Week 126

 

We can't say for sure what Tommaso Tittoni had in his mind, spending the late hours of October 26^th at work, keeping up with the usual exchanges between Paris and Rome, trying to sort out some serviceable truth from the many different, and often dissenting voices coming from Italy and from the Adriatic town of Fiume. One may expect the thought of his meeting with US Delegate Polk, next morning, to take up a good portion of the Italian Foreign Minister's conscience – not that he had any reason to look forward to it, unlikely as it was to bring him positive news, or to provide him with any distraction from his sentiment of “patriotic anguish”. He would, at last, be able to see Lansing's telegram carrying the Department of State's response on the new Italian proposals, which Polk had been unable to deliver him the previous day – perhaps, the thought must have occurred to him, Polk wished to offer him the courtesy of explaining Lansing's rejection in person.

News from Fiume change every day – he wrote to Nitti (23.45 pm) – and prove the presence of contrasting influences. Pedrazzi's speech which I told you about was reassuring enough, but he himself said that there's people around D'Annunzio who have completely lost their mind or that, contrary to [D'Annunzio] wish for a republican movement to draw impulse from Fiume's adventure.

What Albertini [Alberto, Luigi's brother] told you is in full agreement with what claimed by Count Orsi, of the Gazzetta di Torino, who holds daily correspondence with D'Annunzio. Yet, in so far as the maximum solution we can obtain, Salata has already been informed of it, and telegraphed to Badoglio with your approval; furthermore Pedrazzi, who must be back in Fiume by now, was informed of it by me.

This solution, the acceptance of which by the US remains quite dubious, represents the maximum we may be able to obtain. Badoglio and Salata must do their best in order for D'Annunzio and for the citizens of Fiume to content themselves with it. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know what to do nor what to suggest.

On this point especially, Tittoni felt necessary to further clarify the difficulty of his position, and to return to the perspective of his ultimate, inevitable resignation, which he had already examined in a previous communication.

I must observe though that, since I have submitted to Lansing four additions to Wilson's project with the declaration that, were those to be accepted by him in their integrity […] I would have given my favorable vote to Wilson's program modified in such way […] if Lansing were to accept, then I most definitely could not excuse myself with the argument that I don't have D'Annunzio's approval and that of the citizens of Fiume, but I'd be forced to either sign on the spot, or to pay the price myself offering, as a form of satisfaction, my resignation.

As for the points, mentioned by you and Albertini, on which D'Annunzio as well as the more reasonable elements would be irreducible, I'd say we more or less agree on each but one of them, which is to say that of sovereignty or Italian mandate over Fiume. There is no talk of mandate, nor I ever mentioned it, because, according to the definition accepted at the Council of London, a mandate is granted to a European power only within Countries of imperfect or primordial civilization, such as the case of Albania, but not that of Fiume.

As for Italian sovereignty, this is exactly the point over which Wilson is never going to make concessions, and in exchange for which […] we demand the aforementioned four additions […]

Once those points were cleared up, and ruled out an impossible (maybe?) return to Sonnino's extreme solution of holding fast to the armistice line (with the necessary abandonment of Fiume), the Italians were left with two equally problematic outcomes (unless, of course, for the extremely unlikely scenario of a positive American response):

Gen. Badoglio raises two issues and asks what line he should follow if: 1) I don't obtain what I asked from the Conference and the Americans; 2) even if I obtain what I asked from the Conference, that's not enough for D'Annunzio or he wants more or even the annexation.

Were the first scenario to occur, I already explained my point of view […]

In the second scenario, since we can't rely on the Army against D'Annunzio, the situation would become extremely serious. I really don't know what to suggest in such an eventuality.

Only a morally unanimous Country could be able to come out of such a situation. Our [Country] instead is deeply divided between the crazy antics of nationalism and the criminal intents of communist Bolshevism. Every day and every hour, calmly, cool mindedly, I examine this situation without finding a way out and asking myself with patriotic anguish if we will be able to save Italy.

The Yugoslavs, well informed on what's going on with us, after displaying a conciliatory attitude for a while, now think that Italy may fall apart like Russia and thus lose, in their favor, all the advantages coming from Her international position.

With the state of the Italian negotiations severely compromised, a negative outlook in so far as any viable short term resolution, the uncertain, or costly albeit ineffective, support of the Allies, persistent appeals to urgency coming from the Government and voices of internal unrest, and the issue of Fiume threatening to drag down below the whole chain of Tittoni's attempts at a coherent diplomatic effort, the Italian Foreign Ministers appears to have grown more inclined to take certain calculated risks. His (more or less serious) examination of the possibility of actually entering the situation of diplomatic lock-down based on the Italian indefinite maintenance of the armistice line, as envisioned somewhat more brutally when Sonnino had insisted on demanding the execution of the Treaty of London; his attempts to establish the foundations of a trilateral agreement between the Allied Powers bypassing the Peace Conference with its progressively diminishing influence in search of new diplomatic scene accounting for the growing disinterest of the US; his openings towards Kemal's nationalists, as well as towards the Greek forces in Albania; his encouragement of informal relations with the new Hungarian Government and especially for the accommodation between Hungary and Romania; all take the appearance of somewhat ill-fitting pieces of a puzzle which Tittoni never came to complete.

More so, his desire to maintain a direct relation with the various groups, more or less directly involved in the Italian negotiations, within Fiume – which, one must say, might have appeared somewhat necessary due to the manifest refusal of the leadership of Fiume to enter talks with Nitti's Government (hence Nitti's need to rely on Badoglio's mediation or on informants of dubious reliability) – brought him to entrust matters of a certain sensitivity to various relations of his within the “national right” whom, albeit from the safe distance of a liberal-conservative tied to the clerical groups of the Capital, he had managed to maintain throughout the years (or, at least, the “conservative” wing of D'Annunzio's party would much rather deal with Tittoni than with Nitti).

Among these, the aforementioned Orazio Pedrazzi – currently member of D'Annunzio's press office, future representative and Ambassador to Spain – whose contribution to the Italian negotiations didn't produce the desired effects at all; unless one wishes to take the less charitable view that Pedrazzi's mission was intended to ensure either D'Annunzio's approval for the Italian diplomatic success or his complete and utter rejection in the alternative scenario. Regardless, it's certain that the information provided to Pedrazzi was not really of the kind which one could expect to ease D'Annunzio into moderation, if related to him exactly (and Pedrazzi appears to have added a few words of his own).