Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Paris Peace Conference: Proceedings, Volume III

CFM Files

Verbatim Record

August 10, 1946, 4 p.m.

C.P.(Plen) 11

President: M. Georges Bidault

The President—(Interpretation) I would ask the Secretary-General to introduce the Italian Delegation.

(M. Fouques Duparc, Secretary-General, guided the Italian Delegation to their places in the Senate Chamber.)

The President (Interpretation)—The Paris Conference extends a welcome this afternoon to the representatives of the new Italy and asks them to state quite freely their views on the Peace Treaty affecting them.

I call on M. de Gasperi, the leader of the Italian Delegation.

M. de Gasperi (Italy) (Interpretation).—In starting to speak before this world assembly, I feel that everything—except your personal courtesy—is against me: above all, my indictment as a former enemy which places me here as it were, in the dock, and the fact that I am summoned here after the most prominent among you have after laborious debates already drawn up their conclusions.

Will I not appear to you narrow and quarrelsome and sound like the mere voice of selfish nationalism and one-sided interests?

Gentlemen, I must, of course, speak as an Italian, because it is my duty to defend the life of my people, but I also feel the responsibility, and have the right to speak as an anti-fascist and a democrat. I lift my voice as the representative of a new republic which blends the humanity Guiseppe Mazzini’s vision, with the universal aims of Christianity and the international hopes of the working class, a republic striving toward that lasting and constructive peace which you, Gentlemen, are also seeking, and towards that co-operation between nations which it is your task to establish.

Allow me, Gentlemen, to say with that frankness that our mutual responsibilities impose on us all in this historic hour, that this treaty is a hard treaty indeed. Yet if it were truly a constructive instrument of international co-operation, the sacrifice which my country is called upon to make might find its compensation. Were Italy, even in sack cloth, now asked to enter under the patronage of the Big Four the portals of the United Nations, truly united in the determination to discard force according to the principles of the sovereign equality of all members proclaimed in the San Francisco Charter; were they one and all truly pledged mutually to guarantee their territorial integrity and political independence, then all this might open up a vision not lacking in hope and comfort. In that case Italy would have suffered her penalty for her Fascist past and then, the past atoned for, all of us could meet as equals breathing the new air of international fellowship and co-operation.

Can all of this be hoped for? Obviously it is in your intention. But the text of the treaty speaks a different language.

It is extremely distasteful to have to mention weapons and instruments of war at a Peace Conference. I must point out, however, that the precautions laid down in the Treaty against the recurrence of an Italian threat go so far beyond their scope as to jeopardise the defence of our very independence. Never, never before, in our modern history have the doors of our home been so hopelessly thrown open, never was our possibility of protecting ourselves so limited. This applies to our Eastern Frontier as well as to certain changes in our Western frontier, which hardly appear dictated by a belief in collective security. Nor are we this time comforted by the hopes that were raised at Versailles when the disarmament of the vanquished was intended merely as a forerunner of a general disarmament.

However, it is the spirit rather than the text of the Treaty which disheartens us. We come up against this spirit at the very outset, in the words of the Preamble.

The very first “whereas” refers to the war of aggression and can be found in identical terms in all the Treaty drafts concerning the so-called ex-satellites of the Axis. But under the second “whereas” you will find in our treaty a slur that you would seek in vain in the other treaties. It reads as follows:

“Whereas under the pressure of military events the Fascist regime in Italy was overthrown”

No one will question the fact that the overthrow of the Fascist regime was made possible by military events, but it is equally true that the uprising would not have been as deep and far-reaching, had it not been preceded by a long conspiracy on the part of patriots who, at home and abroad, prepared the event at the cost of unmeasured sacrifices; had it not been rehearsed with the organized political strikes in the industries of Northern Italy; had it not been prepared by the underground action of former prominent members of pre-Fascist parliamentary life (we have with us here one of the most active) who urged and brought on the coup d’etat.

