The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 2

THE I.N.C.

For a considerable time it was not known who were the members of the Italian National Council. From internal evidence one saw that they were not particularly logical people, for they made much play, in their announcements, with "democratic principles" in spite of the undemocratic fog in which they wrapped themselves. Of course they had not been elected by anyone except themselves; but there was a vast difference between them and the self-elected Croat National Council, since the latter derived their authority from the Croatian Government at Zagreb, which Dr. Vio, in the name of the Rieka munic.i.p.ality, had recognized--whereas the Italian National Council was dest.i.tute of any parent, though they would, had they been pressed, have claimed, no doubt, the blissfully unconscious "Madre Patria." Subsequently it turned out that the I.N.C. consisted of Dr. Vio and of fourteen persons who had hitherto not taken part in public life. They were fourteen worthies of the background, the most remarkable act in the life of their President, Dr. Grossich, for example, dating from twenty years ago when he was the medical attendant of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Clothilde, and decorated, so they say, his consulting-room with black and yellow festoons. The I.N.C.

appeared at its inception to be different from a Russian Soviet because it had no power.

THE CROATS' BLUNDER

A number of deplorable transactions ensued, and they were not all committed by the Italianists. The proclamations which were sent from Zagreb, exhorting the people to be tranquil, were printed in the two languages, but some Croat super-patriots at Rieka tried to make the town mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made this demand were very properly snubbed by the munic.i.p.al authorities.

MELODRAMA

These excited patriots, delirious with joy that at last their own town was in their hands, did not set Rieka on fire, nor did they murder women and children; but the Italianists forthwith sent wireless messages to Venice, screaming that all these enormities were taking place. A few of them rushed off in motors to Triest, where they made themselves into a Committee of Public Safety, picked up some Triest sympathizers and flew on to Venice, where they related breathless stories of foul deeds. One, which appeared in the Italian Press, was that three children of Rieka had been publicly committed to the flames.

FARCE

On November 4 an Italian destroyer, the _Stocco_, shortly followed by the _Emanuele Filiberto_, a cruiser, came on their errand of humanity.

The I.N.C. at once organized a plebiscite--by which is meant not a dull giving and counting of votes in the usual election booths. A plebiscite, at all events a plebiscite at Rieka, signifies for the Italianists a mob a.s.sembled in a public thoroughfare; photographs of such a.s.semblies ill.u.s.trate their pamphlets and are ent.i.tled "plebiscito." At the harbour the Italian Admiral, whose name was Raineri, told the joyous I.N.C.--who now had flung aside their anonymity--that he had come to bring them a salute from Italy, and that he had been sent to shield Italians and to protect Italian interests. The plebiscite threw up its hats and waved its flags, and shouted its applause and sang its songs. Flowers fell upon the Admiral, and on his men and on the guns; the ships, as we are told, were changed to floating gardens. But the sailors did not disembark. Some ladies, members of the plebiscite, besought the Admiral to come ash.o.r.e, and hoping to persuade the men, they climbed on board and playfully seized many sailors' caps, which in the town, they said, could be redeemed. Then shortly afterwards, the Yugoslav officials came to greet the Admiral, as did the commandant of the Yugoslav troops which had been for several days guarding the town. Meanwhile some unknown persons had been up in the old clock-tower and, for reasons known perhaps to themselves, had taken in both the Croatian and Italian flags; the Admiral drove up to see the Governor, Dr. Lenac, and requested that his country's flag should be rehoisted, which of course was done. And until November 17 the Admiral was nearly every day up at the Governor's palace, as a mult.i.tude of details had to be discussed. A French warship arrived on the 10th, followed by a British vessel on the 12th or 13th.

Perfect calm prevailed. Croatian and Italian flags flew everywhere, as well as French ones, British and American. The name of the Hotel Deak was altered to Hotel Wilson.... But the men of the _Emanuele Filiberto_ and the _Stocco_ did not land. Colonel Teslic a.s.sured the Admiral that if anyone started to set fire to an Italianist child or to indulge in any other crime he would prevent it.

PAROLE D'HONNEUR

All this was very disconcerting to the I.N.C. They knew that on the hills outside Rieka were large numbers of Italian troops, which had come overland from Istria. But how to get them in? Rieka had not been ascribed to the Italians by the London Treaty.[16] ... On November 15 a detachment of Serbian troops arrived, under Colonel Maximovic, and were given a magnificent reception. Thousands of people accompanied them, and in front of the French destroyer there was a manifestation.

