The Italian representative at Geneva, Signor Salandra, denied the competence
of the League on the ground that General Tellini was technically a servant of the Ambassadors' Con- ference in Paris, and that the latter body had already been seized of the dispute. In spite of the fact that Lord Cecil caused Articles to, 12 and 15 of the Covenant to be read aloud to the Council, they were in the end obliged to admit the intervention of the Conference of Ambassadors, and a " diplomatic " solution by which, without a shred of justification, Greece was forced to pay an indemnity of half a million pounds. It may have been true that General Tellini was in the employment of the Ambassadors Conference at the time of his murder ; it may have been true that the Greek Govemnient had confused the issue by appealing concurrently both to the League and to the Conference ; but the fact that Italy had bombarded and occupied a Greek island was assuredly a violation of Articles so and 12, and an invasion of Article 15 ; and the imposition upon Greece of a penalty for a crime which was never proved against her was an act of injustice to which the Powers should never have consented. The Corfu incident is instructive since it showed that the League. although then at the summit of its authority, could be deterred by governmental intervention from dealing firmly with another Power which, although weak at the time, was theoretically one of the Big Five.
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