und fault with Mr. Wilson
and his "Encyclical," and protested emphatically against his way of
filling every gap in his arrangements by wedging into it his League of
Nations. "Can we harbor any illusion as to the net worth of the League
of Nations when the revised text of the Covenant reveals it shrunken to
the merest shadow, incapable of thought, will, action, or justice?...
Too often have we made sacrifices to the Wilsonian doctrine."[215] ...
Another press organ compared Fiume to the Saar Valley and sympathized
with Italy, who, relying on the solidarity of her allies, expected to
secure the city.[216]

While those wearisome word-battles--in which the personal element played
an undue part--were being waged in the twilight of a secluded Valhalla,
the Supreme Economic Council decided that the seized Austrian vessels
must be pooled among all the Allies. When the untoward consequences of
this decision were flashed upon the Italians and the Jugoslavs, the
rupture between them was seen to be injurious to both and profitable to
third parties. For if the Austrian vessels were distributed among all
the Allied peoples, the share that would fall to those two would be of
no account. Now for the first time the adversaries bestirred themselves.
But it was not their diplomatists who took the initiative. Eager for
their respective countries' share of the spoils of war, certain
business men on both sides met,[217] deliberated, and worked out an
equitable accord which gave four-fifths of the tonnage to Italy and the
remainder to the Jugoslavs, who otherwise would not have obtained a
single ship.[218] They next set about getting the resolution of the
Economic Council repealed, and went on with their conversations.[219]
The American delegation was friendly, promised to plead for the repeal,
and added that "if the accord could be extended to the Adriatic problem
Mr. Wilson would be delighted and would take upon himself to ratify it
_even without the sanction of the Conference_.[220] Encouraged by this
promise, the delegates made the attempt, but as the Italian Premier had
for some unavowed reason limited the intercourse of the negotiators to a
single day, on the expiry of which he ordered the conversation to
cease,[221] they failed. Two or three days later the delegates in
question had quitted Paris.

What this exchange of views seems to have demonstrated to open-minded
Italians was that the Jugoslavs, whose reputation for obstinacy was a