May I recall to your memory the words of the Potsdam declaration of August 2, 1945? It says as follows:

“Italy was the first of the Axis Powers to break with Germany, to whose defeat she has made a material contribution, and has now joined with the Allies in the struggle against Japan.

“Italy has freed herself from the Fascist regime and is making good progress toward the re-establishment of a democratic government and institutions.”

Such were the words spoken at Potsdam. What has happened since? Are we to believe that an Italian Government freely elected by the people through the Constituent Assembly of the Republic deserves less than the one in power at that time?Why does the preamble of the Treaty now eliminate the Italian people from the historic scene in which they played their prominent role?

The same question arises when one reads the reticent and niggardly definition of Italy co-belligerency. It says: “Some Italian armed forces took an active part in the war against Germany”. Some forces. Why not say the Italian armed forces? Did not the entire Italian Navy join the Allies? Did not hundreds of thousands of Italian service troops co-operate? Nor can we forget the Italian Liberation Corps transformed later into Combat Divisions. And, last but not least, the partisans who fought and finally carried out the insurrection in the North.

The losses in the resistance against the Germans amounted to over 100.000 men between fallen and missing, without counting the soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in German concentration camps; and the tens of thousands of partisans and civilians who died by German hand.

For 18 months this second Italian war was carried on while the Germans slowly withdrew north, looting and destroying what the airraids had not already laid waste.

The sudden downfall of fascism showed how true were Churchill’s words that “one man, and one man alone” was responsible for this war, and how prophetic was the foresight of the American War Secretary, Mr. Stimson, when he said that “Italy’s surrender was a challenge to the Germans which would cause her people unavoidable suffering.”

But it is obvious that, like the preface of any book, this Preamble was written after the main text. The meaning and extent of the Italian people’s participation in the war had to be toned down in order that the Preamble might somehow fit the articles which follow it.

Of the 78 articles that comprise the Treaty, the major part proceeds from the first “whereas”, or, in other words, from the fascist war and the surrender; not one article recalls Italy’s war effort as a co-belligerent. Possibly it is assumed that in this regard Italy is sufficiently rewarded by the promise of admittance to the United Nations. But this reward is guaranteed also to countries which followed Italy’s example only much later.

The punitive character of the Treaty is likewise evident in its territorial clauses.

I will not deny, of course, that the solution of the problem of Trieste entails difficulties not easy to overcome.

However, this problem was vitiated from the start by the persistence of war psychology, by a continuous reference to an assumed right of the first occupant, and by the lack of a spirit of truce between the two parties most directly concerned.

On September 18, 1945, you will recall you called me to London. At that time, in order to satisfy Yugoslav ethnical claims, I proposed to you to relinquish the natural frontier of the Alps and fall back on the line which President Wilson had traced when, on April 23, 1919, at the Peace Conference in Paris he bid for “a just and equitable decision which could not draw an everlasting distinction between victors and vanquished”.⁷¹

I suggested moreover that the economic problem of Venezia Giulia should be solved by internationalising the port of Trieste and by setting up a form of collaboration with the port of Fiume and with the Danube-Sava-Adriatic railway system.

It was of course understood that the treatment of minorities should be based on parity and reciprocity and that Fiume should be returned to the status granted at Rapallo, and that the character of Zara should be safeguarded.

It was on the following day that you, Foreign Ministers of the Big Powers, decided to seek an ethnic line which should leave a minimum of inhabitants under alien rule. To this end you appointed a committee of experts. This committee worked in Venezia Giulia for 28 days. The results of its survey were such that I myself, when called to Paris on May 3, 1946, to give my opinion, approved, with certain reservations, its general conclusion.⁷² But the Yugoslav delegates insisted, with arguments still based on the idea of punishment for total possession of Venezia Giulia and particularly of Trieste. There then began a strenuous search for a compromise, and when I left Paris a rumour was current that the English and Americans, abandoning their respective lines, were falling back on the French one.

