The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 3

THE TURNCOAT MAYOR

One cannot expect in a place with Rieka's history that such considerations as these will be debated, calmly or otherwise, but at all events on their own merits. They will be approached with more than ordinary pa.s.sion, since so many of the people of Rieka have been turncoats. Any man who changes sides in his religion or his nationality or politics--presuming, and I hope this mostly was so at Rieka, that his reasons were not base--that man will feel profoundly on these matters, more profoundly than the average person of his new religion, nationality or politics. He will observe the ritual, he will give utterance to his thoughts with such an emphasis that his old comrades will dislike him and his new a.s.sociates be made uneasy. Thus a convert may not always be the most delightful creature in the garden, and he is abundant at Rieka.

As an ill.u.s.tration we may study Dr. Vio. Many persons have repeated that he has a Croat father, yet they should in fairness add that his father's father came from Venice. But if he came from Lapland, that ought to be no reason why the present Dr. Vio should not, if he so desires, be an Italian. If he had, when he arrived at what is usually called the age of discretion, inscribed himself among the sons of Italy--_a la bonheur_.

But he took no such step. He came out as a Croat of the Croats, for when he had finished his legal studies he became a town official, but discovered that his views--for he was known as an unbending Croat--hindered his advancement. The party in possession of the town council, the Autonomist party, would have none of him. At last he, in disgust, threw up his post and went into his father's office. He was ent.i.tled, after ten years' service, to a pension; the Autonomists refused to grant it for the reason that he was so dour a Croat. Very often, talking with his friends, did Dr. Vio mention this. He made a successful appeal to the Court at Buda-Pest and a certain yearly sum was conceded to him, which he may or may not be still obtaining. Then, to the amazement of the Croats, he renounced his nationality and became--no, not an Italian--a Magyar. He was now one of those who called Hungary his "Madre Patria," and as a weapon of the ruling Hungarian party he was employed against the Italianists. In the year 1913 the deputy for Rieka died and Dr. Vio was a candidate, his opponent being one of the Italianist party, Professor Zanella. Dr. Vio had the support of the Government officials, railway officials and so forth, and was elected. Now he was a Magyar of the Magyars: Hungarian police officials were introduced, and Magyar, disregarding the town statutes, was employed by them as sole official language. The citizens still speak of those police.... The War broke out, and Dr. Vio donned a uniform, serving chiefly on the railway line between Rieka and Zagreb. Gradually he seems to have acquired the feeling that it was unnatural for him to be a Magyar of the Magyars, even though he was compelled, like so many others, to wear this uniform. But one day in 1916 when his friend and fellow-officer, Fran ojat, teacher at the High School at Suak, walked into his room at Meja, when he happened to be putting little flags upon a map, he prophesied--King Peter and the Tzar would have been glad to hear him. Presently, he had himself elected as the mayor, which enabled him to leave an army so distasteful to him. How long would he wait until he publicly became a Croat once again? He did not doubt that the Entente would win, and told that same friend ojat that Rieka on the next day would be Croat. To another gentleman in June of 1918 he said he hoped that he would be the first Yugoslav mayor of the town, and on that day, out hunting, he sang endless Croat songs. In September, to the mayor of Suak, "You will see," he said, "how well we two as mayors will work together." When the Croat National Council entered into office at the end of October he again met Mr. ojat, just as he was going up to that interview in the Governor's Palace. "Jesam li ja onda imao pravo, jesi li sada zadovoljan?" he said. ("Was I not right that time? Are you satisfied now?") Joyfully he pressed Mr. ojat's hand and greeted the two other persons who were with him. And Mr. ojat was pleased to think that Vio would now be a good Croat, as of old. But on the following day he was an Italian.

