run on different lines.

The suddenness with which the President carried out his purpose was afterward explained as the outcome of misinformation. In various Italian cities, it had been reported to him, posters were appearing on the walls announcing that Fiume had been annexed. Moreover, it was added, there were excellent grounds for believing that at Rome the Italian Cabinet was about to issue a decree incorporating it officially, whereby things would become more tangled than ever. Some French journals gave credit to these allegations, and it may well be that Mr. Wilson, believing them, too, and wanting to be beforehand, took immediate action. This, however, is at most an explanation; it hardly justifies the precipitancy with which the Italian plenipotentiaries were held up to the world as men who were misrepresenting their people. As a matter of fact careful inquiry showed that all those reports which are said to have alarmed the President were groundless. Mr. Wilson's sources of information respecting the countries on which he was sitting in judgment were often as little to be depended on as presumably were the decisions of the special commissions which he and Mr. Lloyd George so unceremoniously brushed aside.

On the following morning Signori Orlando and Sonnino called on the British Premier in response to his urgent invitation. To their surprise they found Mr. Wilson and M. Clemenceau also awaiting them, ready, as it might seem, to begin the discussion anew, curious in any case to observe the effect of the declaration. But the Italian Premier burned his boats without delay or hesitation. "You have challenged the authority of the Italian government," he said, "and appealed to the Italian people. Be it so. It is now become my duty to seek out the representatives of my people in Parliament and to call upon them to decide between Mr. Wilson and me." The President returned the only answer possible, "Undoubtedly that is your duty." "I shall inform Parliament then that we have allies incapable of agreeing among themselves on matters that concern us vitally." Disquieted by the militant tone of the Minister, Mr. Lloyd George uttered a suasive appeal for moderation, and expressed the hope that in his speech to the Italian Chamber, Signor Orlando would not forget to say that a satisfactory solution may yet be found. He would surely be incapable of jeopardizing the chances of such a desirable consummation. "I will make the people arbiters of the whole situation,"

the Premier announced, "and in order to enable them to judge with full knowledge of the data, I herewith ask your permission to communicate my last memorandum to the Council of Four. It embodies the pith of the facts which it behooves the Parliament to have before it. In the meantime, the Italian government withdraws from the Peace Conference."

On this the painful meeting terminated and the princ.i.p.al Italian plenipotentiaries returned to Rome. In France a section of the press sympathized with the Italians, while the government, and in particular M. Clemenceau, joined Mr. Wilson, who had promised to restore the sacredness of treaties[214] in exhorting Signor Orlando to give up the Treaty of London. The clash between Mr. Wilson and Signor Orlando and the departure of the Italian plenipotentiaries coincided with the arrival of the Germans in Versailles, so that the Allies were faced with the alternative of speeding up their desultory talks and improvising a definite solution or giving up all pretense at unanimity in the presence of the enemy. One important Paris journal found fault with Mr. Wilson and his "Encyclical," and protested emphatically against his way of filling every gap in his arrangements by wedging into it his League of Nations. "Can we harbor any illusion as to the net worth of the League of Nations when the revised text of the Covenant reveals it shrunken to the merest shadow, incapable of thought, will, action, or justice?...

Too often have we made sacrifices to the Wilsonian doctrine."[215] ...

Another press organ compared Fiume to the Saar Valley and sympathized with Italy, who, relying on the solidarity of her allies, expected to secure the city.[216]

While those wearisome word-battles--in which the personal element played an undue part--were being waged in the twilight of a secluded Valhalla, the Supreme Economic Council decided that the seized Austrian vessels must be pooled among all the Allies. When the untoward consequences of this decision were flashed upon the Italians and the Jugoslavs, the rupture between them was seen to be injurious to both and profitable to third parties. For if the Austrian vessels were distributed among all the Allied peoples, the share that would fall to those two would be of no account. Now for the first time the adversaries bestirred themselves.

