The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Part 18

The fate of the disputed territories on the Adriatic was to be the outcome of self-determination. Poland's claims were to be left to the self-determination of the Silesian and Ruthenian populations. Rumania was told that her suit must remain in abeyance until it could be tested by the same principle, which would be applied in the form of a plebiscite. For self-determination was the cornerstone of the League of Nations, the holiest boon for which the progressive peoples of the world had been pouring out their life-blood and substance for nearly five years. But when Italy invoked self-determination, she was promptly non-suited. When Austria appealed to it she was put out of court. And to crown all, the world was a.s.sured that the Fourteen Points had been triumphantly upheld. This depravation of principles by the triumph of the little prudences of the hour spurred some of the more impulsive critics to ascribe it to influences less respectable than those to which it may fairly be attributed.

The directing Powers were hypersensitive to the oft-repeated charge of meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. They were never tired of protesting their abhorrence of anything that smacked of interference. Among the numerous facts, however, which they could neither deny nor reconcile with their professions, the following was brought forward by the Italians, who had a special interest to draw public attention to it. It had to do with the abortive attempt to restore the Hapsburg monarchy in Hungary as the first step toward the formation of a Danubian federation. "It is certain," wrote the princ.i.p.al Italian journal, "that the Archduke Joseph's _coup d'etat_ did not take place, indeed (given the conditions in Budapest) could not take place, without the Entente's connivance. The official _communiques_ of Budapest and Vienna, dated August 9th, recount on this point precise details which no one has. .h.i.therto troubled to deny. The Peidl government was scarcely three days in power, and, therefore, was not in a position to deserve either trust or distrust, when the heads of the 'order-loving organizations' put forward, to justify the need of a new crisis, the complaints of the heads of the Entente Missions as to the anarchy prevailing in Hungary and the urgency of finding 'some one' who could save the country from the abyss. Then a commission repaired to Alscuth, where it easily persuaded the Archduke to come to Budapest. Here he at once visited all the heads of missions and spent the whole day in negotiations. '_As a result of negotiations with Entente representatives, the Archduke Joseph undertook a solution of the crisis_.' He then called together the old state police and a volunteer army of eight thousand men. The Rumanian garrison was kept ready. The Peidl government naturally did not resist at all. At 10 P.M. on August 7th all the Entente Missions held a meeting, _to which the Archduke Joseph and the new Premier were invited_. General Gorton presided. _The Conference lasted two hours and reached an agreement on all questions.

All the heads of Missions a.s.sured the new government of their warmest support_."[236]

Another case of unwarranted interference which stirred the Italians to bitter resentment turned upon the obligation imposed on Austria to renounce her right to unite with Germany. "It is difficult to discern in the policy of the Entente toward Austria anything more respectable than obstinacy coupled with stupidity," wrote the same journal. "But there is something still worse. It is impossible not to feel indignant with a coalition which, after having triumphed in the name of the loftiest ideas ... treats German-Austria no better than the Holy Alliance treated the petty states of Italy. But the Congress of Vienna acted in harmony with the principle of legitimism which it avowed and professed, whereas the Paris Conference violates without scruple the canons by which it claims to be guided.

"Not a whit more decorous is the intervention of the Supreme Council in the internal affairs of Germany--a state which, according to the spirit and the letter of the Versailles Treaty, is sovereign and not a protectorate. The Conference was qualified to dictate peace terms to Germany, but it wanders beyond the bounds of its competency when it construes those terms and arrogates to itself--on the strength of forced and equivocal interpretations--the right of imposing upon a nation which is neither militarily nor juridically an enemy a const.i.tutional reform.

Whether Germany violates the Treaty by her Const.i.tution is a question which only a judicial finding of the League of Nations can fairly determine."[237]

It would be impolitic to overlook and insincere to belittle the effects of this incoherency upon the relations between France and Italy. Public opinion in the Peninsula characterized the att.i.tude of Prance as deliberately hostile. The Italians at the Conference eagerly scrutinized every act and word of their French colleagues, with a view to discovering grounds for dispelling this view. But the search is reported to have been worse than vain. It revealed data which, although susceptible of satisfactory explanations, would, if disclosed at that moment, have aggravated the feeling of bitterness against France, which was fast gathering. Signor Orlando had recourse to the censor to prevent indiscretions, but the intuition of the ma.s.ses triumphed over repression, and the existing tenseness merged into resentment. The way in which Italians accounted for M. Clemenceau's att.i.tude was this.

