Now it is obvious that the Treaty of Rapallo has placed between the
Yugoslavs and the Italians all too many causes of friction. Zadar, like
other such enclaves, will be dear to the heart of the smuggler. She
cannot live without her Yugoslav hinterland--five miles away in
Yugoslavia are the waterworks, and if these were not included, by a
special arrangement, in her dominion, she would have no other liquid but
her maraschino. She cannot die without her Yugoslav hinterland--but so
that her inhabitants need not be carried out into a foreign land, the
cemetery has also, by stretching a point, been included in the city
boundaries. It remains to be seen how Zadar and the hinterland will
serve two masters. We have alluded to the questionable arrangements at
Rieka, in which town there had for those years been such an orgy of
limelight and recrimination that even the most statesmanlike solution
must have left a good deal of potential friction. In Istria the dangers
of an outbreak are evident. Italy has now become the absolute mistress
of the Adriatic and has gained a strategical frontier which could hardly
be improved upon, while Yugoslavia has been placed in an economic
position of much difficulty. Sooner or later, if matters are left _in
situ_, trouble will arise. Perhaps an economic treaty between Italy and
Yugoslavia, as favourable as possible to the weaker State, would
introduce some sort of stability; but no good cause would be served by
crying "Peace" where there is no peace, and while Yugoslavia has a
grievance there will be trouble in the Balkans.
The most serious phase of the Adriatic crisis is now ushered in, for a
new Alsace has been created; and those who point this out cannot be
charged with an excessive leaning towards the Yugoslavs. It also seems
to me that one can scarcely say they are alarmists. If Yugoslavia, in
defiance of that most immoral pressure, had declared for war, Vesni['c]
at the general election would have swept the country with the cry of
"War for Istria!" To his eternal honour he chose the harder path of
loyalty to the new ideas which Serbian blood has shed so freely to make
victorious. A momentary victory has now been gained by the Italians, but
not one that makes for peace. It poisons by annexations fundamentally
unjustifiable, however consecrated by treaty, the whole source of
tranquillity in the Near East. "Paciencia!" [Have patience] you say, in
refusing to give alms to a Portuguese beggar, and he follows your
advice. But when the Yugoslavs ask for a revision of the Treaty--if the
Italians do not wisely offer it themselves--it would be rash if in
attempting to foretell the future we should base ourselves upon the
premise that their patience will be everlasting. A new Alsace has been
created, an Alsace to which, in the opinion of competent observers, all
the Yugoslavs will turn until the day comes when it is honourable to set
the standards forth on a campaign of liberation.