to provide him with a message written by himself to serve as the Premier’s justification.  Signor Orlando was to read out this document in Parliament in order to make it clear to the nation that the renunciation had been demanded by America, that it would most efficaciously promote Italy’s best interests, and should for that reason be ratified with alacrity.  Signor Orlando, however, declined the certificate and things took their course.

In Paris the Italian delegation made little headway.  Every one admired, esteemed, and felt drawn toward the first delegate, who, left to himself, would probably have secured for his country advantageous conditions, even though he might be unable to add Fiume to those secured by the secret treaty.  But he was not left to himself.  He had to reckon with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was as mute as an oyster and almost as unsociable.  Baron Sonnino had his own policy, which was immutable, almost unutterable.  At the Conference he seemed unwilling to propound, much less to discuss it, even with those foreign colleagues on whose co-operation or approval its realization depended.  He actually shunned delegates who would fain have talked over their common interests in a friendly, informal way, and whose business it was to strike up an agreement.  In fact, results which could be secured only by persuading indifferent or hostile people and capturing their good-will he expected to attain by holding aloof from all and leading the life of a hermit, one might almost say of a misanthrope.  One can imagine the feelings, if one may not reproduce the utterances, of English-speaking officials, whose legitimate desire for a free exchange of views with Italy’s official spokesman was thwarted by the idiosyncrasies of her own Minister of Foreign Affairs.  In Allied circles Baron Sonnino was distinctly unpopular, and his unpopularity produced a marked effect on the cause he had at heart.  He was wholly destitute of friends.  He had, it is true, only two enemies, but they were himself and the foreign element who had to work with him.  Italy’s cause was therefore inadequately served.

Several months’ trial showed the unwisdom of Baron Sonnino’s attitude, which tended to defeat his own policy.  Italy was paid back by her allies in her own coin, aloofness for aloofness.  After she had declined the Jugoslavs’ ingenious proposal to refer their dispute to Mr. Wilson the three delegates[212] agreed among themselves to postpone her special problems until peace was signed with Germany, but Signor Orlando, having got wind of the matter, moved every lever to have them put into the forefront of the agenda.  He went so far as to say that he would not sign the Treaty unless his country’s claims were first settled, because that document would make the League of Nations—­and therefore Italy as a member of the League—­the guarantor of other nations’ territories, whereas she herself had no defined territories for others to guarantee.  She would not undertake