1919 Парис буюу дэлхийг өөрчилсан 6 сар 1-р хэсэг

January, Wickham Steed reported that Wilson had had “a stormy interview” with Sonnino, “who seems to have lost his temper and to have gone to the length of telling Wilson not to meddle in European affairs but to stick to his American last.”655 Among the Europeans, the Italians got on best with the British. Orlando admired Lloyd George: “His Celtic blood made him like us Mediterraneans in cleverness.” And there was little to divide their two countries. That was not the case with France. Italy owed its unification to France, but there was a feeling that France had exacted a high price when it took Nice and Savoy. Both countries aspired to be Mediterranean powers, and before the war they had clashed over Tunisia and Morocco. Italy had joined the Triple Alliance partly to find allies against France. As for those measurements which so preoccupied the world’s statesmen, Italy lagged behind France in steel, coal and population production.

“Throughout the whole of my negotiations with the Italians,” Lloyd George recalled, “I found that their foreign policy was largely influenced by a compound mixture of jealousy, rivalry, resentment, but more particularly, fear of France.”656 For France it was not so much a matter of fear (although there was some concern over the Italian birthrate) but of condescension tinged with contempt.

In December 1918, after the Allied meetings in London, Orlando and Sonnino had traveled to Paris with Clemenceau. “We did not see them a single time in the course of the long journey,” reported Clemenceau’s aide, “and, at the Gare du Nord, they disappeared without taking leave of M. Clemenceau, who was not only quite astonished but even quite offended.” Clemenceau had a grudging respect for Sonnino but little use for Orlando: “all things to all men, very Italian.”657 The collapse of Austria-Hungary opened up fresh areas for rivalry as France and Italy competed for influence in the center of Europe. In the Adriatic, France was torn between befriending Yugoslavia and keeping on reasonable terms with Italy. “I am so bored with Adriatic matters,” wrote a French diplomat. “All the same we shouldn’t abandon the Yugoslavs. They are as unreasonable as these others, but they are weak. How stupid they