The contents of the Green Book which Signor Salandra laid
upon the table were known in outline last week, but we must take a point or two from the fuller summaries now before us. Italy complained at the beginning of the war that the Austrian invasion of Serbia came under the eventualities contemplated in Article 7 of the Triple Alliance Treaty. This Article required the consent of Italy to Austrian action in the Balkans, and provided for compensation. Count Berchtold at first refused to admit the Italian contention, but afterwards he consented to enter upon conversations. For some time even then Austria would not agree to any com- pensation, but again she yielded, apparently this time under German pressure. Signor Sonnino next insisted that terri- torial compensation should be granted to Italy directly an agreement had been reached, and not after the war. Austria refused to give way in this matter, and Signor Sonnino, for the sake of continuing the negotiations, provisionally accepted the German guarantee that the concessions should really be made at the end of the war. Concrete proposals were then made by both Austria and Italy, but the divergence between them was so hopelessly wide that there was evidently not the least chance of a settlement. When Signor Sonnino had arrived at this conclusion the Triple Alliance Treaty was formally denounced on May 4th. Alter that war was virtually inevitable.
Previous page
