T

HE Adriatic, the apple of discord between Austria and Italy, kept those two neighbors established on its shores under very different conditions, in a state of secret hostility. A fringe of islands filled with concealed places and fortified points protects the Austrian littoral. On the contrary, the Italian coast, quite straight, without islands or shelters, possesses, outside the secondary base of Brindisi, but two maritime arsenals-Venice in the north, Tarento in the south, separated by eight hundred kilometers. The other Adriatic ports are rated by the Italians themselves as excellent stations for the "summer cure of sea bathing."

This strategical situation so disturbing has been the object of minute studies. Technical commissions have proposed to organize Ancona, Ravenna, Manfredonia, Brindisi. On several occasions the chief of staff of the army and navy have inspected the fortifications of the coasts; they prepared the list of those to preserve and modernize, of those to reinforce by other works. In 1908 the regretted Admiral Bettolo cruised for a long time in the Adriatic, stopping especially at Venice and Brindisi, where he caused the necessary works to be undertaken in order to expedite the provisioning of the naval forces. As to the new creations, the Government recoiled in face of the expense to be incurred and the facility which Austria would have in ruining these ports, especially Ancona, a simple enterprise on the sea, like Libau in Russia, Dakar in Africa.

The Italian Navy is endeavoring to redeem what geography refuses it, by its modern fleet, by the number of its fighting ships, by their speed and the power of their heavy artillery.

Since the affair of Lissa (1866), Austria has fortified her littoral, whose intricacies and

tortuous channels favor stealthy pursuit and permit the enterprises of the adversary to be baffled without risk. Her battleships used to promenade the Emperor's flag without ever meeting any Italian warship. So well that the idea of the division of naval influence which was floating in the air vanished, and the Austrians ended by designating the Adriatic under the significant name of mare nostrum.

Italy fought this pretension, even before the war, in spite of the deliberately optimistic attitude of the governments, and discovered, at a great distance, the reality. Witness the incidents created by Marconi, by the poet d'Annunzio, and by the General Asinari di Bernezzo. D'Annunzio, the most spirited of all, called the "very bitter Adriatic" "that sick left lung which belongs to us and which makes the present Italy perpetually weak."

With the Austro-Italians settled on her shore and an invincible force of inertia to the even justifiable requests of Italy, Austria parried and thrust.

There existed then a peculiar neutrality on the two sides of the Adriatic. Behind the pretended optimism already named the two allies were making parallel preparations in order to obtain by main strength, when the occasion arose, the pre-eminence on the sea which separates them; which did not prevent the engineers of Pola from going to study the forms of the keels and screws of their warships in the experimental dock of the Italian arsenal of Spezzia.

If Italy, a Mediterranean nation par excellence, by opportune agreements has crystallized her situation in the Mediterranean, she has not been able to do the same in the Adriatic, because of the ill will of the Germans who aimed at an outlet towards the south through the possession of Trieste.

The Adriatic must be German or Italian. Now, this sea becoming Germanic would be equivalent to the placing of Italy under the guardianship of the "empires of prey." Herr Ballin, the director of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, wrote this characteristic statement: "The German fleet cannot arrive at the real sea; it must be satisfied with a piece of the North Sea, a simple 'anchored triangle' between Heligoland and the Germanic littoral, easy to blockade. This blockade would not take place if we possessed for our ships a base worthy of their value, worthy of the courage of our officers and our sailors. Let us seek a supporting point outside the North Sea."

.

on the Adriatic, the coast was inhabited by Slavs and Albanians. The Venetians implanted the Italian language in the ports and the Slavs who had just enlisted at Venice as soldiers or sailors contributed to the expansion of the Italian language and customs. Along the littoral, at the time of its splendor, the Republic of the Doges possessed: Istria, the Dalmatian Isles, a part of the Dalmatian and Albanian coast, the Ionian Isles (Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante), the Cyclades with Lemnos, Mitylene, and, in the south, Cyprus, Rhodes, Karpathos.

