Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [185]
Orlando and Sonnino nevertheless awaited Wilson’s arrival in Europe with considerable optimism. House encouraged them to think of the United States as a friend and, as Wilson’s representative, he allowed the armistice with Austria-Hungary to be drawn up in such a way that Italian troops would be occupying all the territory promised under the Treaty of London. He advised Sonnino on negotiating techniques. If Italy waited to present its demands until Britain and France had gained what they wanted, it would be hard for the Peace Conference to refuse. “I did this,” House confided to his diary, “in a spirit of sheer devilry. I shall enjoy being present when Sonnino and Orlando make their argument based upon the British and French claims.” The Italians were also receiving misleading advice from Baron Macchi di Cellere, their ambassador in Washington, a man with an extraordinary capacity to ignore the facts, who assured them that Wilson was sympathetic to Italy and its aims. “A good man,” Orlando admitted, “but absolutely inferior to the task and . . . the reason why we Italians went to the Conference in complete ignorance of Wilson’s real sentiments.” The American ambassador in Rome reported, “Baron Sonnino knows about America so little that it might almost be termed nothing and I do not believe that he is greatly in accord with what is our master motive.”17
Wilson was inclined to be suspicious of the Italians, who, as he saw it, had gone into the war in a spirit of “cold-blooded calculation.” One of the first things he did on arriving in Paris in December 1918 was to send for a copy of the Treaty of London. He met Sonnino and Orlando for the first time a few days before Christmas and had a long discussion of Italy’s claims in the Adriatic. The Italians thought the meeting went well. The British ambassador, who talked to Wilson the following day, had a different impression: “He is very anti-Italian. . . . He was sick to death of Orlando and Sonnino and all their ways and he particularly did not want to have any conversation with them.” With the delay in starting the Peace Conference, Wilson agreed to pay a state visit to Rome. This, sadly, only deepened the misunderstandings.18
He was received by enormous and enthusiastic crowds. “I had the impression of finding myself among real friends,” Wilson observed. He concluded, mistakenly, that the people of Italy were behind his program. “The President said,” reported his doctor, “that he felt the people of the country were primarily interested in bringing about a peace which would insure them against another war, such as they had just gone through. He felt that they had hit upon the league of nations idea as the means to the end desired.” Four months later, when his relations with the Italian government were at their worst, he was to appeal directly to the Italian people.
For his part, Orlando persisted in his optimism. “I believe in Wilson and his ideas,” he cheerfully told a friend. “I accept Wilsonianism in as much as it includes the rights and the interests of Italy.” Sonnino was more suspicious. Wilson returned the feeling; Sonnino was, he concluded, “as slippery as an eel or an Italian.” On January 13, Wilson informed Orlando that he had decided the Treaty of London was no longer valid. There the matter stood for some weeks, while the Supreme Council busied itself with the League of Nations and such difficult issues as whether the Bolsheviks should be invited to Paris.19
The Italian delegation settled in to the