436     THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE, 1919, VOLUME V
as the Croats, are under the obligation to request the Italian Govern-
ment to acquaint them with their final decision.
Were Signor Orlando, contrary to all their expectations, to come to
a negative decision, the two Governments should have to hold the
opinion that it would be owing to Italy that the two kinds of engage-
ments taken in London on April 20th, 1915 would lapse.
In the latter case, Italy by withdrawing her consent to the condi-
tions of peace with Germany, settled in agreement with the Italian
Delegation, as well as to the arrangements regarding the Adriatic,
would, in so doing, renounce being a party to the Treaty which is
going to be considered at Versailles and benefiting by the provisions
agreed upon in 1915 in the matter of the Adriatic.
5. The Governments of Great Britain and France still fervently hope
that the Italian Government will be fully alive, as they are, to the
danger of such a solution for that future of peace and justice for which
Italy, in full solidarity with the Allied and Associated countries, has
sacrificed so much of her blood. The present circumstances and the fact
that the German Plenipotentiaries are now in Versailles make it a duty
for Great Britain and France to ask Signor Orlando for an answer at
the earliest possible moment.
They beg him to forward it to them and while heartily appealing to
the high sense of the Italian interests and of the general weal enter-
tained by the Government of Italy, they hereby bear witness to the
unfailing affection of Great Britain and France for the Italian Nation.