far worse mistake was made in the failure to
communicate the London Agreement to Serbia, which would certainly have
accepted it without hesitation in the terrible position in which it
then was.

But the most serious thing of all was that Italian Ministers were
unaware of its provisions till after its publication in London by the
organ of the Jugo-Slavs, which had evidently received the text from
Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. In Italy the London
Agreement was a mystery to everyone; its text was known only to the
Presidents of the Council and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people knew about it, secrecy was
strictly kept, and, moreover, it cannot possibly be said that it was
in accordance either with national ideals or the currents of public
opinion, much less with any intelligent conception of Italy's needs
and Italy's future.

The framers of the London Agreement never thought of Fiume. Indeed
they specifically expressed their willingness that it should go to
Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary remaining united or of
the detachment of Croatia from it. It is not true that it was through
the opposition of Russia or of France that the Italian framers of the
London Agreement gave up all claim to Fiume. There was no opposition
because there was no claim. The representatives of Russia and France
have told me officially that no renunciation took place through any
action on the part of their Governments, because no claim was ever
made to them. On the other hand, after the armistice, and when it
became known through the newspapers that the London Agreement gave
Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for Fiume arose, fanned by
the Government itself, and an equally strong movement in Fiume also.

If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming large areas of
Dalmatia which are entirely or almost entirely Slav, provision had
been made for the constitution of a State of Fiume placed in a
condition to guarantee not only the people of Italian nationality but
the economic interests of all the peoples in it and surrounding it,
there is no doubt that such a claim on the part of Italy would have
gone through without opposition.

During the Paris Conference the representatives of Italy showed hardly
any interest at all in the problems concerning the peace of Europe,
the situation of the conquered peoples, the distribution of raw
materials, the regulation of