Some of the Serbs, old warriors who had been under arms since the first Balkan War, were moved to tears. The Italianists were furious; Admiral Raineri called on the Governor for an explanation of the Serbs' arrival.

A conference was held between the Admiral, the Colonel and two Yugoslav officers. If the Serbs remained at Rieka, said the Admiral, he would land his marines. Maximovic said he had come in obedience to his orders, and that he would have to prevent by force the disembarkation of the Italians. At this moment a Serbian officer entered to announce that Italian armoured cars were approaching from Abbazia. Maximovic immediately ordered his troops to mobilize, but the Admiral said a mistake had been made and that the cars would be sent back. (The Government Secretary, Dr. Ruic, had been told at three o'clock by a telephone operator that the Admiral had himself telephoned to Abbazia for the cars.) It was decided at this conference that on Sunday, November 17, the Yugoslav troops would evacuate the town, that it would be occupied by Serbian and American troops, and that, to mark the alliance, a small Italian detachment would be landed. As Admiral Cagni, of Pola, ordered that Italian troops should be disembarked at Rieka, another conference was held between Admiral Raineri, Colonel Maximovic, Colonel Teslic and Captain Dvorski (of the Yugoslav navy), as well as French and British officers. It was arranged _sous parole d'honneur d'officier_ that at 4 p.m. the Serbian troops should leave Rieka and go to Porto Re, an hour's sea journey, that the Yugoslav troops should remain, and that the Italians should not land. No other steps would be taken till November 20 at noon, and the Supreme Command would be asked to settle the difficulty. As soon as the Serbian troops were out at sea, the Italian army, under General di San Marzano (attended by a kinematograph), marched in from the hills, entering the town simultaneously from four directions, in accordance with a strategic plan. The General was told what Raineri had agreed to do; he replied that he was Raineri's senior, that the final decision rested with him, and that he intended to proceed into the town. (One of the British officers is said to have addressed him rather bluntly.) At 4.30 Raineri landed his marines, and afterwards he was dismissed from his post--not, indeed, for having broken his word given at the inter-Allied conference, but for having delayed so long before disembarking troops in the town.

He said he had received a written order from the Entente; if only Maximovic had not left he might have shown it him. With twenty carabinieri the General went to the Governor's palace and asked Dr.

Lenac to vacate it. He was so excited that he almost pushed the doctor out. "There is no room for the two of us," he said. And that is how the Italian occupation began. The French and British brought some troops in at a later date, but when they had six hundred each the Italians had 22,000. With the Italians came fifty Americans, so that the force might have an international appearance. These Americans were given broad-sheets, printed by the town Italianists in English; they welcomed the Americans as liberators, and informed them that the population had by plebiscite declared for annexation to the Motherland. On the same night the Yugoslav troops were turned out of their barracks into the street by the Italian army.... These are, I believe, the main facts as to the occupation which has been the subject of much heated argument. I had the facts from eye-witnesses and doc.u.ments: I exposed the evidence of each side to the criticism of the other.

Very soon the disorders began. On the evening of the occupation Italian troops ran through the town, accompanied by some of the plebiscite, and compelled the people to remove the Yugoslav colours from their b.u.t.ton-holes. In cases they surrounded their victim and used force. When this was used against women, after the arrival of the French and British, it produced some serious international affrays. The Italians, who invariably outnumbered the others, did not scruple to employ their knives; thus in the middle of December two French soldiers were stabbed in the back and their murderers were never found.

THE POPULATION OF THE TOWN

But there had been at Rieka an Englishman for whom I have an almost inexpressible admiration. This was Mr. A. Beaumont who, a couple of days after the Italians occupied the town in the above-mentioned curious fashion, sent from Triest a long message to the _Daily Telegraph_. How can anyone not marvel at a gentleman who travels to a foreign town which is in the throes of unrest and who, undeterred by his infirmity, sits down to grasp the rather complicated features of the situation? I am not acquainted with Mr. Beaumont, but he must be blind, poor fellow, for he says that the Yugoslavs occupied with ill-concealed glee a town entirely inhabited by some 45,000 Italians. Perhaps somebody will read to him the following statistics made after the year 1868, when Rieka came under Magyar dominion. The statistics were made by the Magyars and Italianists combined, so that they do not err in favour of the Yugoslavs. He might also be told that the Magyar-Italian alliance closed the existing Yugoslav national schools for the 13,478 Yugoslavs in 1890, while they opened Italo-Magyar schools for the 13,012 "Italians" and Magyars. They would not even allow the Yugoslavs to have at Rieka an elementary school at their own expense. Everything possible was done during these decades to inculcate hatred and contempt for whatsoever was Slav, hoping thus to denationalize the citizens. In view of all this it speaks well for Yugoslav steadfastness that they were able to maintain themselves. Here are the figures:

YUGOSLAVS. ITALIANS. MAGYARS.

