The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Part 16

Casting a parting glance at Poland as she looked when emerging from the Conference in the leading-strings of the Great Western Powers, after having escaped from the Bolshevist dangers that compa.s.sed her round, we behold her about to begin her national existence as a semi-independent nation, beset with enemies domestic and foreign. For it would be an abuse of terms to affirm that Poland, or, indeed, any of the lesser states, is fully independent in the old sense of the word. The special treaty imposed on her by the Great Two obliges her to accord free transit to Allied goods and certain privileges to her Jewish and other minorities; to accept the supervision and intervention of the League of Nations, which the Poles contend means in their case an Anglo-Saxon-Jewish a.s.sociation; and, at the outset, at any rate, to recognize the French generalissimus as the supreme commander of her troops.

Poland's frontiers and general status ought, if the scheme of her French protectors had been executed, to have been accommodated to the peculiar functions which they destined her to fill in New Europe. France's plan was to make of Poland a wall between Germany and Russia. The marked tendency of the other two Conference leaders was to transform it into a bridge between those two countries. And the outcome of the compromise between them has been to construct something which, without being either, combines all the disadvantages of both. It is a bridge for Germany and a wall for Bolshevist Russia. That is the verdict of a large number of Poles. Although the Europe of the future is to be a pacific and ethically const.i.tuted community, whose members will have their disputes and quarrels with one another settled by arbitration courts and other conciliatory tribunals, war and efficient preparation for it were none the less uppermost in the minds of the circ.u.mspect lawgivers. Hence the Anglo-Saxon agreement to defend France against unprovoked aggression. Hence, too, the solicitude displayed by the French to have the Polish state, which is to be their mainstay in eastern Europe, equipped with every territorial and other guaranty necessary to qualify it for the duties. But what the French government contrived to obtain for itself it failed to secure for its new Slav ally. Nay, oddly enough it voted with the Anglo-Saxon delegates for keeping all the lesser states under the tutelage of the League. The Duumvirs, having made the requisite concessions to France, were resolved in Poland's case to avoid a further recoil toward the condemned forms of the old system of equilibrium. Hence the various plebiscites, home-rule charters, subdivisions of territory, and other evidences of a struggle for reform along the line of least resistance, as though in the unavoidable future conflict between timidly propounded theories and politico-social forces the former had any serious chance of surviving. In politics, as in coinage, it is the debased metal that ousts the gold from circulation.

Poland's situation is difficult; some people would call it precarious.

She is surrounded by potential enemies abroad and at home--Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Magyars, and Jews. A considerable number of Teutons are incorporated in her republic to-day, and also a large number of people of Russian race. Now, Russia and Germany, even if they renounce all designs of reconquering the territory which they misruled for such a long span of time, may feel tempted one day to recover their own kindred, and what they consider to be their own territory. And irredentism is one of the worst political plagues for all the three parties who usually suffer from it. If then Germany and Russia were to combine and attack Poland, the consequences would be serious. That democratic Germany would risk such a wild adventure in the near future is inconceivable. But history operates with long periods of time, and it behooves statesmanship to do likewise.

A Polish statesman would start from the a.s.sumption that, as Russia and Germany have for the time being ceased to be efficient members of the European state-system, a good understanding may be come to with both of them, and a close intimacy cultivated with one. Resourcefulness and statecraft will be requisite to this consummation. For some Russians are still uncompromising, and would fain take back a part of what the revolutionary wave swept out of their country's grasp, but circ.u.mstance bids fair to set free a potent moderating force in the near future.