But it was not their diplomatists who took the initiative. Eager for their respective countries' share of the spoils of war, certain business men on both sides met,[217] deliberated, and worked out an equitable accord which gave four-fifths of the tonnage to Italy and the remainder to the Jugoslavs, who otherwise would not have obtained a single s.h.i.+p.[218] They next set about getting the resolution of the Economic Council repealed, and went on with their conversations.[219]

The American delegation was friendly, promised to plead for the repeal, and added that "if the accord could be extended to the Adriatic problem Mr. Wilson would be delighted and would take upon himself to ratify it _even without the sanction of the Conference_.[220] Encouraged by this promise, the delegates made the attempt, but as the Italian Premier had for some unavowed reason limited the intercourse of the negotiators to a single day, on the expiry of which he ordered the conversation to cease,[221] they failed. Two or three days later the delegates in question had quitted Paris.

What this exchange of views seems to have demonstrated to open-minded Italians was that the Jugoslavs, whose reputation for obstinacy was a dogma among all their adversaries and some of their friends, have c.h.i.n.ks in their panoply through which reason and suasion may penetrate.

When the Italian withdrew from the Conference he had ample reason for believing that in his absence peace could not be signed, and many thought that, by departing, he was giving Mr. Wilson a Roland for his Oliver. But this supposed tactical effect formed no part of Orlando's deliberate plan. It was a coincidence to be utilized, nothing more. Mr.

Wilson had left him no choice but to quit France and solicit the verdict of his countrymen. But Mr. Wilson's colleagues were aghast at the thought that the Pact of London, by which none of the Allies might conclude a separate peace, rendered it indispensable that Italy's recalcitrant plenipotentiaries should be co-signatories, or at any rate consenting parties. About this interpretation of the Pact there was not the slightest doubt. Hence every one feared that the signing of the Peace Treaty would be postponed indefinitely because of the absence of the Italian plenipotentiaries from the Conference. That certainly was the belief of the remaining delegates. There was no doubt anywhere that the presence or the express a.s.sent of the Italians was a _sine qua non_ of the legality of the Treaty. It certainly was the conviction of the French press, and was borne out by the most eminent jurists throughout the world.[222] That the Italian delegates might refuse to sign, as Signor Orlando had threatened, until Italy's affairs were arranged satisfactorily was taken for granted, and the remaining members of the inner Council set to work to checkmate this potential maneuver and dispense with her co-operation. This aim was attained during the absence of the Italian delegation by the decree that the signature of any three of the Allied and a.s.sociated governments would be deemed adequate. The legality and even the morality of this provision were challenged by many.

But it may be maintained that the imperative nature of the task which confronted the Conference demanded a chart of ideas and principles different from that by which Old World diplomacy had been guided and that respect for the letter of a compact should not be allowed to destroy its spirit. There is much to be said for this contention, which was, however, rejected by Italian jurists as destructive of the sacredness of treaties. They also urged that even if it were permissible to dash formal obstacles aside in order to clear the path for the furtherance of a good cause, it is also indispensable that the result should be compa.s.sed with the smallest feasible sacrifice of principle.

Hopes were accordingly entertained by the Italian delegates that, on their return to Paris, at least a formal declaration might be made that Italy's signature was indispensable to the validity of the Treaty. But they were not, perhaps could not, be fulfilled at that conjuncture.

Advantage was taken in other ways of the withdrawal of Italy's representatives from the Conference. For example, a clause of the Treaty with Germany dealing with reparations was altered to Italy's detriment.

Another which turned upon Austro-German relations was likewise modified.