1880 10,227 (49%) 9,237 (44%) 379 (2%) 1890 13,478 (46%) 13,012 (44%) 1,062 (4%) 1900 16,197 (42%) 17,354 (45%) 2,842 (7%) 1910 15,692 (32%) 24,212 (49%) 6,493 (13%)

a.s.suming for the moment that these figures are correct--and it is an enormous a.s.sumption[17]--are not the Autonomists to be found chiefly among the Italians and Magyars? It is claimed that the Autonomist, Socialist and Slav vote exceeds that of those who desire annexation to Italy. One need not treat _au serieux_ the great procession organized by the Italianists, when they could not sc.r.a.pe together more than about 4000 persons, including many schoolboys and girls, the munic.i.p.al clerks, visitors from Italy, Triest and Zadar. One need not gibe the Italianists with the numbers who followed Dr. Vio on that famous day when, weary of palavering, he summoned round him his supporters and strode off to the Governor's palace, where General Grazioli, who had succeeded General di San Marzano, was installed.[18] Arrived there, Dr. Vio with a superb gesture begged the General to accept the town in the name of Italy. It is not often in the lifetime of a man that he has the opportunity of giving a whole town away. Dr. Vio made the most of that occasion; if the crowd which followed him was disappointing, there may be good explanations. The allegiance of a town, one may submit, should be settled in another fashion. The house-to-house inquiry, conducted in the spring of 1919 by the Autonomists--resulting in an anti-annexionist majority--was much impeded by the police; and it is of course the business of the authorities and not of any one party to hold elections in a town. Had the Italian National Council, bereaving themselves of Italian bayonets, held a real plebiscite--secret or otherwise--the result would doubtless have given them pain, but no surprise.... And this will happen even if the Magyar system of separating Rieka from the suburb of Suak is perpetrated. Suak contains about 12,500 Yugoslavs and extremely few Italianists; and, by the way, to show how the Magyars and the Italianists worked together, it is worth mentioning that the Magyar railway officials who lived at Suak were allowed a vote at Rieka, while if a Croat lived at Suak and carried on his avocation at Rieka he could vote in Suak only. One must not imagine that Suak is a poor relation; most people would prefer to live there. Dr. Vio was intensely wrathful because the British General resided in a beautifully situated house there by the sea. Not only is Suak about twenty yards, across a stream, from Rieka, but from a commercial point of view their separation seems absurd, since half the port, including the great wood depots, is in Suak. One of these timber merchants presented an example of Italianization. His original name was E. R. Sarinich and this was painted on his business premises at Suak, while in Rieka he called himself Sarini. It must have caused him many sleepless nights.... Counting Suak with Rieka as one town, the total population in the autumn of 1918 was about 51 per cent.

Yugoslav, 39 per cent. Italian and 10 per cent. Magyar. These Magyars, by the way, seem not to have been noticed by Mr. Beaumont. There were still a good number of them in the town. "Whilst Italy might have consented," says Mr. Beaumont, "to a compromise with Hungary, had that State continued to exist as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she certainly never contemplated handing over"--["handing over" is rather humorous]--"Fiume and its exclusively Italian population to the Jugo-Slavs." Underneath Mr. Beaumont's dispatch there is printed a semi-official statement, sent by Reuter, from Rome. "Yesterday afternoon," it says, "our troops occupied Fiume. The occupation, which was made for reasons of public order, was decided upon in view not only of the urgent and legitimate demands of the Italian citizens of Fiume, but also of the insistent appeals of eminent foreigners...."

