lians. Would it not have been
advisable if those who signed this document had made a few not very
recondite researches into eastern Adriatic questions? They must have
felt some qualms at the cries of indignation and amazement which arose
when the provisions of the Treaty were disclosed, for it did not remain
a secret very long. They had imagined, on the whole, that as Dalmatia
had been under alien rulers, Venetian, Austrian and so forth, for so
many years it really would not matter to them very much if they were
governed from Vienna or from Rome. Perhaps a statesman here and there
had heard that the Dalmatian Diet had petitioned many times since 1870
that they should be reunited to their brothers of Croatia and Slavonia
in the Triune Kingdom. But all the calculations seem to have been made
upon the basis that Austria-Hungary would survive, as a fairly
formidable Power at any rate. The union of the Southern Slavs was too
remote, and the Italians would be kindly masters. When the howl of
indignation rose, the statesmen seem to have conceived the hope that the
Italians would be generous and wise. The chief blame for the Treaty does
not rest, however, on the Frenchmen and the Englishmen, but on the
Russians; it was naturally felt that they should be more cognizant of
Slav affairs, and if they were content to sign the Treaty, France and
England might well follow their example. When Dr. Zari['c], the Bishop
of Split, saw the former Russian Foreign Minister, M. Sazonov, in Paris
in the spring of 1919, this gentleman was in a state of such dejection
that the Bishop, out of pity, did not try to probe the matter.
"Sometimes," said Sazonov, "sometimes the circumstances are too much
opposed to you and you have to act against your inclinations."[25] The
French and British statesmen gave the Bishop the impression that they
were ashamed of the Treaty. He read to them in turn a memorandum in
which he suggested that the whole Dalmatian question should be left to
the arbitration of President Wilson, who was well informed, through
experts, of the local conditions. And was it, in any case, just that an
Italian, both claimant and judge, should sit on the Council of Four, to
which no Yugoslav was admitted? To President Wilson the Bishop said,
"You have come to fight for the just cause."

The President made no reply.

The Bishop, a native of the island of Hvar, a great linguist, was a man
who made you think that a very distinguished mind had