Already it is incarnated in statesmen of the new type. In this connection it is instructive to pa.s.s in review the secret maneuvers by which the recognition of Poland's independence was, so to say, extorted from a Russian Minister, who was reputed at the time to be a Democrat of the Democrats. As some governments have now become champions of publicity, I venture to hope that this disclosure will be as helpful to those whom it concerns as was the systematic suppression of my articles and telegrams during the s.p.a.ce of four years.[190]

On the outbreak of the Russian revolution Poland's representatives in Britain, who had been ceaselessly working for the restoration of their country, approached the British government with a request that the opportunity should be utilized at once, and the new democratic Cabinet in Petrograd requested to issue a proclamation recognizing the independence of Poland. The reasons for this move having been propounded in detail, orally and in writing, the Foreign Secretary despatched at once a telegram to the Amba.s.sador in the Russian capital, instructing him to lay the matter before the Russian Foreign Minister and urge him to lose no time in establishing the claim of the Polish provisional government to the sympathies of the world, and the redress of its wrongs by Russia. Sir George Buchanan called on Professor Milyukoff, then Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Const.i.tutional Democratic party, and propounded to him the views of the British government, which agreed with those of France and Italy, and hoped he would see his way to profit by the opportunity. The answer was prompt and definite, and within forty-eight hours of Mr. Balfour's despatch it reached the Foreign Office. The gist of it was that the Minister of Foreign Affairs regretted his inability to deal with the problem at that conjuncture, owing to its great complexity and various bearings, and also because of his apprehension that the Poles would demand the incorporation of Russian lands in their reconst.i.tuted state. From this answer many conclusions might fairly be drawn respecting persons, parties, and principles on the surface of revolutionary Russia. But to his credit, Mr. Balfour did not accept it as final. He again telegraphed to the British Amba.s.sador, instructing him to insist upon the recognition of Poland, as the matter was urgent, and to exhort the provisional government to give in good time the desired proof of the democratic faith that is to save Russia. Sir George Buchanan accomplished the task expeditiously. M. Milyukoff gave way, drafted and issued the proclamation. Mr. Bonar Law welcomed it in a felicitous speech in the House of Commons,[191] and the Entente press lauded to the skies the generous spirit of the new Russian government. The Russian people and their leaders have traveled far since then, and have rid themselves of much useless ballast.

As Slavs the Poles might have been naturally predisposed to live in amity with the Russians, were it not for the specter of the past that stands between them. But now that Russia is a democracy in fact as well as in name, this is much more feasible than it ever was before, and it is also indispensable to the Russians. In the first place, it is possible that Poland may have consolidated her forces before her mighty neighbor has recovered the status corresponding to her numbers and resources. If the present estimates are correct, and the frontiers, when definitely traced, leave Poland a republic with some thirty-five million people, such is her extraordinary birth-rate and the territorial scope it has for development, that in the not far distant future her population may exceed that of France. a.s.suming for the sake of argument that armies and other national defenses will count in politics as much as. .h.i.therto, Poland's specific weight will then be considerable. She will have become not indeed a world power (to-day there are only two such), but a European Great Power whose friendship will be well worth acquiring.

In the meanwhile Polish statesmen--the Poles have one in Roman Dmowski--may strike up a friendly accord with Russia, abandoning definitely and formally all claims to so-called historic Poland, disinteresting themselves in all the Baltic problems which concern Russia so closely, and envisaging the Ukraine from a point of view that harmonizes with hers. And if the two peoples could thus find a common basis of friendly a.s.sociation, Poland would have solved at least one of her Sphinx questions.

As for the internal development of the nation, it is seemingly hampered with as many hindrances as the international. It may be likened to the world after creation, bearing marks of the chaos of the eve. The German Poles differ considerably from the Austrian, while the Russian Poles are differentiated from both. The last-named still show traces of recent servitude in their everyday avocations. They lack the push and the energy of purpose so necessary nowadays in the struggle for life. The Austrian Poles in general are reputed to be likewise easy-going, lax, and more brilliant than solid, while their administrative qualities are said to be impaired by a leaning toward Oriental methods of transacting business. The Polish inhabitants of the provinces. .h.i.therto under Germany are people of a different temperament. They have a.s.similated some of the best qualities of the Teuton without sacrificing those which are inherent in men of their own race. A thorough grasp of detail and a gift for organization characterize their conceptions, and precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness are predicated of their methods. If it be true that the first reform peremptorily called for in the new republic is an administrative purge, it follows that it can be most successfully accomplished with the whole-hearted co-operation of the German Poles, whose superior education fits them to conform their schemes to the most urgent needs of the nation and the epoch.

