and perhaps the non-Slav kingdom of Rumania.  All these states would be in the leading-strings of the French Republic, and Austria would be linked to it in a different guise.  And in order to effect this resuscitation of the Hapsburg state under the name of “Danubian federation,” Mr. Wilson, it was asserted, had authorized a deliberate violation of his own principle of self-determination, and refused to Austria the right of adopting the regime which she preferred.  It was, in truth, an odd compromise, these critics continued, for an idealist of the President’s caliber, on whose every political action the scrutinizing gaze of the world was fixed.  One could not account for it as a sacrifice made for a high ethical aim—­one of those ends which, according to the old maxim, hallows the means.  It seemed an open response to a secret instigation or impulse which was unconnected with any recognized or avowable principle.  Even the Socialist organs swelled the chorus of the accusers. Avanti wrote, “We are Socialists, yet we have never believed that the American President with his Fourteen Points entered into the war for the highest aims of humanity and for the rights of peoples, any more than we believe at present that his opposition to the aspirations of the Italian state on the Adriatic are inspired by motives of idealism."[235]

The fate of the disputed territories on the Adriatic was to be the outcome of self-determination.  Poland’s claims were to be left to the self-determination of the Silesian and Ruthenian populations.  Rumania was told that her suit must remain in abeyance until it could be tested by the same principle, which would be applied in the form of a plebiscite.  For self-determination was the cornerstone of the League of Nations, the holiest boon for which the progressive peoples of the world had been pouring out their life-blood and substance for nearly five years.  But when Italy invoked self-determination, she was promptly non-suited.  When Austria appealed to it she was put out of court.  And to crown all, the world was assured that the Fourteen Points had been triumphantly upheld.  This depravation of principles by the triumph of the little prudences of the hour spurred some of the more impulsive critics to ascribe it to influences less respectable than those to which it may fairly be attributed.

The directing Powers were hypersensitive to the oft-repeated charge of meddling in the internal affairs of other nations.  They were never tired of protesting their abhorrence of anything that smacked of interference.  Among the numerous facts, however, which they could neither deny nor reconcile with their professions, the following was brought forward by the Italians, who had a special interest to draw public attention to it.  It had to do with the abortive attempt to restore the Hapsburg monarchy in Hungary as the first step toward the formation of a Danubian federation.  “It is certain,” wrote the principal Italian