protected everywhere by a double, in some places a triple barrier of islands, on whose coasts only a few scanty communities are to be found, from whose heights the sea can be explored in all directions, in whose channels military and merchant navigation can have free scope. 'Dalmatia,' said the Croatian Deputy, Smodlaka, at the Reichsrath of Vienna, on Dec. 3, 1910, 'Dalmatia, with its 500 kilometres of coast-line, and its hundred ports, dominates the Adriatic.'*

To sum up, the Italian coast of the middle Adriatic is, in respect to Dalmatia, in a much worse position than that of the East Coast of England in respect to the Kiel Canal. Dalmatia, in fact, is much nearer to Italy; and the Power in possession there has at least as many chances of surprising the opposite Italian coast by bombardments and of intercepting her mercantile and military communications between the north and south as Germany would have if she possessed all the coast from Calais to Heligoland.

As opposed to Austria, a state of 50,000,000 inhabitants, mistress of both Dalmatia and Istria, Italy found herself in a dangerous position, and was obliged to exhaust herself in maintaining naval armaments superior to those of Austria in order to correct as much as possible her natural inferiority. The status quo in the Balkans, to which Italy always clung desperately, until the war came in to upset all the ancient arrangements, had this simple purpose-to hinder Austria from seizing Montenegro and Albania, and becoming mistress of the Bocche of Cattaro and of Vallona, and thus assuring herself of the absolute dominion in the lower Adriatic, where the Apulian coast becomes even more populous t and even less capable of defence than the coast of the middle Adriatic.

In the new territorial arrangement which this war

Razance, San Cassiano, Zara Vecchia, Zlosela, Stretta, Vodice, Ragoznica, Castelnuovo, Castelvecchio, Almissa, Macarska, Podgora, and Risano count from 1000 to 2050 inhabitants.

* Seton-Watson, op. cit., pp. 406-416.

+ Manfredonia, 13,500 inhabitants; Trinitapoli, 12,000: Margherita di Savoia, 7000; Barletta, 44,000; Trani, 31,000; Bisceglie, 31,000; Molfetta, 43,000; Giovinazzo, 11,000; Bari, 103,000; Mola di Bari, 15,000; Polignano a Mare, 8500; Brindisi, 28,000; Otranto, 3000.

will create, Italy should obtain on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, north and south, the naval bases of Pola and Vallona. Her position would then be markedly better. But the problem of the security of her coast in the middle Adriatic and of her railway and maritime communications between the northern and the southern basins of this sea, will not be changed to her advantage if every readjustment to correct her inferiority is denied her. It might indeed be said that the new Jugo-Slav State, with its 11-12,000,000 inhabitants, would of course be a much weaker state than Austria, and would consequently be less of a menace to Italy. But the future lies on the knees of the gods; no one can be sure that the course of international politics may not eventually lead the Jugo-Slavs to ally themselves with Germany against Italy, or to take part in a general Balkan Confederation which would create a Great Power in the Adriatic and the Ægean, or in some other way to join an international combination which should augment their military potentiality on the sea. If England in 1890 had been able to foresee the present war, she would certainly not have ceded the island of Heligoland to Germany; nor today would it be prudent for her to cede Malta to Italy, in spite of the fact that for thirty years Italy has been her ally in the Mediterranean. It is not unreasonable and illegitimate, then, if Italy, as a reward for her great sacrifices in this war, should ask not only the freeing of the Italians in the Trentino and the Julian Veneto from the Austrian yoke, but also her greatest possible security in the Adriatic.

The Italian Nationalists, in order to solve this problem, lay claim to the occupation by Italy of all the islands and the whole strip of the Dalmatian coast from Zara to Bocche di Cattaro. The less indiscreet would renounce only the coast between the mouths of the river Narenta and the Bocche di Cattaro. These claims are not only iniquitous from the point of view of national rights, but unjustifiable even from the military point of view.

The occupation of the whole of Dalmatia by Italy, while it would give a radical solution to the naval problem by making the Adriatic into an Italian lake, would nevertheless create a further formidable problem for Italythat of defending a frontier of 500 kilometres on the

other side of the water. In case of war, Italy would have to immobilise many hundreds of thousands of soldiers whom she would urgently need for the defence of the Julian Veneto; and, in order to supply this army, immobolised in Dalmatia, she would have to use an enormous supplementary fleet in the Adriatic which she would only too sorely require for other more vital needs. Suppose, however, the Jugo-Slavs possessed the coast from Narenta to Antivari, then, it is true, the frontier which Italy would have to defend would be shorter, and would require few forces; but she would have to protect against the menace of the positions of Gravosa and of the Bocche di Cattaro not alone the Italian coast but the communications with her army in Dalmatia as well—that is to say, the Italian navy in the Adriatic would have to employ a much greater force than would be needful merely to protect the east coast of Italy.

