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Caption: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 18
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# 11 \LY AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE Now that peace terms arc.under discussion, some of the profoundly lifficult problems which must be handled by the representatives of the nations assembled at Versailles are becoming plainly outlined. Among those problems, none are more knotty and fraught with serious danger than those involving an equitable adjudication of certain of Italy's war claims. Because to date Italy insists upon the fulfillment of these claims to the verv letter upon her utter pound of flesh, that country is assailed from all quarters, as she was denounced in 1915, branded again tor the narrowest selfishness, and roundly rebuked for an imperialism which cannot be squared with the democratic ideals for which the world has been told it was fighting. The country's spokesmen, on the other hand, competent and otherwise, seek to refute these harsh aspersions by demonstrating in speeches and writings the justness o\ her objectives, while the arch-opponents of her peace programme South Slavs, Albanians, and Greeks, vigorously use like measures to anathematize them. Meanwhile the report comes that Italy's armies are not to be demobilized, together with curt assertions from certain Slavic quarters proclaiming a fearful readiness to accept again, if it must be, so grim a solvent as war. Such indeed, is the heat already engendered since the signing of the armistice, an ominous premonition of stormy controversy, or infinitely worse, ahead. What then are these war claims, and what threatens to prevent their full attainment? Stated briefly, Italy, in this developing world crisis, has sought consistently to make her national existence secure. That has been her great purpose. To gain it meant for her principally reaching the following difficult objectives— first, the completion of her unification through the incorporation of Italia Irredenta so called, that ls > the Trentino, certain lands about the lower Isonzo river and Trieste, and second, the attainment of supremacy in the Adriatic sea. This |atter ambition is in truth part and parcel of Italian unification also, ln so far as it, likewise, involves securing Trieste; further than. that, however, its consummation means the establishment of Italian dominion ov er Dalmatia, coast and islands, and the attainment by Italy of a fi rm hold on the same side of the Adriatic in Albania. The vital importance of these objectives for Italy's welfare becomes manifest upon a krief analysis of them. 3 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H '
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