Week 123

 

Here we are again: little time makes little progress, especially if it takes a week to cover four days. But I hope you don't mind learning a bit of the internal motions of the Italian delegation in Paris and of its political underside.

 

On October 9^th the acting Head of Delegation, Vittorio Scialoja, insisted on Tittoni's return to Paris.

Council sessions – he wrote to the Italian foreign minister in Rome – strictly speaking have become less important than the preparation work, which has to be done outside of [the Council], especially in relation to the politics of Eastern Europe and Asia [former Ottoman Empire]. Here I lack any skilled element for that, which furthermore requires the capability to suggest and accept arrangements, which is a unique prerogative of the foreign minister.

A tendency to sideline us seems manifest to me. Telegraph communications between Rome and Paris, which are often flawed, are not sufficient.

It's easy to see the reasons of Scialoja's desire to have Tittoni back in Paris. If the first Italian delegation led by Orlando and Sonnino had diverted to Paris a large – perhaps too large – portion of the Italian Government and political substance (Orlando was Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sonnino was Foreign Minister), leaving instead a sort of “political vacancy” back in Rome, as of October 1919, with the preparations for the elections of November underway, the Italian presence in Paris had diminished both numerically and in terms of actual political influence, to the point where an impactful initiative begun to appear unlikely, and where the delegation, composed to represent “an expression of the whole Nation” rather than of the Government, was at risk of growing unrepresentative and distant from both.

The clerical-conservative and expert diplomat Tommaso Tittoni, who had taken charge of the Foreign Office in order to balance the composition of Nitti's new coalition Ministry in June 1919, had left Paris in mid September – a few days after D'Annunzio's occupation of Fiume – in order to provide the Italian Chamber, at last and after various delays, with a relation on international matters, where he had been unable, for obvious reasons, to announce significant satisfactory developments. Tittoni's words had nonetheless been accepted, if not as confirmation of a successful political initiative, as evidence of the relative solidity of the Ministry and of the lack of any viable alternative under the difficult circumstances. At which point, with Nitti's Government stabilized by the confidence vote of September 28^th 1919, the Chamber suspended until after the elections, and then dissolved, the Treaty of Versailles approved by royal decree on October 6^th – confident that the new Chamber would not raise objections to an eventual ratification – Tittoni had voiced his doubts whether he should return to Paris, or whether his presence was “more useful in Rome”, at least until D'Annunzio's affair was solved. To this point, it's fair to say that Tittoni certainly understood how the occupation of Fiume was to represent not only a severe, unsettling element of internal disturbance which had to be managed and possibly neutralized ahead of the national elections (or so the Italian Government hoped), but also a further factor contributing to the Italian diplomatic impasse, where every other matter had grown inextricably tied and subordinated to the untangling of the Adriatic question, which was also such as to command the largest degree of urgency due to its special significance for the public opinion. But, if the solution of the crisis of Fiume could only proceed by internal means, then Tittoni's presence in Paris was destined to be aimless, regardless of his competence and experience.

But Tittoni, in all likelihood and despite continuing to absolve his functions in good agreement with prime minister F.S. Nitti, had also begun to doubt his role within the Italian coalition Government – both on personal reasons, as he often appeared to be rather worn out or even complained of his poor health and poor mental disposition, and because of his (not unjustified) doubts whether an even remotely satisfactory solution could be achieved at all within the time-frame of his and Nitti's political initiative. Wilson's obstinate opposition to the Italian claims and now his poor health, the American support for the Yugoslavs, the tensions over the future developments for the old Ottoman lands with the perspective of an American mandate fading and the complex relations between the three Great Powers: all factors which made Tittoni's tactical adjustments less likely to succeed and appeared to justify his own pessimistic take that his policies during the previous three months had been “a complete failure”. On this account he had offered Nitti, already at the end of August and again in early September, his resignation from the Foreign Office and position as head of Delegation, while keeping his place within the Ministry in order to prevent a Government crisis. In addition to that, Tittoni was aware of a growing tendency – contrasting Nitti's view that an expedient and swift resolution of the Italian international matters was a necessary precondition for a restoration of the State's finances and for social pacification – towards postponing the definition of the Adriatic question until new international developments (not so implicitly tied to the end of Wilson's Presidential terms) allowed Italy to negotiate from a position of relative strength; a point of view which, to some degree, he must have shared himself.

Nitti had managed to keep Tittoni at his place for the time being, but it's apparent that Tittoni continued to be concerned with the impact of his initiatives – and indeed his hesitance becomes even more significant since, with the definition of the main treaties of Versailles and St.Germain, the efforts of what was left of the Conference were (supposed) to move to a definition of the Ottoman matters; a point which should have commanded special attention for the residual Italian aspirations, given the direction imprinted to the Italian diplomatic efforts by the new Foreign Office, but was destined to suffer the same fate of the other diplomatic threads, taking the backseat in comparison to the more urgent matters of Fiume. In fact, Tittoni, offering a more conciliatory and cooperative attitude of the Italian delegation on the Adriatic matters, accepting the inevitable postponement of colonial matters (what pieces he had earned from the British and French as “equitable compensations” were regarded by the Italian Ministry of Colonies as of very little to no value), finding a difficult and somewhat costly accommodation with Greece (including the renunciation to a good portion of the very laboriously acquired Dodecanese), had appeared to place a significant weight on the perspective of securing a sphere of influence within the former Ottoman mainland. An endeavor – being an almost purely economical one – which had the advantages of being less expensive from a military view point than the costly and vastly unpopular Italian presence in Albania (in an effort to secure the integrity of a “great Albania” with the additional unfortunate result of antagonizing both Greeks and Serbians), since the Italian presence, once agreed upon internationally, could be maintained by means of the Italian naval forces of Eastern Mediterranean, and less remote in its future developments than the Italian expansion in Africa.

Yet the Italian foreign minister had underestimated – not that he was the only one – the perspective of an internal reaction from the Turks and of the rise of a strong political power from within the Anatolian mainland, as well as proving too confident in the British ability (and willingness) to effectively sustain the Greek presence in the region. If one also accounts for the growing frictions between British, French and Americans over the settlement of the various regions formerly under Ottoman control, the Italian hopes to obtain certain satisfactory compensations in Anatolia appeared increasingly dubious or at least necessitating of a more impactful and energetic political approach than the one Tittoni could (or felt confident he could) produce, at least under the difficult circumstance he had to operate in.

And indeed, the fact that Tittoni eventually chose to heed Scialoja's advice and return to Paris as planned, seemed to drive impulse more from his serious concerns over the impact of D'Annunzio's action and manifestations of widespread military indiscipline (or selective discipline, if you will) for the stability of the Italian institutions within a general context which was already severely shaken by the impact of Bolshevik echoes and had showcased telling signs of social and political unrest, than from his desire to return to his regular functions of chief Italian negotiator.