著者

岡 俊孝

出版者

関西学院大学

雑誌

法と政治 (ISSN:02880709)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.16, no.4, pp.525-559, 1965-10-30

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At the Paris Peace Conference, the Council of Four, consisting of Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando, actually played the role of an executive council during the period of primary decision-making on the world settlement. And Wilson was regarded by the world as primus inter pares among these four leaders. In the President of the United States most people found a Messiah who had liberated the world from the Teutonic autocracy and the devastation of war, and thought that he came to Paris in 1919 to realize the very world that they had hoped for. In a word, Wilson was the central figure at the Peace Conference. Consequently, it is no wonder that most of the praise or censure on the Peace Treaties and their results has been focused on him. It is a known fact that the Italian enthusiasm and esteem for Wilson reached the zenith when he visited Rome in January 1919 and they fell off as Orlando faced difficulties on the Italian claims at the Council of Four. And it is also known that Wilson's direct appeal to the Italian nation, in April 1919,to assume a conciliatory attitude toward territorial claims abruptly turned their zeal for Wilsonian principles into fears and hatreds of this American President. Italians were greatly angered and disappointed at the results of the Conference. In a sense, their hatred for the New Order made it possible for Mussolini's Fascists to make a sudden rise and come into power in such a short time and to remain in power for the next twenty years. On what grounds and for what reasons did the Italian Government ask at the Conference for such territorial claims as were obviously incompatible with Wilson's principles, seen in retrospect? In what environment did the delegates of the United States deal with Italian claims? What were the reactions of Woodrow Wilson against these demands strenuously proposed by Orlando and Sonnino? And why? The purpose of this essay is to answer these questions, drawing on documentary materials such as Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the U.S., Documents on British Foreign Policy and Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, as well as on historical literature and biographies. The contents of this paper follow : I. Introduction. II. Historical Background-Italia Irredenta and the change of Italian foreign policy. III. From Neutrality to Intervention. IV. The London Treaty of 1915 and the Fourteen Points. V. Italian Claims and the Wilsonian Diplomacy at the Peace Conference. VI. Epilogue. The first three sections are only treated in this number. Italy claimed that her demands were based on the principle of selfdetermination of peoples and the Treaty of London as well. In order to gain a better understanding of the Italian demands on this principle, a brief retrospect of Irredentism is necessary. Section II is concerned with the relations between the Italian foreign policy and Irredentism. Since 1870 Italia Irredenta was a source of diplomatic contention. But in Italy this issue occupied the attention of the statesmen and the public on one occasion, while it was neglected or denied on another. Italian Governments from 1870 to 1914 conceivably made a cat's-paw of Irredentism according to their policies. And it was not until after World War I that Irredentism became a strong idea and sentiment of the nation. The Treaty of London was an outward expression of Italy's sacro egoismo and also the fruits of Sonnino's diplomacy. Section III briefly sketches the contents of the treaty and the nature of Sonnino's policy. It might be reasonable to conclude that his personality and statesmanship acted as a limiting factor on Italy's foreign policy after 1915 by his failure of paying attention to the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, and that his diplomacy, together with Irredentism which was flared up by the public, contained therein the seeds of the crisis at Paris in 1919. (to be continued)