after defeat, to escape punishment for the outrages which they had
committed against Italians and actually to profit by being vanquished.
This antipathy to the Slavs of the former Empire was in a measure
transferred to the Serbs, who were naturally sympathetic with their
kinsmen and who were also ambitious to build up a strong Slav state with
a large territory and with commercial facilities on the Adriatic coast
which would be ample to meet the trade needs of the interior.

While there may have been a certain fear for the national safety of
Italy in having as a neighbor a Slav state with a large and virile
population, extensive resources, and opportunity to become a naval power
in the Mediterranean, the real cause of apprehension seemed to be that
the new nation would become a commercial rival of Italy in the Adriatic
and prevent her from securing the exclusive control of the trade which
her people coveted and which the complete victory over Austria-Hungary
appeared to assure to them.

The two principal ports having extensive facilities for shipping and
rail-transportation to and from the Danubian provinces of the Dual
Empire were Trieste and Fiume. The other Dalmatian ports were small and
without possibilities of extensive development, while the precipitous
mountain barrier between the coast and the interior which rose almost
from the water-line rendered railway construction from an engineering
standpoint impracticable if not impossible. It was apparent that, if
Italy could obtain both the port of Trieste and the port of Fiume, the
two available outlets for foreign trade to the territories lying north
and east of the Adriatic Sea, she would have a substantial monopoly of
the sea-borne commerce of the Dalmatian coast and its hinterland. It was
equally apparent that Italian possession of the two ports would place
the new Slav state at a great disadvantage commercially, as the
principal volume of its exports and imports would have to pass through a
port in the hands of a trade rival which could, in case of controversy
or in order to check competition, be closed to Slav ships and goods on
this or that pretext, even if the new state found it practicable to
maintain a merchant marine under an agreement granting it the use of
the port.

In view of the new conditions which had thus arisen through the
dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the union of the Southern
Slavs, the Italian delegates at Paris began a vigorou