Week 83

 

The Avanti! - the official newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party – celebrated Workers' Day, May 1^st 1919, with a special six-pages issue and with the reopening of the Milanese edition, announced for May 3^rd – two weeks after the arditi squads had assaulted the building and set it on fire. In fairness, the censor had cut enough words that five pages might have been enough. Which should not surprise: even outside of the tensions which had followed the re-ignition of the national-interventionist fire after Wilson's message of a week before, it was the first Labour Day of peacetime, a "May of Resurrection", something worth making some noise and, at least, two extra pages.

On May 3^rd coverage of the diplomatic events resumed on the socialist press – from Germany, news of the collapse of the Bavarian Soviet Republic; from Paris, news of the first meeting between the Allies (absent the Italian delegates) and the German delegation, of the intention to award the concession of Kiao-Chau to the Japanese, of the incidents occurring during Labour Day; from the former Austro-Hungarian lands, news of engagements between Yugoslavs and Austrians, the advance of Czech and Romanian troops into Hungarian lands, on their way towards Budapest; voices of anti-Serbian riots in Bosnia. The socialists themselves (all European socialists and all representatives of labor forces, according to the Avanti!) were conspicuously absent from the the Parisian negotiations, and could (or had to) therefore look at the Peace Conference – the place of the "democratic Entente for the imperialistic peace", destined to cast "the seeds of a new war" – with a certain sense of detachment.

The Italian delegation was also absent – unlike the socialists, they had good reasons to regret this state of things and not much to find solace in – as the Conference works had continued as if, perhaps unsurprisingly, their presence had never been necessary. Not that the other delegates could be expected, or ever displayed the intention to suspend their preparations for the German treaty, awaiting for the return of the Italians; but the argument could at least serve as a rhetorical device of sorts, even if it implicitly revealed the limited impact of the Italian presence and the isolation that the Italian delegation had created around itself.

We feel a burning pain – explained the Corriere della Sera on May 4^th – for this exclusion, which falls, almost as if an excommunication, on a noble, courageous and generous people. We are making use of our most prudent and reserved council so that our sorrows don't transcend to anger. But we must wonder, with a sense of surprise, if those who, aloof and untouched, pretend not to notice our absence and gather together in Versailles to celebrate magnificently a triumph that would have been impossible without us, can do so without a feeling of unease and regret.

Whatever Wilson's fault may be, it is certain that we would not have come to such a point without the lukewarm hearts of our allies, France and Great Britain, who appealed to us and praised us in the time of gravest perils, only to regard us as insufferable duns as soon as the danger, and also thanks to our efforts, vanished. It was their duty to prevent this break up; it was their duty to forbid these pompous celebrations, as long as their bleeding comrade in arms was far away. A basic sense of justice demanded for the Conference works to be suspended until Italy, her reasonable aspirations satisfied, returned to the negotiation table, equal to the others in victory and peace as she had been in defeat and sorrow.

Such iniquities weight, with their immense, unforgettable burden of bitterness, on those who suffer them, but profit nothing for those who consummate them.

 

During the first week of May, despite the general tone of the Italian press, critical of the French and British attitude (and especially of their pretended adherence to the Treaty of London), the Italian establishment had begun to come to terms with the fact that it was necessary for the delegation to return to Paris – that the Italian withdrawal had neither resulted in a change of the position of the Allies nor managed to convincingly place the blame on the other side, and that a continued absence was unlikely to accomplish either. Furthermore, the worst case scenario, of the Allies signing a separate peace with Germany and thus leading to a complete break up of the Entente front, while it appeared damaging for the position of the French, British and Americans, would have been a complete disaster for the Italians, from both a political and financial point of view. Regardless of the proclamations of the most vociferous portions of the national press invoking a "fait accompli" policy in the Adriatic (that is, the matter of fact annexation of Dalmatia and Fiume), this worst case scenario had to be avoided by any means.

The attempts made by the Allies to maintain an open channel of negotiation through the US Ambassador Page (who also moved to Paris soon after the return of the Italian delegation), and especially with the return to Rome of Camille Barrere, were nothing more than displays of good intentions, without any official (and for the most part even informal) concession to the Italian demands. A fact that the Council of Ministries held on May 4^th must have addressed. But the realization of this state of things didn't really change the fact that Orlando and Sonnino's Roman sojourn could not continue much longer, as the Italian delegation had already reaped all the internal support they could hope for, and their one recourse was to provide results – or to accept the fall of the government which had won the Great War.

More so, and even more unfortunately, Italy could not unilaterally invoke the Treaty of London and expect its application, unless she was ready to withdraw from Fiume (and from any piece of land not included in the Treaty) entirely and in all likelihood for good; while, on the other hand, proclaiming the annexation of the city, would have allowed the Allies to officially regard the Treaty as voided (a problem which Nitti, who had no desire to invoke the Treaty anyways, certainly had to work around after D'Annunzio's occupation). This one not very subtle subtlety was lost (intentionally or not) on the Nationalist press.

By the end of the first week of May, the Nationalist press – especially the Idea Nazionale and also, as we'll see later, Mussolini's Popolo d'Italia - which favored an intransigent conduct of the Adriatic question, had assumed a more guarded attitude towards Orlando's government, no longer one of conditional or unconditional support (or anyways of apparent full solidarity to the advocates for the national cause, against Wilson's open position and the French and British covert maneuvering), as the Ministry appeared intentioned to return to Paris despite having secured no recognition for the Italian aspirations. On parallel, the climate of national enthusiasm was fizzling out, since there was no real reason for enthusiasm – neither strikes, nor prices, nor salaries, nor the slow demobilization which held still almost two million men in arms. D'Annunzio had postponed his great patriotic speech, scheduled for May 5^th – the fourth anniversary of his great interventionist speech of Quarto – due to health reasons (he briefly addressed the crowd, "immense" according to the Popolo d'Italia, from the balcony of the Senatorial Palace instead). On the same day – reported the official Stefani news – the Italian Ambassador in Paris had informed the Allied governments that Orlando and Sonnino were expected back on Wednesday, May 7^th 1919, in the morning.

Has there been an accommodation? - asked the Avanti! on the 7^th – Of course there was one, in its general lines […] unless one wants to acknowledge how wasting ten days in this pointless detour was a fool's errand; which might not be too far from the truth. […] But, if the government knew that the most likely outcome was that of an accommodation, then why did it make those speeches […] why did they give their sacrosanct protection to the preachers of a new war?