s campaign to
obtain sovereignty, or at least administrative control, over Fiume and
the adjacent coasts and islands, it having been generally conceded that
Trieste should be ceded to Italy. The Italian demand for Fiume had
become real instead of artificial. This campaign was conducted by means
of personal interviews with the representatives of the principal Powers,
and particularly with those of the United States because it was
apparently felt that the chief opposition to the demand would come from
that quarter, since the President was known to favor the general
proposition that every nation should have free access to the sea and, if
possible, a seaport under its own sovereignty.

The Italian delegates were undoubtedly encouraged by some Americans to
believe that, while the President had not actually declared in favor of
Italian control of Fiume, he was sympathetic to the idea and would
ultimately assent to it just as he had in the case of the cession to
Italy of the Tyrol with its Austrian population. Convinced by these
assurances of success the Italian leaders began a nationwide propaganda
at home for the purpose of arousing a strong public sentiment for the
acquisition of the port. This propaganda was begun, it would seem, for
two reasons, first, the political advantage to be gained when it was
announced that Signor Orlando and his colleagues at Paris had succeeded
in having their demand recognized, and, second, the possibility of
influencing the President to a speedy decision by exhibiting the
intensity and unity of the Italian national spirit in demanding the
annexation of the little city, the major part of the population of which
was asserted to be of Italian blood.

The idea, which was industriously circulated throughout Italy, that
Fiume was an Italian city, aroused the feelings of the people more than
any political or economic argument could have done. The fact that the
suburbs, which were really as much a part of the municipality as the
area within the city proper, were inhabited largely by Jugo-Slavs was
ignored, ridiculed, or denied. That the Jugo-Slavs undoubtedly exceeded
in numbers the Italians in the community when it was treated as a whole
made no difference to the propagandists who asserted that Fiume was
Italian. They clamored for its annexation on the ground of
"self-determination," though refusing to accept that principle as
applicable to the inhabitants of the Austrian Tyrol and failing to raise