THE PROBLEM 'OF FIUME.
SIGNOR D'ANNUNZIO'S adventure at Fiume is IJ causing the Italian Government and the Allies some anxious moments. The poet took possession of the Istrian port on September 12th, and there he remains, despite all the exhortations and the warnings of his Government. He announces that Fiume is and must -remain reunited to Italy, whatever the Allied Conference may decide, and that he and his followers will resist to the death any attempt to transfer Fiume to the Croats. Signor d'Annunzio admits that he contrived this enterprise by promoting a mutiny in the Italian Army. The officers and men who went with him to Fiume were all Regular troops, and they were joined by the regiments in garrison at Fiume and by the crews of the Italian warships in the port. He is proud of his achievement, but he has struck a heavy blow at the discipline of the Italian Army and Navy. His motives may be admirable. His patriotic enthusiasm is doubtless sincere. Yet he has put himself and his followers in the wrong, and he has done an ill turn to his country and to the Allied cause. The " Jameson Raid," as its authors lived to recognize, was a grave political blunder, -which gave new force to the Boer reactionaries against whom the raid was directed, and which seriously hampered British statesmen in dealing with the Transvaal. Signor d'Annunzio's expedition to Fiume is a mistake, like the " .Jameson Raid," since it gives Italy's opponents an opportunity of casting suspicion on her good faith, and of prejudicing her in the eyes of the Allied diplomatists and peoples. The Italian Press has been denouncing the Southern Slays for their forcible occupation of Klagenfurt in defiance of the orders of the Peace Conference. Signor d'Annunzio has now laid his country open to a similar reproach by forcibly occupying Fiume, though it is fair to add that the Southern Slav Government, and not private adventurers, were responsible for the Klagenfurt incident, which has now been settled. The Southern Slav partisans naturally make the most of the Fiume affair, and urge with some force that the Peace Conference cannot allow itself to be defied by a private Italian citizen, however great his reputation may be in the literary world. Moreover, Signor d'Annunzio, not content with defying the thunderbolts of Paris, has given a political turn to his adventure. Signor Nitti, the new Italian Premier, obtained a clear majority for his policy in the Chamber on Sunday last. But Signor d'Annunzio, entrenched at Fiume, says, after the manner of the Northcliffe Press, that " Signor Nitti must go," and hints plainly that he will not leave Fiume at the order of the Premier of whom the Chamber approves. Italian domestic politics do not concern us, except in so far as they illustrate the extreme difficulty of the position in which Signor Nitti and his Foreign Minister, Signor Tittoni, now find themselves. They are responsible to the Allies for the conduct of Signor d'Annunzio, but they do not know how to restrain him. They rightly hesitate to use force, not least because they know that every Italian patriot in his heart sympathizes with Signor d'Annunzio's object, though not with hisviolent methods.
The Fiume adventure is all the more to be regretted because it was quite unnecessary. There was good. reason to suppose that the Peace Conference was about to recognize Italy's claim to the town, as distinct from the port, which was to be placed under the supervision of the League of Nations for the protection of Southern Slav trade. It was believed that both Italy and America would agree to this compromise, which might. satisfy Italian sentiment, and would also: give the Southern Slava all that they needed. But just as these delicate. negotiations appeared. to be reaching a satisfactory conclusion, Signor d'Annunzio spoilt them by 'seizing Fiume on his own account.' Yet the Italian claim to Fiume does not need to be supported by violence. It rest& on solid historical and racial grounds. Fiume is unquestionably an Italian town, inhabited mainly by Italians, and, like Trieste or Trento, it has always formed. part of Italy in the national sense, though it has long been ruled by Germans or Magyars. The natural frontiers of Italy on the north-east are the. Alps from the Brenner to the coast near .Fiume. The Peace Conference has reoognized these frontiers in their whole extent except in the immediate vicinity of Fiume. It has. accepted. as unavoidable the inclusion of a small. German-speaking population within the new Italian Alpine frontier north of Trento, but it has displayed a curious reluctance to admit as equally inevitable the inclusion of some Slays within the Italian Alpine frontier where it touches the Adriatic. The.. Italians of course have been quick to notice and