went for nothing. The representations of
Italy, who pleaded for that principle, were likewise brushed aside.

But what the delegates appear to have overlooked was the decisive
circumstance that they had already "on strategic grounds" assigned the
Brenner line to Italy and together with it two hundred and twenty
thousand Tyrolese of German race living in a compact mass--although a
much smaller alien element was deemed a bar to annexation in the case of
Poland. And what was more to the point, this allotment deprived Tyrol of
an independent economic existence, cutting it off from the southern
valley and making it tributary to Bavaria. Mr. Wilson, the public was
credibly informed, "took this grave decision without having gone deeply
into the matter, and he repents it bitterly. None the less, he can no
longer go back."[97]

Just as Tyrol's loss of Botzen and Meran made it dependent on Bavaria,
so the severance of Vienna from southern Moravia--- the source of its
cereal supplies, situated at a distance of only thirty-six
miles--transformed the Austrian capital into a head without a body. But
on the eminent anatomists who were to perform a variety of unprecedented
operations on other states, this spectacle had no deterrent effect.

Whenever a topic came up for discussion which could not be solved
offhand, it was referred to a commission, and in many cases the
commission was assisted by a mission which proceeded to the country
concerned and within a few weeks returned with data which were assumed
to supply materials enough for a decision, even though most of its
members were unacquainted with the language of the people whose
condition they had been studying. How quick of apprehension these envoys
were supposed to be may be inferred from the task with which the
American mission under General Harbord was charged, and the space of
time accorded him for achieving it. The members of this mission started
from Brest in the last decade of August for the Caucasus, making a stay
at Constantinople on the way, and were due back in Paris early in
October. During the few intervening weeks "the mission," General Harbord
said, "will go into every phase of the situation, political, racial,
economic, financial, and commercial. I shall also investigate highways,
harbors, agricultural and mining conditions, the question of raising an
Armenian army, policing problems, and the raw materials of Armenia."[98]
Only specialists who have some practical