THE TALE CONTINUES ON THE NORTHERN ISLES

"Italy's reward," says Mr. Beaumont, "must be commensurate with her sacrifices, and this is the att.i.tude a.s.sumed here. It is quite apart from the mere question as to whether the Jugo-Slavs are in a majority in certain districts or not. Those districts form a part of old Italian territory, of Italian lands once peopled and occupied by the Italian race and into which, with Austria's encouragement, Slav populations have filtered." [I should love to know what are Mr. Beaumont's sources.] "The question must not be left to local ambition and antipathies. It must be decided authoritatively and quickly in strong counsel to the Jugo-Slav leaders." ... Let us leave Rieka and see how the Italians decided authoritatively and quickly on the island of Cres (Cherso). It is a large but not thickly populated island; having 8162 inhabitants for 336 square kilometres. The Yugoslavs, according to the census of 1910, number 5714 or 713 per cent., while the Italian-speaking population amounts to 2296 or 28 per cent. About the middle of November the Italian authorities placed in the village of Martincica, which is in the south-western part of the island, 17 soldiers, 3 carabinieri and a lieutenant. Let me say at once that I have never been to Cres, all my knowledge of this case comes from a Franciscan monk who lives there, the Rev. Ambrose Vlahov, Professor of Theology. At Martincica, he says, there is not a single Italianist; the entire village is Yugoslav.

When the Italian military arrived the lieutenant insisted that the priest, Karlo Hlaca, should cease to sing the Ma.s.s in Old Slav, and that for the whole service he should use Italian, the only language, said the lieutenant, which he (the lieutenant) understood. It was futile for the priest to demonstrate what a ridiculous and unreasonable demand this was; the lieutenant always came back to the subject, being sometimes merely importunate and sometimes using menaces. As Hlaca was a model ecclesiastic, highly esteemed by his parishioners, the lieutenant comprehended that as long as this priest remained, he would be foiled in his endeavours; he therefore sought an opportunity to turn him out. On January 5, 1919, the priest had, by order of his bishop, to read during the service a pastoral letter on the duties of the faithful towards the Church and towards their fellow-men; he had also to add a simple and concise commentary. In this letter there was a pa.s.sage dealing with schools, and the priest on that topic remarked that "by divine and human law every nation may ask that its children should be instructed in their mother tongue." When Ma.s.s was finished, the mayor of the village a.s.sembled the parishioners and notified them that henceforward, by order of the lieutenant, there would no longer be in the village a Croatian but an Italian school. And in order to mollify the people he added that the lieutenant proposed to give subsidies to such as stood in need; they had only to present themselves before that officer. But, though the people often found it hard to satisfy their simple wants and were at that period in very great distress, they walked away from this a.s.sembly without making one step in the lieutenant's direction. This incited him to such fury that he ran, accompanied by soldiers and carabinieri, to the priest, and publicly, in a loud voice, insulted him, calling him an intriguer, a rebel, an agitator. On the following day the lieutenant had him conducted to the village of Cres by two soldiers and a carabiniere, who were all armed.... At Cres the priest was brought before the commanding officer of the Quarnero Islands--our old acquaintance, the naval captain of Krk--who happened to be in this village. He started at once to bellow at the priest and, striking the table with his hand, exclaimed: "This is an Italian island, all Italian, nothing but Italian and evermore it will remain Italian." About a score of parishioners had come to Cres behind their priest and his escort; they begged the commandant to set him free. As an answer he harangued them with respect to the Italian character of the islands, told them that they would have to send their children to the Italian school and that the whole village would be Italianized and that _only in their homes_ would they be permitted to speak Croatian.... On January 8 the priest was taken from Cres to the island of Krk, where he was informed that he would have to leave his parish, but that he might go back there for a day or two to fetch a few necessities. It was raining in torrents when Father Hlaca, wet to the skin, arrived at his village on the 11th at seven o'clock in the evening. As he suffers from several chronic ailments--which was known to the lieutenant--this bad weather had a grave effect upon him. When he reached his house he went to bed at once with a very high temperature. After about a quarter of an hour the lieutenant appeared with two carabinieri and shouted at him that he must get up. This draconian injunction had to be obeyed, the more so as the lieutenant was labouring under great excitement. He looked at the priest's permit which allowed him to come back to the village, and said, "If I were in your shoes I wouldn't venture to come back here." These words gave Father Hlaca an impression that his life was in danger.

