a subject about which he knew very little, as I discovered in the course of several conversations with him. Then, too, he was strongly influenced by the theories of the extreme Italian nationalists during 1915 and 1916. He, as well as the rest of the Allies, regarded the London Agreement as denoting the preservation of an Austria-Hungary reduced by the territories ceded to Italy, the establishment of a Greater Serbia with the Croats and Slovenes, the preservation of Montenegro, and later, after the entry of Rumania into the war, the incorporation of Transylvania and Bukovina with Rumania. He therefore consistently pursued a policy favouring the fulfilment of the London Agreement and opposed to the unification of the Jugoslavs. This accounts for his reserve upon all schemes involving the complete break-up of the Habsburg Empire. It explains why, in spite of his sincere good will towards us, he would never utter his final word on the subject of our cause, at least not until October 24, 1918, when he acknowledged our provisional Government.
In this respect his constant opponent in Orlando’s Cabinet was Leonido Bissolati. Together with his immediate followers (Salvemini, Antonio da Viti de Marco, and others), Bissolati was perhaps the only man in Italy who, at the beginning of the war, realized with anything like clarity the significance of the war for Central Europe. As a Socialist he proceeded from democratic principles, identifying himself with the ideals which Mazzini had entertained with regard to the oppressed nations of Central Europe. He was in favour of Italian intervention on behalf of European democracy, as well as on behalf of the unification of the Italian people. He was therefore in favour of a peace based upon permanent factors. Bissolati was one of those few politicians and thinkers in Europe and America who, from the beginning of the war, in varying degrees, correctly gauged the scope of the ideas behind it. For this reason Bissolati was in favour of an agreement between Italy and the Serbs, as well as all the oppressed nations of Austria-Hungary, whom he always unreservedly supported in their endeavours during the war. In his opinion an agreement between Italy and the Serbs would have made it possible to conclude the war against the Habsburg Empire rapidly and victoriously. Such an agreement would also have ensured a long period of peace for Italy and Central Europe in the years immediately following the war.