HIS FERVOUR

When I went up to see this variegated gentleman--whose personal appearance is that of a bright yellow cat--he purred awhile upon the sofa and then started striding up and down the room. As he sketched the history of the town, which, he said, had always been Italian and would insist on being so, he spoke with horror of the days when Jellacic was in control, and then, remembering another trouble, he raised both his hands above his head and brought them down with such a crash upon the desk where I was writing his remarks that--but n.o.body burst in; the munic.i.p.al officials were accustomed to his conversation. He was reviling at that moment certain Allied officers who had not seen fit to visit him. "I care not!" he yelled. "We are Italian! I tell you we are Italianissimi!" (He was glad enough, however, when his brother Hamlet, who had remained a Yugoslav and was on friendly terms with the chief of the carabinieri, managed to obtain for the mayor a pa.s.sport to Italy, concerning which the carabinieri had said that they must first of all apply to Rome.) The doctor was sure that Yugoslavia would not live, for it had two religions; and another notable defect of the Croats--"I speak their language quite well," he said--was that in the whole of Rieka not one ancient doc.u.ment was in Croatian. I was going to mention that everywhere in Croatia until 1848 they were in Latin--but he saw what I was on the point of saying and--"Look here! look here!" he cried, "now look at this!" It was a type-written sheet in English, whereon was recounted how the mayor had offered to four Admirals, who came to Rieka on behalf of their four nations, how he had, in order to meet them in every way--"They asked me," he said, with blankness and indignation and forgiveness all joined in his expression--it was beautifully done--"they asked me, the Italian mayor of this Italian town, whether it was truly an Italian town!"--well, he had offered to take a real plebiscite, on the basis of the last census, and the Admirals, while appreciating his offer, had not availed themselves of it. (Maybe some one had told them how the census officials, chiefly members of the "Giovani Fiumani," had gone round, asking the people whether they spoke Italian and usually filling in the papers themselves. Presumably the mayor did not propose to allow anyone who had then been described as an Italian now to call himself Croat.) I was just calculating what he was in 1910 when he played a trump card and begged me to go up to the cemetery and take note of the language used for the epitaphs. Then let me return to him on the morrow and say what was the nationality of Rieka. There seemed to be the question if in such a town where Yugoslavs so often use Italian as the business language, many of them possibly might use it as the language of death; as it happened the first Yugoslav to whom I spoke about this point--a lawyer at whose flat I lunched the following day--produced a little book ent.i.tled _Regolamento del Cimitero comunale di Fiume_, and from it one could see that in the local cemetery the blessed principle of self-determination was in fetters. Chapter iii. lays down that all inscriptions must have the approval of the civic body. You are warned that they will not approve of sentences or words which are indecent, and that they prohibit all expressions and allusions that might give offence to anyone, to moral corporations, to religions, or which are notoriously false. No doubt, in practice, they waive the last stipulation, so that the survivors may give praise to famous or to infamous men; but I am told that they raised fewer difficulties for Italian wordings, and that the stones which many people used--those which the undertakers had in stock, with s.p.a.ces left for cutting in the details--were invariably in Italian.... I hope I have not given an unsympathetic portrait of the mayor who has about him something lovable. Whatever Fate may have in store for Rieka, Dr. Vio is so magnificent an emotional actor that his future is a.s.sured. I trust it will be many years before a stone, in Croat, Magyar or Italian, is placed above the body of this volatile gentleman.... And then perhaps the deed of his administrative life that will be known more universally than any other will be the omission of an _I_ from certain postage stamps. When the old Hungarian stamps were surcharged with the word FIUME, the sixty-third one in every sheet of half an edition was defective and was stamped FUME.[19]

THREE PLEASANT PLACES

In the immediate neighbourhood of Rieka, across the bay, lies Abbazia, which Nature and the Austrians have made into a charming spot. By the famous "Strandweg" that winds under rocks and palm and laurel, you go to Volosca in the easterly and to Lovrana in the westerly direction. Just at the back of all these pretty places stands the range of Istria's green mountains. More than twenty years ago a certain Dr. Krstic, from the neighbourhood of Zadar, conceived the happy thought of printing, in the peasant dialect, a newspaper which would discourse on Italy in articles no peasant could resist. He was given subsidies, and for some time the newspaper was published at Volosca. But perhaps the peasants did not read it any more than those near Zadar would take in the _Pravi Dalmatinac_ ("The Real Dalmatian"), which attempted a few years previous to the War to preach sectionalism to the Serbo-Croats.

The Italians who came to the Abbazia district in November 1918 did not try such methods. In the combined commune of Volosca-Abbazia the population at the 1910 census consisted of 4309 Yugoslavs, 1534 German-Austrians, and 418 Italians. Most of the 418 had never seen Italy; the only true Italians were some officials who had come from other parts of Istria. The official language was Italian, which was regarded as more elegant. The district doctor was Italian, but all the other 29 non-official doctors were either Germans, Czechs or Croats. At Volosca eighteen years ago there was no Croat school; when one was opened the Italian school at once lost half its membership and before the War had been reduced to 25 pupils. Before the War at Abbazia the Croat school had six cla.s.ses, while the Italian had ceased for lack of patronage. The German school had 160 pupils; this has now been dissolved, the pupils being mostly sent to the re-opened Italian school.

Thus it will be seen that efforts were required to Italianize these places. The efforts were continued even during the War, it is said by the ex-Empress Zita. At any rate the people who had altered their Italian names saw that they had been premature and rea.s.sumed their former ones. They rea.s.sumed the pre-war privileges: at Lovrana, for example, they "ran" the village, not having allowed any communal elections since 1905 and arranging that their Croat colleagues in the council should all be illiterate peasants. Some Italians were interned in 1915, as the Croats had been in 1914, but the council came again into their hands. At the meetings they had been obliged, owing to the council's composition, to talk Croatian; but their own predominance was undisturbed. On their return to power during the War they displayed more generosity, and admitted even educated Croats to the council. And if such out-and-out Italians as the Signori Grossmann, Pegan, etc. of Lovrana were kinder to the Yugoslavs than the Signori Grbac, Koroac and Codric of Rieka it may be because the gentle spirit of the place affected them. The leading families would even intermarry; Signor Gelletich, Lovrana's Italian potentate, gave his sister to the Croat chieftain. But, as we have said, idylls had to end when in November 1918 the Italian army came upon the scene. Abbazia and Volosca and Lovrana were painted thoroughly in the Italian colours. Public buildings, private houses--irrespective of their inmates--had patches of green, white and red bestowed upon them. Everything was painted--some occupation had to be found for the military, who appeared to be more numerous than the inhabitants. Meanwhile, their commanding officers had other brilliant ideas: an Italian kindergarten was opened at Volosca, and the peasant women of the hills around were promised that if they came with their children to the opening ceremony, every one of them would be rewarded with 1 lb. of sugar. So they came and were photographed--it looked extremely well to have so many women seizing this first opportunity of an Italian education for their babies. Some one at Rieka most unfortunately had forgotten to consign the sugar. The Italian officer who was appointed to discharge the functions of podesta, that is, mayor, of Abbazia was a certain Lieut.-Colonel Stadler. He sent to Rome and Paris various telegrams as to the people's ardent hope of being joined to Italy. The people's own telegrams to Paris went by a more circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people, thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Pocic, a naturalized American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles, cried Stadler; on January 10 he stopped the lessons.

