f lost territories.

ADRIATIC PROBLEM.

_From the Politika of Belgrade, March 30._

Italy is claiming not only Italian territories which are under
Austro-Hungarian domination, but also a very considerable part of the
most purely southern Slav regions. Italy will have to realize one simple
fact. Until this war Serbia was closed in on all sides by
Austria-Hungary. She therefore asked that Europe should secure for her
from Austria-Hungary at least a free outlet to the Adriatic, the price
of which she had already paid in blood.

The two Balkan wars were waged primarily for the same thing, since they
were wars of liberation. Today it is no longer a question of the
economic independence of Serbia, since Austria-Hungary is passing from
the scene, but it is a matter of the liberation and of the union into a
single State of our race as a whole. This is the idea which at this
moment governs the masses of our people, and the numberless graves of
our fallen heroes testify to the sacrifice which we have made for the
sake of this idea. Whoever, therefore, opposes our national union is an
enemy of our race.

Deeply as it would pain Serbia to uproot out of her heart the sympathy
which she feels for Italy, she will none the less do so without fail if
ever it should become manifest that Italy's present policy signifies
that she desires not only to consolidate her legitimate interests, but
also to encroach upon the Balkans by attacking Serbia.

_From the Giornale d'Italia, April 4._

No one in Italy has ever said or thought that in the event of a
bouleversement in the Adriatic and the Balkans there should be denied to
Serbia or any Slav State which might arise from the ruins of
Austria-Hungary a wide outlet to the Adriatic. But, on the other hand,
no one in Italy could ever permit that the reversion of Austria's
strategic maritime position should fall into any hands but ours.

There are political and military considerations which are above any
question of nationality whatever. It should be enough to cite the
example of an England which holds a Spanish Gibraltar and an Italian
Malta, besides a Greek Cyprus and the Egyptian Suez Canal. It should be
enough to recall the claim made by all the press of Petrograd to
establish Russia at Constantinople and on the banks of the Bosporus and
the Dardanelles, in spite of all the principles of nationality, Balkan
or Turk.

Let the Serbians, in case of an Adriatic and Balkan upset, have an