Look Where It Comes Again

Last week an old man and an old issue turned up again in Italy. The man was ex-Premier Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, 84. The issue was the control of Fiume and the Istrian peninsula. The two had appeared together before in history.

At Versailles Orlando had been one of the Big Four -- with Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau. Then Wilson had stubbornly refused to grant Fiume to Italy. Orlando had failed to overcome Wilson's objection, and the resentful Italians had driven their Premier into political oblivion.

Now, all but forgotten by the world, Orlando puttered at his desk in Rome's Palazzo di Monte Citorio (Parliament building). He had been given charge of the building's maintenance and archives.

And now, like Hamlet's father's ghost, the Fiume issue had come back to walk Italy's night a certain term. It was the same old problem. But this time Istria was claimed by Marshal Tito. The ports of Trieste and Fiume and the big naval base at Pola would give Yugoslavia control of the Adriatic Sea, flanking Italy from Venice almost to Brindisi.

This time the old man could not even fight a losing battle for Fiume. His mind was in the past or troubled by the nightmare of Fascism. "The idea that Italy was mistreated at Versailles," he mumbled, "is an historic lie. . . . Actually Italy fared better at Versailles than any of the major powers. . . . Her northern boundaries extended to the Alps ... her ancient enemy [Austria] destroyed. Italy ... a first-rate power. ... We shall have to start all over again."

Well might Italians, hungry, wartorn, defeated, alarmed by Tito's claims and without even Orlando to plead their cause, ponder upon the aging symbol in the Palazzo di Monte Citorio. "Now," said one Italian bitterly, "we have only Sir Noel Charles [British member of the Allied Advisory Council] to defend us."

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