ITALY IS LED ASTRAY BY SONNINO

While the Italians were thus engaged, what was the state of opinion in their own country? Would Bissolati's organ, the _Secolo_, and the _Corriere della Sera_, which had been favourable to the Slavs since Caporetto, have it in their power to moderate the fury of the anti-Slav papers? MalaG.o.di of the _Tribuna_ said on November 24 that the position at Rieka had been remedied. But was the public fully alive to what was happening at Zadar and ibenik? "While these cities have been nominally occupied by us and are under the protection of our flag, the Italian population has never been so terrorized by Croat brutality as at this moment." The _Mattino_ disclosed to its readers in flaring headlines that "Yugoslav oppression cuts the throats of the Italian population in Dalmatia and terrorizes them." Would the people of Italy rather listen to such thrills or to the _Secolo_, which deprecated the contemptuous writings of Italian journalists with regard to the Slavs--the _Gazzetta del Popolo's_ "little snakes" was one of the milder terms of opprobrium. The _Secolo_ recalled Italy's own illiterate herds and the fact that the Italian Risorgimento was judged, not by the indifferent and servile ma.s.s, but by its heroes. It explained that the Treaty of London was inspired by the belief that Austria would survive, and that for strategic reasons only it had given, not Rieka, but most of Dalmatia and the islands to Italy.

It was calamitous for Italy that she was being governed at this moment not by prudent statesmen such as she more frequently produces in the north, but by southerners of the Orlando and Sonnino type. The _Giornale d'Italia_ would at a word from the Foreign Minister have damped the ardour of those journalists and other agitators who were fanning such a dangerous fire. Sonnino once himself told Radovic, the Montenegrin, that he could not acquiesce in any union of the Yugoslavs, for such a combination would be fraught with peril for Italians. And now that Southern Slavs were forming what he dreaded, their United States, it would have been sagacious--it was not too late--if he had set himself to win their friendship. Incidents of an untoward nature had occurred, such as those connected with the Austrian fleet; nine hundred Yugoslavs, after fighting side by side with the Italians, had actually been interned, many of them wearing Italian medals for bravery;[20] the Yugoslavs, in fact, by these and other monstrous methods had been provoked. But it was not too late. A Foreign Minister not blind to what was happening in foreign countries would have seen that if he valued the goodwill of France and England and America--and this goodwill was a necessity for the Italians--it was inc.u.mbent on him to modify his politics. The British Press was not unanimous--all the prominent publicists did not, like a gentleman a few months afterwards in the _Spectator_, say that "if the Yugoslavs contemplated a possible war against the Italians, by whose efforts and those of France and Great Britain they had so recently been liberated, then would the Southern Slavs be guilty of monstrous folly and ingrat.i.tude." Baron Sonnino might have apprehended that more knowledge of the Yugoslav-Italian situation would produce among the Allies more hostility; he should have known that average Frenchmen do not buy their favourite newspaper for what it says on foreign politics, and that the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Humanite_ have many followers who rarely read them. And, above all else, he should have seen that the Americans, who had not signed the Treaty of London, would decline to lend themselves to the enforcement of an antiquated pact which was so grievously incongruous with Justice, to say nothing of the Fourteen Points of Mr. Wilson. But Sonnino threw all these considerations to the winds. He should have reconciled himself to the fact that his London Treaty, if for no other reason than that it was a secret one, belonged to a different age and was really dead; his refusal to bury it was making him unpopular with the neighbours. One does not expect a politician to be quite consistent, and Baron Sonnino is, after all, not the same man who in 1881 declared that to claim Triest as a right would be an exaggeration of the principle of nationalities; but he should not in 1918 have been deaf to the words which he considered of such weight when he wrote them in 1915 that he caused them to be printed in a Green Book. "The monarchy of Savoy," he said in a telegram to the Duke of Avarna on February 15 of that year, "has its staunchest root in the fact that it personifies the national ideals." Baron Sonnino was rallying to the House of Karageorgevic most of those among the Croats and Slovenes who, for some reason or other, had been hesitating; for King Peter personified the national ideals which the Baron was endeavouring to throttle. As Mr. Wickham Steed pointed out in a letter to the _Corriere della Sera_, the complete accord between Italians and Yugoslavs is not only possible and necessary, but const.i.tutes a European interest of the first order; if it be not realized, the Adriatic would become not Italian nor Slav, but German; if, on the other hand, it were brought about, then the language and the culture, the commerce and the political influence of Italy would not merely be maintained but would spread along the eastern Adriatic coast and in the Balkans in a manner hitherto unhoped for; if no accord be reached, then the Italians would see their whole influence vanish from every place not occupied by overwhelming forces. But Sonnino, a descendant of rancorous Levantines and obstinate Scots, went recklessly ahead; it made you think that he was one of those unhappy people whom the G.o.ds have settled to destroy. He neglected the most elementary precautions; he ought to have requested, for example, that the French and British and Americans would everywhere be represented where Yugoslav territory was occupied. But, alas, he did not show that he disagreed with the _Tribuna's_ lack of wisdom when it said that "the Italian people could never tolerate that beside our flag should fly other flags, even if friendly, for this would imply a confession of weakness and incapacity."

