_
We reject altogether the idea that Italy would be satisfied with the
western portion of Istria, leaving the rest of the Eastern Adriatic
shore to the Croatians and Serbians. While Italy would certainly gain by
the possession of Trieste and Pola, the strategic position in the
Adriatic would still be exceedingly disadvantageous, especially as the
Slav claim advanced by certain Russian newspapers, (that Croatia become
an autonomous State and divide Dalmatia with Serbia,) includes the right
to maintain fortified naval bases on the eastern shore.
This would merely mean exchanging Austrian strategical predominance for
Slavonic, and, consequently, Russian predominance nearly as threatening
to Italian interests.
The principal objective of Italy in the Adriatic is the solution once
for all of the politico-strategic question of a sea which is commanded
in the military sense from the eastern shore, and such a problem can be
solved only by one method--by eliminating from the Adriatic every other
war fleet. Otherwise the existing most difficult situation in the
Adriatic will be perpetuated and in time inevitably aggravated.
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