Although Italy has ceased to be the important political factor she once was when the Triple Alliance was in being, she is still a strong continental Power, capable of placing a more numerous army in the field than her republican sister, and her population continues to increase at a high rate. In a few years she will have outstripped her rival. France, too, has perhaps lost those elements of her power and prestige which she derived from her alliance with Russia. Again, the Slav ex-ally, Russia, may become the enemy of to-morrow. In view of these contingencies France must create a subst.i.tute for the Rumanian and Italian allies. And as these have been found in the new Slav states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Jugoslavia, she can afford to dispense with making painful sacrifices to keep Italy in countenance.

A trivial incident which affords a glimpse of the spirit prevailing between the two kindred peoples occurred at St.-Germain-en-Laye, where the Austrian delegates were staying. They had been made much of in Vienna by the Envoy of the French Republic there, M. Allize, whose mission it was to hinder Austria from uniting with the Reich. Italy's policy was, on the contrary, to apply Mr. Wilson's principle of self-determination and allow the Austrians to do as they pleased in that respect. A fervent advocate of the French orthodox doctrine--a publicist--repaired to the Austrian headquarters at St.-Germain for the purpose, it is supposed, of discussing the subject. Now intercourse of any kind between private individuals and the enemy delegates was strictly forbidden, and when M. X. presented himself, the Italian officer on duty refused him admission. He insisted. The officer was inexorable. Then he produced a written permit signed by the Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta. How and why this exception was made in his favor when the rule was supposed to admit of no exceptions was not disclosed. But the Italian officer, equal to the occasion, took the ground that a military prohibition cannot be canceled by a civilian, and excluded the would-be visitor.

The general trend of France's European policy was repugnant to Italy.

She looked on it as a well-laid scheme to a.s.sume a predominant role on the Continent. That, she believed, was the ultimate purpose of the veto on the union of Austria and Germany, of the military arrangements with Britain and the United States, and of much else that was obnoxious to Italy. Austria was to be reconst.i.tuted according to the federative plans of the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to be made stronger than before as a counterpoise to Italy, and to be at the beck and call of France. Thus the friend, ally, sister of yesterday became the potential enemy of to-morrow. That was the refrain of most of the Italian journals, and none intoned it more fervently than those which had been foremost in bringing their country into the war. One of these, a Conservative organ of Lombardy, wrote: "Until yesterday, we might have considered that two paths lay open before us, that of an alliance with France and that of an independent policy. But we can think so no longer. To offer our friends.h.i.+p to-day to the people who have already chosen their own road and established their solidarity with our enemies of yesterday and to-morrow would not be to strike out a policy, but to decide on an unseemly surrender. It would be tantamount to reproducing in an aggravated form the situation we occupied in the alliance with Germany.

Once again we should be engaged in a partners.h.i.+p of which one of the partners was in reality our enemy. France taking the place of Germany, and Jugoslavia that of Austria, the situation of the old Triple Alliance would be not merely reproduced, but made worse in the reproduction, because the _Triplice_ at least guaranteed us against a conflict which we had grounds for apprehending, whereas the new alliance would tie our hands for the sake of a little Balkan state which, single-handed, we are well able to keep in its place.

"We have had enough of a policy which has. .h.i.therto saddled us with all the burdens of the alliance without bestowing on us any advantage--which has constrained us to favor all the peoples whose expansion dovetailed with French schemes and to combat or neglect those others whose consolidation corresponded to our interests--which has led us to support a great Poland and a great Bohemia and to combat the Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, Spain, to whose destinies the French, but not we, were indifferent."[238] A press organ of Bologna denounced the atrocious and ignominious sacrifice "which her allies imposed on Italy by means of economic blackmailing and violence with a whip in one hand and a chunk of bread in the other."[239]

Sharp comments were provoked by the heavy tax on strangers in Tunisia imposed by the French government,[240] on strangers, mostly Italians, who theretofore had enjoyed the same rights as the French and Tunisians.

