because we were accompanied by an Italian officer and were
traveling in an Italian car. The proprietors of five hotels, upon seeing
Captain Tron's uniform, curtly declared that every room was occupied. It
was nearly midnight before we succeeded in finding shelter for the
night, and this was obtained only when I made it amply clear to the
Austrian proprietor of the only remaining hotel in the town that we were
not Italians but Americans. The unpleasant impression produced by the
coolness of our reception in Villach was materially increased the
following morning, when Captain Tron greeted us with the news that all
of our luggage, which we had left on the car, had been stolen. It
seemed that thieves had broken into the courtyard of the barracks, where
the car had been locked up for the night, and, in spite of the fact that
the chauffeur was asleep in the tonneau, had stripped it of everything,
including the spare tires. I learned afterwards that robberies of this
sort had become so common since the war as scarcely to provoke comment,
portions of Austria being terrorized by gangs of demobilized soldiers
who, taking advantage of the complete demoralization of the machinery of
government, robbed farmhouses and plundered travelers at will. It is
much the same form of lawlessness, I imagine, which manifested itself
immediately after the close of the Napoleonic Wars, when bands of
discharged soldiers sought in robbery the excitement and booty which
they had formerly found under the eagles. Though the local police
authorities attempted to condone the robbery on the ground that it was
due to the appalling poverty of the population, this excuse did not
reconcile my wife to the loss of her entire wardrobe. As she remarked
vindictively, she felt certain that the inhabitants of Villach were
called Villains.

I wished to visit Klagenfurt, the ancient capital of Carinthia, which is
about twenty miles beyond Villach, because at that time the town, which
is a railway junction of considerable strategic and commercial
importance, threatened to provide the cause for an open break between
the Jugoslavs and the Italians. Though the Italians did not demand the
town for themselves, they had vigorously insisted that, instead of being
awarded to Jugoslavia, it should remain Austrian, for, with the triangle
of which Klagenfurt is the center in the possession of the Jugoslavs,
they would have driven a wedge between Italy and Austria and would have
h