That Italy must seek guarantees of security on the east coast of the middle Adriatic is the truth. But the middle Adriatic has three coast lines-an external line, made by the outer islands; an internal line, made by the coast of the mainland; and a middle line made by the islands between the outer islands and the mainland. If Italy should get one or more of the outer islands as bases necessary for the security of her eastern coast and for the movement of her navy from the lower to the upper Adriatic, she ought to ask for nothing more.

The Jugo-Slav State would not be in any way menaced by this occupation, for the Italian naval bases would serve merely to prevent the Slav navy from coming out of the archipelago to disturb the middle Adriatic, exactly as the possession of Pola and Lussino-Cherso would guarantee the position of Italy in the upper Adriatic; while the line of the internal islands, which would belong to the Slav State along with the coast of the mainland, would form an insurmountable obstacle to Italy if she claimed to pass from defence to attack. Only an admiral who had lost the use of his reason would dare to risk his navy in that labyrinth of channels.

Without doubt the islands that would thus fall to Italy's share-and just which they would be is a technical problem subordinate to the acceptance of the political principle-would be chiefly or almost wholly inhabited

by Slavs. But these do not number more than twenty or at most thirty thousand; and Italy could guarantee to them the most complete administrative autonomy and commercial liberty, reserving for herself only the high sovereignty and the indispensable right of fortification and military control. Nor is the principle of national right, in the modern conscience, so absolute that it can never, in small things, yield to other criteria of equity and opportunity. No man of good sense would take Gibraltar from England, because its vital importance to secure the communication of England with Egypt and India is so evident; nevertheless from the strict standpoint of nationality Gibraltar should be Spanish. What is required to decide the matter in these cases is that the military necessities should be obvious, and not such as to lead to the enslaving or the serious mutilation of whole nations, like the claims of the Germans in Belgium, Poland, France, Rumania and Serbia. Italy ceded to France in 1859 not only Savoy, which was a region incontestably French, but also the county of Nice, which at that time was quite as incontestably Italian and the fatherland of Garibaldi; and to-day there cannot be found more than a few exaltés Italian Nationalists who dream of wanting to take back Nice and its county. This renunciation, which we made in the past and which no one of us to-day even discusses, inclines us to believe that some slight exception to the principle of nationality in our own favour might to-day be tolerated by the Slavs.

Territorial Compromise and National Guarantees.

The necessity of solving the problem of the Adriatic by means of a compromise was recognised by the governments of Italy, Russia, France, and England, in the Convention of London of April 1915. According to what was then settled, if the rumours that have been circulated are exact, the Slavs would have Fiume, the coast of Croatia, the middle and southern coast of Dalmatia from Spalato south, and the islands of Brazza, Curzola and Lesina. Italy would get all the other islands, the Julian Veneto, and an enclave on the Dalmatian mainland which should include the districts of Zara and Sebenico as far as Traù. Serbia took no part in this

Convention; and at the moment of writing (Sept. 17, 1917) there has been no official or semi-official statement that she has accepted these conditions either in her own name or in the name of the other Southern Slavs, whose moral representative she claims to be.

This compromise has, before everything else, the fundamental merit of being a compromise, that is to say of being based on the conception that both Italian and Slav interests can be conciliated by a solution intermediate between the claims of each. Furthermore, given the wild exaggeration of Slav Nationalism-twin-brother to Italian Nationalism!-it has the merit of placing Serbia face-to-face with an agreement of the four Great European Powers of the anti-German coalition instead of with Italy alone. It will be anything but an evil that the Serbian Government should have to reconcile its claims with the necessity of not putting itself in opposition to all the greater Allied Governments. The Convention of London, however, like all human creations, is by no means so perfect that it cannot be improved; and it is to be hoped it will be improved when the time comes for Italy's treating directly with Serbia.

From the preceding pages, it should be clear which articles in the Convention of London require amendment. From the Italian point of view it has the defect of abandoning, for inclusion in Slav territory, without any guarantee of cultural liberty or legal equality, the Italian nucleus at Fiume and the Italians who are scattered in central and southern Dalmatia; further, it fails to protect the port of Trieste against the competition of the railway lines that serve Fiume, if they should avail themselves of an artificial system of tariffs. From the Slav point of view, on the other hand, the Convention of London is unsatisfactory in this respect, that, while it equitably assigns to the Serbo-Sloveno-Croatian State the ports of Fiume and Spalato, which are indispensable for the economic life of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, it takes away the districts of Zara and Sebenico, districts indisputably Slav (except the actual town of Zara), and cuts off also several islands which nevertheless would furnish Italy with no important advantages.

On these points Italy could very well make friendly concessions, asking in return for compensation on the