The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 4

ITALIAN HOPES IN MONTENEGRO

For months the Italians had been consoling themselves with the thought that such a hybrid affair as Yugoslavia would never really come into existence. Some visionaries might attempt to join the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes, yet these must be as rare as Blake, who testified that "when others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the sons of G.o.d shouting for joy." One only had to listen, one could hear already how they were growling, how they were quarrelling, how they were killing each other. In Montenegro, for example, and Albania the Italians were greatly interested--not always as spectators. If you tell a hungry Montenegrin peasant in the winter that there is a chance of his obtaining flour and--well, that he may have to fight for it, but he will get good booty at Cetinje, he will go there. In January 1919 there was a battle. "The Montenegrin people rose in rebellion against the Serbians to recover their independence," said an Italian writer, one Dr. Attilio Tamaro in a weekly paper called _Modern Italy_, which was published in London. "This intensely popular revolt, animated by the heroically patriotic spirit of the Montenegrins, was relentlessly suffocated in blood. In the little city of Cetinje alone, where there are but a few thousand inhabitants, over 400 were killed and wounded. The Serbians and the French together accomplished this sanguinary repression. We repeat, it is painful to see the French lend their men, their blood and their glorious arms to the carrying out of the low intrigues of Balkan politics." The money and the arms that were found on the dead and captured rebels were Italian. If the schemes of the Italians had not been upset by the timely arrival of the Yugoslav forces, with the few Frenchmen, they would have occupied Cetinje and restored the traitor king. As it was, they occupied Antivari, from which place they smuggled arms and munitions into the country. They conspired with the adherents of the old regime, a very small body of men who were enormously alarmed at the loss of their privileged position. The chief of them was Jovan Plamenac, a former Minister whom the people at Podgorica had refused to hear, a few weeks previously, when he attempted to address them. He was hated on account of the most ruthless fashion in which, as Minister, he had executed certain of his master's critics at Kolain. There was a time, during the first Balkan War, when he advocated union with Serbia and on April 6, 1916, he wrote in the _Bosnische Post_ of Sarajevo that Nikita, owing to his flight, "may be regarded as no longer existing."

But his unpopularity remained and, with vengeance burning in his heart, he went from Podgorica to the Italians. They concocted a nice plan--he was to raise an army of his countrymen and the Italians would bring their garrison from Scutari. On January 1 Plamenac and his partisans tried to seize Virpazar, on the Lake of Scutari--the Commandant of the Italian troops at Scutari, one Molinaro, had asked the chief of the Allied troops, three days before this attempt, whether he might dispatch two companies to that place for the purpose of suppressing the disorders which had not yet come to pa.s.s. Another rising was engineered at Cetinje, where twenty or thirty of the poor peasants who had let themselves be talked over by Plamenac were killed; the rest of the misguided fellows were sent home, only their leaders being detained.

Plamenac himself escaped to Albania.[26] On the side of the Montenegrin Provisional Government no regular troops were available, as the Yugoslav soldiers who had lately arrived were engaged in policing other parts of the country. Volunteers were needed and a body of young men, mostly students, enrolled themselves. They were so busy that they omitted to inform Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., that they really were Montenegrin students. That indignant gentleman insists that they were Serbs, armed with French and British rifles, against which, he tells us (in the _Nineteenth Century_, January 1921) the insurgents could not do much.

Eleven of these volunteers were killed and they were buried underneath the tree where Nikita used to administer his brand of justice. All kinds of incriminating doc.u.ments were found upon the dead and captured rebels, as also a significant letter from the Italian Minister accredited to Nikita, which was addressed to the chancellor of the Italian Legation at Cetinje. An inter-Allied Commission, over which General Franchet d'Esperey presided, issued their report on February 8 at Podgorica. "All the troops," it said, "in Montenegro are Yugoslavs and not Serbs; there are not more than 500 of them." It further stated that the rebellion had been provoked by certain agents of the ex-King, a.s.sisted by some Italian agents. As for the ridiculous Italian charge which I quoted, accusing the French of a share in the low intrigues of Balkan politics, this partic.i.p.ation consisted in their General at Kotor demanding of Darkovic, the leader of the Montenegrin deputies, that his followers and the rebels should not come to blows. The reply, which annoyed the General, was to the effect that if the rebels made an attack, then Darkovic with his scratch forces would defend himself--and the battle lasted for two or three days. A junior French officer, who had been in command of a small detachment at Cetinje, told me that the noise of firing had awakened him every night and he had not the least idea what it was all about. But the French had a pretty accurate idea of the nationality of the "brigands" who on December 29 fired on the SS.