The next measure will be internal colonization. There are considerable tracts of land in what once was Russian Poland, the population of which, owing to the havoc of war, is abnormally spa.r.s.e. Some districts, like that of the Pripet marshes, which even at the best of times had but five persons to the kilometer, are practically deserts. For the Russian army, when retreating before the Germans, drove before it a huge population computed at eight millions, who inhabited the territory to the east of Brest-Litovsk and northward between Lida and Minsk. Of these eight millions many perished on the way. A large percentage of the survivors never returned.[192] Roughly speaking, a couple of millions (mostly Poles and Jews) went back to their ruined homes. Now the Poles, who are one of the most prolific races in Europe, might be encouraged to settle on these thinly populated lands, which they could convert into ethnographically Polish districts within a relatively short span of time. These, however, are merely the ideas of a friendly observer, whose opinion cannot lay claim to any weight.

To-day Poland's hope is not, as it has been hitherto, the n.o.bleman, the professor, and the publicist, but the peasant. The members of this cla.s.s are the nucleus of the new nation. It is from their midst that Poland's future representatives in politics, arts, and science will be drawn.

Already the peasants are having their sons educated in high-schools and universities, of which the republic has a fair number well supplied with qualified teachers,[193] and they are resolute adversaries of every movement tainted with Bolshevism.

Thus the difficulties and dangers with which new Poland will have to contend are redoubtable. But she stands a good chance of overcoming them and reaching the goal where lies her one hope of playing a noteworthy part in reorganized Europe. The indispensable condition of success is that the current of opinion and sentiment in the country shall buoy up reforming statesmen. These must not only understand the requirements of the new epoch and be alive to the necessity of penetrating public opinion, but also possess the courage to place high social aims at the head of their life and career. Statesmen of this temper are rare to-day, but Poland possesses at least one of them. Her resources warrant the conviction which her chiefs firmly entertain that she may in a relatively near future acquire the economic leadership of eastern Europe, and in population, military strength, and area equal France.

Parenthetically it may be observed that the enthusiasm of the Poles for British inst.i.tutions and for intimate relations with Great Britain has perceptibly cooled.

In the limitations to which she is now subjected, her more optimistic leaders discern the temporarily unavoidable condition of a beneficent process of working forward toward indefinite amelioration. Their people's faith, that may one day raise the country above the highest summit of its past historical development, if it does not reconcile them to the present, may nerve them to the effort which shall realize that high consummation in the future.

FOOTNOTES:

[190] Most of my articles written during the last half of the war, and some during the armistice, were held back on grounds which were presumably patriotic. I share with those who were instrumental in keeping them from the public the moral portion of the reward which consists in the a.s.sumption that some high purpose was served by the suppression.

[191] On April 26, 1917.

[192] Mainly White Russians.

[193] The Poles have universities in Cracow, Warsaw, Lvoff (Lemberg), Liublin, and will shortly open one in Posen. One Polish statesman entertains a novel and useful idea which will probably be tested in the University of Posen. Noticing that the greater the progress of technical knowledge the less is the advance made in the knowledge of men, which is perhaps the most pressing need of the new age, this statesman proposes to create a new type of university, where there would be two princ.i.p.al sections, one for the study of natural sciences and mathematics, and the other for the study of men, which would include biology, psychology, ethnography, sociology, philology, history, etc.

VIII

ITALY

Of all the problems submitted to the Conference, those raised by Italy's demands may truly be said to have been among the easiest. Whether placed in the light of the Fourteen Points or of the old system of the rights of the victors, they would fall into their places almost automatically.

But the peace criteria were identical with neither of those principles.

They consisted of several heterogeneous maxims which were invoked alternately, Mr. Wilson deciding which was applicable to the particular case under discussion. And from his judgment there was no appeal.

