Chapter 6

Italy, as M. Tardieu says very plainly, carried no weight in the Conference. In the meetings of the Prime Ministers and President Wilson _le ton était celui de la conversation; nul apparat, nulle pose. M. Orlando parlait peu; l'activité de l'Italie à la conference a été, jusqu'à l'excès, absorbée par la question de Fiume, et sa part dans les débats a été de ce fait trop réduite. Restait un dialogue à trois: Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George_. The Italian Government came into the War in May, 1915, on the basis of the London Agreement of the preceding April, and it had never thought of claiming Fiume either before the War when it was free to lay down conditions or during the progress of the War.

The Italian people had always been kept in ignorance of the principles established in the London Agreement. One of the men chiefly responsible for the American policy openly complained to me that when the United States came into the War no notification was given them of the London Agreement in which were defined the future conditions of part of Europe. A far worse mistake was made in the failure to communicate the London Agreement to Serbia, which would certainly have accepted it without hesitation in the terrible position in which it then was.

But the most serious thing of all was that Italian Ministers were unaware of its provisions till after its publication in London by the organ of the Jugo-Slavs, which had evidently received the text from Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. In Italy the London Agreement was a mystery to everyone; its text was known only to the Presidents of the Council and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people knew about it, secrecy was strictly kept, and, moreover, it cannot possibly be said that it was in accordance either with national ideals or the currents of public opinion, much less with any intelligent conception of Italy's needs and Italy's future.

The framers of the London Agreement never thought of Fiume. Indeed they specifically expressed their willingness that it should go to Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary remaining united or of the detachment of Croatia from it. It is not true that it was through the opposition of Russia or of France that the Italian framers of the London Agreement gave up all claim to Fiume. There was no opposition because there was no claim. The representatives of Russia and France have told me officially that no renunciation took place through any action on the part of their Governments, because no claim was ever made to them. On the other hand, after the armistice, and when it became known through the newspapers that the London Agreement gave Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for Fiume arose, fanned by the Government itself, and an equally strong movement in Fiume also.

If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming large areas of Dalmatia which are entirely or almost entirely Slav, provision had been made for the constitution of a State of Fiume placed in a condition to guarantee not only the people of Italian nationality but the economic interests of all the peoples in it and surrounding it, there is no doubt that such a claim on the part of Italy would have gone through without opposition.

During the Paris Conference the representatives of Italy showed hardly any interest at all in the problems concerning the peace of Europe, the situation of the conquered peoples, the distribution of raw materials, the regulation of the new states and their relations with the victor countries. They concentrated all their efforts on the question of Fiume, that is to say on the one point in which Italian action was fundamentally weak in that, when it was free to enter into the War and lay down conditions of peace, at the moment when the Entente was without America's invaluable assistance and was beginning to doubt the capacity of Russia to carry on, it had never even asked for Fiume in its War Treaty, that it had made the inexplicable mistake of neglecting to communicate that treaty to the United States when that country came into the War and to Serbia at the moment when Italy's effort was most valuable for its help. At the conference Italy had no directing policy. It had been a part of the system of the German Alliance, but it had left its Allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, because it recognized that the War was unjust, and had remained neutral for ten months. Then, entering into the War freely and without obligation, there was one road for it to follow, that of proclaiming solemnly and defending the principles of democracy and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that the break with the two countries with which Italy had been in alliance for thirty-three years became a matter not only of honesty but of duty solely through the injustice of the cause for which they had proclaimed an offensive war. It was not possible for Italy to go to war to realize the dream of uniting the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered the system of Alliance of the Central Empires and had stayed there long years while having all the time Italian territories unjustly subjected to Austria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands to the Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence of the affirmation of the principles of nationality, not the reason for going to war. In any case, for Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agreement the most absurd limitations, which had confined its war aims within exceedingly modest limits, which had no share in the distribution of the wealth of the conquered countries, which came out of the War without raw materials and without any share in Germany's colonial empire, it was a matter not only of high duty but of the greatest utility to proclaim and uphold all those principles which the Entente had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its war policy and its war aims. But in the Paris Conference Italy hardly counted. Without any definite idea of its own policy, it followed France and the United States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. There was no affirmation of principles at all. The country which, among all the European warring Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to its resources and should have made the greatest effort to free itself from the burdens imposed on it, took no part in the most important decisions. It has to be added that these were arrived at between March 24 and May 7, while the Italian representatives were absent from Paris or had returned there humbled without having been recalled.