"Suddenly," writes the princ.i.p.al Italian journal, "and just when it was hoped that the common sacrifices they had made had strengthened the ties between the two nations, the governor of Tunisia issued certain orders which endangered the interests of foreigners and the effects of which will be felt mainly by Italians, of whom there are one hundred and twenty thousand in Tunisia.[241] First there came an order forbidding the use of any language but French in the schools. Now the tax referred to in the House of Lords gives the Tunisian government power to levy an impost on the buying and selling of property in Tunisia. The new tax, which is to be levied over and above pre-existing taxes, ranged from 59 per cent. of the value when it is not a.s.sessed at a higher sum than one hundred thousand lire to 80 per cent. when its estimated value is more than five hundred thousand lire." The article terminates with the remark that boycotting is hardly a suitable epilogue to a war waged for common ideals and interests.

These manifestations irritated the French and were taken to indicate Italy's defection. It was to no purpose that a few level-headed men pointed out that the French government was largely answerable for the state of mind complained of. "Pertinax," in the _Echo de Paris_, wrote "that the alliance, in order to subsist and flourish, should have retained its character as an Anti-German League, whereas it fell into the error of masking itself as a Society of Nations and arrogated to itself the right of bringing before its tribunal all the quarrels of the planet."[242] Italy's allies undoubtedly did much to forfeit her sympathies and turn her from the alliance. It was pointed out that when the French troops arrived in Italy the Bulletin of the Italian command eulogized their efforts almost daily, but when the Italian troops went to France, the _communiques_ of the French command were most chary of allusions to their exploits, yet the Italian army contributed more dead to the French front than did the French army to the Italian front.[243]

At the Peace Conference, as we saw, when the terms with Germany were being drafted, Italy's problems were set aside on the grounds that there was no nexus between them. The Allies' interests, which were dealt with as a whole during the war, were divided after the armistice into essential and secondary interests, and those of Italy were relegated to the latter cla.s.s. Subsequently France, Britain, and the United States, without the co-operation or foreknowledge of their Italian friends, struck up an alliance from which they excluded Italy, thereby vitiating the only arguments that could be invoked in favor of such a coalition.

When peace was about to be signed they one-sidedly revoked the treaty which they had concluded in London, rendering the consent of all Allies necessary to the validity of the doc.u.ment, and decreed that Italy's abstention would make no difference. When the instrument was finally signed, Mr. Wilson returned to the United States, Mr. Lloyd George to England, and the Marquis of Saionji to j.a.pan, without having settled any of Italy's problems. Italy, her needs, her claims, and her policy thus appear as matters of little account to the Great Powers. Naturally, the Italian people were disappointed, and desirous of seeking new friends, the old ones having forsaken them.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the consequences which this att.i.tude of the Allies toward Italy may have on European politics generally. Her most eminent statesman, Signor t.i.ttoni, who succeeded Baron Sonnino, transcending his country's mortifications, exerted himself tactfully and not unsuccessfully to lubricate the mechanism of the alliance, to ease the dangerous friction and to restore the tone. And he seems to have accomplished in these respects everything which a sagacious statesman could do. But to arrest the operation of psychological laws is beyond the power of any individual. In order to appreciate the Italian point of view, it is nowise necessary to approve the exaggerated claims put forward by her press in the spring of 1919. It is enough to admit that in the light of the Wilsonian doctrine they were not more incompatible with that doctrine than the claims made by other Powers and accorded by the Supreme Council.

To sum up, Italy acquired the impression that a.s.sociation with her recent allies means for her not only sacrifices in their hour of need, but also further sacrifices in their hour of triumph. She became reluctantly convinced that they regard interests which she deems vital to herself as unconnected with their own. And that was unfortunate. If at some fateful conjuncture in the future her allies on their part should gather the impression that she has adjusted her policy to those interests which are so far removed from theirs, they will have themselves to blame.

