January 6, 1919

Here is what really happened on the Dalmatian front in October as related by one who saw it all—with unbelieving eyes, I should add. A young naval lieutenant has just arrived from the Adriatic with dispatches for Admiral Benson, which our senior naval officer immediately communicated to House. He was on a ship of the so-called blockading squadron which did not stop d’Annunzio’s filibustering expedition.¹ The lieutenant’s conversation is more illuminating than the dispatches and I record some of it here.

The poet-politician claims that he is handling a difficult situation according to Wilsonian precepts; that on October 27 he held what he insisted was “a free and fair election” in the American style. He announced that his party was the Unione Nazonale, but that all were eligible to vote. However, all but men of the Unione were driven from the polls. The booths were placarded, calling upon all to vote as patriots and “shoot down the traitors.” The representatives of the world press who arrived from all quarters of the globe were not allowed to enter the “liberated city.” To their petitions the poet answered: “You men have always described me as a notorious publicity hound, so I have decided that the only account of this important event will be written by me and placed in the confidential files of the government in Rome.”

The Susak bridge was closed, but still a few Croats or Dalmatians did get across, and despite the formidable barrier of bayonets around the booths two hundred did vote, but of course their ballots were not counted. On the following day, d’Annunzio announced that seven thousand votes had been polled and that all confirmed his declaration of May 18 that Fiume was an Italian city, had always been so, and as long as he lived would remain as such. “I will hold this pearl of the Adriatic coast against a world in arms,” he announced. He then mentioned Gorizia and a number of other important cities and sites that would have to be liberated. “If we do not hold for civilization these key positions, the flood of barbarian Slavs will surge up to the walls of Trieste,” he announced.

On the following day, continued the lieutenant, the poet thumbed his nose at the Supreme Council. “This historic movement is written in the best, the noblest, blood of Italy,” he proclaimed, “and it cannot be hindered, much less stopped, by Paris.” Then he concluded with his favorite phrase: “The old world is no more.”

Well, the Supreme Council greeted this defiance with silence. Of course, they asked Rome to enforce their decrees, and then nothing happened.

“Encouraged by this weak-kneed policy,” said the disgusted lieutenant, “the poet rabble-rouser landed in Zara, which he claimed was another Italianisimo port, at the head of six hundred of his Arditi. On his return to Fiume, he announced that he would soon take possession of Spalato and most of Istria and that out of his conquests (he called them reconquests, however) he would form an independent Italian state.

“The English admiral told us to go slow; that the Arditi were quite out of hand, and that they were about to attack Montenegro and take a slice of the Black Mountain. But if he ever planned it, d’Annunzio did not follow it up. He probably knew that if he did, he would be coming up against something more formidable than the decrees of the Supreme Council. When I left,” concluded the young lieutenant, “the Italian admiral who had two ships on the coast joined the filibusterers, so now the poet has a naval force. Just as I left, the new Italian premier, Tittoni, went on the air and announced that Fiume was always an Italian city and reproached the Allies for not understanding the situation. Again, the Supreme Council by silence consented to this high-handed proceeding.”

I heard one of our delegates say today, and not the least important of them, “e finita la commedia.” But I do not think so. Flaunted in this way, the decrees of the Supreme War Council are not worth the paper they are printed on, and this inaction will open the floodgates to many other and much more important revolutionary movements. The new public law of Europe may be more respectable than the old, but I fear it is not more effective. Of course, as many argue, Fiume is not very important, but the principle is vital to the New Order.