Italy might have done a great work if its representatives had had
a clear policy. But, as M. Tardieu says, they had no share in the
effective doings of the Conference, and their activity was almost
entirely absorbed in the question of Fiume. The Conference was a
three-sided conversation between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George,
and the latter had hostility and diffidence on each side of him, with
Italy--as earlier stated--for the most part absent. Also, it was
just then that the divergence between Wilson and the Italian
representatives reached its acute stage. The essential parts of the
treaty were decided in April and the beginning of May, on April 22
the question of the right bank of the Rhine, on the 23rd or 24th the
agreement about reparations. Italy was absent, and when the Italian
delegates returned to Paris without being asked on May 6, the text of
the treaty was complete, in print. In actual fact, only one person did
really effective work and directed the trend of the Conference, and
that person was Clemenceau.
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