_Skroda_ and _Satyre_ near the village of Samouritch when it was carrying a cargo of flour up the Bojana for the Montenegrins. These vessels were sailing under the French flag and the "brigands," about fifty in number, were armed with machine guns. An International Commission established these facts, as also that the Italian ship _Vedeta_ pa.s.sed up the river just before the outrage and the _Mafalda_ just after it, and neither of them was molested. In consequence of what occurred and as practically all the supplies for Montenegro had at that time to be sent by the Bojana, General Dufour, in the absence of French troops, authorized the Serbs on February 12 to occupy the commanding position of Tarabosh.

WHAT HAD LATELY BEEN THE FATE OF THE AUSTRIANS THERE

These Yugoslav troops had been detached from the left wing of the Salonica forces and had come overland in order to deal with the situation in Montenegro. The Austrians had been in a woeful plight; it was regarded as a punishment to serve in Montenegro and Albania, not only because of the lack of amenities and the unruly spirit of the people, but also for the reason that the officers who came there--many managed to avoid it--were too often causes of dissatisfaction. More complaints had gone up from this front than from any other. The supplies allotted by the High Command in Austria were ample, as the Rieka depots testified, but a great deal did not reach its proper destination. Some officers took down their wives or other ladies, loading up the army motor-cars with luxuries of food and grand pianos, while the men were forced to tramp enormous distances; if anyone fell out, the natives in Albania would emerge from where they had been hiding and would deprive the wretched man of his equipment and his clothing, and perhaps his life. The sanitary section of that Austrian army was not good; it happened frequently that victims of malaria and wounded men were told to walk--if they arrived, so much the better. These poor fellows did not know that if they ultimately got back to Vienna they might be the objects of Imperial solicitude--the least to be dreaded was the Archduke Salvator, who was wont to come to a hospital, with his wife, and to bestow on every man a coloured picture-postcard of their Imperial and Royal persons, with a sentence printed underneath respecting their paternal and maternal love; it was officially reported in Vienna, of another hospital, that those who lay there had been spending "happy hours" in "the circle of the exalted Family"--this referred to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Immaculata, whose compositions for the piano are said to be beyond all criticism; she herself did not play them, but would sit there while they were inflicted by a courtier on the helpless men. Not very enviable was the lot of those Magyar officers who were taken to that hospital in Buda-Pest over which the Archd.u.c.h.ess Augusta, a strikingly ugly woman, presided. It was a regulation that no wounds were allowed to be dressed until the Archd.u.c.h.ess, arrayed in uniform and armed with a revolver, made her appearance of an evening. The officers were told that it was etiquette for them to broach a pleasant conversation with their benefactress. But the most dangerous Habsburg was the Archd.u.c.h.ess Blanka, who was interested in medicine; she had thought out for herself a remedy which human ailments never would withstand, but which was more especially effective in cases of tuberculosis, of malaria and of kidney diseases. At the hospital in the Kirchstetternga.s.se she had a ward entirely devoted to kidneys. Her treatment consisted in hot bandages of corn-flowers; the patients were packed in these bandages and that was all that was done to them. With regard to the diet, there were no particular regulations. Some of the men were sent from there to another and less original hospital, but it was often too late.

AND OF THE NATIVES

The Montenegrins who had been for so long--some of them for three years--leading a congenial life among their rocks, descending now and then to kill an Austrian and to gather booty, were most active when the ill-starred Imperial army was retiring. Six hundred Austrians, for instance, took the road from Kolain with the intention of marching to Lieva Rieka, a distance of 45 kilometres. Thirty-five of them arrived there. Thus the population avenged such incidents as the hanging by the Austrian authorities of the brother of the ex-Minister General Veovic,[27] the General having taken to the hills and his brother being executed by way of reprisal. The Austrians had now to pay the penalty of ruthlessness; on September 1, 1917, Count Clam Martinic, the Military Governor, issued Order No. 3110 which stated that: "In consequence of the recent inquiry having revealed the fact that telegraph and telephone wires have been cut by civilians, we make the following order:

"1. Persons caught red-handed in acts of sabotage will be summarily shot, their houses will be razed to the ground and their property confiscated by the Military Administration Authorities.

"2. If the author of the outrage cannot be found, the procedure will be as follows:--

"(_a_) The commune where the act of sabotage has taken place will be condemned to a heavy fine. If the sum demanded is not paid within forty-eight hours, the cattle will be seized.