THE STATE OF THE CHAMBER

The Government was in no very strong position, for the Chamber was now moribund and the many groups which had been formed, in the effort to create a war Chamber out of one that was elected in the days of peace, were now dissolving. An incident towards the end of November exhibited not only the contrivances by which these groups hoped to preserve themselves, but the eagerness with which the Government rushed to placate the powerful. A young deputy called Centurione, a member of the National Defence group (the Fascio), made a furious attack on Giolitti, under cover of a personal explanation. He had been accused of being a police spy. Well, after Caporetto, convinced that the defeat was partly due to the work of Socialists and Giolittians, he had disguised himself as a workman and taken part in Socialist meetings. He was proud to have played the spy for the good of his country, and he finished by accusing Giolitti and six others of treason. The whole Chamber--his own party not being strongly represented--seems to have made for Centurione who, amidst an indescribable uproar, continued to shout "Traitor!" to anyone who approached him. Sciorati, one of the accused, was at last able to make himself heard. He related how, at Turin, Centurione had made a fool of himself. (But if Lewis Carroll had been with us still he might have made himself immortal.) "I have seen him disguised," said Sciorati, "as an out-porter at the door of my own house." Giolitti appeared and demanded an immediate inquiry, with what was described as cold and menacing emphasis. And Orlando, the Prime Minister, flew up to the Chamber and parleyed with Giolitti in the most cordial fashion.

Centurione's doc.u.ments were at once investigated and no proofs of treason were found, no witnesses proposed by him being examined. He was expelled from the National Defence group for "indiscipline," his colleagues frustrating his attempts to sit next to them by repeatedly changing their seats. The att.i.tude of the Fascio was humble and apologetic, and the other significant feature of the incident was the haste with which Orlando reacted to Giolitti's demand for an inquiry.

THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY

Baron Sonnino had to take into account not only the unsteadiness of the ground on which the Government stood, owing to these parliamentary regroupings, but the general effects that would ensue from the country's financial position. When, in spite of the victory and the approach of peace, the exchange price of the lira dropped 2 to 3 points towards the end of November, this may have had, contrary to what was thought by many, no connection with a revolutionary movement. The fact that in Triest the authorities had been obliged to isolate Italian ex-prisoners on their return from Russia, since they were imbued with revolutionary principles, at any rate were uttering loud revolutionary cries, may have been the mere temporary infection caught from their environment. But that of which there was no doubt was the entire truth of Caroti's statement when that deputy declared at Milan that while Italy had been triumphant in the military sphere, she had been economically overthrown.

Bankruptcy had not been announced, though it existed. Sonnino may therefore have been impelled not only by imperialism, by his inability to adjust himself to the new international situation, but by the hope that through his policy the new internal situation might be tided over.

If the thoughts of his fellow-countrymen could be directed elsewhere than to bankruptcy and possible revolution, it might be that in the meantime adroit measures and good luck would brush away these disagreeable phenomena. And he would then be rightly looked upon as one who had deserved well of his country. So he set about the task with such a thoroughness that he turned not alone the thoughts of men, but their heads. Professor Italo Giglioli addressed a letter to _The New Europe_ in which he said that he was claiming now not the territories given by the Treaty of London, but considerably more. He wanted all Dalmatia, down to Kotor. In foreign hands, he said, Dalmatia would be an eternal danger, and besides: "What in Dalmatia is not Italian is barbaric!" It was a melancholy spectacle to see a man of Giglioli's reputation saying that Dubrovnik, the refuge of Slav culture in the age of darkness and the place in which Slav literature so gloriously arose, was, forsooth, throughout its history always Italian in culture and in literature.

"Among thinking people in Italy," proclaims the Professor, "there are indeed but few who will abandon to the Balkan processes a region and a people which have always been possessed by Italian culture and which const.i.tute the necessary wall of Italy and Western Europe against the inroads of the half-barbaric East." He protests that it is ridiculous of _The New Europe_ to a.s.sert that the secret Treaty of London is supported by a tiny, discredited band of Italians; and indeed that Review has regretfully to acknowledge that many of his countrymen have been swept off their feet and carried onward in the gale of popular enthusiasm.

Giglioli ends by asking that his name be removed from the list of _The New Europe's_ collaborators. In vain does the _The New Europe_ say that the Professor's programme must involve a war between Italians and Yugoslavs. "We must be prepared for a new war," said the _Secolo_ on January 12. "The Italians who absolutely demand the conquest of Dalmatia must have the courage to demand that the demobilization of our Army should be suspended, and to say so very clearly." And the _Corriere della Sera_ warned Orlando of the consequences if he took no steps to silence the mad voices. "No one knows better," it wrote, "than the Minister of the Interior, who is also Premier, that on the other coast Italy claims that part of Dalmatia which was a.s.signed to her by the Treaty of London, but not more.... If the Government definitely claims and demands the whole of Dalmatia, then the agitation is justified; but if the Government does not demand it, then we repeat that to favour and not to curb the movement is the worst kind of Defeatism, for it creates among Italians a state of mind tending to transform the sense of a great victory into the sense of a great defeat ... quite apart from the intransigeance which this provokes in the Yugoslav camp." It was in vain. And when Bissolati, having resigned from office on the issue of Italo-Yugoslav relations, attempted to explain his att.i.tude at the Scala in Milan on January 11, his meeting was wrecked, for though the body of the hall and the galleries were relatively quiet, if not very sympathetic--it was a ticket meeting--the large number of subscription boxes, which could not be closed to their ordinary tenants, had been packed by Bissolati's adversaries, who succeeded in preventing him from speaking. After a long delay he managed to read the opening pa.s.sage, but when he came to the first "renunciation"--the Brenner for the Teutons--disturbance set in finally and he left the theatre. Afterwards the rioters adjourned to the _Corriere_ and _Secolo_ offices, where they broke the windows. And thus the first full statement of the war aims of any Italian statesman could not be uttered. It was spread abroad by the Press. Bissolati claimed to speak in the name of a mult.i.tude which had hitherto been silent.... The ma.s.ses, he said, demanded, that their rulers should devote all their strength to "the divine blessing of freeing mankind from the slavery of war." ... "To those," he said, "who speak of the Society of Nations as an 'ideology' or 'Utopia' which has no hold over our people, we would reply: Have you been in the trenches among the soldiers waiting for the attack?" [Signor Bissolati had the unique record, among Allied or enemy statesmen, of having volunteered for active service, though past the fighting age, and of having served in the trenches for many months before entering the Orlando Cabinet.]

