The acceptance of the present status of Austria as permanent by the League of Nations indicates the subserviency of that supposedly international organization to the interests of certain powers. The Council of the League has postponed the collapse of Austria in the same way as it settled the Upper Silesia and Vilna questions, by offering a solution that took into account the transcendent interests of members of the Council. Austria had to be helped to her feet financially to repair, if possible, the damage done by the Treaties of St.-Germain and Trianon, which broke up the Hapsburg Empire without providing for economic safeguards for Austria or the alternative—union with Germany.

That the danger remains—a danger that may well lead to a new war—is evident from the significant and dramatic participation of Austria in the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first German Parliament at Frankfort-on-Main, on May 18, 1923. Professor Hartmann, Austrian Ambassador to Germany, declared that the Austrians “are hard and fast in their yearning for the union of Austria with Germany,” and he asserted his belief that the Anschluss would be effected eventually. When he reached his peroration, “The revolution of 1918 will bring us as its fruit the unity and coördination of German middle Europe into one state,” the audience rose to its feet in frenzied applause, led by President Ebert, Herr Loeb, president of the Reichstag, and other leading officials of the German Federal and State Governments.

CHAPTER XVIII
FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI IN ITALY

At the end of the World War the British and French press begged Italy to renounce a part, at least, of the spoils promised her by the secret treaties of 1915. It was feared that a hopeless conflict would develop at the Paris Conference between Italian imperialism and the American—or rather Wilsonian—doctrine of self-determination. The reasons for this plea are easy to understand. Great Britain expected, as usual, to gather in her advantages from the victory outside Europe; and France had one objective, to which she was willing to sacrifice everything else, the achievement of her own security by the diminution of the German Empire and the shackling of German industries and commerce. It was felt in London and Paris that if Italy were to stand on her treaty rights the whole problem of peace would be made insoluble by alienating President Wilson and by creating antagonism to the Entente in south central and southeastern Europe.

Alone among the members of the Orlando Cabinet, Signor Bissolati, the famous Socialist leader, advocated openly the application of the principle of nationality in the peace settlement. He said that the Treaty of London did not alter the fact that Italy should abandon her claim to northern Dalmatia, the Dodecanese, and the southern Tyrol. By these sacrifices he asserted that Italy would avoid friction with the Jugoslavs, win the friendship of Greece, and abstain from the injustice of annexing, for purely strategic reasons, the purely German population of the Tyrol. When his advice was rejected, Bissolati resigned his portfolio and was followed by Nitti. A propaganda was launched in Italy to work up enthusiasm for the Italian claims, to which was added a demand for Fiume.

Public opinion was aroused to such an extent that when Premier Orlando failed to obtain complete recognition in Paris for the Italian point of view he found himself obliged to resign, and was succeeded by Signor Nitti just before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Italian claims as one of the Succession States of the Hapsburg Empire were kept before the world by the seizure of Fiume in September. The poet, d’Annunzio, defied the commands of the Peace Conference and the Italian Government to evacuate the city.

The new premier had formed a coalition Government, representing all parties except the Socialists. At the General Election in November the Socialist party doubled its strength, and a newly formed Clerical party won more than a hundred seats. However, as there was no possibility of an alliance between Socialists and Clericals, Nitti was able to form another coalition cabinet without these two parties. Nitti announced that Italy’s policy would be one of moderation in regard to Germany and that his Government would seek to solve the Adriatic question by direct negotiations with Jugoslavia.

Like Orlando at Paris, however, he failed at the San Remo conference of Entente premiers to gain an advantageous settlement of the succession of the Hapsburg empire; and it soon leaked out that he had consented to a treaty with Turkey which Italian public opinion believed to be too favorable to Greece. Again like Orlando, Nitti was forced out of office by the failure of his foreign policy. He was succeeded by the veteran Giolitti, whose return to power caused tremendous surprise abroad: for Signor Giolitti had opposed to the very end Italy’s intervention in the World War. Giolitti was able to make a direct agreement with Jugoslavia and to secure its ratification by the Italian Parliament before the end of November. The Treaty of Rapallo was hailed by Italian public opinion as the best possible solution of a difficulty that could not have been solved to the complete satisfaction of Italy except by war. The virtual unanimity of the support given to the Treaty of Rapallo was emphasized by the lack of protest in any quarter when Premier Giolitti ordered the Italian troops on Christmas eve to oust d’Annunzio from Fiume.

The surprising reasonableness of public opinion in questions of foreign policy was due to the menace of internal revolution. We have seen elsewhere how in the summer of 1920 the Italians, driven from Albania by a sudden uprising, made no attempt to retrieve their fortunes. The Government’s hands were tied by a railway strike. The railwaymen had refused to transport to Brindisi troops destined for Albania. It was clear that under these circumstances, had Italy gone to war with Jugoslavia, the existing social order might have been overthrown. The lesson of Russia was before the minds of Italian statesmen. The Chamber of Deputies acquiesced when Giolitti, in his statement on June 24, 1920, said in reference to foreign policy: