that the other Allies were not anxious to fulfil this promise. British troops had occupied various points in northern and N.W. Asia Minor, and on March 29 a landing party from the Italian fleet occupied Adalia. When, after President Wilson's famous message, the Italian delegation left the Conference, in April 1919, the British, French-and U.S. representatives reconsidered the whole question of Asia Minor, and while Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau hesitated to tear up the St. Jean de Maurienne agreement altogether, President Wilson forced the hands of his colleagues into deciding to send the Greeks to Smyrna under the belief that a massacre of Christians was imminent. Immediately after the Greek landing at Smyrna (May 15), Italian troops landed at Scala Nuova and other points in S.W. Anatolia; the Meander valley was to divide the Italian from the Greek zone of military occupation, but the exact delimitation was not yet denned and gave rise to various incidents. On the 24th an Italian battalion was sent to Konia. All Allied troops in Asia Minor, including Italians a.nd Greeks, were under the orders of Gen. Milne, commanding the British forces at Constantinople (Army of the Black Sea) . Other Italian forces were in the East. The Macedonian expeditionary force garrisoned Bulgaria until July 1919, while three battah'ons formed part of the Allied garrison in European Turkey. Italian policy in the East was dominated by the feeling that it was unwise to exasperate the Turks too much, and that peace could only be secured by a more conciliatory attitude, even towards the Nationalist movement organized by Mustafa Kemal Pasha in Asia Minor. At the same time Sig. Tittoni tried to conciliate Greece, and in July he concluded an agreement with M. Venizelos for the delimitation of the respective military zones in Asia Minor and providing that the Greeks should have a free hand in S. Albania. The agreement afterwards was rescinded and most of its clauses modified, but the provisions concerning Albania had an unfortunate reaction on Italo-Albanian relations. In the meanwhile Italian banks and business men showed considerable enterprise in the Near East; the steamers of the ex- Austrian Lloyd and other lines obtained practically the monopoly of the passenger traffic and a large share in the goods traffic between Europe and Constanti- nople and the Black Sea ports. The scheme to send an Italian expedition to the Caucasus, which had been suggested at the Peace Conference and practically accepted by Sig. Orlando, was abandoned when Sig. Nitti came into power. Various Italian commercial undertakings were, however, started in Transcaucasia, including the Italo-Caucasian bank at Tiflis and a concession for developing the coal-mines of Ochemchiri.
The Adriatic negotiations dragged on without reaching a conclusion. Fresh trouble broke out at Fiume, where the antag- onism of the soldiers attached to the French base xioand"' ( mostl y colonials) to the Italian inhabitants, and their Flume. open support of the Croat element, provoked reprisals and some French soldiers and Annamites were killed and several wounded (July 2 and 5). In consequence of these in- cidents the Peace Conference appointed a Commission of Inquiry, on which Gen. Di Robilant was the Italian representative. It advised the dissolution of the Fiume National Council, elections to be held under an Inter-Allied Commission, the disbanding of the Fiume volunteers, a considerable reduction of the Italian forces in the town, and the importation of British or U.S. police. These latter steps were in course of being taken, when D'An- nunzio suddenly arrived (Sept. 12) from Ronchi, at the head of some Italian troops whom he had induced to follow him to Fiume in order to save it for Italy. Most of the Italian troops in Fiume and the crews of the warships in the port joined htm also, and he became master of the town. The Allied troops then left. The effect of D'Annunzio's enterprise throughout Italy was aston- ishing. The premier stigmatized it in violent terms, established a blockade round the place, and practically appealed to the Social- ists to back him up against D'Annunzio. But a large section of public opinion supported the latter. Volunteers from all parts of the country flocked to his standard, including Gen. Ceccherini, one of the bravest men in the army, and a number of other offi- cers of the army and navy, Prof. Pantaleoni, many young men of
the highest character as well as not a few adventurers. D'An- nunzio's adventure became, in the eyes of a large section of public opinion, the symbol of Italian patriotism and idealism. But it placed Italy in an awkward international situation and intensified the suspicions of foreign Governments. The Yugoslavs made no move, but although D'Annunzio informed them that they were free to use the port of Fiume for their trade, they refused to do so.
Riots against the ever-increasing high cost of living broke out in Italy in the summer. Though it was chiefly due to the inflated paper currency, high freights, scarcity of goods and the perpetual strikes, and only in a lesser degree to the greed and speculation of the shopkeepers and merchants, the populace attributed it wholly to the last-named cause. Troubles began at Forli on June 30, but were more serious in Florence on July 3, in Turin, Alessandria, Milan, Pisa, Genoa and Bari. Shops and markets were pillaged, much property destroyed, including precious food-stuffs; and agents of the Camere del Lavoro (organizations for promoting strikes and riots, camouflaged as labour exchanges) requisitioned food in the shops, warehouses and country estates, paying for then at rates below the market price. Calmieri (minimum prices) were imposed locally, at 40% or 50% of the previous price with the only result that the opportunity was taken for resellin at a large profit. The Government did nothing to stop thes outbreaks, and the Socialist leaders concluded that the time ripe for revolution. An international strike of protest again the hostile attitude of the bourgeois Governments towards the Soviets of Russia and Hungary was announced for July 20 i 21. Sig. D'Aragona, secretary of the G.C.L., tried to organ the movement, but the Labour parties of Britain and France whose Governments still kept troops in Russia to fight tt Bolshevists, refused to agree. In Italy, whose troops had bee withdrawn from Russia, the working-classes seemed prepared to join, but a reaction was already at work among the masses ; well as the bourgeoisie itself. The reign of terror which tt Socialists had been trying to establish all over Italy was fir countered by the Association of Combatants (ex-soldiers); citizens' committees were formed, and afterwards the fasci combattimenlo, societies of energetic young men of all parties an classes who had fought in the war and organized themselves fo patriotic objects and the maintenance of order. The result wa that the Labour protest of July 20-21 was a failure. Work- suspended in most of the factories of N. Italy, and the tramway- men in certain towns took a holiday, but the railwaymen worke as usual, and in many towns of the N. there was no strike and the whole of the S. was unaffected. There was no revolutio and no rioting to speak of. This fiasco was due to the action < the bourgeoisie itself far more than to any official precautions.
After the July manifestation there were other strikes an riots in various parts of Italy, but not of a general or alarming character. Disorders at Trieste on Aug. 3 ended in a patriot demonstration in which the offices of the Bolshevist orga II Lavoratore were wrecked. There was also an agricultur strike for an eight-hour day affecting 80,000 persons in the districts of Novara, Vercelli, Pavia and the Lomellina. Th Government as usual hardly took any action at all. Apparently Sig. Nitti's theory of the general state of disorder was that was a form of madness consequent on the war, and that the only thing to be done was to let it work itself out.
Throughout all the strikes and disorders the troops and polk behaved admirably. Sig. Nitti deserved credit in this connexio by his reorganization of the police; he increased the number < the excellent carabinieri to 60,000, and while abolishing tl unsatisfactory Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza, he created tl A genii investigativi of plain-clothes detectives (Aug. 14), and the corps of Guardie Regie under the orders of the Ministry of the Interior, comprising cavalry and machine-gun detachments (Oct. 2); the number of the latter was gradually brought up to 25,000. The premier's policy towards the army, on the other hand, was open to serious criticism. While huge increases of wages were being granted to civilian labour, the pay of military officers, even of high rank, was left miserably low; and when