This point is an Adriatic port, whence the German battleships would take the AngloFrench naval forces with a back. stroke. It is therefore towards the south that the Germans turn their hopes. An aspiration quite modern, of which no mention was made in the past. When Venice established her pre-eminence

Since our days the Adriatic was an AustroItalian condominium, in which Italy played but a secondary role. To change that condition of affairs constituted for Italy a strict duty, at the moment when a new Europe is emerging from the crucible. This idea became an obsession in Rome and it was the refusal of the Government to come to an agreement on the subject of the Adriatic, which is said

to have brought about the resounding check administered to Prince Bulow, following long bargainings.

For thirty years the treaty of the Triple Alliance has delayed the final clash of the rival allies, but their relations were always strained. In 1908 Admiral Chiari questioned the president of the Austrian Naval League: "What is the suitable attitude to take towards the Italian Naval League, which recently feted d'Annunzio in Venice, while wishing the incorporation of Dalmatia and Istria with Italy?"

"The League is not in politics," the president replied; "besides, the origin and the aim of the manifestation of Venice are not serious."

It is certain that the Adriatic might be called the "Sea of Annunzio." The great poet has unwearyingly extolled the pre-eminence of Italy in these waters, and recently he flew over Trieste, scattering in handfuls over the city proclamations full of hope.

The Cabinet of Rome, which has not yet officially declared its programme of claims, will soon divulge it, if it adopts the advice of the first Lord of the British Admiralty: "The succession of the Hapsburg monarchy is virtually open." It is known, nevertheless, that Italy, whose Adriatic situation must be strongly ameliorated, has no pretension to the entire possession of the Austrian coast, which includes:

1st. Istria, forming the northern spur, with Trieste, Pola and Fiume.

2nd. The coast of Croatia, from Fiume to Zara.

3rd. The Dalmatian littoral, from Zara to the Montenegrin frontier.

4th. The Dalmatian archipelago, considered as representing the true strategical problem, the coast having but a relative value, in what concerns the pre-eminence on the "very bitter" Adriatic.

An official programme demands Istria and Fiume, with the isles of the Gulf of Duarnero and those of Dalmatia, which command at the same time the solid coast and the middle Adriatic. This equitable solution, added to the possession of Vallona, would consecrate the

definitive supremacy of Italy by restoring to her her "left lung."

In a position to achieve its unification, Italy at first was afraid that the Serbians might be granted too large an access to the Adriatic. She admits this access, refused to this brave little people after the first Balkan War; but she could not tolerate the united southern Slavs to come and steal her naval situation. An outlet, but no preponderance. If Austria disappeared after the war, Italy does not admit that the Adriatic should fall into the hands of the Slavs and she has discussed this great question with Serbia, "the customer of Russia and advance-guard of the Slav world."

In London and Paris committees of YougoSlav emigrants, without mandate but very active, comprising representatives of the Slavs of Dalmatia, of Istria, of Croatia, of Bosnia, etc., presented (1915) to M. M. Delcassé, Isvokky and to Sir Edward Grey a "kolossal" memorial on the aspirations of the southern Slavs. This document unveiled a pan-Germanist appetite; the Slavs demanded the coast and the islands, with the internal frontier as far as Udine. Since then, Mr. Pachitch, the eminent Serbian statesman, visiting the capitals of the Entente, has brought matters to the point and dotted the i's:

"All the Allies recognize the necessity of opening an outlet on the Adriatic to the Serbians. Serbia does not pretent to play the rôle of a naval power, nor to possess a war fleet. She willingly recognizes in Italy the mastery of the Adriatic Sea."

Thus, the Italo-Serbian agreement is complete. On October 30, 1914, the Italians took guarantees by occupying the island of Saseno, an important strategical position for which Greece and Italy had been contending since 1913.

