FALL OF FIUME.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18600, 30 December 1920, Page 4

FALL OF FIUME.

The cabled announcement' that General Caviglia has overcome forces after a fight in which the Government forces sustained 130 casualties will astonish those who have been watching the Fiume situation and who have credited the views expressed by apparently dents within thfe city. /Writing six weeks ago the special correspondent of “The Times”* at Fiunie said, “The town is still mined, but D’Annunzio knows now that he will never be called upon to defend it against Italian troops.” We were told earlier that the public buildings, highways, watermains, wharves, piers and warehouses were all mined, that the motto of D’Annunzio and his Arditi was <■ Italia, o Morto!” and that they would destroy the town and perish in its ruins rather than surrender. D’Annunzio entered Fiume on September 17, 1910. Tbo Italian Government issued an ultimatum to D’Annunzio ordering him to leave Fiume by midnight on September 21 or take the consequences, and Signor Nitti’s. Government forgot about the consequences. On September 30 D’Annunzio declared war on Jugoslavia, in defiance* of the Italian Government.* the Allied and Associated Powers, and the League of Nations. Still nothing happened, except that the Jugo-Slav delegate to the Peaoe Conference explained, quaintly enough, that as his Government did not know Captain D’Annunzio it proposed to take no notice of his declaration. „ On October 27 a farcical election was held in Fiunie under the bayonets of D’Annunzio’s troops, with a resultant large majority in favour of the annexation of the city by Italy. On November 15 D’Annunzio made a raid into Dalmatia and occupied the port of Zara. Jn December of last year Signor Nitti assured Britain, which had been placing pressure upon him to deal with the Fiume situation, that D’Annunzio had agreed to surrender the city to Italian troops under General Caviglia. Italian troops did surround the city, but they did not enter it*. Instead they seem to have cultivated very friendly relations with the poet-adventuref. The correspondent of “Hie Times,” months afterwards, related how D’Annunzio lunched with Caviglia, and how the former had at his "disposal full details of the disposition of Caviglia’s forces. As far as can be gathered from this source the two armies regarded themselves as part of one line arrayed against Jugoslavia. In Fiume, during the occupation, all industry was at an end. The townspeople sent their children out of the city and then settled down to await

events. Yet in this idle city all were well fed. Money flowed like water. D’Annunzio’s troops were well paid, and supplied regularly with large stores of Italian Government munitions. In tjie meantime opinion in Italy was either favourable to or indifferent concerning D’Annunzio’s designs. The Government after the fall of Nitti passed into the hands of the two dominant political parties, both highly radical, and the suggestion of “ The Times” correspondent was that D’Annunzio was being financed by the property interests of Italy in order that lie might march on Rome at an opportune moment and turn the government into a military dictatorship. Possibly this view of tho matter has also obtruded itself upon Signor Giolitti and his Ministers, and has led to the calling of D’Annunzio’s bluff. That it was a bluff seems established by the very mild character of the resistance, while at the same time the. record of ISO casualties, including thirty dead, removes the engagement from suspicions of collusion. Fiume has been taken and D’Annunzio is not dead. It ought to be rather difficult for tbe poet to climb back to his pedestal beside Garibaldi, but he is a grand talker and Italy will certainly hear from him again.