A FOUNTAIN IN THE SAND

The speech was an admirable expression of that new spirit which the Allies had been fighting for. "Each of the anti-German nations," he said, "must guard itself against any unconsciously German element in its soul, if only in order to have the right to combat any trace in others of the imperialism which had poisoned the outlook of the German people."

With regard to the Adriatic: "Yugoslavia exists, and no one can undo this. But to the credit of Italy be it said, the attainment of unity and independence for the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was and must be alike the reason and the certain issue of our War.... Italy felt that if Serbia had been swallowed up by that monstrous Empire--itself a va.s.sal of the German Empire--her own economic expansion and political independence would have received a mortal blow. And so she was on Serbia's side, first in neutrality, then in intervention.... Those who only see, in the formation of the Yugoslav State, a sympathetic or antipathetic episode of the War, or a subsidiary effect of it, have failed to detect its inner meaning." As for the Treaty of London which was concluded against the enemy, it was not to be regarded as intangible against a friendly people. By special grants of autonomy, as at Zadar, or by arrangements between the two States, he would see the language and culture of all the trans-Adriatic sons of Italy a.s.sured. He warned his countrymen lest, in order to meet the peril of a German-Slav alliance against them, they should have to subordinate themselves to France and England, and be their proteges instead of their real Allies--a situation not unlike that of the Triple Alliance when Germany protected them against the ever-imminent attack of Austria.... "But perhaps the Yugoslavs will not be grateful or show an equal spirit of conciliation?

Certainly they will then have no vital interests to push against Italy, and in the long run sentiments follow interests." There was, in fact, throughout the speech only one questionable pa.s.sage, that in which he said that "if Italy renounced the annexation of Dalmatia she might obtain from Yugoslavia or from the Peace Conference the joy of pressing to her heart the most Italian city of Rieka, which the Treaty of London renounced." This may have been a sop to Cerberus. But Bissolati's appeals to justice and to wisdom fell upon the same stony ground as his demonstration that Dalmatia's strategic value is very slight from a defensive point of view to those who possess Pola, Valona and the outer islands. There is a school of reasonable Italians, such as Giuseppe Prezzolini, who for strategic reasons asked for the isle of Vis. Mazzini himself, after 1866, found it necessary, for the same reasons, that Vis should be Italian, since it is the key of the Adriatic. Some of us thought that it might have been feasible to follow the precedent of Port Mahon, which Great Britain occupied without exercising sovereignty over the rest of the island of Minorca. The magnificent harbour of Vis, perfectly protected against the bora, would have satisfied all the demands of the Italian navy. Vis is to-day practically as much Slav as Minorca was Spanish, and if the Slavs had been left in possession of the remainder of that island it would have proved the reverse of a danger to the Italians, since with a moderate amount of good sense the same relations would have existed as was the case upon Minorca.... The solution which was ultimately found in the Treaty of Rapallo was to allocate to the Italians in complete sovereignty not the island of Vis, but the smaller neighbouring island of Lastovo.

While the vast majority of Italians would not listen to Bissolati they delighted in Gabriele d'Annunzio. The great poet Carducci[21] had his heart full when he thought about the ragged, starving Croat soldiers, pitiable victims of the Habsburgs, exploited by them all their lives and fighting for them in a foreign land--and they fought bravely; but as they were often clad in miserable garments, they were called by those who wanted to revile them "Croat dirt." And that is what they are to Gabriele d'Annunzio. When the controversies of to-day have long been buried and when d'Annunzio's works are read, his lovers will be stabbed by his _Lettera ai Dalmati_. And if the mob had to be told precisely what the Allies are, it did not need a lord of language to dilate upon "the thirty-two teeth of Wilson's undecipherable smile," to say that the French "drunk with victory, again fly all their plumes in the wind, tune up all their fanfares, quicken their pace in order to pa.s.s the most resolute and speedy--and we step aside to let them pa.s.s." No laurel will be added to his fame for having spoken of "the people of the five meals"

[the English] which, "its b.l.o.o.d.y work hardly ended, reopens its jaws to devour as much as it can." All Italy resounded with the catchword that the Croats had been Austria's most faithful servants, although some Italians, such as Admiral Millo, as we shall see, when writing confidentially, did not say anything so foolish. Very frequently, however, as the Croats noticed, those who had been the most uncompromising wielders of Austria's despotism were taken on by Italy, the new despot. For example, at Split when the mayor and other Yugoslav leaders were arrested at the beginning of the War, one Francis Mandirazza was appointed as Government Commissary, after having filled the political post of district captain (Bezirkshauptmann) which was only given to those who were in the entire confidence of the Government. As soon as the Italians had possession of ibenik they took him into their service.

