Two races living together in harmony, untouched by any national feeling, swayed only by love of their city-state, devotion to its time-honored customs, including the use of the Italian language, and zeal for the connection with Hungary, on which their economic prosperity depended—these conditions began to break down after 1867. The great development of the port carried out by the Hungarian government brought in a flood of new citizens—mainly Italians, since the Magyars favored that element. It was at this time that the Italians seem to have gained the numerical preponderance in the city. Then, in the last few decades, the importation of Magyars set in, at such a rate that the Italian ruling class in alarm concluded that the government at Budapest was bent on Magyarizing the city and that their connection with Hungary was not so comfortable after all. Hence there arose a new Italo-Magyar conflict to complicate the struggle that had already broken out between the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs. Now at last the Italian-speaking population began to turn their eyes across the Adriatic for liberators, and the Croat-speaking citizens began to sigh for the Yugo-Slav fatherland.

In the Fiume problem, as it presents itself today, the respective rôles of the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs are just the opposite of what they are in Dalmatia. In the case of Fiume, the Italian argument rests solely on the rights of nationality and the alleged wishes of the population.

The Italians point out, in the first place, that at the last Hungarian census (in 1910) the city contained about 24,000 Italians (not counting 6000 subjects of the kingdom of Italy), as against 16,000 Yugo-Slavs. To this the Yugo-Slavs retort that the Italian majority has been built up in the last few decades through the deliberate policy of the Magyar government; and that if the suburb of Sušak, which is practically part of the city, and the adjacent rural district were reckoned into the account, the Fiume territory would contain as many Yugo-Slavs as Italians.

Secondly, the Italians lay great weight upon the declarations of the National Council of Fiume and upon a plebiscite held in the city soon after the Armistice, as voicing the desire of the Fiumani to be united to Italy. The Yugo-Slavs deny that either of these things can be taken as a free and genuine expression of the wishes of the inhabitants.

At any rate, the Yugo-Slavs rest their argument mainly on other grounds. They maintain that Fiume is as naturally soldered on to their new state as Marseilles is to France; that this is the only satisfactory port on the Adriatic that that state can obtain; that its control by Italy would mean an intolerable subjection of Yugo-Slavia to her neighbor; and that it is inconceivable that their one good port should be taken away from them simply because within the walls of the city itself, not counting in the suburbs on which it vitally depends, Magyar machinations have built up an artificial plurality of barely 8000 Italians.

The Italians, of course, assert that farther south the Adriatic coast is full of good harbors, which could amply provide for the rather scanty trade of Yugo-Slavia. But it must be admitted that the mountain wall, which lines the coast from Fiume southward to the Drin, opposes very great obstacles to the opening up of a satisfactory outlet through the Dalmatian ports. At present there is, south of Fiume, only a single railway through to the coast—the wretched, winding rack-and-pinion road which comes down from Bosnia to Metković and Ragusa. It would be extremely difficult and expensive to develop and operate this line as a first-class railroad, and to link it up with the various parts of the Yugo-Slav state. Undoubtedly Fiume is the natural gate of Yugo-Slavia to the West; it is the only port that is well equipped today and that could easily adapt itself to the existing lines of communication. Even granted that another outlet could be developed farther south, it would require many years’ time and the expenditure of millions of dollars to bring this about.

It was, I think, because of the undeniable weight of such considerations, and in order that the new, poor, struggling state of the Yugo-Slavs should not be terribly handicapped at the outset by being denied that secure access to the sea for which Serbia had fought so long, that the American delegation at Paris took the stand it did on the Fiume question.

After going through many phases and fluctuations, this question appears to be at least appreciably nearer to a solution. The margin of difference between the two sides has now been reduced to a few points. If Italy gives way altogether on Dalmatia, it would seem only fair that the Yugo-Slavs should make some concessions as to Fiume, providing their economic interests can be reasonably insured. And it cannot be too strongly desired that if a compromise can be effected, the Yugo-Slavs recognizing their great debt to Italy, and the Italians recognizing the right to unity and independence of Yugo-Slavia, the two nations should go back to that attitude of mutual respect, coöperation, and fraternity which was the ideal of the noblest and most far-sighted Italian statesman of the nineteenth century, the great Mazzini.

Bibliographical Note

Probably the best history of Hungary available in any Western language is that by E. Sayous: Histoire générale des Hongrois, Budapest, 1900.