Two months later, following some troubles and on the request of the Italian consul, a detachment of marines landed at Vallona, the "key of the Adriatic," which commands the canal of Otranto, and of which the Consulta had logically to get possession, for several reasons to prevent any other from landing there, to get a footing in the Balkan peninsula and transform this magnificent roadstead into

a base of supplies. The occupation is definitive. Without delay, the Italiano organized the lighting of the streets; they created the police and constabulary; a captain in the Customs service, sent from Tanento, installed the customs; the engineers dug trenches and on the neighboring hills constructed defence works; finally, the engineers sketched roads to run from Vallona towards the interior.

The canal of Otranto is the object of a particular surveillance. In the first days of August, 1914, a French naval army blockaded the Adriatic, in order to "bottle up" the Austrian war fleet and to prevent the provisioning of the adversaries from the south. An ungrateful and painful task. Manoeuvring incessantly among the submarines and the floating or drifting mines, the ships performed a most absorbing watch. Our trawlers, mine. sweepers, submarines, torpedo boats continually kept the sea, tossed by the short and hard waves, covered with spray, especially when the "bora" (north wind) swept like a tempest down that long Adriatic passage.

It was an indispensable service, but extremely monotonous; agonizing, enervating, filled with troubles and preoccupations. Our brave personnel supported this terrible trial with serenity, which is indefinitely repeated, always the same. Through the black night and the icy wind the squadron, with all lights extinct, navigated in file line, escorted by the flotilla boats. Responsible, the officer of the watch knew that a second of inattention might cost the lives of thousands of men and deprive the squadron of a powerful unit. He pierces the darkness with his glass, ready to alarm the gunners of the sector attacked and the direction of the aim and its distance estimated by the eye. The guns loaded, the gunners at the breach open their eyes wide in order to discover some rumbling in the night, and the attendants, lying around flat on the gun deck, presently jump to execute quickly the "rapid firing."

Suddenly the officer perceives a whitish light, perhaps the track of a torpedo or of a periscope: "Alert, in such a sector!" The projectors unmask their luminous faces and the sea is swept with electric lights.

It is foam! "Lights out!" Each one resumes the attentive and silent watch.

A task so much the more harassing as the circle of surveillance became larger. The enemy submarines, which at first made their evolutions in proximity to the entrance to the Gulf of Cattaro, their base, became emboldened and crossed the canal of Otranto, where one of them torpedoed the armored cruiser Léon Gambetta.

Finally, the ships run much more risk in the Adriatic than in the North Sea, where the English maintain the blockade and make raids with cruisers, whilst the battleships anchored in the north await results. In the Adriatic, Malta (650 kilometres from the Canal of Otranto) is, for the French, the nearest base, and, as we need little cruisers, our battleships, cutters and fatigue ships at call, operate the watch, the scouting, the blockade.

Italy's entrance into the war against Austria tightened the blockade of the Adriatic, allowed more latitude to the French Naval Army and gave a serious "turn of the screw" to the provisioning by land and by sea of the "empires of prey." During the neutrality of Italy, an enormous traffic took place via Gothard and Simplon, natural routes for contraband.

The loaded wagons crossed Switzerland without being stopped. By other ways, copper, cotton, iron, and other prohibited substances, passed from Milan to Naples; from Naples they reconsigned them to Venice. Should the cargo-boat encounter an Allied ship on the route? It presented papers perfectly regular and unloaded its cargo at Trieste, in place of Venice. The trick was turned.

On July 6, 1914, the Italian Government decreed the absolute blockade of the Adriatic for all flags, prohibiting merchant navigation north of the line Otranto-Aspri Ruga.

The Italian fleet, at this post of honor, displays extreme vigilance, so much the more. as the Austrian squadrons have only 185 kilometres to travel (in the sense of length) to reach the opposite coast. In addition, the Italians cannot dislodge the Austrians from their hiding places in the Dalmatian Archipelago without running enormous risks (mines, torpedo boats and submarines).