THOSE WHO HELD BACK FROM THE PACT OF ROME

_The New Europe_, whose directors had taken a chief part in bringing the Italians and the Yugoslavs together, which congress had resulted in the Pact of Rome, of April 1918, pointed out that in those dark days of the high-water mark of the great German offensive, this Pact--which provided the framework of an agreement, on the principle of "live and let live"--was publicly approved of by the Italian Premier and his colleagues, but was rejected now when the danger was past and Austria was broken up. Those who brought about the Pact reminded Italy that she was bound to it by honour and that the South Slav statesmen never had withdrawn from the position which it placed them in with reference to Italy.... Everyone must sympathize with the disappointment of those gentlemen who--Messrs. Franklin-Bouillon, Wickham Steed and Seton-Watson were a.s.sociated in this endeavour--had striven for a n.o.ble end, had achieved something in spite of many obstacles, and now saw that one party simply would not use the bridge which they had built for it. This party had, however, shown such reticence both while the bridge was being made and afterwards that one could scarcely be astonished at their att.i.tude. The Congress at Rome was in no sense official, but a voluntary meeting of private persons, who were got together with a certain amount of trouble. So unofficial, in fact, was the Congress that those Serbs who worked with the representatives of the Yugoslav Committee belonged to the Opposition; the Serbian Government, then in Corfu, not giving their adhesion to the Congress, which was perhaps a very clever move on the part of Paic. Whether it be true or not that Signor Amendolla, the General Secretary--he is the political director of the _Corriere della Sera_--was asked by the Yugoslav Committee not to admit any Serbian deputies except those of the Opposition, it appears that no other Serbs took a part in the proceedings. The Italian Government adopted an ambiguous att.i.tude, for while Orlando publicly endorsed the resolutions, as did several other Ministers, notably Bissolati, the Premier gave no confirmation to those who interpreted his att.i.tude as implying the tacit abandonment of Italy's extreme territorial claims. Sonnino was so reserved that he took no share at all in the Congress and refused to receive the Yugoslavs. He made no secret of his determination to exact the London Treaty. Nothing was signed by the Italian Government; and if Orlando's honour was involved it certainly does not seem possible to say the same of Sonnino.

It may be that Paic foresaw what would happen and was therefore unwilling to be implicated. He is an astute statesman of the old school--"too old," says _The New Europe_, which regards him as an Oriental sultan. But respecting the Pact of Rome they were rather at issue with the Italians. What the Italians gained was that the various clauses of the Pact were used as the basis for propaganda in the Austrian ranks on the Piave. And when once the Austrian peril had vanished the old rancour reappeared, particularly when, by the terms of the military armistice with Austria, Italy obtained the right to occupy a zone corresponding with what she was given by the London Treaty.

Whereas in that instrument the frontiers were exactly indicated, there was in the Pact of Rome no more than a general agreement that the principles of nationality and self-determination should be applied, with due regard to other "vital interests." Bissolati's group was in favour of something more definite, but to this Orlando was not well disposed; and Trumbic, the President of the Yugoslav Committee, did not avail himself of the, perhaps rather useless, offer of some Serbs who were not partic.i.p.ating in the Congress, but suggested that while he worked with the Government they would keep in touch with the Bissolati group; even as Bismarck who would work openly with a Government, and through his agents with the Opposition.

GATHERING WINDS

As the Serbian Society of Great Britain observed in a letter of welcome which they addressed to Baron Sonnino on the occasion of a visit to London, they were convinced "after a close study and experience of the Southern Slav question in all its aspects and some knowledge of the Adriatic problem as a whole, that there is no necessary or inevitable conflict between the aspiration of the Southern Slav people towards complete unity and the postulates of Italian national security and of the completion of Italian unity; but that, on the contrary, there exist strong grounds for Italo-Southern Slav co-operation and friendship." The Italian Government, however, had now got almost their whole country behind them, and in the months after the War so many Italians had become warlike that they were enchanted with the picture drawn by Gabriele d'Annunzio: "And what peace will in the end be imposed on us, poor little ones of Christ? A Gallic peace? A British peace? A star-spangled peace? Then, no! Enough! Victorious Italy--the most victorious of all the nations--victorious over herself and over the enemy--will have on the Alps and over her sea the _Pax Romana_, the sole peace that is fitting. If necessary we will meet the new plot in the fashion of the Arditi [units of volunteers employed on specially dangerous enterprises], a grenade in each hand and a knife between our teeth." It is true that the other poor little ones of Christ, the Franciscans, who are greatly beloved by the people of Dalmatia, from whom they are sprung, have hitherto preached a different _Pax Romana_. The Dalmatian clergy, who are patriotic, have been rather a stumbling-block in the way of the Italians. A very small percentage of them--about six in a thousand--have been anti-national and opportunist. At one place a priest whom his bishop had some years ago had occasion to expel, returned with the Italian army in November 1918 and informed the bishop that he had a letter from the Pope which reinstated him, but he refused to show this letter. He was anxious to preach on the following Sunday; the bishop declined to allow him. Then came unto the bishop the chief of the Italian soldiery and he said unto him: "Either thou shalt permit this man to preach or I will cause thine office to be taken from thee."