FOOTNOTES:

[194] This clause, which figured in the draft Treaty, as presented to the Germans, provoked such emphatic protests from all sides that it was struck out in the revised version.

[195] In an interview given to the Correspondenz Bureau of Vienna by Conrad von Hoetzendorff. Cf. _Le Temps_, July 19, 1919.

[196] The Prime Minister, Salandra, declared that to have made neutrality a matter of bargaining would have been to dishonor Italy.

[197] King Carol was holding a crown council at the time. Bratiano had spoken against the King's proposal to throw in the country's lot with Germany. Carp was strongly for carrying out Rumania's treaty obligations. Some others hesitated, but before it could be put to the vote a telegram was brought in announcing Italy's resolve to maintain neutrality. The upshot was Rumania's refusal to follow her allies.

[198] On the eastern Adriatic, the Treaty of London allotted to Italy the peninsula of Istria, without Fiume, most of Dalmatia, exclusive of Spalato, the chief Dalmatian islands and the Dodecannesus.

[199] The present population of Fiume is computed at 45,227 souls, of whom 33,000 are Italians, 10,927 Slavs, and 1,300 Magyars.

[200] Another delegate is reported to have answered: "As we need Italy's friends.h.i.+p, we should pay the moderate price asked and back her claim to have the moon."

[201] A number of orders of the day eulogizing individual Slav officers and collective military ent.i.ties were quoted by the advocates of Italy's cause at the Conference.

[202] Official _communique_ of June 17, 1918.

[203] _Journal de Geneve_, April 25, 1919.

[204] Cf. _Il Corriere della Sera_ and _Il Secolo_ of May 26, 1919.

[205] In the Senate he defended this att.i.tude on March 4,1919, and expressed a desire to dispel the misunderstanding between the two peoples.

[206] In April, 1919.

[207] This fact has since been made public by Enrico Ferri in a remarkable discourse p.r.o.nounced in the parliament at Rome (July 9, 1919). It was Baron Sonnino who deprecated the publication of any statement on the subject by President Wilson. Cf. _La Stampa_, July 10, 1919.

[208] On January 10, 1919.

[209] It gave eastern Friuli to Italy, including Gorizia, split Istria into two parts, and a.s.signed Trieste and Pola also to Italy, but under such territorial conditions that they would be exposed to enemy projectiles in case of war.

[210] The National Council of Fiume issued its proclamation before it had become known that the battle of Vittorio Veneto was begun--_i.e._, October 30, 1918.

[211] Speech delivered at Mount Vernon on July 4, 1918.

[212] Of the United States, France, and Great Britain.

[213] Between April 5th and 12th.

[214] In his address to the representatives of organized labor in January, 1918.

[215] _L'Echo de Paris_, April 29, 1919.

[216] _Le Gaulois_, April 29, 1919.

[217] These meetings were held from March 28 till April 23, 1919.

[218] See Marco Borsa's article in _Il Secolo_, June 18, 1919; also _Corriere della Sera_, June 19, 1919.

[219] From May 5 to 16, 1919.

[220] _Il Secolo_, June 19, 1919.

[221] On April 23, 1919.

[222] "Can and will our allies treat our absence as a matter of no moment? Can and will they violate the formal undertaking which forbids the belligerents to conclude a diplomatic peace?... The London Declaration prohibits categorically the conclusion of any separate peace with any enemy state. France and England cannot sign peace with Germany if Italy does not sign it.... The situation is grave and abnormal, for our allies it is also grave and abnormal. Italy is isolated, and nations, especially those of continental Europe, which are not overrich, flee solitude as nature abhors a vacuum."--_Corriere della Sera_, April 26, 1919. Again: "'The Treaty of London' restrains France and England from concluding peace without Italy. And Italy is minded not to conclude peace with Germany before she herself has received satisfaction."--_Journal de Geneve_, April 25, 1919.

[223] On May 6, 1919, at Versailles.

[224] Cf. _Corriere della Sera_, May 10, 1919.

[225] Annex W of the Revised Treaty.