Because neither alternative was considered, the Genoa Conference was a complete failure. The Entente Powers began wrong. They held preliminary meetings to decide upon their program, assuming that the rôle of the German and Russian delegations would be simply that of acquiescence. The two outcast powers retaliated in a startling way. They signed a treaty at Rapallo, whose terms were published, reëstablishing diplomatic relations with each other and settling war claims and financial obligation by reciprocal cancelation. The Treaty of Rapallo torpedoed the conference. The Entente Powers were not prepared to waive reciprocally their claims against one another, much less treat with vanquished Germany and faithless Russia on any such basis. After several weeks of futile debate, during which the Entente Powers maintained the attitude they had adopted in the beginning, the conference broke up.[26] Further negotiations concerning minor matters in which agreement might be reached were laid over for a conference to meet at Amsterdam in June. The principal questions upon which the rehabilitation of Europe depended seemed impossible of solution. Despite its failure, the Genoa Conference was a useful meeting; for it cleared up a number of misapprehensions, and served as a warning and indication of the general tendencies of the policies of the participating nations. For instance, behind Russia’s intractability and truculence was evident her anxiety to make concessions to world-wide public opinion. Her leaders no longer gloried in her isolation, and they frankly admitted the failure of some of their theories and the very limited success of others. After four years they began to show themselves sensitive. This proved that they were beginning to recognize the dependence of Russia upon the rest of the world. When put to the test, the Germans were as unwilling as the Turks later showed themselves at Lausanne to break with the Occidental powers and throw in their fortunes unreservedly with Russia. The intention of Belgium to pool her interests with France was also revealed. But the most striking lesson of the Genoa Conference was the coming to the front of the theory that reparations could not be considered apart from interallied debts, and that France and Italy saw in future bargaining over a reduction of their reparations claims the possibility of being freed from their indebtedness to Great Britain and the United States.