To understand Italian feelings on this subject, one must recall the long, agonizing, and--in the main--losing fight of the last forty years to save the Italian character of the Dalmatian cities. The struggle turned about control of the municipal councils, for it was they that decided what was to be the official language of the schools and the public services and which nationality was to set the tone and get all the favors in the community. The Austrians seem to have employed every form of corruption, fraud, and violence to sweep the Italians out of the municipalities. It is said that at the elections in Spalato in 1883 all the officials were ordered to vote Croat; the clergy also; a cruiser was sent to overawe the city; the election officials and the soldiery completed the intimidation of the voters; and it was thus that Spalato was lost to the Italians. One after another the other cities succumbed. Cattaro and Ragusa holding out bravely until 1900; and then only one Italian stronghold was left. That is why people in Rome speak of it as ‘Zara Italianissima’--any city that could defend itself so long must have a superlative character about its patriotism; and this is why the Italians have been so anxious to save at least that last bulwark of Latin Dalmatia. Fourthly, the Italian argument dwells upon the geographic character of the province--shut off from Yugo-Slavia by rough and savage mountains, united to Italy by the sea over which practically all its external communications are carried on. Ratzel declared that Dalmatia lived like an island, and Freeman compared it to a branch cast forth from Italy across the Adriatic. Finally, the Italians invoke strategic reasons for demanding at least a part of Dalmatia. The Adriatic Sea forms a narrow couloir, about 400 miles in length but in places scarcely 100 miles across. The western coast of that sea, the Italian side, is almost destitute of harbors that could serve as defensive naval bases; while on the eastern side the Dalmatian coast, with its many fine ports, its protecting chains of islands, its labyrinth of back channels and concealed inner basins, offers the most marvellous basis for naval operations. Obviously, the Italian fleet, with its bases at Venice and Pola at one end of the Adriatic and Brindisi at the other, would be at a grave disadvantage as against a naval power planted midway in the couloir in the impregnable strongholds of Dalmatia. And if it is said that Yugo-Slavia is never likely to have such a fleet as would be a serious menace, the Italians reply that even a small fleet of cruisers, lurking in the recesses of the Dalmatian coast, could be a scourge to Italian commerce and to the unprotected coast of Italy only three hours distant; and for submarine bases Dalmatia offers unrivalled advantages, as the World War has shown. Hence, it is argued, Dalmatia is necessary to Italy’s security. Without it, her long and vulnerable flank will remain undefended and indefensible.