Unfortunately the bishop yielded, and the sermon, as one would imagine, was devoted to the greater glory of the Italians. Sometimes the Italians, since their occupation, have made a more humorous if not more successful use of the Church. On Palm Sunday, after the service a number of peasants, in their best clothes, were walking through a village holding the usual palm leaves in their hands. They were photographed, and a popular Italian newspaper printed this as a full-page coloured ill.u.s.tration. It was ent.i.tled: "Dalmatian Peasants on their way to pay Homage to Admiral Millo."

This policy of a grenade in each hand and a knife between the teeth makes a powerful appeal to the munition firms. And others who feed the flame of Italo-Slav hatred are, as Gaetano Salvemini, the anti-chauvinist, pointed out in the _Unita_ of Florence, those professional gladiators who would lose their job, those agents of the Italo-German-Levantine capitalism of the Triest Chamber of Commerce who want to be rid of the compet.i.tion of Rieka and think that this can only be obtained by annexation, and also those Italian Nationalists who believe that the only path to national greatness is by acquiring territory everywhere. No light has come to them from the East; the same arguments which are now put forward by such societies as the "Pro Dalmatia" could be heard in Italy before she possessed herself of Tripoli. One heard the same talk of strategic necessities; one heard that nearly all the population was waiting with open arms for the Italians; one heard that from a business point of view nothing could be better; one heard that the Italians without Tripoli would be choked out of the Mediterranean. And what have been the fruits of the conquest of Tripoli? No economic advantages have been procured, as Prezzolini wrote, no sociological, no strategic, no diplomatic benefits. A great deal of money was thrown away, a vast amount of energy was wasted, and thousands of troops have to be stationed permanently in the wilderness. That expedition to Tripoli, which was one of the gravest errors of Italian politics, was preceded by clouds of forged doc.u.ments, of absurdities, of partial extracts out of consular reports, of lying correspondence which succeeded in misleading the Italians.

WHY THE ITALIANS CLAIMED DALMATIA

"The Italian Government," said the _Morning Post_,[22] "is well qualified to judge of the interests of its own people." Here the _Morning Post_ is not speaking of the Italian Government which dealt with Tripoli, but that which has been dealing with Dalmatia. The reasons which have been advanced for an Italian or a partly Italian Dalmatia are geographical, botanical, historical, ethnical, military, naval and economic. As for the geographical reasons: even in the schools of Italy they teach that the Italian natural frontier is determined by the point of division of the waters of the Alps and that this frontier falls at Porto Re, a few miles to the south of Rieka--everything to the south of that belonging to the Balkan Peninsula. We may note the gallant patriotism of an Italian cartographer mentioned by Prezzolini; this worthy has inscribed a map of Dalmatia down to the Narenta with the pleasing words: "The new natural boundaries of Italy." As for the argument that the flora of Dalmatia resembles that of Italy, this can equally well be employed by those who would annex Italy to Dalmatia.

Historically, we have seen that Venice, which held for many years the seacoast and the islands, did not alter the Slav character of the country. It is not now the question as to whether Venice deserved or did not deserve well of Dalmatia, but "the truth is," says M. Emile Haumant,[23] the learned and impartial French historian, "the truth is that when Marmont's Frenchmen arrived they found the Slav language everywhere, the Italian by its side on the islands and the coast, Italian customs and culture in the towns, and also the lively and sometimes affectionate remembrance of Venice; but nowhere did a Dalmatian tell them that he was an Italian. On the contrary, they all affirmed that they were brothers of the Slav beyond, in whose misfortunes they shared and whose successes they celebrated." The Italians themselves, in achieving their unity, were very right to set aside the undoubted historical claims of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, those of the House of Este and those of the Vatican, seeing that they were in opposition to the principle of nationality and the right of a people to determine its own political status. With regard to the ethnical reasons, we are flogging another dead horse, as the statistics--even those taken during the Italian occupation--prove to the meanest intellect; and now the pro-Italians, despairing to make anyone believe that the 975 per cent. of the people of Dalmatia are truly Italians who by some kink in their nature persist in calling themselves Slavs, have invented a brand new nationality, the Dalmatian, after the cla.s.sic style of the late Professor Jagic who at Vienna, under the pressure of the Austrian Government, began talking of the Bosnian language in order not to say that it is Serbo-Croat. He was drowned in laughter. With respect to the military reasons, the Dalmatian littoral cannot be defended by a State which is not in possession of the hinterland. In time of peace a very strong army would be needed; Italy would, in fact, have to double her army for the defence of a frontier 700 kilometres long. And in the event of war it would be necessary either to abandon Dalmatia or to form two armies of operation, one on the frontiers of Julian Venetia, the other in Dalmatia, and without any liaison between them. From the military point of view it is incomparably more to the interest of Italy that she should live on friendly terms with the people of the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Adriatic than that she should maintain there an army out of all proportion to her military and economic resources--an army which in time of war would be worse than useless, since, as M. Gauvain observes, the submarines, which would find their nesting-places in the islands, would destroy the lines of communication. An Italian naval argument is, that if she had to fight on the eastern side of the Adriatic her sailors in the morning would have the sun in their eyes; but the Yugoslavs would be similarly handicapped in the case of an evening battle. With regard to the economic reasons, the longitudinal lines will continue to guarantee to the Germans and Magyars the commercial monopoly of the East, and Italy will perceive that she has paid very dearly for a blocked-up window. The sole method by which Italy can from the Adriatic cause her commerce to penetrate to the Balkans is by concluding with a friendly Yugoslavia the requisite commercial treaties, which will grow more valuable with the construction of the lateral railways, running inland from the coast, which Austrians and Magyars so constantly impeded.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF LONDON

