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Wilson's contention, from the point of view of the League of Nations, and also from that of the Jugoslavs, will not be denied. That some of the main arguments to which he trusted his case were invalidated by the concessions which he had made to other countries was Italy's contention, and it cannot be thrust aside as untenable. At last Mr.
Every Italian with whom I discussed the question and I might add, without boasting, many highly placed and well-informed Italians have honored me with their confidence firmly believes that France is jealous of Italy's rapidly increasing power in the Mediterranean, and that she is secretly intriguing with the Jugoslavs and the Greeks to prevent Italy obtaining commercial supremacy in the Balkans.
On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity.
The Italian delegates, joining issue with the Jugoslavs, and claiming a section of the seaboard and Fiume, argued that the greatest part of the East Adriatic shore would still remain Croatian, together with all the ports of the Croatian coast and others in southern Dalmatia in a word, twelve ports, including Spalato and Ragusa, and a thousand kilometers of seaboard.
A young and small nation like the Jugoslavs would be grateful for an act of generosity and would repay it by lasting friendship a return worth far more than the contentious territories. "Ah, you don't know the Jugoslavs, Mr. President," exclaimed Signor Orlando.
These outlines governed the action of the two world-arbiters, not only in the dictatorial decrees issued in the name of political idealism and its Fourteen Points, which were so bitterly resented as oppressive by Italy, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Poland, and Greece, but likewise in those other concessions which scandalized the political puritans and gladdened the hearts of the French, the Japanese, the Jugoslavs, and the Jews.
Jugoslavs consented to coöperate with their Italian enemies because they felt that "Wilson's justice" would guarantee a fair court for their aspirations in the Adriatic; Magyars and Austrians threw down their arms in the belief that his promise to "be as just to enemies as to friends" secured a better future than they could hope for through the continuance of the war; the leaders of the German Reichstag demanded the Kaiser's abdication in November, under the impression that Wilson had laid it down as a condition of peace.
Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political, and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is, perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the Jugoslavs.
Similarly, there are whole towns in the Dobrudja which are composed of Bulgarians, there are large groups of Russian Slavs in Bessarabia, and considerable colonies of Jugoslavs in the eastern half of the Banat which, very much against their wishes, have been forced to submit to Rumanian rule.
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