The necessity of continuation conferences arose from the lack of common interest in enforcing, and therefore of power to enforce, the terms of the peace settlement which all seemingly accepted in the first flush of victory. Statesmen and peoples alike soon discovered that the treaties contained provisions which, if literally interpreted, did not satisfy their real or fancied interests, nor the ambitions the attainment of which they believed the victory should have made possible. The League of Nations came into existence at the beginning of 1920. The United States refused to join it. The Entente Powers, for the reasons given above, did not feel that they could use it except as a convenient and amenable agency to further their own policies. Until the world-wide status quo was definitely settled by the harmonizing of British, French, and Italian interests, it was deemed better to continue to use the Supreme Council, a conference of ambassadors, and, best of all, meetings of Entente premiers. Continuation conferences, therefore, in which both the first and last words were spoken by the premiers of the three big powers, have been attempting for nearly four years to grapple with the unfinished business of the Paris Conference. These conferences have been large and small, formal and informal, some lasting months and others merely week-ends, but all have been dominated--even those called for other purposes and dealing ostensibly with other questions--by what has come to be known as the reparations issue. The reparations issue, in turn, has never been discussed on its merits, as a problem of economics. Security for France, through the permanent crippling of Germany, has lurked in the background of every discussion in these international gatherings. The first of these conferences, held in London and Paris in January and February, 1920, were too near the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of Versailles for reparations to be at the front. Italy secured from France and Great Britain consent to make Fiume a free state, in exchange for a modification of Italian “rights” in Dalmatia, as provided for by the 1915 treaty, and the recognition of her paramount interests in Albania. The United States protested against the decision of the Paris meeting to change Albanian frontiers in favor of Serbia and Greece. The Albanian question, as we have seen in another chapter, was finally solved by the ability of the Albanians to defend their independence against Serbians and Italians. The Adriatic question was left to direct negotiations between Rome and Belgrade.