Week 124

 

The idea of putting the German Emperor on trial was always a rather controversial one, and indeed – at least from a general overlook of the Italian press – never appeared likely to gain consistent enough support to reach the stage of practical execution. Of course, the Italian role in the entire affair was supposed to be, at best, a marginal one, nor the Italian establishment ever appeared too invested in the idea of putting a Head of State on trial, due to the obvious “democratic” implications of such a deliberation. Nonetheless, as of October 1919, the issue was still being discussed, albeit with very limited enthusiasm. But I suppose the best way to gauge the degree of Italian investment in the matter is to read foreign minister Tittoni's succinct recommendations to prime minister F.S. Nitti:

I have been invited – the clerical-conservative wrote on October 20^th – by the Conference to designate a delegate to the supreme court for the Emperor's trial. Given that the parliamentary Commission has unanimously declared for the illegitimacy to proceed, I'd suggest that we either find some excuse to delay the designation, or that we choose former representative Stoppato, whose ideas were unanimously loathed by the Commission.

Nitti, who was and remained a staunch supporter of a policy of international pacification and therefore averse to any measure which could be conceived as a form of retaliation, replied within twenty four hours.

We could never take part to a trial against Emperor Wilhelm without significant detriment to us, a heinous judgment which incites new war.

Parliamentary commission unanimously declared against the legitimacy to proceed and I think our duty is to decline [the offer] to participate to such trial. It's not a matter of designating one judge or another, but that we don't want the trial on the grounds of the decision made by the parliamentary commission. We can also say that we need to ask the opinion of the new Chamber.

And of a similar tone were Nitti's words on the matter of establishing “mixed courts” for the purpose of putting on trial German military men accused of violating international right.

Do we have to take part to these trials? - Nitti asked Tittoni – If it's a matter of choice and not an obligation, I'd rather not designate any representative. It makes for new deep hatred and it's completely unnecessary. Please let me know if it's possible not to participate.

 

The third week of October 1919 found the Italian Government and Foreign Office busy in the effort to gain the approval of the Allies and Associate for one last, necessary, revision to the plans for a definition of the Adriatic question. As explained by the Italian Ambassador in Paris, Lelio Bonin, summarizing a meeting he had had with Louis Loucheur (October 13^th – 20.40 pm – to Tittoni)

[…] I strongly insisted on the absolute need of approving a territorial continuity, in absence of which it would be impossible to have our public opinion accept the solution.

Loucheur found our request quite reasonable and promised to examine both arguments with Tardieu […]

The adjustment, with a relative diminution of the size of the proposed Free State and the addition of a narrow strip of coastline taken from the district of Volosca in order to ensure continuity between the territories of Istra annexed to Italy and the municipality of Fiume, had been made – together with the abandonment of the other proposed alternative, that of direct annexation of Fiume proper to Italy and assignation of the remainder of the proposed Free State to Yugoslavia – in order to come up with some form of resolution which, while still possibly acceptable for the Allies and Associate, met the minimum demands of the more moderate fraction of Fiume's notables. This, in turn, would have allowed the Italian Government to create a divide within the internal front of the city and especially between the most intransigent supporters of D'Annunzio, promoting the cause of unconditional annexation (and indeed still looking at the perspective of widening their action to include other Italian claims along the Adriatic coast), and those traditional groups of power within the city which might have been satisfied by a guarantee of their independence from the new Yugoslav Kingdom and by the perspective of a favorable economical and trade regime. And, once so undermined D'Annunzio's grasp on the city, to eventually find a way to remove him peacefully (by having the locals urging him away, if possible, and him honorably stepping down) returning the city to its ordinary status with the Italian regular troops taking charge of the inter-Allied occupation regime.

In order for this last step to be possible – if possible at all, given D'Annunzio's relative popularity and more so his obvious instrumental value to the cause of Fiume – both the representative of the National Council who had chosen to meet with the Italian informal envoys (either from Nitti or from Badoglio) and the other notable figures of Fiume's annexationist and autonomist movements had insisted that the Italian Government come up with upfront terms. If negotiations were acceptable on various territorial and administrative issues, as long as the Italian authorities remained in control of the urban center and commerce infrastructures of the city, the presence of a direct connection between Fiume and Italy – a tendril between the city and the Motherland – had come to acquire a significant symbolic value, so that in the eyes of the “national” public it would have been impossible to enforce a solution which, while renouncing to the Italian sovereignty, also left Fiume as an enclave inside of a predominantly Yugoslav buffer state.

But the obvious significance of such an adjustment, while easy to understand in its symbolic value, was harder to sell on more practical grounds, especially given how the territory surrounding the urban center of Fiume was to be placed under guarantee of the League of Nations, thus ensuring free trade and transit. Indeed, the US delegates (who, in fairness, had never been sold on any one of the Italian proposals) were keen on pointing out that they couldn't see the need of making new adjustments to a plan which had yet to secure Wilson's approval anyways. As Henry White frankly told the Italian delegate De Martino: “no one seems to understand what you are going to do with this strip of land since no one can forbid communications between Fiume and Italy”.

The French at least had appeared to take a much more supportive attitude with regards to the Italian demands, even if they remained mindful of not openly antagonizing the Americans over the matter, with Clemenceau accepting the idea of an ultimate Italian annexation of Fiume as long as this allowed for a stabilization of a region where the French, more than the immediate perspective of financial and diplomatic penetration, seemed to consider the long term perspective of preventing a return of German influences. Indeed the French themselves appeared in no position to risk losing the Italian support now that the Italian ratification of the Treaty of Versailles had opened the process of composition of the territorial and reparations commissions, where they very likely felt to be the one of the Allies with most at stake. Consequently, and despite the fascinating idea of establishing a permanent and more assertive diplomatic and financial presence within the Balkans and trans-Danubian area, they could not risk antagonizing Italy with a policy of direct support of Yugoslavia.

The British had comparatively less pressing reasons to display much zeal for the Italian cause, and indeed the recent relations between Italy and Great Britain had been marked by not infrequent episodes of what the Italian Ambassador described as “giving the cold shoulder” - a situation not eased by the relative difficulty in maintaining a direct relation with Lloyd George who, unlike Clemenceau, was not close at hand for the Italian delegates, and by the fact that the British, after the departure of the relatively unsympathetic Balfour, had left the “hostile” sir Eyre Crowe to handle things in Paris on behalf of the perhaps less sympathetic and certainly more blunt Lord Curzon. At which point, the Italians had little means and very little room to earn the British solicitousness on the matter.

Of course, the Italians were also aware – to a degree, at least – of the British financial situation (the British themselves had told them, explaining their difficulties in providing Italy with new credit) which, albeit far less dire than the Italian one, was also such as to make Great Britain the one and only of the Allied Powers to come out of the Great War in a condition of relative financial solvency. Something which added a layer of complexity to the Anglo-American relations and contributed to the Italian suspicions that the British were especially susceptible to the American pressure.