The lieutenant then ordered him not to go out among the people, but to stop where he was until he was taken away. Five days after this the priest was taken to Rieka, so that the villagers were left with n.o.body to guard them against the violence and the temptations offered them by the Italians. The Croat inscription outside the school was replaced by one in Italian and, with the lieutenant acting as teacher, the doors were thrown open. But the only children who went there were those of the lieutenant himself and those of the mayor, who was a renegade in the pay of the Italians. It was announced that heavy fines would be inflicted if the other children did not come. The villagers were in great trouble and in fear, with n.o.body to give them advice or consolation.... There may be some who will be curious to know concerning the "Italian" population of this island, which, according to the 1910 census, reached the large figure of 28 per cent. At a place called Nereine it was stated, in the census of 1880, that the commissioner had found 706 Italians and 340 Yugoslavs. Consequently an Italian primary school was opened; but when it was discovered that the children of Nereine knew not one traitor word of that language, the school was transformed into a Yugoslav establishment. This is one case out of many; the 28 per cent. would not bear much scrutiny.... But the Italian Government, at any rate the "Liga n.a.z.ionale" to whose endowment it contributes, had been taking in hand this question of elementary schools in Istria and Dalmatia among the Slav population. The "Liga" made gratuitous distribution of clothing, of boots, of school-books and so forth. Some indigent Slavs allowed themselves in this way to become denationalized.

When, however, you examine the embroideries of these islands--particularly beautiful on Rab and on the island of wild olive trees, the neighbouring Pag--you will be sure that such an ancient national spirit as they show will not be easily seduced. The Magyars, by the way, whose culture is more modern, borrowed certain features that you find on these embroideries--the sun, for instance, and the c.o.c.k, which have from immemorial times been thought appropriate by these people for the cloth a woman wears upon her head when she is bringing a new son into the world, whose dawn the c.o.c.k announces. Older than the workers in wood, much older than those who carved in stone, are these island embroiderers. In this work the people reproduced their tears and laughter.

RAB IS COMPLETELY CAPTURED

What will it avail to put up "Liga" schools in these islands, where the population is 9967 per cent. Yugoslav and 031 per cent.

Italianist--that is, if we are content to accept the Austrian statistics? What ultimate advantage will accrue to Italy from the doings of her emissaries, in November 1918, on the isle of Rab? It was Tuesday, November 26, when the _Guglielmo Pepe_ of the Italian navy put in at the venerable town which is the capital of that island. The commander, with an Italianist deputy from Istria, climbed up to the town-hall with the old marble balcony and informed the mayor and the members of the local committee of the Yugoslav National Council that he had come in the name of the Entente and in virtue of the arrangements of the Armistice; he said that in the afternoon Italian troops would land, for the purpose of maintaining order. It was pointed out to him that no disturbance had arisen, and that, according to the terms of the Armistice, he had no right to occupy this island. The commander announced that he must disarm the national guard, but that the Yugoslav flags would not be interfered with; the Italian flag would only be hoisted on the harbour-master's office and the military headquarters. On the next day, after he had been unable to induce the town authorities to lower their national flag from the clock-tower, he sent a hundred men with a machine gun to carry out his wishes. Filled with confidence by this heroic deed, he marched into the mayor's office and dissolved the munic.i.p.al council.

Armed forces occupied the town-hall, over which an Italian flag was flown. An Italian officer was entrusted with the mayoral functions and with the munic.i.p.al finances, while the post office was also captured and all private telegrams forbidden, not only those which one would have liked to dispatch, but those which came in from elsewhere--they were not delivered. All meetings and manifestations were made illegal. The commander, whose name was Captain Denti di ---- (the other part being illegible), sent a memorandum to the munic.i.p.al council which explained that he dissolved it on account of their having grievously troubled the public order; he did this by virtue of the powers conferred upon him and in the name of the Allied Powers and the United States of America. The islanders did not pretend to be experts in international law, but they did not believe that he was in the right.

"I have every confidence," said the Serbian Regent, when he was receiving a deputation of the Yugoslav National Council a few days after this--"I have every confidence that the operations for the freedom of the world will be accomplished, that large numbers of our brethren will be liberated from a foreign yoke. And I feel sure that this point of view will be adopted by the Government of the Kingdom of Italy, which was founded on these very principles. They were cherished in the hearts and executed in the deeds of great Italians in the nineteenth century.

We can say frankly that in choosing to have us as their friends and good neighbours the Italian nation will find more benefit and a greater security than in the enforcement of the Treaty of London, which we never signed nor recognized, and which was made at a time when n.o.body foresaw the crumbling of Austria-Hungary."

AVANTI SAVOIA!

