Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-12-11
BY FRANK II. SIMONDS.

~ ARIS.-Nothing can perhaps bet
ter reveal presented day Europe
than the fact that one new
4 treaty of friendship has set all
Europe to discussing the dan
ger of war between France and
Italy. The treaty which was made
between Jugoslavia and France was
drafted in the most approved League
of Nations style. It had no military
clause, it concerned two nations who
have always been friendly, and yet
the tension between Rome and Paris
which followed at least gives a degree
of outward confirmation to the asser-
ton of Lloyd George that Europe is
heading straight for a new catastrophe.
For Italians the two-fold injury
rested first in the fact that France
should undertake to play any role in
the Balkan field which all regard as
purely Italian; and secondly, that the
fact of this treaty, with it's implied
French approval, would constitute a
moral Endorsement of the Jugoslav
resistance to all Italian policies in the
Balkans.
Gesture At Tangiers.
A few weeks ago Italy sent a fleet
to Tangiers. This gesture was recog-
nized throughout Europe as a DELHI
crate repetition of the kaiser's per-
Torrance, when he landed in Tangiers
in 1905 to serve notice upon France
and Europe that Germany must have
a share in the Moroccan liquidation.
Today, when the future status of
Tangiers is being decided and italy is
excluded by French decision, Mus
solini's meaning was equally clear
Whereupon, with brief delay, France
invited Jugoslavia to sign a treaty
which had long been pending but had
been temporarily put aside out of con-
sideration for Italian feelings Thus,
in effect Italy having touched France
| at a tender point, France responded
by rubbing Italy at sore spot. These
| incidents are but additional circum-
stances in Franco-I Italian feud
which is coming to have much the
| character of the Franco-German hos
| tility before 1914.
Examined purely from the histori-
| cal point of view, the Franco Italian
tension is difficult to explain. Mod
| ern Italy has never been at war with
| France, and in the Crimean war, in
| the war of 1866 and in the World
| War Italian and French soldiers
| fought on the same side. Both are
Latin countries and have many cul-
| tural ties. Moreover if few super
| patriots in Italy still dream of re-
gaining Nice and Corsica, there is
not here anything which suggestsithe
| Alsace-Lorraine issue which divided
! France and Germany.
Nevertheless, one cannot remain In
| Italy even for a brief time without
feeling that the bitterness toward
France is quite as general and GER
tainly more explosive than the
French animosity toward Germany
before 1914. This bitterness rests
upon a universal conviction that
| French policy and French purpose
are deliberately and consistently di-
rected at diminishing Italys place in
the world. On all sides, there is a
sense of injury. And this feeling
| finds expression not merely in the
press but in thousand popular mani
! festations.
Disagreeable Memories.
1t is true that Franco Italian rela-
| tons during the last half century
have been marked by moments of
great bitterness. The French occu,
patton of Tunis in 1881 threw Italy
into German arms, Thirty years
/ later, during the Tripolitan war, there
were series of incidents which left
| disagreeable memories. Yet. in the
| main, Italian resentment today goes
| back no further than the Paris peace
| conference. where France supported
| the Southern Slavs against the Ital-
! ians, and thus helped to insure the
| creation on the eastern shore of the
Adriatic of new Slav state, which
not only disputes italian hegemony in
the Balkans, but even challenges Ital.
| ian title to cara. Fiume and Trieste.
With this new Slav state Italy has
been unable to reach general settle
ment. For a time actual war over
| Fiume threatened, then, after period
Of quiet, conflicting purposes in AL
bania led to new tension.
This collision of interests has led
| to repetition of old. familiar and
evil Balkan history. On the one hand.
/ France is linked by treaties to all the
states of the Little Entente, Rumania,
| Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. On
| the other. Italy. having first striven to
detach Rumania from the Little En-
| tente, has ended by establishing close
bonds with Hungary and Bulgaria.
Warner Would Assn