It is of the essence of statesmanship to be able to put oneself in the place--one might almost say in the skin--of the foreign peoples and governments with which one is called upon to deal. But the feat is arduous and presupposes a variety of conditions which the President was unable to fulfil. His conception of Europe, for example, was much too simple. It has been aptly likened to that of the American economist who once remarked to the manager of an English railway: "You Britishers are handicapped by having to build your railway lines through cities and towns. We go to work diligently: we first construct the road and create the cities afterward."

And Mr. Wilson happened just then to be in quest of a fulcrum on which to rest his idealistic lever. For he had already been driven by egotistic governments from several of his commanding positions, and people were gibingly asking whether the new political gospel was being preached only as a foil for backslidings. Thus he abandoned the freedom of the seas ... on which he had taken a determined stand before the world. Although he refused the Rhine frontier to France, he had reluctantly given way to M. Clemenceau in the matter of the Saar Valley, a.s.senting to a monstrous arrangement by which the German inhabitants of that region were to be handed over to the French Republic against their expressed will, as a set-off for a sum in gold which Germany would certainly be unable to pay.[194] He doubtless foresaw that he would also yield on the momentous issue of Shantung and the Chino-j.a.panese secret treaty. In a word, some of his more important abstract tenets professed in words were being brushed aside when it came to acts, and his position was truly unenviable. Naturally, therefore, he seized the first favorable occasion to apply them vigorously and unswervingly. This was supplied by the dispute between Italy and Jugoslavia, two nations which he held, so to say, in the hollow of his hand.

The latter state, still in the making, depended for its frontiers entirely on the fiat of the American President backed by the Premiers of Britain and France. And of this backing Mr. Wilson was a.s.sured. Italy, although more powerful militarily than Jugoslavia, was likewise economically dependent upon the good-will of the two English-speaking communities, who were a.s.sured in advance of the support of the French Republic. If, therefore, she could not be reasoned or cajoled into obeying the injunctions of the Supreme Council, she could easily be made malleable by other means. In her case, therefore, Mr. Wilson's ethical notions might be fearlessly applied. That this was the idea which underlay the President's policy is the obvious inference from the calm, unyielding way in which he treated the Italian delegation. In this connection it should be borne in mind that there is no more important distinction between all former peace settlements and that of the Paris Conference than the unavowed but indubitable fact that the latter rests upon the hegemony of the English-speaking communities of the world, whereas the former were based upon the balance of power. So immense a change could not be effected without discreetly throwing out as useless ballast some of the highly prized dogmas of the accepted political creeds, even at the cost of impairing the solidarity of the Latin races.

This was effected incidentally. As a matter of fact, the French are not, properly speaking, a Latin race, nor has their solidarity with Italy or Spain ever been a moving political force in recent times. Italy's refusal to fight side by side with her Teuton allies against France and her backers may conceivably be the result of racial affinities, but it has hardly ever been ascribed to that sentimental source. Sentiment in politics is a myth. In any case, M. Clemenceau discerned no pressing reason for making painful efforts to perpetuate the Latin union, while solicitude for national interests hindered him from making costly concessions to it.

Naturally the cardinal innovation of which this was a corollary was never invoked as the ground for any of the exceptional measures adopted by the Conference. And yet it was the motive for several, for although no allusion was made to the hegemony of Anglo-Saxondom, it was ever operative in the subconsciousness of the two plenipotentiaries. And in view of the omnipotence of these two nations, they temporarily sacrificed consistency to tactics, probably without conscientious qualms, and certainly without political misgivings. That would seem to be a partial explanation of the lengths to which the Conference went in the direction of concessions to the Great Powers' imperialist demands.

