Sir, – Mark Phelan's "An Irishman's Diary" (August 25th), concerning the Italian bombardment and one month's occupation of Corfu (September 1923), valuably discusses the contributions of WT Cosgrave and Eoin MacNeill to the League of Nations debates on the issue, which are inexplicably ignored in the main literature on the subject.
Italian expansionist belligerence in this incident was addressed feebly and ineffectively by the League, but in the Irish context there was an important extra dimension in addition to the status of a small nation – neutrality.
By a quirk of the “Great Powers” (Britain, France, Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary), the 1864 Treaty of London recognised Corfu’s “perpetual neutrality”.
This neutrality had been tested and validated four times, including during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, but was unilaterally set aside by Mussolini’s invasion and, although it remained in force in 1923, was disregarded by the League in its deliberations.
The invasion can be seen as a foreunner of German aggressions against neutral countries in the second World War, which the League was intended to prevent.
Unlike the case of Corfu, Irish neutrality during the “Emergency” was unilaterally declared rather than internationally recognised. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD PINE,
Corfu,
Greece.