It would be tedious to chronicle a thousandth part of the outrages, crimes and stupidities committed on Yugoslav territory by the Italians.

Where they were threatened with an armed resistance they yielded. Thus on November 14, when they had reached Vrhnica (Ober-Laibach) on their way to Ljubljana (Laibach), they were met by Colonel Svibic with sixteen other officers who had just come out of an internment camp in Austria. Svibic requested the Italians to leave Vrhnica. He said that he and the Serbian commander at Ljubljana would prevent the advance of the Italians into Yugoslav territory. They would be most reluctant to be obliged to resort to armed force should the Italians continue their advance, and they declined responsibility for any bloodshed which might ensue.... The colonel of the Italian regiment which had been stationed for some days at Vrhnica informed the mayor of that commune that he had received orders to depart; he retired to the line of demarcation fixed by the Armistice conditions.

THE ENTENTE AT RIEKA

It was ironical that a young State, struggling into life, should be hindered, not by former enemies but by friends of its friends. The Italians complained that the French, British and Americans were not fraternizing with them. In the first place, it was repugnant to the sense of justice of these nations when they saw that General di San Marzano, after having fraudulently seized the town of Rieka and turning its absolutely legal Governor into the street, did not ask the citizens to organize a temporary local government, in which all parties would be represented, but delivered, if you please, the town to fifteen gentlemen, the I.N.C., who--at the very utmost--represented half the population. On November 24, the local newspaper _Il Popolo_ announced in a non-official manner that the I.N.C., in full accord with the military command, had taken over the administration--_i poteri pubblici_. This, by the way, was never confirmed by the representatives of the other Allies. The I.N.C. furthermore declared null and of no effect any intervention of the Yugoslav National Council in the affairs of the authorities of the State of Rieka. When the Yugoslavs appealed to the French, British or Americans they were naturally met with sympathy and urged to have patience. Case after case of high-handed dealing was reported to these officers. They sometimes intervened with good effect; far more injustice would have happened; far more Croats and Autonomists, for instance, would have been deported if the Allies had not interceded.

It was now, of course, impossible for Yugoslavs to wear their colours; nor could they prevent the C.N.I. from hanging vast Italian flags on Croat houses. One of the largest flags, I should imagine, in the world swayed to and fro between Rieka's chief hotel and the tall building on the opposite side of the square--and both these houses, mark you, were Croat property. But the Allied officers knew very well (and the C.N.I.

knew that they knew) that more than thirty of the large buildings on the front belonged to Croats, whereas under half a dozen were the property of Italians or Italianists. The ineffable Mr. Edoardo Susmel, in one of his pro-Italian books, entreats certain French and British friends of the Yugoslavs to come for one hour to Rieka and judge for themselves.

But twenty minutes would be ample for a man of average intelligence. In many ways the presence of the Allies grieved the C.N.I. The Allies looked without approval at the "Giovani Fiumani," an a.s.sociation of young rowdies of whose valuable services the C.N.I. availed itself. But if these hired bands could not be dispersed they could have limits placed upon their zeal. One of their ordinary methods was to sit in groups in cafes or in restaurants or other places where an orchestra was playing, then to shout for the Italian National Anthem and to make themselves as nasty as they dared to anyone who did not rise. If everybody rose, then they would wait a quarter of an hour and have the music played again. The Allied officers persuaded General Grazioli to prohibit any National Anthem in a public place. It was distasteful to the Allied officers when a local newspaper in French--_l'Echo de l'Adriatique_--which had been established to present the Yugoslav point of view, was continually being suppressed. For example, on December 14, it printed a short greeting from the Croat National Council to President Wilson. The most anti-Italian phrase in this that I could find was: "Their fondest hope is to justify to the world, to history and to you the great trust you have placed in them." This was refused publication.

It is unnecessary to say that Yugoslav newspapers were confiscated and their sale forbidden--after all, one didn't buy German or Austrian newspapers in England during the War, and the Italians now regarded the Croats as very pernicious enemies. _La Ra.s.segna Italiana_ of December 15 called its first article--printed throughout in italics--"I Prussiani dell' Adriatico," and took to its bosom an "upright American citizen"

returning from a visit to "Fiume nostra," who defined the Yugoslavs "on account of their greed and their brutality and their spirit of intrigue and their lack of candour as the Prussians of the Adriatic." Personally I should submit that the Prussian spirit was not wholly lacking in those two Italian officers who penetrated on November 25 into the dining-room at the quarters of the Custom-house officials and informed them that they wanted their piano. No discussion was permitted; the piano "transferred itself," as they say in some languages, to the Italian officers' mess. The Prussian spirit was not undeveloped in a certain Mr.

tiglic--his name might cause his enemies to say he is a renegade, but as my knowledge of him is confined to other matters, we will say he is the n.o.blest Roman of them all. He likewise had a dig at the Custom-house officials; I know not whether he was wiping off old scores.