France asked to be recognized and treated as the personification of that civilization for which the Allied peoples had fought. And for many reasons, which it would be superfluous to discuss here, a large part of her claim was allowed. This concession was attacked by many as connoting a departure from principle, but the deviation was more apparent than real, for under all the wrappings of idealistic catchwords lay the primeval doctrine of force. The only substantial difference between the old system and the new was to be found in the wielders of the force and the ends to which they intended to apply it. Force remains the granite foundation of the new ordering, as it had been of the old. But its employment, it was believed, would be different in the future from what it had been in the past. Concentrated in the hands of the English-speaking peoples, it would become so formidable a weapon that it need never be actually wielded. Possession of overwhelmingly superior strength would suffice to enforce obedience to the decrees of its possessors, which always will, it is a.s.sumed, be inspired by equity. An actual trial of strength would be obviated, therefore, at least so long as the relative military and economic conditions of the world states underwent no sensible change. To this extent the war specter would be exorcised and trying abuses abolished.

That those views were expressly formulated and thrown into the clauses of a secret program is unlikely. But it seems to be a fact that the general outlines of such a policy were conceived and tacitly adhered to.

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 j.a.panese, the Jugoslavs, and the Jews. The dictatorial decrees were inspired by the delegates' fundamental aims, the concessions by their tactical needs--the former, therefore, were meant to be permanent, the latter transient.

All other explanations of the Italian crisis, however well they may fit certain of its phases, are, when applied to the pith of the matter, beside the mark. Even if it were true, as the dramatist, Sem Benelli, wrote, that "President Wilson evidently considers our people as on the plane of an African colony, dominated by the will of a few ambitious men," that would not account for the tenacious determination with which the President held to his slighted theory.

Italy's position in Europe was in many respects peculiar. Men still living remember the time when her name was scarcely more than a geographical expression which gradually, during the last sixty years, came to connote a hard-working, sober, patriotic nation. Only little by little did she recover her finest provinces and her capital, and even then her unity was not fully achieved. Austria still held many of her sons, not only in the Trentino, but also on the other sh.o.r.e of the Adriatic. But for thirty years her desire to recover these lost children was paralyzed by international conditions. In her own interests, as well as in those of peace, she had become the third member of an alliance which constrained her to suppress her patriotic feelings and allowed her to bend all her energies to the prevention of a European conflict.

When hostilities broke out, the att.i.tude of the Italian government was a matter of extreme moment to France and the Entente. Much, perhaps the fate of Europe, depended on whether they would remain neutral or throw in their lot with the Teutons. They chose the former alternative and literally saved the situation. The question of motive is wholly irrelevant. Later on they were urged to move a step farther and take an active part against their former allies. But a powerful body of opinion and sentiment in the country was opposed to military co-operation, on the ground that the sum total of the results to be obtained by quiescence would exceed the guerdon of victory won by the side of the Entente. The correctness of this estimate depended upon many incalculable factors, among which was the duration of the struggle. The consensus of opinion was that it would be brief, in which case the terms dangled before Italy's eyes by the Entente would, it was believed by the Cabinet, greatly transcend those which the Central Powers were prepared to offer. Anyhow they were accepted and the compact was negotiated, signed, and ratified by men whose idealism marred their practical sense, and whose policy of sacred egotism, resolute in words and feeble in action, merely impaired the good name of the government without bringing any corresponding compensation to the country. The world struggle lasted much longer than the statesmen had dared to antic.i.p.ate; Italy's obligations were greatly augmented by Russia's defection, she had to bear the brunt of all, instead of a part of Austria's forces, whereby the sacrifices demanded of her became proportionately heavier.

Altogether it is fair to say that the difficulties to be overcome and the hardships to be endured before the Italian people reached their goal were and still are but imperfectly realized by their allies. For the obstacles were gigantic, the effort heroic; alone the results shrank to disappointing dimensions.

The war over, Italian statesmen confidently believed that those supererogatory exertions would be appropriately recognized by the Allies. And this expectation quickly crystallized into territorial demands. The press which voiced them ruffled the temper of Anglo-Saxondom by clamoring for more than it was ever likely to concede, and buoyed up their own nation with illusory hopes, the non-fulfilment of which was certain to produce national discontent. Curiously enough, both the government and the press laid the main stress upon territorial expansion, leaving economic advantages almost wholly out of account.