Before the delegates left for Rome it had been settled that Germany should be bound over to respect Austria's independence. This obligation was either superfluous, every state being obliged to respect the independence of every other, or else it had a cryptic meaning which would only reveal itself in the application of the clause. As soon as the Conference was freed from the presence of the Italians the formula was modified, and Germany was plainly forbidden to unite with Austria, even though Austria should expressly desire amalgamation. As this enactment runs directly counter to the principle of self-determination, the Italian Minister Crespi raised his voice in energetic protest against this and the financial changes,[223] whereupon the Triumvirs, giving way on the latter point, consented to restore the primitive text of the financial condition.[224] Germany is obliged to supply France with seven million tons of coal every year by way of rest.i.tution for damage done during the war. At the price of fifty francs a ton, the money value of this tribute would be three hundred and fifty million francs, of which Italy would be ent.i.tled to receive 30 per cent. But during the absence of the Italian representatives a supplementary clause was inserted in the Treaty[225] conferring a special privilege on France which renders Italy's claim of little or no value. It provides that Germany shall deliver annually to France an amount of coal equal to the difference between the pre-war production of the mines of Pas de Calais and the Nord, destroyed by the enemy, and the production of the mines of the same area during each of the coming years, the maximum limit to be twenty million tons. As this contribution takes precedence of all others, and as Germany, owing to insufficiency of transports and other causes, will probably be unable to furnish it entirely, Italy's claim is considered practically valueless.

The reception of the delegates in Rome was a triumph, their return to Paris a humiliation. For things had been moving fast in the meanwhile, and their trend, as we said, was away from Italy's goal. Public opinion in their own country likewise began to veer round, and people asked whether they had adopted the right tactics, whether, in fine, they were the right men to represent their country at that crisis of its history.

There was no gainsaying the fact that Italy was completely isolated at the Conference. She had sacrificed much and had garnered in relatively little. The Jugoslavs had offered her an alliance--although this kind of partners.h.i.+p had originally been forbidden by the Wilsonian discipline; the offer was rejected and she was now certain of their lasting enmity.

Venizelos had also made overtures to Baron Sonnino for an understanding, but they elicited no response, and Italy's relations with Greece lost whatever cordiality they might have had. Between France and Italy the threads of friends.h.i.+p which companions.h.i.+p in arms should have done much to strengthen were strained to the point of snapping. And worst, perhaps, of all, the Italian delegates had approved the clause forbidding Germany to unite with Austria.

That the fault did not lie wholly in the att.i.tude of the Allies is obvious. The Italian delegates' lack of method, one might say of unity, was unquestionably a contributory cause of their failure to make perceptible headway at the Conference. A curious and characteristic incident of the slipshod way in which the work was sometimes done occurred in connection with the disposal of the Palace Venezia, in Rome, which had belonged to Austria, but was expropriated by the Italian government soon after the opening of hostilities. The heirs of the Hapsburg Crown put forward a claim to proprietary rights which was traversed by the Italian government. As the dispute was to be laid before the Conference, the Roman Cabinet invited a _juris consult_ versed in these matters to argue Italy's case. He duly appeared, unfolded his claim congruously with the views of his government, but suddenly stopped short on observing the looks of astonishment on the faces of the delegates. It appears that on the preceding day another delegate of the Economic Conference, also an Italian, had unfolded and defended the contrary thesis--namely, that Austria's heirs had inherited her right to the Palace of Venezia.[226]

Pa.s.sing to more momentous matters, one may pertinently ask whether too much stress was not laid by the first Italian delegation upon the national and sentimental sides of Italy's interests, and too little on the others. Among the Great Powers Italy is most in need of raw materials. She is dest.i.tute of coal, iron, cotton, and naphtha. Most of them are to be had in Asia Minor. They are indispensable conditions of modern life and progress. To demand a fair share of them as guerdon for having saved Europe, and to put in her claim at a moment when Europe was being reconst.i.tuted, could not have been construed as imperialism. The other Allies had possessed most of those necessaries in abundance long before the war. They were adding to them now as the fruits of a victory which Italy's sacrifices had made possible. Why, then, should she be left unsatisfied? Bitterly though the nation was disappointed by failure to have its territorial claims allowed, it became still more deeply grieved when it came to realize that much more important advantages might have been secured if these had been placed in the forefront of the nation's demands. Emigration ground for Italy's surplus population, which is rapidly increasing, coal and iron for her industries might perhaps have been obtained if the Italian plan of campaign at the Conference had been rightly conceived and skilfully executed. But this realistic aspect of Italy's interests was almost wholly lost sight of during the waging of the heated and unfruitful contests for the possession of town and ports, which, although sacred symbols of Italianism, could not add anything to the economic resources which will play such a predominant part in the future struggle for material well-being among the new and old states. There was a marked propensity among Italy's leaders at home and in Paris to consider each of the issues that concerned their country as though it stood alone, instead of envisaging Italy's economic, financial, and military position after the war as an indivisible problem and proving that it behooved the Allies in the interests of a European peace to solve it satisfactorily, and to provide compensation in one direction for inevitable gaps in the other.

