rmy of eight thousand men. The Rumanian garrison was kept ready. The
Peidl government naturally did not resist at all. At 10 P.M. on August
7th all the Entente Missions held a meeting, _to which the Archduke
Joseph and the new Premier were invited_. General Gorton presided. _The
Conference lasted two hours and reached an agreement on all questions.
All the heads of Missions assured the new government of their warmest
support_."[236]

Another case of unwarranted interference which stirred the Italians to
bitter resentment turned upon the obligation imposed on Austria to
renounce her right to unite with Germany. "It is difficult to discern in
the policy of the Entente toward Austria anything more respectable than
obstinacy coupled with stupidity," wrote the same journal. "But there is
something still worse. It is impossible not to feel indignant with a
coalition which, after having triumphed in the name of the loftiest
ideas ... treats German-Austria no better than the Holy Alliance treated
the petty states of Italy. But the Congress of Vienna acted in harmony
with the principle of legitimism which it avowed and professed, whereas
the Paris Conference violates without scruple the canons by which it
claims to be guided.

"Not a whit more decorous is the intervention of the Supreme Council in
the internal affairs of Germany--a state which, according to the spirit
and the letter of the Versailles Treaty, is sovereign and not a
protectorate. The Conference was qualified to dictate peace terms to
Germany, but it wanders beyond the bounds of its competency when it
construes those terms and arrogates to itself--on the strength of forced
and equivocal interpretations--the right of imposing upon a nation which
is neither militarily nor juridically an enemy a constitutional reform.
Whether Germany violates the Treaty by her Constitution is a question
which only a judicial finding of the League of Nations can fairly
determine."[237]

It would be impolitic to overlook and insincere to belittle the effects
of this incoherency upon the relations between France and Italy. Public
opinion in the Peninsula characterized the attitude of Prance as
deliberately hostile. The Italians at the Conference eagerly scrutinized
every act and word of their French colleagues, with a view to
discovering grounds for dispelling this view. But the search is reported
to have been worse than vain. It revealed data which, although
susceptible of satisfacto