Mark,
being in evidence on several of the older buildings; the mode of outdoor
life is such as one meets in Italy; most of its stores and banks are
owned by Italians, and Italian is the prevailing tongue. The claim that
the city's history is Italian is, however, hardly borne out by history
itself, for in the sixteen centuries which have elapsed since the fall
of the Roman Empire, Fiume has been under Italian rule--that of the
republic of Venice--for just four days.

The commercial reason underlying Italy's insistence on obtaining control
of Fiume is due to the fact that Italians are convinced that should
Fiume pass into either neutral or Jugoslav hands, it would mean the
commercial ruin of Trieste, where enormous sums of Italian money have
been invested. They assert, and with sound reasoning, that the Slavs of
the hinterland, and probably the Germans and Magyars as well, would ship
through Fiume, were it under Slav or international control, instead of
through Trieste, which is Italian. One does not need to be an economist
to realize that if Fiume could secure the trade of Jugoslavia and the
other states carved from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the commercial
supremacy of Trieste, which depends upon this same hinterland, would
quickly disappear. On the other hand, those Italians whose vision has
not been distorted by their passions clearly foresee that, should the
final disposition of Fiume prove unacceptable to the Jugoslavs, they
will almost certainly divert the trade of the interior to some Slav
port, leaving Fiume to drowse in idleness beside her moss-grown wharfs
and crumbling warehouses, dreaming dreams of her one-time prosperity.

Italy's third reason for insisting on the cession of Fiume is political,
and, because it is based on a deep-seated and haunting fear, it is,
perhaps, the most compelling reason of all. Italy does not trust the
Jugoslavs. She cannot forget that the Austrian and Hungarian fractions
of the new Jugoslav people--in other words, the Slovenes and
Croats--were the most faithful subjects of the Dual Monarchy, fighting
for the Hapsburgs with a ferocity and determination hardly surpassed in
the war. Unlike the Poles and Czecho-Slovaks, who threw in their lot
with the Allies, the Slovenes and Croats fought, and fought desperately,
for the triumph of the Central Empires. Had these two peoples turned
against their masters early in the war, the great struggle would have
ended months, perhaps years, e