It was at this conjuncture that Mr. Wilson made his appearance and threw all the pieces on the political chessboard into weird confusion. "You,"

he virtually said, "have been fighting for the dismemberment of your secular enemy, Austria. Well, she is now dismembered and you have full satisfaction. Your frontiers shall be extended at her expense, but not at the expense of the new states which have arisen on her ruins. On the contrary, their rights will circ.u.mscribe your claims and limit your territorial aggrandizement. Not only can you not have all the additional territory you covet, but I must refuse to allot even what has been guaranteed to you by your secret treaty. I refuse to recognize that because the United States government was no party to it, was, in fact, wholly unaware of it until recently. New circ.u.mstances have transformed it into a mere sc.r.a.p of paper."

This language was not understood by the Italian people. For them the sacredness of treaties was a dogma not to be questioned, and least of all by the champion of right, justice, and good faith. They had welcomed the new order preached by the American statesman, but were unable to reconcile it with the tearing up of existing conventions, the repudiation of legal rights, the dissolution of alliances. In particular their treaty with France, Britain, and Russia had contributed materially to the victory over the common enemy, had in fact saved the Allies. "It was Italy's intervention," said the chief of the Austrian General Staff, Conrad von Hoetzendorff, "that brought about the disaster. Without that the Central Empires would infallibly have won the war."[195] And there is no reason to doubt his a.s.sertion. In truth Italy had done all she had promised to the Allies, and more. She had contributed materially to save France--wholly gratuitously. It was also her neutrality, which she could have bartered, but did not,[196] that turned the scale at Bucharest against the military intervention of Rumania on the side of the Teutons.[197] And without the neutrality of both these countries at the outset of hostilities the course of the struggle and of European history would have been widely different from what they have been. And now that the Allies had achieved their aim they were to refuse to perform their part of the compact in the name, too, of a moral principle from the operation of which three great Powers were dispensed. That was the light in which the matter appeared to the unsophisticated mind of the average Italian, and not to him alone.

Others accustomed to abstract reasoning asked whether the best preparation for the future regime of right and justice, and all that these imply, is to transgress existing rights and violate ordinary justice, and what difference there is between the demoralizing influence of this procedure and that of professional Bolshevists. There was but one adequate answer to this objection, and it consisted in the whole-hearted and rigid application of the Wilsonian tenets to all nations without exception. But even the author of these tenets did not venture to make it.

The essence of the territorial question lay in the disposal of the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Adriatic.[198] The Jugoslavs claimed all Istria and Dalmatia, and based their claim partly on the principle of nationalities and partly on the vital necessity of having outlets on that sea, and in particular Fiume, the most important of them all, which they described as essentially Croatian and indispensable as a port. 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 sh.o.r.e 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. The Jugoslavs met this a.s.sertion with the objection that the outlets in question were inaccessible, all except Fiume and Metkovitch.

As for Fiume,[199] the Italian delegates contended that although not promised to Italy by the Treaty of London, it was historically hers, because, having been for centuries an autonomous ent.i.ty and having as such religiously preserved its Italian character, its inhabitants had exercised their rights to manifest by plebiscite their desire to be united with the mother country. They further denied that it was indispensable to the Jugoslavs because these would receive a dozen other ports and also because the traffic between Croatia and Fiume was represented by only 7 per cent. of the whole, and even that of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia combined by only 13 per cent. Further, Italy would undertake to give all requisite export facilities in Fiume to the Jugoslavs.

The latter traversed many of these statements, and in particular that which described Fiume as a separate autonomous ent.i.ty and as an essentially Italian city. Archives were ransacked by both parties, ancient doc.u.ments produced, a.n.a.lyzed, condemned as forgeries or appealed to as authentic proofs, chance phrases were culled from various writers of bygone days and offered as evidence in support of each contention.

Thus the contest grew heated. It was further inflamed by the att.i.tude of Italy's allies, who appeared to her as either covertly unfriendly or at best lukewarm.