Appointed by the I.N.C. as director of the Excise office, he communicated with the resident officials--Franjo Jakovcic, Ivan Mikulicic and Grga Mauran--on December 5, and told them to clear out by the following Sat.u.r.day, they and their families, so that in the heart of winter forty-one persons were suddenly left homeless.

A CANDID FRENCHMAN

This and innumerable other manifestations of Prussianism were brought to the attention of the French, so that it was not surprising when a Frenchman made a few remarks in the _Rijec_ of Zagreb. His article, ent.i.tled "Mise au point," begins by a reference to the Yugoslav c.o.c.kades which were sometimes worn by the French sailors. This, to the Italians, was as if an ally in the reconquered towns of Metz and Strasbourg had sported the colours of an enemy. "The cases are not parallel," says the Frenchman. "You have come to Rieka and to Pola as conquerors of towns that were exhausted, yielding to the simultaneous and gigantic pressure of the Allied armies. These towns gave themselves up. Are they on that account your property, and are we to consider as a dead-letter the clauses of the Armistice which settled that Pola should be occupied by the Allies? I am not so dexterous a diplomat as to be able to follow you along this track; let it be decided by others. But we who were present perceived that your occupation, which you had regulated in every detail, had a close resemblance to the entry of a circus into some provincial town, whose population is known beforehand to be of a hostile character.

It is needless to say that this masquerade, these vibrating appeals to fraternity that were placarded upon the walls gave us in that grey, abandoned town an impression of complete fiasco." ["It is significant,"

writes Mr. Beaumont the Italophil, "that the Slav population ... observe an att.i.tude of strange reserve and diffidence. They are silent and almost sullen. When the Italian fleet first visited Pola there was hardly a cheer...."] "Now let me tell you," says the Frenchman, "that our entry into Alsace was different. Foch was not obliged to send emissaries in advance in order to decorate the houses with flags and to erect triumphal arches. The French c.o.c.kades had not nestled in the dark hair of our Alsatian women since 1870, for forty-eight years the tricolors had been waiting, piously folded at the bottom of those wooden chests, waiting for us to float them in the wind of victory--nous rentrions chez nous tout simplement. Or, vous n'etes pas chez vous ici, messieurs." ["Common reserve and decency should have induced the Jugo-Slavs to abstain," says Mr. Beaumont, "from rushing to take a place to which they were not invited ... an exclusively Italian city."]

"Whatever you may a.s.sert," says the Frenchman, "everything seems to contradict it. Your actors play their parts with skill, but the public is frigid. Now the decorations are tattered and the torches on the ramparts have grown black.... Permit me, following your example, and with courtesy, to call back the glories of old Italy, to remind myself of the great figures that stride through your history and that give to the world an unexampled picture of the lofty works of man. Our sailors, who are simple and often uncultured men, have no remembrance of these things; the brutal facts, in this whirling age in which we live, have more power to strike their imagination. What is one to say to them when they see their comrades stabbed, slaughtered by your men as if they were noxious animals--yesterday at Venice, the day before that at Pola, to-day at Rieka. Englishmen and Americans, your Allies, receive your 'sincere and fraternal hand' which holds a dagger. As a method of pacific penetration you will avow that this is rather rudimentary and that the laws of Romulus did not teach you such fraternity. We have also seen you striking women in the street and disembowelling a child. What are we to think of that, _fratelli d'Italia_? Excuse us, but we are not accustomed to such incidents. Is it not natural that the legendary, gallant spirit of our sailors should infect the crowd? Our bluejackets have looked in vain for the three colours which are dear to them and which you have excluded utterly from all your rows of flags. Well, in default of them, they had no choice but to array themselves in the c.o.c.kades which dainty hands pinned on their uniforms.... And our 'poilus,' in their faded, mud-smeared garments walk along 'your'

streets, disdainfully regarded by your dazzling and pomaded Staff. Do you remember that these unshaven fellows who thrust back the Boche in 1918 are the descendants of those who in 1793 conquered Italy and Europe with bare feet? Therefore do not strike your b.r.e.a.s.t.s if now and then a smile involuntarily appears upon their lips. O you who henceforth will be known as the immortal heroes of the Piave, if our fellows see to-day so many n.o.ble b.r.e.a.s.t.s, it was not seldom that they saw another portion of your bodies."

ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS

"Yes, but that has nothing to do," some people will say, "with Rieka's economical position. We admit that Croatia has the historical right to the town, but we wish to be satisfied that the Croats are not moved by reasons that would cause Rieka's ruin. It may be nowadays, owing to the unholy alliance between Magyars and Italians, that the town, with respect to its trade, is more in the Italian sphere than in that of Yugoslavia." The answer to this is that Italy's share of the value of the imports into Rieka in 1911 was 75 per cent. of the total, while her share of the value of the exports amounted to 13 per cent., which proves that Italy depends commercially more on Rieka's hinterland than does that hinterland upon Italy. It seems to be of less significance that the millionaires of Rieka are mostly Croats, for they might conceivably have enriched themselves by trade with Italy. But of the nine banks, previous to the War the Italianists were in exclusive possession of none, while the Croats had four; of the eight shipping companies three were Croat, three were Magyar, one British, one German--not one Italian. It is true that some Italian writers lay it down that Rieka's progress should be co-ordinated with that of Venice, to say nothing of Triest, and should not be exploited by other States to the injury of the Italian Adriatic ports. Their point of view is not at all obscure. And all disguise is thrown to the winds in a book which has had a great success among the Italian imperialists: _L'Adriatico et il Mediterraneo_, by Mario Alberti (Milan, 1915--third edition). The author says that Italy, having annexed Triest and Rieka, will be "a.s.sured for ever"; her "economic penetration"

of the Balkans "will no longer be threatened" by the projected Galatz-Scutari (Danube-Adriatic) railway; Italian agriculture which, he says, is already in peril, "will be rescued"; the Italian fisherman will no longer have the ports of Triest and Rieka closed (for exportation to Germany and Austria); the national wealth will be augmented by "several milliards"; new fields will be open to Italian industry; her economic (and military) domination over the Adriatic will be absolute. There will, he continues, be no more "disturbing" compet.i.tion on the part of any foreign mercantile marine; the Adriatic will be the sole property of Italy, and so on. It would be worth while, as a study of expressions, to photograph a few Rieka Italianists in the act of reading these rapturous pages.... But lest it be imagined that I have searched for the most feeble pro-Italian arguments in order to have no difficulty in knocking them down, I will add that their strongest argument, taken as it is from the official report of the French Consul in 1909, appears to be that the commerce of Croatia amounted then to only 7 per cent. of the total trade of the port of Rieka. I am told by those who ought to know that wood alone, which comes almost exclusively from Croatia, Slavonia, etc., represents 16 per cent. If other products, such as flour, wine, etc., are considered, 50 per cent. of the total trade must be ascribed to Croatia, Slavonia, etc. And that does not take into account the western Banat and other Yugoslav territories. Serbia, too, would now take her part, so that there is no need to fear for the position of a Yugoslav Rieka based solely--omitting Hungary and the Ukraine altogether--on her Yugoslav hinterland. Rieka without Yugoslavia would be ruined and would degenerate into a fishing village, with a great past and a miserable future. This could very well be seen during the spring of 1919 when the communications were interrupted between Rieka and Yugoslavia. At Rieka during April eggs were 80 centimes apiece, while at Bakar, a few miles away, they cost 25 centimes; milk at Rieka was 6 crowns the litre and at Bakar one crown; beef was 30 crowns a kilo and at Bakar 8 crowns. Italy was calling Rieka her pearl--a pearl of great price; the Yugoslavs said it was the lung of their country. It is within the knowledge of the Italianists that the prosperity of Rieka would not be advanced by making her the last of a chain of Italian ports, but rather by making her the first port of Yugoslavia. What has Italy to offer in comparison with the Slovenes and the Croats? The maritime outlet of the Save valley, as well as of the plains of Hungary beyond it, is, as Sir Arthur Evans points out, the port of Rieka. And, in view of the mountainous nature of the country which lies for a great distance at the back of Split and of Dubrovnik, it would seem that Rieka--and especially when the railway line has been shortened--will be the natural port of Belgrade.