If, then, it is difficult to see where the Italian interests will be profited by the possession of Dalmatia, there remains the argument that, irrespective of the consequences, she must have a good deal of it since it was allotted to her by the Treaty of London,[24] although the engagements entered into by Italy, France and Great Britain when they signed the Treaty with Germany caused the earlier instrument to be subject to revision where its terms had been disregarded. Signor Orlando, in an interview granted in April 1918 to the _Journal des Debats_, eagerly insisted that the Treaty had been concluded against the Austrian enemy, not against the Yugoslav nation; and if this be more than a mere phrase it is clear that with the disappearance of Austria-Hungary the Treaty automatically fell to the ground. By this Treaty of April 1915, France and Great Britain are bound--if necessary, by force of arms--to a.s.sist Italy in appropriating what, I believe, will be acknowledged to be some one else's country, at all events a country the vast proportion of whose inhabitants have determined that on no account will they come under the Italians. Would it not have been advisable if those who signed this doc.u.ment had made a few not very recondite researches into eastern Adriatic questions? They must have felt some qualms at the cries of indignation and amazement which arose when the provisions of the Treaty were disclosed, for it did not remain a secret very long. They had imagined, on the whole, that as Dalmatia had been under alien rulers, Venetian, Austrian and so forth, for so many years it really would not matter to them very much if they were governed from Vienna or from Rome. Perhaps a statesman here and there had heard that the Dalmatian Diet had pet.i.tioned many times since 1870 that they should be reunited to their brothers of Croatia and Slavonia in the Triune Kingdom. But all the calculations seem to have been made upon the basis that Austria-Hungary would survive, as a fairly formidable Power at any rate. The union of the Southern Slavs was too remote, and the Italians would be kindly masters. When the howl of indignation rose, the statesmen seem to have conceived the hope that the Italians would be generous and wise. The chief blame for the Treaty does not rest, however, on the Frenchmen and the Englishmen, but on the Russians; it was naturally felt that they should be more cognizant of Slav affairs, and if they were content to sign the Treaty, France and England might well follow their example. When Dr. Zaric, the Bishop of Split, saw the former Russian Foreign Minister, M. Sazonov, in Paris in the spring of 1919, this gentleman was in a state of such dejection that the Bishop, out of pity, did not try to probe the matter.

"Sometimes," said Sazonov, "sometimes the circ.u.mstances are too much opposed to you and you have to act against your inclinations."[25] The French and British statesmen gave the Bishop the impression that they were ashamed of the Treaty. He read to them in turn a memorandum in which he suggested that the whole Dalmatian question should be left to the arbitration of President Wilson, who was well informed, through experts, of the local conditions. And was it, in any case, just that an Italian, both claimant and judge, should sit on the Council of Four, to which no Yugoslav was admitted? To President Wilson the Bishop said, "You have come to fight for the just cause."

The President made no reply.

The Bishop, a native of the island of Hvar, a great linguist, was a man who made you think that a very distinguished mind had entered the body of the late Cardinal Vaughan. To him the most noticeable features of the President were the clear brow, the mystic eyes and the mouth which showed that he stood firmly on the ground.

"You have come to work and fight for the peace," said the Bishop.

"Yes, indeed, to fight," said Dr. Wilson. "And I will act with all my energy. You," he said, "you must help me."

"I will help you," said the Bishop, "with my prayers."

The Yugoslav Delegation in Paris had, on the authority of the Belgrade Cabinet, suggested that the question should be arbitrated.

"The Italians have declined the arbitration," said Dr. Zaric, "just as in the War Germany and Austria declined yours."

The President nodded.

"They have committed many disorders in our fair land," said the Bishop.

"I know, I know," said the President.

But, it will be asked, why did not Dr. Wilson insist on a just settlement of the Adriatic question, taking into his own hands that which Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau were so chary of touching?

These two statesmen, with the London Treaty hanging over them, wanted Wilson's a.s.sent for matters in which British and French interests were more directly concerned, while they required Sonnino's co-operation in the Treaty with Germany. It would have suited them very well if Wilson had taken such energetic steps with Italy that they themselves could, suitably protesting to Sonnino, be swept along by the presidential righteousness. But Dr. Wilson was disappointing those who had--in the first place because of the lofty language of his Notes--awaited a really great man. He was seen to be out of his depth; strenuously he sought to rescue his Fourteen Points and to steer the Covenant of the League through the rocks and shallows of European diplomacy. Sonnino, playing for time, involved the good Wilson in a maze of confused negotiations, while nearly every organ of Italian official and unofficial opinion was defaming the President. On April 15 Dr. Wilson in a memorandum suggested the famous "Wilson Line" in Istria, which thrust the Italian frontier westwards, so that Rieka should be safeguarded from the threat of an Italian occupation of Monte Maggiore. Italy was to give up northern Dalmatia and all the islands, save Lussin and Vis; in return she was to be protected by measures limiting the naval and military powers of Yugoslavia. When Wilson appealed over the head of the Italian Government to the people, their pa.s.sions had been excited to such a degree that much more harm was done than good. It is said that he had promised Messrs. Lloyd George and Clemenceau that he would not publish his letter for three hours, but that--pride of authorship triumphing over prudence--it was circulated to the Press two hours before this time was up, and a compromise which had been worked out by Mr. Lloyd George had perforce to be abandoned. This was one of the occasions when the President's impulsiveness burst out through his cold exterior, when his strength of purpose, his grim determination to fight for justice were undermined by his egotism.