After interminable discussions which decided very little, especially with regard to the League of Nations which arose before the nations were constituted and could live, real vital questions were tackled, as is seen from the report of the Conference, on March 24, and it is a fact that between that date and May 7 the whole treaty was put in shape: territorial questions, financial questions, economic questions, colonial questions. Now, at that very moment, on account of the question of Fiume and Fiume alone, for some inscrutable reason the Italian delegates thought good to retire from the Conference, to which they returned later without being invited, and during that time all the demonstrations against President Wilson took place in Italy, not without some grave responsibility on the part of the government. Italy received least consideration in the peace treaties among all the conquering countries. It was practically put on one side.

It has to be noted that both in the armistice and in the peace treaty the most serious decisions were arrived at almost incidentally; moreover they were always vitiated by slight concessions apparently of importance. On November 2, 1917, when the representatives of the different nations met at Paris to fix the terms of armistice, M. Tardieu relates, the question of reparation for damages was decided quite incidentally. It is worth while reproducing what he says in his book, taken from the official report:

M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je voudrais venir maintenant sur la question des réparations et des tonnages. On ne comprenderait pas chez nous, en France, que nous n'inscrivions pas dans l'armistice une clause à cet effet. Ce que je vous demande c'est l'addition de trois mots: "Réparations des dommages" sans autre commentaire.

Le dialogue suivant s'établit_:

M. HYMANS: _Cela serait-il une condition d'armistice_?

M. SONNINO: _C'est plutôt une condition de paix_.

M. BONAR LAW: _Il est inutile d'insérer dans les conditions d'armistice une clause qui ne pourrait être exécutée dans un bref délai_.

M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je ne veux que mentionner le principe. Vous ne devez pas oublier que la population française est une de celles qui ont le plus souffert. Elle ne comprendrait pas que nous ne fissions pas allusion à cette clause_.

M. LLOYD GEORGE: _Si vous envisages le principe des réparations sur terre, il faut mentionner aussi celui des réparations pour les navires coulés_.

M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je comprends tout cela dans mes trois mots, "Réparations des dommages." Je supplie le Conseil de se mettre dans l'esprit de la population française...._

M. VESSITCH: _Et serbe_....

M. HYMANS: _Et belge_....

M. SONNINO: _Et italienne aussi_....

M. HOUSE: _Puisqu'est une question importante pour tous, je propose l'addition de M. Clemenceau_.

M. BONAR LAW: _C'est deja dit dans notre lettre au Président Wilson, qui la comuniquera à l'Allemagne. Il est inutile de la dire deux fois_.

M. ORLANDO: _J'accepte en principe, quoiqu'il n'en ait pas été fait mention dans les conditions de l'armistice avec l'Autriche_.

_L'addition "Réparations des dommages" est alors adoptée. M. Klotz propose de mettre en tête de cette addition les mots: "Sous réserve de toutes revendications et restaurations ultérieures de la part des Alliés et des Etats-Unis." Il est ainsi décidé_.

If I were at liberty to publish the official report of the doings of the Conference while the various peace treaties were being prepared, as MM. Poincaré and Tardieu have published secret acts, it would be seen that the proceedings were very much the same in every case. Meanwhile we may confine ourselves to an examination of the report as given by M. Tardieu.