This, to my thinking, was the fundamental error of the Italian and Allied statesmen for which Europe may have to suffer. That Italy's policy cannot in the near future return to the lines on which it ran ever since the establishment of her national unity, whatever her allies may do or say, will hardly be gainsaid. Interests are decisive factors of foreign policy, and the action of the Great Powers has determined Italy's orientation.

Italy undoubtedly gained a great deal by the war, into which she entered mainly for the purpose of achieving her unity and securing strong frontiers. But she signed the Peace Treaty convinced that she had not succeeded in either purpose, and that her allies were answerable for her failure. It was certainly part of their policy to build up a strong state on her frontier out of a race which she regards as her adversary and to give it command of some of her strategic positions. And the overt bearing manner in which this policy was sometimes carried out left as much bitterness behind as the object it aimed at. It is alleged that the Italian delegates were treated with an economy of consideration which bordered on something much worse, while the arguments officially invoked to non-suit them appeared to them in the light of bitter sarcasms.

President Wilson, they complained, ignored his far-resonant principle of self-determination when j.a.pan presented her claim for Shantung, but refused to swerve from it when Italy relied on her treaty rights in Dalmatia. And when the inhabitants of Fiume voted for union with the mother country, the President abandoned that principle and gave judgment for Jugoslavia on other grounds. He was right, but disappointing, they observed, when he told his fellow-citizens that his presence in Europe was indispensable in order to interpret his conceptions, for no other rational being could have construed them thus.

The withdrawal of the Italian delegates was construed as an act of insubordination, and punished as such. The Marquis de Viti de Varche has since disclosed the fact that the Allied governments forthwith reduced the credits accorded to Italy during hostilities, whereupon hards.h.i.+ps and distress were aggravated and the peasantry over a large area of the country suffered intensely.[227] For Italy is more dependent on her allies than ever, owing to the sacrifices which she offered up during the war, and she was made to feel her dependence painfully. The military a.s.sistance which they had received from her was fraught with financial and economic consequences which have not yet been realized by the unfortunate people who must endure them. Italy at the close of hostilities was burdened with a foreign debt of twenty milliards of lire, an internal debt of fifty millards, and a paper circulation four times more than what it was in pre-war days.[228] Raw materials were exhausted, traffic and production were stagnant, navigation had almost ceased, and the expenditure of the state had risen to eleven milliards a year.[229]

According to the figures published by the Statistical Society of Berne, the general rise in prices attributed to the war hit Italy much harder than any of her allies.[230] The consequences of this and other perturbations were sinister and immediate. The nation, bereft of what it had been taught to regard as its right, humiliated in the persons of its chiefs, subjected to foreign guidance, insufficiently clad, underfed, and with no tangible grounds for expecting speedy improvement, was seething with discontent. Frequent strikes merely aggravated the general suffering, which finally led to riots, risings, and the shedding of blood. The economic, political, and moral crisis was unprecedented. The men who drew Italy into the war were held up to public opprobrium because in the imagination of the people the victory had cost them more and brought them in less than neutrality would have done. One of the princ.i.p.al orators of the Opposition, in a trenchant discourse in the Italian Parliament, said, "The Salandra-Sonnino Cabinet led Italy into the war blindfolded."[231]

