"Is it surprising, then," the Italians asked, "that we cannot suddenly conceive an ardent affection for the ruthless 'Austrians' of whose cruelties we were bitterly complaining a few months back? Is it strange that we cannot find it in our hearts to cut off a slice of Italian territory and make it over to them as one of the fruits of--our victory over them? If Italy had not first adopted neutrality and then joined the Allies in the war there would be no Jugoslavia to-day. Are we now to pay for our altruism by sacrificing Italian soil and Italian souls to the secular enemies of our race?" In a word, the armistice transformed Italy's enemy into a friend and ally for whose sake she was summoned to abandon some of the fruits of a hard-earned victory and a part of her secular aspirations. What, asked the Italian delegates, would France answer if she were told that the Prussians whom her matchless armies defeated must henceforth be looked upon as friends and endowed with some new colonies which would otherwise be hers? The Italian dramatist Sem Benelli put the matter tersely: "The collapse of Austria transforms itself therefore into a play of words, so much so that our people, who are much more precise because they languished under the Austrian yoke and the Austrian scourge, never call the Austrians by this name; they call them always Croatians, knowing well that the Croatians and the Slavs who constituted Austria were our fiercest taskmasters and most cruel executioners. It is naïve to think that the ineradicable characteristics and tendencies of peoples can be modified by a change of name and a new flag." But there was another way of looking at the matter, and the Allies, together with the Jugoslavs, made the most of it. The Slav character of the disputed territory was emphasized, the principle of nationality invoked, and the danger of incorporating an unfriendly foreign element which could not be assimilated was solemnly pointed out. But where sentiment actuates, reason is generally impotent. The policy of the Italian government, like that of all other governments, was frankly nationalistic; whether it was also statesman-like may well be questioned--indeed the question has already been answered by some of Italy's principal press organs in the negative.[204] They accuse the Cabinet of having deliberately let loose popular passions which it afterward vainly sought to allay, and the facts which they allege in support of the charge have never been denied.