(Taken from the journal “Modern Italy”, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1919.)
While the Peace Conference is assembling in Paris with the main object of ensuring a Peace of Justice for the sake of mankind, we submit to fair-minded people the following rather striking parallel between Alsace-Lorraine and Dalmatia.
The two questions are substantially alike, with an undeniable advantage on Italy's side.
From an historical point of view Alsace-Lorraine had been French for little over three centuries when she was forcibly detached from France in 1871. Dalmatia, even not considering the Roman period of her history, had been Venetian for eight centuries when she handed over to Austria by Napoleon in 1797. Alsace-Lorraine's deputies solemnly protested in 1871 against the annexation of that province to the German Empire. There were neither Dalmatian Parliament nor deputies in 1797; yet Italian-Dalmatians never ceased protesting energetically in all possible forms, from private individual action to official declarations made by Italian-Dalmatian deputies before the Parliament in Vienna.
From an ethnological point of view the French population in Alsace-Lorraine represents 2 percent of the total, according to most reliable statistics. The Italians in Dalmatia and in the archipelagos represent 12 percent of the whole, according to Austrian statistics which have been acknowledged as unreliable the world over, on account of their having been altered to Italy's disadvantage.
From a political point of view Alsace-Lorraine and Dalmatia are both typical examples of territories which have been forcibly detached from the States to which they had legitimately belonged for centuries. Therefore, as Alsace-Lorraine shall be definitely returned to France, Dalmatia should be returned to Italy, the legitimate heir of the Venetian Republic. This comparison, though schematic, is utterly eloquent, and we need nothing more to feel sure that fair-minded people will agree with our conclusions. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
“Italy's war cannot be victorious unless it closes in the Trentino, on the Venetian Alps, at Trieste and at Fiume.” — Mazzini, in 1856.
“All great military authorities, up to Napoleon himself, have held that for Italy the only strong frontier is that line which Nature herself has traced along the summits of the mountains, dividing the waters that flow into the Black Sea from those that discharge themselves into the Adriatic basin.” — Mazzini, in 1866.
