r 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 circumscribe 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 circumstances have transformed
it into a mere scrap 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 abou