New-York tribune., 1918-12-13

"
~ are to be debated at the Peace
Congress is at once more diff
cult and more dangerous than that which
has already been raised as a result of
disputes between the Jugo-Slavs and
the Italians over the reversion of that
portion of the Austrian estate which ex-
tends from the old Italian frontier to
the confines Of the Albanian state And
if an equitable settlement is not had
here the seeds of future war are GER
tain to be sown.
The solution is not simple. From
! Gorilla to Cattaro, from the mouth of
the Isonzo to that of the Drin, is vast
littoral which, on all maps has it's har-
bors, capes and cities marked by Italian
names. Trieste, Pola, Fiume, Zara,
Ragusa, Cattaro, Alessio, these are no.
table details. And from the Roman day
down to the fall of Venice this shore had
a Latin history. Some of the finest re-
mains of the Roman period are found in
the Dalmatian towns. Ragusa is almost
the most beautiful of all the children of
Venice.
Along this shore, too, the population
of the larger towns, of Trieste, Pola,
Fiume and Zara, is Italian and this popu-
lation prefers to be united to Italy rather
than to the new Jugo-Slavia. But behind
this thin Latin FACADE stretching from
the foreshore of the Adriatic to the north
bank of the Drave and from the Tyrol to
Serbia is I solid block of Slavs, some
eleven or twelve millions. These Slavs
speak dialects Of the same Slav tongue;
Slovene, Croatian and Serb they have
resolved upon reunion in single state
1t is clear, then, that if Italy is to
make good her claim to the shores of the
Adriatic, based upon the Italian char
acter of several, but by no means all, of
the coast towns, based upon Roman and
Venetian traditions, nearly twelve mill
ion Slavs will be practically excluded
from the sea and there will be created
Slav Irredentism as menacing to the
future peace of Europe as was the old
Italian Irrendentism of days still recent.
We shall have the Southern Slavs and
the Italians facing each other and pre-
pairing against new war, which for the
Slavs will mean at once the liberation of
thousands of their fellow Slavs and the
completion of their unity by the ac-
| QUESTION of their seacoast, while we shall
have Italy pursuing policy of arma
ment based upon the patent need to de-
fend Adriatic shores.
Of the two claims the Slavonic rests
solfdly upon the right of self-determina-
ton and of race unity. save in a very
limited region at the head of the Adriatic
IN narrow circle about Trieste and
Pola You can hardly pass the city limits
OF Trieste without finding yourself in
Slav country. On the other hand, Tri-
este, Pola and Fiume are indisputably
Italian, and so is a considerable section
OF lstria. No conceivable solution of the
dispute which Italy would accept would
| surrender any portion of the territory
west of the Julian Alps from the head
waters of the Isonzo to the outskirts of
Fiume.
But this is not the great issue to-day.
In two agreements at Corfu and at Lon
don, during the war, the Slavs and the
Italians defined their claims and reached
provisional agreement, which is mainly
disclosed in the terms of the Austro-
Italian armistice. By these agreements
Italy was to have Istria, with Gorilla