to resent this inconsistency. Why, they ask, should .France recover the whole . of Alsace with its many German-speaking inhabitants while Italy is to be denied the possession of a genuine Italian town like Fiume because some Slave live round about it I They recall the ninth. of President Wilson's " Fourteen Points "—that a readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should -be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality •"—and 'they wonder why Fiume should be treated as an exception on the alleged ground that it is the only maritime outlet for the commerce of the Southern Slays.. Of course Fiume .is not the only port which the Southern Slays have used. or could use, nor is there any reason to suppose. that the Italians in Fiume would be so foolish as .to place. obstacles in the way of Southern Slav trade through.their port. On the contrary; it would. be to their interest to attract as much of that trade . as possible from competing porta further south. Great Britain and France are bound. to Italy by. the Treaty of London of 1915, and cannot repudiate its obligations without. Italy's consent.. That Treaty did not assign Fiume. to Italy, but it did assign to her large portions of Dahnatia. If, as seems probable, Italy is prepared to limit her Dalmatian. claims, which are disputable, on condition that she receives iiume, her claim to which is far stronger in every way, Great Britain and France must necessarily support the proposal. But until Italy releases us . from the ben3ain made in 1915, in return for her invaluable assistance in the war, we are in honour bound to uphold it. Great Britain and France do not regard Treaties as scraps of paper.
The task of the British and French diplomatists is to bring America, Italy, and the Southern Slays into accord over this matter. It was not an easy task, but Signor d'Annunzio has made .it far harder. He has poured oil on the flames of the racial passions on both sides of the Italian Alps, and he has given an opportunity to those well-meaning but unimaginative people who would settle the matter by disregarding the feelings of both the Italians and the South Slays. We must never forget that Italy regards her neighbours from a different standpoint from ours. When we think of the South Slave, we think of the heroic Serbians who fought on our side throughout the war, who were the first to suffer, and who took the lead in the brilliant Macedonian offensive which put Bulgaria out of the war and marked the beginning of the end. But when an Italian thinks of the South Slays, he sees only the Croats, the historic oppressors of Italians up to 1866 in Italy as we have known it and since then in unredeemed Italy, who fought most obstinately for the Hapsburgs up to the very last days of the war, and who tried to prevent the Austrian Navy from falling into Italian hands. We hope and believe that the Croats, now that they are freed from the German rulers who for generations deliberately stirred up their worst passions against their Italian fellowsubjects, will outgrow these traditional enmities, and become good Europeans like the Serbians with whom they have now combined. But it would be unnatural-to expect the Italians to rid themselves all at once of their old prejudice against the Croats, simply because they deserted the Hapsburg cause when it was lost. This is the reason why Signor d'Annunzio's nationalist campaign en behalf of Flu* has won such applause in Italy. Very few Italians cheritYi designs that could be called " Imperialistic " in the sense of aggressive, but very many Italians have been taught from their childhood to think of the Croat& as unpleasant people against whom Italy needs a strong defensible frontier. Nevertheless, from the European standpoint,' these racial feuds must be discouraged as much as possible, and thie sooner Signor d'Annunzio leaves the field clear .to the diplomatists, the better it will be for Italy and for the League of Nations. Signor d'Annunzio regards himself as a follower of Garibaldi. But that great man was far less admirable when in 1862, in flat defiance of his. King and Government, he marched on the Papal States with the war-cry of " Rome or death" than when, four, years later, he stopped his victorious march on Trento at the order of General La Marmora. Garibaldi's famous reply, " Ubbidisco " (I obey), to the Commander-in-Chief on that occasion showed greater bravery and greater patriotism than he had displayed at Aspromonte when he had forced Italian. troops to fire on his " Red Shirts " and constrain him to abandon the march on Rome. Signor d'Annunzio would do well to imitate . Garibaldi at his best, and to abandon an enterprise which is doing Italy more harm than good.
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