Five days after the Italian Premier and his Minister of Foreign Affairs had departed from Paris I had a long interview with a well-known Italian diplomat, who was an intimate friend of both Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino and who had been very active in the secret negotiations regarding the Italian boundaries which had been taking place at Paris since the middle of December.  This diplomat was extremely bitter about the whole affair and took no pains to hide his views as to the causes of the critical situation which existed.  In the memorandum of our conversation, which I wrote immediately after he left my office, appears the following: 

“He exclaimed:  ’One tells you one thing and that is not true; then another tells you another thing and that too is not true.  What is one to believe?  What can one do?  It is hopeless.  So many secret meetings with different persons are simply awful’—­He threw up his hands—­’Now we have the result.  It is terrible!’

   “I laughed and said, ’I conclude that you do not like secret
   diplomacy.’

“‘I do not; I do not,’ he fervently exclaimed.  ’All our trouble comes from these secret meetings of four men [referring to the Big Four], who keep no records and who tell different stories of what takes place.  Secrecy is to blame.  We have been unable to rely on any one.  To have to run around and see this man and that man is not the way to do.  Most all sympathize with you when alone and then they desert you when they get with others.  This is the cause of much bitterness and distrust. Secret diplomacy is an utter failure. It is too hard to endure.  Some men know only how to whisper.  They are not to be trusted.  I do not like it.’

   “‘Well,’ I said, ’you cannot charge me with that way of doing
   business.’

   “‘I cannot,’ he replied, ’you tell me the truth.  I may not like it,
   but at least you do not hold out false hopes.’”

The foregoing conversation no doubt expressed the real sentiments of the members of the Italian delegation at that time.  Disgust with confidential personal interviews and with relying upon personal influence rather than upon the merits of their case was the natural reaction following the failure to win by these means the President’s approval of Italy’s demands.

The Italian policy in relation to Flume was wrecked on the rock of President Wilson’s firm determination that the Jugo-Slavs should have a seaport on the Adriatic sufficient for their needs and that Italy should not control the approaches to that port.  With the wreck of the Fiume policy went in time the Orlando Government which had failed to make good the promises which they had given to their people.  Too late they realized that secret diplomacy had failed, and that they had made a mistake in relying upon it.  It is no wonder that the two leaders of the Italian delegation on returning to Paris and resuming their duties in the Conference refrained from attempting to arrange clandestinely the settlement of the Adriatic Question.  The “go-betweens,” on whom they had previously relied, were no longer employed.  Secret diplomacy was anathema.  They had paid a heavy price for the lesson, which they had learned.