After the return of the Italian delegation to Paris various fresh combinations were devised for the purpose of grappling with the Adriatic problem.  One commended itself to the Italians as a possible basis for discussion.  In principle it was accepted.  A declaration to this effect was made by Signor Orlando and taken cognizance of by M. Clemenceau, who undertook to lay the matter before Mr. Wilson, the sole arbitrator in Italian affairs.  He played the part of Fate throughout.  Days went by after this without bringing any token that the Triumvirate was interested in the Adriatic.  At last the Italian Premier reminded his French colleague that the latest proposal had been accepted in principle, and the Italian plenipotentiaries were awaiting Mr. Wilson’s pleasure in the matter.  Accordingly, M. Clemenceau undertook to broach the matter to the American statesman without delay.  The reply, which was promptly given, dismayed the Italians.  It was in the form of one of those interpretations which, becoming associated with Mr. Wilson’s name, shook public confidence in certain of the statesman-like qualities with which he had at first been credited.  The construction which he now put upon the mode of voting to be applied to Fiume, including this city—­in a large district inhabited by a majority of Jugoslavs—­imparted to the project as the Italians had understood it a wholly new aspect.  They accordingly declared it inacceptable.  As after that there seemed to be nothing more for the Italian Premier to do in Paris, he left, was soon afterward defeated in the Chamber, and resigned together with his Cabinet.  The vote of the Italian Parliament, which appeared to the continental press in the light of a protest of the nation against the aims and the methods of the Conference, closed for the time being the chapter of Italy’s endeavor to complete her unity, secure strong frontiers, and perpetuate her political partnership with France and her intimate relations with the Entente.  Thenceforward the English-speaking states might influence her overt acts, compel submission to their behests, and generally exercise a sort of guardianship over her, because they are the dispensers of economic boons, but the union of hearts, the mutual trust, the cement supplied by common aims are lacking.

One of the most telling arguments employed by President Wilson to dissuade various states from claiming strategic positions, and in particular Italy from insisting on the annexation of Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, was the effective protection which the League of Nations would confer on them.[232] Strategical considerations would, it was urged, lose all their value in the new era, and territorial guaranties become meaningless and cumbersome survivals of a dead epoch.  That was the principal weapon with which he had striven to parry the thrusts of M. Clemenceau and the touchstone by which he tested the sincerity of all professions of faith in his cherished project of compacting the