M. Clemenceau, who maintained during the peace negotiations the epithet "Tiger" which he had earned long before, was alleged to have said in the course of one of those conversations which were misnamed private, "For Italy to demand Fiume is to ask for the moon."[200] Officially he took the side of Mr. Wilson, as did also the British Premier, and Italy's two allies signified but a cold a.s.sent to those other claims which were covered by their own treaty. But they made no secret of their desire to see that instrument wholly set aside. Fiume they would not bestow on their ally, at least not unless she was prepared to offer an equivalent to the Jugoslavs and to satisfy the President of the United States.

This advocacy of the claims of the Jugoslavs was bitterly resented by the Italians. For centuries the two peoples had been rivals or enemies, and during the war the Jugoslavs fought with fury against the Italians.

For Italy the arch-enemy had ever been Austria and Austria was largely Slav. "Austria," they say, "was the official name given to the cruel enemy against whom we fought, but it was generally the Croatians and other Slavs whom our gallant soldiers found facing them, and it was they who were guilty of the misdeeds from which our armies suffered."

Official doc.u.ments prove this.[201] Orders of the day issued by the Austrian Command eulogize "the Serbo-Croatian battalions who vied with the Austro-German and Hungarian soldiers in resisting the pitfalls dug by the enemy to cause them to swerve from their fidelity and take the road to treason.[202] In the last battle which ended the existence of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy a large contingent of excellent Croatian troops fought resolutely against the Italian armies."

In Italy an impressive story is told which shows how this transformation of the enemy of yesterday into the ally of to-day sometimes worked out.

The son of an Italian citizen who was fighting as an aviator was killed toward the end of the war, in a duel fought in the air, by an Austrian combatant. Soon after the armistice was signed the sorrowing father repaired to the place where his son had fallen. He there found an ex-Austrian officer, the lucky victor and slayer of his son, wearing in his b.u.t.tonhole the Jugoslav _cocarde_, who, advancing toward him with extended hand, uttered the greeting, "You and I are now allies."[203]

The historian may smile at the navete of this anecdote, but the statesman will acknowledge that it characterized the relations between the inhabitants of the new state and the Italians. One can divine the feelings of these when they were exhorted to treat their ex-enemies as friends and allies.

"Is it surprising, then," the Italians asked, "that we cannot suddenly conceive an ardent affection for the ruthless 'Austrians' of whose cruelties we were bitterly complaining a few months back? Is it strange that we cannot find it in our hearts to cut off a slice of Italian territory and make it over to them as one of the fruits of--our victory over them? If Italy had not first adopted neutrality and then joined the Allies in the war there would be no Jugoslavia to-day. Are we now to pay for our altruism by sacrificing Italian soil and Italian souls to the secular enemies of our race?" In a word, the armistice transformed Italy's enemy into a friend and ally for whose sake she was summoned to abandon some of the fruits of a hard-earned victory and a part of her secular aspirations. What, asked the Italian delegates, would France answer if she were told that the Prussians whom her matchless armies defeated must henceforth be looked upon as friends and endowed with some new colonies which would otherwise be hers? The Italian dramatist Sem Benelli put the matter tersely: "The collapse of Austria transforms itself therefore into a play of words, so much so that our people, who are much more precise because they languished under the Austrian yoke and the Austrian scourge, never call the Austrians by this name; they call them always Croatians, knowing well that the Croatians and the Slavs who const.i.tuted Austria were our fiercest taskmasters and most cruel executioners. It is nave to think that the ineradicable characteristics and tendencies of peoples can be modified by a change of name and a new flag."

But there was another way of looking at the matter, and the Allies, together with the Jugoslavs, made the most of it. The Slav character of the disputed territory was emphasized, the principle of nationality invoked, and the danger of incorporating an unfriendly foreign element which could not be a.s.similated was solemnly pointed out. But where sentiment actuates, reason is generally impotent. The policy of the Italian government, like that of all other governments, was frankly nationalistic; whether it was also statesman-like may well be questioned--indeed the question has already been answered by some of Italy's princ.i.p.al press organs in the negative.[204] They accuse the Cabinet of having deliberately let loose popular pa.s.sions which it afterward vainly sought to allay, and the facts which they allege in support of the charge have never been denied.