November 18, 1918

Note: The row over whether the Adriatic port of Fiume should be given to Italy or to the newly formed Yugoslav state was a complex and important one. The Italian claims to the city were set forth in a memorandum to the Conference dated February 7, 1919, which demanded possession of Fiume on the basis of the request made by “the Italian majority” (following the plebiscite conducted by the poet-filibusterer, d’Annunzio) for Italian annexation. Other arguments advanced by Italy’s delegates included: The Treaty of London, which some assumed assured Italian domination of the Adriatic and the Dalmatian coast; the necessity of a bulwark against Germany and Austria above that supplied by the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia); and the fear that Orlando’s ministry and the good will of the Italian people would disintegrate unless Fiume were included in Wilson’s promise (Ninth Point) of “the rectification of the Italian frontiers on clearly recognized national lines.”

Di Martino, Permanent Under Secretary of the Italian Foreign Office, came this morning by appointment, but as the Colonel was under the weather, he was turned over to me. He is a dapper little man with a sharp, shrewd fox face. He told me he came at the wish of Sidney Sonnino, his chief, the Minister of Foreign Affairs who was still detained in Rome, and that he had been ordered to place his cards on the table face up. He certainly did so.

What struck me most about the little man was the way in which he ignored all the shibboleths and the slogans which are resounding through the world today. When I mentioned the Fourteen Points, he seemed to regard them as literature. As to the “compass of righteousness” with which we had all agreed to steer a new and better course, any reference to this provoked a pitying smile.

Di Martino was still living in a world of power politics, of key positions, of strongholds heavily fortified, of spheres of “legitimate” influence. “This is not an ideal world and it never will be,” he asserted repeatedly, “and we must face the facts, however ugly they may seem.” He was not slow in getting down to brass tacks.

“The outstanding fact of the situation,” he went on, “at least as viewed from Rome, is that the Serbs of the Kingdom and the Yugoslavs of the outlying regions are not united, are not homogeneous, and I doubt very much if they will ever become so. For instance, you must know the Serbs and the Croats are culturally miles apart. A peasant Croat is intellectually superior to the average statesman of Belgrade, and he will never consent to the domination of a people whom he regards as a band of ragged, illiterate ruffians. It seems to us that what your President, who we all revere, has in mind is to place these two fighting wild cats in a bag and expect them to behave like good kittens.” (While of course I did not admit it, to my diary I may confess that my recent Yugoslav contacts furnished some corroboration to this Italian’s point of view.)

Getting his second wind, Di Martino continued: “Whatever becomes of the German Austrians, whether they try to stand alone or are permitted to throw in their lot with the North Germans or with the Bavarians, it is quite certain that if the Croats are to survive economically, they will be drawn into the German orbit. And then? I admit no one knows what will happen, but I do know we must prepare for quite possible eventualities. We must adopt precautionary measures, and I am directed to place an outline of these before Colonel House. Unfortunately for Italy, the keys to her national integrity, under one version of the new doctrine of self-determination [that Fiume was always a Croatian port], will be placed in the hands of people we cannot regard, in the light of recent experiences, as either friendly or reliable. To achieve such a result was not our purpose in entering the war. For this we did not sacrifice a million men and assume a staggering war debt. We recognize that self-determination is applicable to many regions but not to the shores of the Adriatic, and we can never consent to placing the strategic positions indispensable to our safety in the hands of strangers who have often been our enemies and who are even now acting in a hostile manner.

“If this policy is persisted in, let me tell you what the result, the inevitable result, will be. Very lightly the Croats and the Slovenes will be brushed aside. Over the weak rampart of Yugoslavia, a ‘poor house’ divided against itself, the Germans will reach the Brenner and the Adriatic, and after all our expenditure of blood and treasure we will be face to face with a Germany stronger and better equipped for battle than she was when in 1915 we joined in the struggle.” [In retrospect I see that Di Martino was not the least of the minor prophets—thus 1938.] When I placed the memo of this conversation before the Colonel he said, “A dark portent of the things to come, discouraging but enlightening.”