After the return of the Italian delegation to Paris various fresh combinations were devised for the purpose of grappling with the Adriatic problem. One commended itself to the Italians as a possible basis for discussion. In principle it was accepted. A declaration to this effect was made by Signor Orlando and taken cognizance of by M. Clemenceau, who undertook to lay the matter before Mr. Wilson, the sole arbitrator in Italian affairs. He played the part of Fate throughout. Days went by after this without bringing any token that the Triumvirate was interested in the Adriatic. At last the Italian Premier reminded his French colleague that the latest proposal had been accepted in principle, and the Italian plenipotentiaries were awaiting Mr. Wilson's pleasure in the matter. Accordingly, M. Clemenceau undertook to broach the matter to the American statesman without delay. The reply, which was promptly given, dismayed the Italians. It was in the form of one of those interpretations which, becoming a.s.sociated with Mr. Wilson's name, shook public confidence in certain of the statesman-like qualities with which he had at first been credited. The construction which he now put upon the mode of voting to be applied to Fiume, including this city--in a large district inhabited by a majority of Jugoslavs--imparted to the project as the Italians had understood it a wholly new aspect. They accordingly declared it inacceptable. As after that there seemed to be nothing more for the Italian Premier to do in Paris, he left, was soon afterward defeated in the Chamber, and resigned together with his Cabinet. The vote of the Italian Parliament, which appeared to the continental press in the light of a protest of the nation against the aims and the methods of the Conference, closed for the time being the chapter of Italy's endeavor to complete her unity, secure strong frontiers, and perpetuate her political partners.h.i.+p with France and her intimate relations with the Entente. Thenceforward the English-speaking states might influence her overt acts, compel submission to their behests, and generally exercise a sort of guardians.h.i.+p over her, because they are the dispensers of economic boons, but the union of hearts, the mutual trust, the cement supplied by common aims are lacking.

One of the most telling arguments employed by President Wilson to dissuade various states from claiming strategic positions, and in particular Italy from insisting on the annexation of Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, was the effective protection which the League of Nations would confer on them.[232] Strategical considerations would, it was urged, lose all their value in the new era, and territorial guaranties become meaningless and c.u.mbersome survivals of a dead epoch.

That was the princ.i.p.al weapon with which he had striven to parry the thrusts of M. Clemenceau and the touchstone by which he tested the sincerity of all professions of faith in his cherished project of compacting the nations of the world in a vast league of peace-loving, law-abiding communities. But the faith of France's leaders differed little from unbelief. Guaranties first and the protection of the League afterward was the French formula, around which many fierce battles royal were fought. In the end Mr. Wilson, having obtained the withdrawal of the demand for the Rhine frontier, gave in, and the Covenant was reinforced by a compact which in the last a.n.a.lysis is a military undertaking, a unilateral Triple Alliance, Great Britain and the United States undertaking to hasten to France's a.s.sistance should her territory be wantonly invaded by Germany. The case thus provided for is extremely improbable. The expansion of Germany, when the auspicious hour strikes, will presumably be inaugurated on wholly new lines, against which armies, even if they can be mobilized in time, will be of little avail.

But if force were resorted to, it is almost certain to be used in the direction where the resistance is least--against France's ally, Poland.

This, however, is by the way. The point made by the Italians was that the League of Nations being thus admittedly powerless to discharge the functions which alone could render strategic frontiers unnecessary, can consequently no longer be relied upon as an adequate protection against the dangers which the possession of the strongholds she claimed on the Adriatic would effectively displace. Either the League, it was argued, can, as a.s.serted, protect the countries which give up commanding positions to potential enemies, or it cannot. In the former hypothesis France's insistence on a military convention is mischievous and immoral--in the latter Italy stands in as much need of the precautions devised as her neighbor. But her spokesmen were still plied with the threadbare arguments and bereft of the countervailing corrective. And faith in the efficacy of the League was sapped by the very men who were professedly seeking to spread it.

The press of Rome, Turin, and Milan pointed to the loyalty of the Italian people, brought out, they said, in sharp relief by the discontent which the exclusive character of that triple military accord engendered among them. As kinsmen of the French it was natural for Italians to expect that they would be invited to become a party to this league within the League. As loyal allies of Britain and France they felt desirous of being admitted to the alliance. But they were excluded.