This French line was in truth no longer an ethnic line in the sense set down in the London decisions but a line of political expediency. It left 180,000 Italians in Yugoslavia and 59,000 Slavs in Italian territory. Above all it excluded from Italy, Pola and other minor towns along the Western coast of Istria and implied therefore for us an unbearable loss. But, however unacceptable, it was still a frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia and did assign Trieste to Italy. How did it happen that on July 3rd, somewhere on the road of compromise, the Council of Four reversed the London decision and made the French line no longer a frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia, but the frontier of a so-called “Free Territory of Trieste”? This reversal came to us as a bitter surprise and gave rise in Italy to a most profound reaction.

No indication, no gesture on our part could have authorised the sponsors of this solution, which maims our national unity and bites into our very flesh, to believe that we could accept responsibility for it. On June 30th, as soon as I got word of such a threat, I wired the Foreign Ministers a pressing plea to be heard on the matter, and, while assuring them of my firm desire to help their peace efforts, I warned them against expedients which would only be the source of new conflicts. The international solution for Trieste as I planned, I stated in that message, could not be accepted especially because of the exclusion of Western Istria down to Pola which would inflict an unbearable wound on the Italian national conscience.⁷³

My plea found no answer. It was relegated to the archives.

To-day I can do nothing more but renew it, adding certain considerations which are of interest not only to my country, but to you all who are anxious for world peace.

The Free Territory of Trieste as described in the draft would cover 783 square kilometers with 334.000 inhabitants, ¾ of whom would be concentrated in the city. The population would comprise, according to the 1921 census, 226.000 Italians, 49.501 Slavs and 18.000 of other origin. The Territory would depend for its electric power on Italy and Yugoslavia in equal measure, and would be linked to its hinterland by three Yugoslav railroads and one Italian railroad. Its ordinary budget expenses would total from 5 to 7 billions, while the maximum revenue would hardly reach one billion. From 1919 to 1938 Trieste reecived from Italy vast contributions for public works. Its industries such as shipyards, refineries and canneries, not only prospered on the strength of subsidies (as in the case of shipping) and of tax exemptions, but were and are entirely dependent on Italian markets.

Already the Treaty is casting its shadow on Trieste and on its industrial activities. No one believes in the vitality of the proposed settlement and in its economic future. How will order be kept—say the people of that city—under conditions which are welcome to no party, if even to-day the Allies, although disposing of considerable forces, cannot manage to ensure personal security?

It is the internal problem of the city which could undoubtedly prove the most serious. Each ethnic group would inevitably seek the help of its own people, and the struggle would be further complicated by labour strifes which are always particularly sharp and violent when they arise in industrial centers. How will the United Nations arbitrate and prevent the internal political struggle from becoming an international one?

Do you really intend to enclose in the fragile cage of an international statute, with meagre rations and abundant political rights, these two adversaries, and still hope that they will not come to blows? Will not the Slavs call for the help of their brethern deployed 5 miles away around the city and the Italians reach out, through the narrow one-mile gap, to their own people?

Or is it merely your intention to make of Trieste the port of Central Europe? But in this case the problem is an economic one and not a political one! What you need then is an international administration, not a state; an enterprise built on sound financial foundations, not a juridical structure standing on the quicksands of politics!

And it is to run the risk of such an unstable experiment that 81 per cent of Venezia Giulia has been allotted to the Yugoslavs who still complain that they are betrayed and seek to grab the rest through the constitutional clauses of the proposed new state! To do this, you have wronged Italy. Disavowing the ethnic line, you have abandoned to the Yugoslavs the Parenzo-Pola area, forgetting the Atlantic Charter which guarantees that no territory shall be transferred without consulting the populations. Worse still, you establish the condition that Italians of the Venezia Giulia transferred to Slav sovereignty and who wish to maintain their Italian citizenship can, within one year, be expelled leaving behind them their lands and their belongings (Art. 13, par. 3). What more? Their properties can be confiscated and sold as belonging to Italians residing abroad, while only the Italians who accept Slav citizenship are protected from this confiscation (Art. 69, par. 5 (f)).

