Week 88

 

Part 3 – the Austrian Treaty

 

The third major moment in the Italian diplomatic trajectory in Paris was the definition of the peace treaty with Austria – not with Austria-Hungary, since the Empire had ceased to exist and could not be bothered with obligations, reparations and national rights any more. An unfortunate circumstance for the Italians, whose entire pre-war diplomatic construction had been dominated by the perspective of maintaining or altering the unstable equilibrium with their powerful neighbor (the first Italian memorandum, submitted to the Allies on February 7^th 1919, did detail "les revendications de l’Italie pour ce qui concerne les territoires de l’ancienne Monarchie Austro-Hongroise"). This state of things – these "mutated circumstances" – certainly affected negatively the Italian efforts, partly for objective difficulties, and partly because of the Italian apparent obstinacy to "ride two horses at once", the old and the new ideas of international relations, the latter in the right hand and the former in the left one, to quote Wilson's own illustration. Not that the Italians could hold too firmly on any of those, as the many divides within the Italian delegation mirrored the diverging aspirations and objective interests which the Italian government was called to mediate before it could attempt to define a mediation with the Allies, a settlement with the old enemies and with the many new neighbors.

The many spurious attempts, activism mixed with moments of diplomatic inertia, generous efforts and courageous declarations, land grabbing and petty imperialism, resentment for the unfair treatment (not always without cause), clumsy and misguided initiatives which kept being devised, promoted and abandoned (the Italian Foreign Office had even thought of sending a plenipotentiary to Berlin at the time of their absence from Paris – for no conceivable reason!), lest they caused someone's irritation; all these aspects marked the Italian appearance on the stage – first cast – of grand international politics.

By the time of the definition of the peace terms with Austria, these efforts to hold the composite machinery together had exhausted the forces of Orlando's Ministry, determining its political collapse, while the Italian delegation was already falling apart and unable to substantiate its action on those points (colonial mandates, Mediterranean interests, reparations and financial terms) which could have appeased the nationalist fraction of Orlando's basis and safeguarded his ideal principles of "national right" in the face of the general public, as well as being incapable of solving the central issue of Fiume, the centrality of which his Government had played a significant part in creating.

For Orlando, even more than for his colleagues, the matter of Fiume had become a crucial one – the main driving force of his diplomatic efforts and the cornerstone of the foreign policy of his Government. Despite his ever more abrasive and unpleasant personality, Sonnino, many observers agree, was at the time willing to seek an accommodation with the renunciation to Fiume (but it didn't appear likely that such renunciation could result in a sufficient portion of Dalmatia, which Sonnino wanted). Orlando had admitted (according to Aldrovandi-Marescotti, on the 9^th of May) that only two ministers had favored an intransigent position on the matter during the Council of Ministers of May 4^th 1919, "the others wanted to abandon it". A similar picture is offered by Luigi Fera, the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, who explained to Malagodi (on th 5^th of May) that "the roles have reversed. The one who appears intransigent and irreducible is Orlando, who wants the Treaty of London and Fiume; while Sonnino has become the moderating force". Faced with this state of things, and the clear opposition of the Allies ("British and Americans were already together" he had explained to the Council of Ministers, illustrating the reasons of his unsuccessful attempts), Orlando's chances were limited, and he had been considering (even if many political leaders have the habit of speaking of their "being ready to resign if...") resignation already before he resolved to return to Paris (the formation of a new Ministry had been suggested repeatedly by Crespi – who certainly wasn't looking forward to Nitti – during the second week of May, in consideration of the difficult situation and of what he perceived as Orlando's "pronounced exhaustion").

The immediate consequence – the formulation of Nitti's executive was, again, largely a matter of internal balance (even if this balance had at least the consequence of replacing Sonnino with the less undiplomatic Tittoni and Scialoja at the Foreign Office, and had therefore a component directly relating to foreign affairs) – was for Italy to fall back, to return to the "second cast" of the international scene; saving a major embarrassment, given that the great season was at the end anyways, while continuing to struggle for a formula which could offer a solution of the Adriatic question. Far across the ocean, the weakened US President continued to be strong enough to make his will count, on this matter at least; so that it took the incumbent end of his Presidency for Giolitti to strike a line below the whole affair, take a summary count, and move on.

Once the Peace Conference had entered its long after hours, once the major issues had been solved – or settled themselves, or had been assigned to some body for a future settlement – the public interest declining, the great leaders no longer personally invested, the matters of Italy's relations with her neighbors (no longer directly tied to those with her Allies) returned to be secondary issues, which could be solved the old way, with some assistance of international diplomacy, by dealing with those neighbors on the material grounds of the respective weaknesses.

In some way, the definition of the peace treaty with Austria fell in between these two moments. The main purpose of the Conference had been accomplished with the definition of the German Treaty and the formation of the League of Nations – the Austrian Treaty, while it involved certain significant complexities, was in the end not much more than one of the many treaties necessary to find a settlement for the composite diplomatic constellation which had emerged from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and from the even more uncertain grounds of Eastern Europe.

Once the German Treaty was submitted on May 7^th (immediately after the Italian delegation had returned) – explains Aldrovandi-Marescotti in his memoirs (Guerra diplomatica, 1937)

The main interest of France, Great Britain and of the United States at the Peace Conference had been exhausted. Wilson and Lloyd George wanted nothing better than to leave Paris, where they were compelled to remain, chiefly and solely, by the need to know if Germany was going to sign, or not, the terms imposed to her.

It was during this state of uncertainty, and during the examination of the problems which a German refusal would have caused, it was during the sporadic and partial examination of the situation in Turkey and Russia, that the terms to be imposed upon Austria were formulated. As model for the formulation of such conditions, the German ones were taken, except for the modifications and attenuations suggested by the specific circumstances […]

There was – as everybody noted – one substantial difference: Austria-Hungary had ceased to exist and could not therefore receive any general peace terms. The matter therefore consisted chiefly in the definition of the borders between the new states, which implied some form of settlement of the relations of those states with the Allied and Associated Powers and with each other. The Conference didn't achieve this "optimum" goal, and many of the necessary settlements (including certain adjustments of borders) were accomplished, to different degrees of satisfaction, in the following years, partly by means of internal diplomacy and partly with the oversight of the Conference of the Ambassadors.

It did nonetheless provide a more or less stable architecture for Central Europe and the Balkans, upon which further elements continued to be added until the late 1930s saw its new collapse. This was, under many regards, an urgent matter – the Bolsheviks had already managed to seize power in Hungary, the Romanians appeared committed to take advantage of this state of things by crossing the yet to be defined border, the Polish had initiated certain suspect movements against the short lived Ukraine Republic, the Yugoslavs had troubles on all their borders, from Montenegro, to Albania, to the Greek and Bulgarian triangle, to the Banat, shared with Romania and Hungary, to the Austrian and Slovene region of Klagenfurt. This last matter especially involved Italy directly, due to the importance of the railroad which connected Trieste and Fiume to Vienna, and could not – like any other decision concerning one of the main powers – be delegated to a secondary body. Its resolution therefore called for a decision of the Council, which could not prescind from the definition of the Italian and Yugoslav border.