Fiume Annexed

The Ceremony. "It was roses, roses all the way." With thousands of cheering people blackening the windows and house-hops, stately cuirassiers of the Royal Guard on prancing horses curvetting beneath triumphal arches, bands blaring the Marcia Reale, His Majesty King Vittorio Emanuele III, King of Italy, last week entered his loyal City of Fiume. The cannon roared the salute of 21 guns as the King, accompanied by Admiral Thaon de Revel, Minister of Marine, and General of Police de Bono, rode over streets paved with flowers, to the City Hall, where Dr. Grossich, Provincial Governor, made the address of welcome. After four turbulent years Fiume was annexed to Italy.

Merit Rewarded. That Fiume is now Italian soil is due to Gabriele d'Annunzio, poet, airman, filibuster, whose expedition in 1919 seized the little city at the head of the Adriatic and held it against all comers until driven out by Italian bayonets in 1920.

D'Annunzio was therefore rewarded by the King whom he defied for the sake of Italy Unredeemed. The poet who defied Woodrow Wilson, the Supreme Council, the Slavs and finally his own Government, in order to arouse Italian sentiment, was made last week by Royal Decree, the Prince of Montenevoso (Snowy Mountain).

To Benito Mussolini, whose diplomatic tenacity consolidated by Treaty from the Yugo-Slavs what the sword and pen of the swashbuckling poet had made the great national ambitioin of the Italians, went the Order of the Annunziata, the highest honor that can be given by the Italian Crown. There are only seven in the order; the recipient is entitled to sit in the Royal presence and to .call the Sovereign "Cousin."