districts of Priano and Capo
d'Istria, into an autonomous State, independent of both Italy and
Austria. By such an arrangement Austria would have retained nearly the
whole of the Istrian Peninsula, the cities of Pola and Fiume, the
entire Dalmatian coast, and the majority of the Dalmatian Islands. But
she refused to even consider Italy's proposed changes in the Adriatic,
or to do more than slightly increase her offer in the Trentino. Italy
therefore broke off negotiations, and on May 4, 1915, the alliance
with Austria was denounced.

Prince von Buelow was now confronted with the complete failure of his
mission of keeping Italy yoked to Austria and Germany. No one realized
better than this suave and astute diplomatist that the bonds which
still held together the three nations were about to break. He next
endeavored, by methods verging on the unscrupulous, to create distrust
of the Italian Government among the Italian people. A member of the
Reichstag circulated stealthily among the deputies and journalists,
flattering each in turn with the assumption that he alone was the man
of the moment, and offering him, in the names of Germany and Austria,
new concessions which had not been communicated to the Italian
Cabinet. It was back-stairs diplomacy in its shadiest and most
questionable form. The concessions thus unofficially promised
consisted of the offer of a new frontier in the Trentino, and for
Trieste an administrative but not a political autonomy. The Adriatic,
it seems, was to remain as before. And these concessions were all
hedged about by impossible restrictions, or were not to come into
effect until after the war. Yet at one time these intrigues came
perilously near to accomplishing their purpose. Matters were still
further complicated by the activities and interference of a former
Foreign Minister, Signor Giolitti, whose vanity had been flattered,
and whose ambitions had been cleverly played upon by the Teutonic
emissary. To fully understand the extraordinary nature of this
proceeding, one must picture Count von Bernstorff, at the height of
the submarine crisis, negotiating not with the Government of the
United States, but with Mr. William Jennings Bryan!

But, fortunately for the national honor, the Italian people, having
had time to reflect what the future of Italy would be after the war,
whatever its outcome, were they to be cut off from the only peoples in
Europe with which they had spiritual sympathy, took t