The net result of the solution you propose is that, apart from the Free Territory, 180.000 Italians are left in Yugoslavia and 10.000 Slavs in Italy (in accordance with the census of 1921), while if you consider also Trieste you find that fully 646.000 Italians are severed from their country. Nor have any guarantees whatsoever been provided for these minorities. Italy, on her part, is instead preparing in Alto Adige a most liberal revision of past options and has already reached an agreement for a far-reaching regional autonomy on which the Constituent Assembly will shortly vote.

Gentlemen, what good will come of clinging to a solution which only asks for trouble? Why shut your ears to the cry for help of the Italians in Istria—remember the appeal of nearly 50,000 of the people of Pola—who at this very moment are preparing to abandon hearth and home rather than submit to the new regime?

I am well aware that peace must somehow be made, that the deadlock must be broken, but on the other hand if you have deferred by one year the colonial settlement for lack of a good solution, why can you not do likewise for the Julian problem? It is never too late to make [prevent?] an irreparable blunder. The Treaty can stand even if some territorial clauses are left open. It would be a provisional peace, but even, after the first world war, from Versailles to Cannes, peace only proceeded by stages.

There are other issues which the Treaty leaves pending or are merely given a negative solution. For instance, I cannot believe that Italy’s relations with Germany are to be considered settled under Art. 67 which imposes on Italy the waiving of all claims, including credits against Germany and German citizens outstanding on May 8, 1945, in other words, 19 months after Italy had been at war with Germany!

Our experts have fixed at 700 billion lire—or three billion dollars—the sum which we can claim from Germany for damage inflicted on us during our war against her. Must we simply renounce all this? Surely such a decision cannot be final. The matter will have to be taken up again when peace with Germany is signed. Is this not another proof that no final settlement of Europe can be attained before peace is made with Germany?

Let us therefore be content now to lay down the foundations of the Treaty. Italy does not refuse to make all possible sacrifices.

Let us get around a table, we and the Yugoslavs to the fore, and seek all together a way of life, a new fellowship: for without such a spirit all formulas will be dead wood.

I do not wish to imply by this that all the rest of the Treaty is acceptable without reservation. Certain of its economic clauses are harsh beyond words. For instance, Art. 69 grants “all Allied and Associated Powers the right to seize, retain, liquidate” all Italian property abroad, subject only to restitution of eventual sums exceeding the Allied claims. The indiscriminate enforcement of such a clause would prove unbearable for Italian economy… We hope that such provisions can still be modified if—as we firmly trust—my collaborators will be allowed to express themselves fully on this and other matters within the various committees and commissions. As another example: Art. 66 imposes on us, in contrast with all international rights and rules, a surrender of all claims deriving from the Convention on the treatment of prisoners.

A logical consequence of our co-belligerency should likewise be the different spirit with which economic relations between us and the Allies should be defined after October 13th 1943. As from that date there should no longer be a question of occupational expenses, such as were envisaged for a brief period at the time of the Armistice,⁷⁴ but merely a question of war expenses on the Italian front for over 18 months. To such expenses the Italian Government wishes to contribute within its means provided that the exaction takes due account of its financial capacity.

With regard to reparations, Italy, though prepared for all necessary sacrifices, must make it clear that she cannot underwrite undefined burdens for an indefinite period. Moreover, with reference to ceded territories, the enormous Italian outlay invested in public works and in the cultural and material advancement of those regions must be properly taken into account.

Should the clauses of the Treaty as they now stand be imposed on us in their full crude meaning, we would, in signing, pledge ourselves to something beyond our capacity to fulfill. Italy is faced to-day with a drop of over 50% in her purchasing power, and a drop in national income of over 45%. She has seen her productive capacity shrink to the point that she cannot even purchase abroad the necessary food and raw materials. A further deterioration would bring about monetary chaos, insolvency, and the loss of our economic independence.

