He would contend, of course, that France and Great Britain
failed to carry out their promises under the Treaty of London. Yet the United States was never a party to, and indeed highly disapproved of, that Treaty, and in accepting the Fourteen Points of President Wilson Italy by implication, and in spite Of the mumbled reservations made by Signor Orlando to Colonel House, admitted that that treaty was no longer applic- able. Under no argument which could possibly be devised can it be contended that the annexation of the South Tyrol by Italy, with its population of 231,000 pure Austrians, was in accordance with the doctrine•of self-determination. It remains to this day a mystery why President Wilson agreed to that annexation. He himself, in after years, ascribed his surrender to "insufficient study," but the fact remains that by this flagrant violation of the Fourteen Points Italy obtained a strategical frontier far more valuable than any which France was able to obtain. She had every right to claim the Trentino as far as Bolsano ; she had no right, having accepted the Fourteen Points, to acquire the Brenner Line ; and her acquisition of that alien territory represented a tremendous reward.
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