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Show ITALY'S POSITION IN WAR GIVEN In 191G Austria planned to attack Servia. One year before tho. murder of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, Austria attempted to gain consent of Italy to an attack on Servia Ser-via The foregoing startling fact is brought out by w. Morton Fullerton recognized as ono of tho ablest writers writ-ers on tho political and diplomatic af-fMrs af-fMrs of Europe, in his article "Italv and the Great War." Mr. Fullerton exMains very clearly Italy's position am. ng the European Powers, and the reasons for her actions and "hosita-tlons "hosita-tlons since August, 19M Italy's membership in the Triple Al liance would have long ago been dead m letter had It not been for the now fa- Bg mous "Clause VII" which guaranteed the status quo in the Balkans. Italian R national aspirations are: first, to ro- H cover her lost provinces the Italian K Alsace-Lorraine; and second, to en- K large her sphere of influence in the B Mediterranean. The former of these ma aspirations is directly antagonistic to B Austria, the latter to the Pan Slay interests. B In 190S Italy became suspicious ot B the integrity of her Teutonic allies. H so at Racconigi an alliance wa6 H made between Russia and Italy guar- H antcclng the status quo in the Bal- H kans. Italy now had a double guaran- H tec that if she could not acquire the H Italian cities across the Adriatic or B expand in the Balkans at least non B of the other nations could with im B punlty steal a march on her B Italy found that Austria did not iti- fl tend to allow her to infringe the B treaty, for in 1911, during the Turco- ,& Italian war Austria objected to Uie Italian occupation of the Albanian coast. And finally, most remarkable of all the diplomatic correspondence set forth about the war, comes the Austrian Aus-trian attempt, one year before the murder of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand Ferdi-nand at Sarajevo, to gain the consent of Italy to an attack on Servia. All of these events and many othor interesting sidelights on. the Italian situation aro brought out by Mr Ful lerton to explain the actions and future fu-ture hopes and aims of Italy. |