(b) My First Journey To Rome. Negotiations in Rome and their Consequences
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The Allied Note to President Wilson proclaimed a life-and-death struggle against Austria-Hungary. Of the greater Allies, Italy was more interested than any other in this question. In referring definitely to us, the note also emphasized the significance of our cause. I judged that under these new circumstances it would be all the easier in Italy to establish a satisfactory basis or organizing our political work, especially in connection with the prisoners of war. My idea was first to organize a political and propagandist bureau at Rome, and to connect it with our organization as a branch office of the National Council at Paris. It was further my intention, as a representative of the National Council, to enter into direct personal touch at Rome with those journalistic circles who were prejudiced against us because of their objection to the Jugoslavs, and I wanted to win over to our cause some influential persons in public life. It was also my aim to try to establish official contact with persons in the Government, to tell them about our military and political work in France and Russia, and to obtain for the National Council, as our official body, something like the position which we had secured in Paris.
With these purposes in view, for the first time in my life, I arrived in Rome on January 12, 1917. At one of the stations before Rome I bought the morning papers. The sensation of the day was the publication of the Allied Note to President Wilson. My arrival in Rome on this occasion was one of the incidents in the war which caused me a deep and lasting gratification.
But a journey to Rome just at this moment involved also serious risks, as far as our cause was concerned. The dispute on the subject of the Jugoslavs had just become acute, and the negotiations with regard to the wording of the Allied Note to Wilson had served only to intensify this dispute. The problem of the London Agreement was one of the topics of the day, the Press was full of articles against the Jugoslavs, demonstrating the Italian character of Dalmatia, the