In such a plight what purpose would be served in admitting us to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations?

We note with pleasure that the proposal made to the Council of Foreign Ministers on May 10th, to make Italy the trustee of her colonies, met with some approval. We are confident that such suggestions will prove their worth when the time comes to decide them.

Provided we are not asked to sign away our rights before such a time, we have no objection to postponement and to the continuance of the present military rule in those territories. But we trust that their administration during the year’s delay shall be—in accordance with international law—at least partly entrusted to Italian officials even if under the supervision of the occupation Authorities. At the same time we insist that the many tens of thousands of refugees from Lybia, Eritrea and Somaliland, who are now living precariously in Italy, or in Concentration Camps in Rhodesia and Kenya, may be allowed to return home.

And now a word about the military clauses. Our objections on this score will be more thoroughly set forth in the competent committee. It is enough here to restate that the entire Italian Fleet which for three years has fought and served in the common cause, flying its own flag under the orders of the Allied Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean, cannot to-day, for obvious moral and juridical reasons, be treated as war booty.

This does not mean that, in the spirit of the Cunningham-De Courten agreements,⁷⁵ it cannot, within just limits, form part of certain restitutions or compensations.

Gentlemen, for months I have waited in vain to be allowed to sum up before you Italy’s views on the terms of peace. Appearing here to-day in the position of a former enemy, a position which the Italian people never endorsed of their free will, before you who are pressing, tired from much labour, to a conclusion, I have tried to contain my feelings and to limit my words. This I have done to prove that I am not here to hamper but rather to lend a constructive hand to your task insofar as it be the task of building a just world.

He who tries to speak to-day on behalf of the Italian people is torn between seemingly contradictory feelings. On the one hand he must express his anxiety, his pain, his anguished concern for the consequences of this Treaty. On the other, he must re-affirm his faith that the new Italian democracy will emerge from the crisis of war and that the world will be renewed through valid instruments of peace.

It is this faith which I hold and which is shared by my two eminent colleagues—one: a former Premier of Italy before Fascism crushed Italian democratic progress in the wake of the last war; the other: the President of our Republican Constituent Assembly, who but yesterday suffered exile and prison, and to-day holds high our banner of democracy and social justice.⁷⁶ Both of them are authoritative spokesmen for that Assembly whose task it will be to decide whether it can assume the responsibility of signing the Treaty you are about to issue without jeopardising the freedom and democratic evolution of the Italian people.

Gentlemen, on your shoulders rests the grave duty of giving the world a peace consistent with the war aims: namely with independence and brotherly collaboration between free peoples. As an Italian I ask for no special concessions. I ask only that our peace be framed within that wider peace which men and women of all countries who fought and suffered for an ideal are awaiting.

Do not linger on the steps of transient expediency. Do not deceive yourselves that with a mere truce or an instable compromise you can achieve your ends. Look upwards to that higher goal. Make a generous effort to reach it.

Gentlemen, it is with this lasting peace in mind that I ask you to grant respite and moral credit to the Republic of Italy. A Nation of toilers, 47 million strong, is ready to pool its efforts with yours in the creation of a more just and more human world.

The President (Interpretation): The Conference notes the declaration made by M. De Gasperi on behalf of the Italian Delegation. The members of the Conference can be depended on to give the declaration all the consideration it merits.

I will now ask the Secretary-General to be good enough to show the Italian Delegation out.

(Preceded by M. Fouques Duparc, the Secretary-General, the Italian Delegation left the Senate Chamber).

M. Kardelj (Yugoslavia) (Interpretation): The Yugoslav Delegation feels it essential that thorough consideration be given to the Italian Delegation’s statement. This must be done by the Plenary Conference so as to furnish the Commissions, which will have to make the detailed study with the necessary instructions. It will thus be necessary for us to have time to study the statement.