Nor was their exasperation allayed by the a.s.surance of their press that this was no alliance, but a state of tutelage. An alliance, it was explained, is a compact by which two or more parties agree to render one another certain services under given conditions, whereas the convention in question is a one-sided undertaking on the part of Britain and the United States to protect France if wantonly attacked, because she is unable efficaciously to protect herself. It is a benefaction. But this casuistry fell upon deaf ears. What the people felt was the disesteem--the term in vogue was stronger--in which they were held by the Allies, whom they had saved perhaps from ruin.

By slow degrees the sentiments of the Italian nation underwent a disquieting change. All parties and cla.s.ses united in stigmatizing the behavior of the Allies in terms which even the literary eminence of the poet d'Annunzio could not induce the censors to let pa.s.s. "The Peace Treaty," wrote Italy's most influential journal, "and its correlate forbode for the near future the Continental hegemony of France countersigned by the Anglo-American alliance."[233] Another widely circulated and respected organ described the policy of the Entente as a solvent of the social fabric, constructive in words, corrosive in acts, "mischievous if ever there was a mischievous policy. For while raising hopes and whetting appet.i.tes, it does nothing to satisfy them; on the contrary, it does much to disappoint them. In words--a struggle for liberty, for nations, for the equality of peoples and cla.s.ses, for the well-being of all; in acts--the suppression of the most elementary and const.i.tutional liberty, the overlords.h.i.+p of certain nations based on the humiliation of others, the division of peoples into exploiters and exploited--the sharpening of social differences--the destruction of collective wealth, and its acc.u.mulation in a few blood-stained hands, universal misery, and hunger."[234]

Although it is well understood that Italy's defeat at the Conference was largely the handiwork of President Wilson, the resentment of the Italian nation chose for its immediate objects the representatives of France and Britain. The American "a.s.sociates" were strangers, here to-day and gone to-morrow, but the Allies remain, and if their att.i.tude toward Italy, it was argued, had been different, if their loyalty had been real, she would have fared proportionately as well as they, whatever the American statesmen might have said or done.

The Italian press breathed fiery wrath against its French ally, who so often at the Conference had met Italy's solicitations with the odious word "impossible." Even moderate organs of public opinion gave free vent to estimates of France's policy and antic.i.p.ations of its consequences which disturbed the equanimity of European statesmen. "It is impossible," one of these journals wrote, "for France to become the absolute despot of Europe without Italy, much less against Italy. What transcended the powers of Richelieu, who was a lion and fox combined, and was beyond the reach of Bonaparte, who was both an eagle and a serpent, cannot be achieved by "Tiger" Clemenceau in circ.u.mstances so much less favorable than those of yore. We, it is true, are isolated, but then France is not precisely embarra.s.sed by the choice of friends."

The peace was described as "Franco-Slav domination with its headquarters in Prague, and a branch office in Agram." M. Clemenceau was openly charged with striving after the hegemony of the Continent for his country by separating Germany from Austria and surrounding her with a ring of Slav states--Poland, Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and perhaps the non-Slav kingdom of Rumania. All these states would be in the leading-strings of the French Republic, and Austria would be linked to it in a different guise. And in order to effect this resuscitation of the Hapsburg state under the name of "Danubian federation," Mr. Wilson, it was a.s.serted, had authorized a deliberate violation of his own principle of self-determination, and refused to Austria the right of adopting the regime which she preferred. It was, in truth, an odd compromise, these critics continued, for an idealist of the President's caliber, on whose every political action the scrutinizing gaze of the world was fixed. One could not account for it as a sacrifice made for a high ethical aim--one of those ends which, according to the old maxim, hallows the means. It seemed an open response to a secret instigation or impulse which was unconnected with any recognized or avowable principle.

Even the Socialist organs swelled the chorus of the accusers. _Avanti_ wrote, "We are Socialists, yet we have never believed that the American President with his Fourteen Points entered into the war for the highest aims of humanity and for the rights of peoples, any more than we believe at present that his opposition to the aspirations of the Italian state on the Adriatic are inspired by motives of idealism."[235]