them. Commandini agreed with my plans and views, and he promised me that he would do everything that was possible in Italy under the existing conditions. He and his ministry kept this promise, and in the course of the year 1917 helped us considerably.
Before approaching the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I visited the Russian and French Embassies. Both Giers and Barrère, as well as all their staffs, received me in a favourable manner. I have the most pleasant memories of these negotiations, more particularly since at that time I was a beginner in diplomatic matters, and at Rome I entered more fully than at Paris into what was then a new world to me.
I was received by Giers, the Russian Ambassador, on January 18th. I explained to him my ideas and also my plans of action in Italy. He recommended me to be cautious with the Italians, but otherwise he spoke of Italy in sympathetic terms, and agreed with my moderate tactics. With regard to the Jugoslavs, he criticized the radical tendencies of their policy. His view of the situation, as he communicated it to me, was as follows: the Italians went too far on the subject of the Jugoslavs, and they were wrong about Dalmatia. The advance of history, he said, could not be held back. Both the Jugoslavs and ourselves would win the day, Austria would collapse, and Russia would fight until the end.
He then promised me all possible assistance in Rome, referred in terms of commendation to Štefánik, who had visited him during his stay there, and he spoke of us and our aims with sympathy. He was sincere and straightforward. He had recently returned from Russia, and was quite well acquainted with the progress of our movement at Petrograd, Moscow, and Kiev. He told me frankly that the conditions prevailing among our people did not impress him favourably. There was a great deal of dissension among them, and the political movement contained elements whose integrity was dubious. Above all, there was not a single political personage who could exercise the necessary authority. I informed him that Masaryk was already making preparations to proceed to Petrograd, and this gave him real satisfaction.
I spent the following days discussing matters with Charles Loiseau, the French journalist, who was attached in an undefined manner to the French Embassy. He was concerned with ecclesiastical affairs, and was in close touch with Vatican