The question of reparation of damages was not a condition of the armistice. It had not been accepted. Clemenceau brings the question up again solely in homage to French public opinion. The suggestion is to write in simply the three words: _Reparation of damages_. It is true that these three words determine a policy, and that there is no mention of it in the claims of the Entente, in the fourteen points of President Wilson, or in the armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary. In his fourteen points Wilson confined himself, in the matter of damages, to the following claims: (1) Reconstruction of Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French territory invaded, (3) Reparation for territory invaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania. There is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. On the other hand the pronouncement, "_Réparation des dommages_," included, as in fact was afterwards included, any claim for damage by land or sea.

The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the people of France." At once the British representative notes the necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea through submarines and mines; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian and, last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to their own damages. Mr. House, not realizing the wide and serious nature of the claim, says that it is an important question for all, while America had already stated, in the words of the President of the Republic, that it renounced all indemnity of any nature whatsoever.

So was established, quite incidentally, the principle of indemnity for damages which gave the treaty a complete turn away from the spirit of the pronouncements by the Entente and the United States. Equally incidentally were established all the declarations in the treaty, the purpose of which is not easy to understand except in so far as it is seen in the economic results which may accrue.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that the allied and associated governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the allied and associated governments and their peoples have been subjected as a consequence of the War imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye states in the same way that the allied and associated governments affirm, and Austria-Hungary accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies, etc.

This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by another article in which the allied and associated governments recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.) are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty, comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of those mobilized during the War, etc.).

There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered, because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of his people, of the American democracy.

Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced declaration which has no value at all.

I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the whole world. That statement, which we all made during the War, was a weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be looked on as a serious argument.

An honest and thorough examination of all the diplomatic documents, all the agreements and relations of pre-war days, compels me to declare solemnly that the responsibility for the War does not lie solely on the defeated countries; that Germany may have desired war and prepared for it under the influence of powerful industrial interests, metallurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme views of newspapers and other publications, but still all the warring countries have their share of responsibility in differing degree. It cannot be said that there existed in Europe two groups with a moral conception differing to the point of complete contrast; on one side, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the War, which they imposed by their aggression; on the other, all the free and independent nations. By the side of England, France, Italy and the United States there was Russia, which must bear, if not the greatest, a very great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it true that armament expenses in the ten years preceding the War were greater in the Central Empires, or, to put it better, in the States forming the Triple Alliance, than in the countries which later formed the European Entente.

It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult situation indeed.

It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion.

The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies.

The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires, but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly that the War broke out without any Government having really desired it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and tripping.

There were three Monarchies in Europe, the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the fact that they were divided into two groups necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or later. Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Europe; what happened had to happen under one form or another. The crazy giant was under the charge of one man without intelligence and a band of men, the men of the old regime, largely without scruples.

Each country of Europe has its share of responsibility, Italy not excluded. It is difficult to explain why Italy went to Tripoli in the way in which she did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish war, which brought about the two Balkan wars and the policy of adventure of Serbia, which was the incident though not the cause of the European War.

The Libyan adventure, considered now in the serene light of reason, cannot be looked on as anything but an aberration. Libya is an immense box of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than one million one hundred thousand square kilometres and have less than nine hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than a third are under the effective control of Italy. With the war and expenses of occupation, Libya has cost Italy about seven milliard lire, and for a long time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the nation. With the same number of milliards, most of which were spent before the European War, Italy could have put in order and utilized her immense patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free from anxiety about the coal problem by which it is actually enslaved. The true policy of the nation was to gain economic independence, not a barren waste. Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as a promised land; in one official speech the King was even made to say that Libya could absorb part of Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of madness, for Libya has no value at all from the agricultural, commercial or military point of view. It may pay its way one day, but only if all expenses are cut down and the administrative system is completely changed. It may be that, if only from a feeling of duty towards the inhabitants, Italy cannot abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but the question will always be asked why she did take it, why she took it by violence when a series of concessions could have been obtained without difficulty from the Turkish Government.

The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, against the opinion of Italy's allies, Austria and Germany, against the wish of England and France, is a very serious political responsibility for Italy.