I propose, therefore, that the meeting be now adjourned and consideration of the Italian Delegation’s statement be placed on the agenda of the next meeting on Monday morning.

The President (Interpretation): As has just been proposed, the consideration of the Italian Delegation’s statement will be placed at the end of the agenda which we have not yet exhausted at this morning’s meeting and which we will continue to deal with on Monday morning.⁷⁷

(Agreed)

The President (Interpretation): Before the meeting rises, I would like to revert once more to a question of interpretation of the Rules of Procedure. I refer to the Rules governing rotation of the chairmanship. According to the Rules, Section II, each Chairman will hold office for 3 days.

The point is how should these 3 days be reckoned. My own interpretation is that the duties of the President are to take the chair at meetings, to see that the agenda is prepared, to receive correspondence and to supervise the work of the Secretariat.

Even when he is not in the chair, a President is always a President. In the light of the discussions which took place in the Council of Foreign Ministers, I would point out that we envisaged each President retaining the Chairmanship for a week, that is from Monday to Sunday, whether the Conference was in session or not. Finally, we agreed to a 3-day rotation. I would therefore suggest putting this 3-day rotation into effect, Sundays being ignored, whether the Conference meets or not. Naturally the assembly will always be master of its own procedure.

If no one asks to speak against my interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, I take it that this interpretation is agreeable to the Conference.

(Agreed)

I suggest that the next meeting of the Conference be held on Monday at 10 a.m., with Mr. Byrnes as President, following the alphabetical order.

(Agreed)

M. Vyshinsky (U.S.S.R.) (Interpretation): I have no objections to what has just been suggested, but I would like to know what the agenda will be for the Monday morning meeting. It was suggested that the business on this agenda could be continued. But there is now a new suggestion to place the Italian question on the agenda of the Monday morning meeting. We would like to know exactly what questions will finally be discussed at that meeting.

The President (Interpretation): It is always a mistake not to make oneself clearly understood, which is what I thought I had done.

The agenda laid down for this morning contained 3 items which will still hold good for the Monday morning agenda and we are adding a fourth so that the agenda will now be as follows:

1.) Invitation to the representatives of other States;

2.) Organisation of the Secretariat;

3.) Preparation of the agenda;

4.) Consideration of the Italian Delegation’s statement. (Yugoslav request).

I think we are all agreed to the agenda as I have just outlined it.

(Agreed)

M. Vyshinsky (U.S.S.R.) (Interpretation): Thank you Mr. President.

(The meeting rose at 6:35 p.m.)

71. For text of De Gasperi’s statement of September 18, 1945, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. ii, p. 232. For President Wilson’s manifesto of April 25, 1919, on the Italian-Yugoslav frontier, see Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922), vol. iii, p. 287. For additional documentation, see Foreign Relations, 1919, The Paris Peace Conference, vol. v, index entries, under Italy: Adriatic Claims.
72. De Gasperi addressed the 8th Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, May 3, 1946. For the Record of Decisions of that meeting, see vol. ii, p. 222; for a summary of the proceedings of the meeting, see telegram 2142 (Delsec 458), May 4, from Paris, ibid., p. 224.
73. For De Gasperi’s communication to Byrnes, June 30, 1946, see vol. ii, p. 700.
74. For text of the Italian Military Armistice signed in Sicily September 3, 1943, (released simultaneously in Washington, London, and Rome on November 6, 1945) see Department of State Bulletin, November 11, 1945, p. 748; for text of the Additional Conditions of the Armistice signed at Malta September 29, 1943, as modified by a protocol signed November 9, 1943, see ibid., p. 749. The above-mentioned documents are also printed in Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 1604, 61 Stat. (pt. 3) 2740.
75. For text, see Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 1604, or 61 Stat. (pt. 3) 2766.
76. The colleagues to whom De Gasperi referred were, respectively, Ivanoe Bonomi and Giuseppe Saragat.
77. August 12.