Mediation By Us Favored By Italy.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 29, 1912:
Rome's Opinion Is That London Peace Conference Will Find Claims Irreconcilable.
DEADLOCK IS EXPECTED
Ambassador O'Brien Suggested as a Diplomat Fitted to Help the Cause of Friendly Intervention.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    ROME, Dec. 28.— While the social and domestic world, if one may so call it, is engrossed in celebrating Christmas and New Year, the political world, and Italian opinion in general, is engrossed in following the conferences which are taking place in London, the decisions of which will be of such immense importance to the Italian nation, and in trying to sift out the innumerable suggestions that have been put forward for the settlement of the many thorny questions which must be decided if the Balkans and Europe in general are to have a feeling of security and peace.
    It is a very general idea that what is wanted is to find some person or some nation that is in a position to offer sincere and disinterested advice to both sides and make them understand what it is possible for them to hope to obtain and what they must make up their minds to resign to others, to find, if possible, "an honest broker," as Bismarck was fond of calling himself, who would be a link between the two contending parties, and could mediate between the seemingly irreconcilable tendencies and desires.
    Many persons have suggested that the only nation that can undertake such a delicate enterprise and could convince both parties that its advice is entirely disinterested is America, and that Ambassador Thomas J. O'Brien, who is said to have had considerable personal, if not official, influence in bringing about an acceleration of the peace between Italy and Turkey, and whose tact and well-balanced judgment have won him golden opinions in the highest circles since his coming here, would be eminently fit for such an undertaking.
    Pretenders to a possible throne of an autonomous Albania are not wanting. Collateral descendants and even less closely related offshoots of that Albanian hero, Castriota Scanderbeg, are to be heard from. The Turkish Prince Fuad, who is now staying in Rome and has received a military education in the Italian military college at Turin, is a great favorite with some, especially because while his Turkish blood and appearance would condemn him to the Mussulman population of Albania, his European education, tastes, and adaptable disposition make him a favorite candidate in some Italian circles. In other circles Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who has received a military training and is a member of the Russian army, is thought to be one who would be more independent and more acceptable to the majority of the powers interested in the question, while his military bearing and the great name he bears would commend themselves to a martial and war-loving race he might be called upon to rule over.
    The Pope is said to have been painfully impressed by the terrible tales which have been brought by the many fugitives who have poured into Italy from the lands which the recent war has reduced to ruin, and which will need many years to bring back to a state of even relative prosperity.
    On several recent occasions, notably at a reception at which all the members of the Sacred College offered him congratulations on the occasion of Christmas, the Pope expressed himself strongly concerning the anxiety which he felt when the great issues of peace or war hung in the balance. He stated his conviction that it was the imperative duty of all Christians to be as fervent in prayer as he himself was, that the counsellors, gathered together in the English metropolis, might be guided and led to a just and lasting solution of the problems before them.