"(_b_) Hostages will be taken who, if the cases of sabotage are repeated, will be executed in their commune."

Life under the Austrians had become unendurable. Typhoid fever, marsh fever, typhus and dysentery a.s.sumed such proportions that in the towns and villages one saw--apart from such notices as Order No. 3110--no other bills posted up on the walls but those containing advice as to the correct way of nursing the sick. While poor wretches were dying of hunger in the hospitals and on the high road for want of bread, the authorities published a recipe for the making of wheat-b.u.t.ter, which was a recent discovery of German science, reputed to be very nourishing for debilitated organisms. But the price of a kilo (2 lb.) of wheat was 12 crowns (about 10s.). When the epidemic of typhus, which broke out in Cetinje and in the Njegu clan, reached alarming proportions and spread to other districts, the medical authorities advertised that household effects and linen should be washed with water and potatoes. A kilo of potatoes, in the autumn of 1917, cost a price equivalent to 6s., a quart of oil cost 2, 10s., a quart of milk 5s., a kilo of coffee 2, 18s. 4d., a yard of cloth 4, 4s. to 6, 6s., a pair of boots 8, 7s. An average of 200 persons--mainly women and children--were dying every day of starvation.

The Austrian army in retreat was incapable of action. It occupied a line east of Podgorica: Bioce-Tuzi-Lake of Scutari, with very few guns. The troops were scanty, they were weakened by malaria, etc.; but the Italians pursued them with great caution. The chief enemies were Albanians and Montenegrins. The wily Austrians gave rifles to the Albanians in order that they should attack the Montenegrins, but they were often used against their former owners. Then the contingents of the Salonica army came across the mountains, and when the Austrians went north, as best they could, the Yugoslavs of the Imperial and Royal army--Bosniaks were well represented--pinned on their tunics the national colours and were greeted by the inhabitants. Arriving at Cetinje they heard the incredible news that a Yugoslav State had been founded, that the Austrian navy had been handed over to the Yugoslavs, that French and Italians were already at Kotor. During the journey to that port the commanders were depressed, but the rank and file rejoiced at the idea of going home. Discipline was at an end. Thousands of rockets were fired into the air. It was the end of the Habsburg monarchy.

NOW NIKITA IS DEPOSED

The next thing for the Montenegrins to do was to depose Nikita. By a futile proclamation that personage had tried in October to resist the union of the Yugoslavs; he had made a last desperate attempt to save his crown. "I am ready to do," he said, "what my people desires." He plaintively protested that all his life had been dedicated to their service and now he wanted to go back to ascertain precisely what they wished. "Montenegro," he had said, "belongs to a nation of heroes, who fought with honour for the highest ideals." But when on November 24 the Great National Skuptina met, and when on the 26th it unanimously deposed him--the old gentleman was wise enough to follow the advice of some French statesmen and remain where he was. "Here am I amongst you, dressed in our beautiful national costume," he said at Neuilly to his supporters, on one of the occasions when he denied that he had been a traitor or anything so dreadful. But being a prudent old gentleman he refrained from uttering these words at Podgorica, where the Skuptina had met; a better plan was to communicate with the Press a.s.sociation, in the hope that many editors would print his words. If it was a final anti-climax for a mediaeval prince--ah well, what is life but one long anti-climax? He would protest against the const.i.tution of the Skuptina. He had by no means given his approval to the new election laws; and if, contrary to his own practice, the gendarmes were having nothing to do with the urns, that was merely in order to curry favour with the Western Powers. The deputies were chosen by the people indirectly--that is to say, every ten men elected a representative, and these in their turn elected the deputies. This was not done by ballot, for Montenegro, like Hungary, had never known the ballot. An absurd outcry was raised by Nikita's band of adventurers and their unhappy dupes in this country; they called the world to witness this most palpable iniquity on the part of the Serbs, whose armed forces had rushed across the mountains, and the moment they arrived in Montenegro had so overawed the population that this pro-Serb, pro-Yugoslav Skuptina was duly chosen. Go to! Of course it was a sad disappointment to Nikita that a Yugoslav instead of an Italian army should occupy Montenegro. He had telegraphed at the beginning of the War to Belgrade that: "Serbia may rely on the brotherly and unconditional support of Montenegro, in this moment on which depends the fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion"; and since he knew, without any telegram, that Serbia would in her turn support Montenegro--but not the tiny pro-Nikita faction--he was reduced to the appalling straits of a plot to force himself upon his own people by means of a foreign army. Now the composition of the aforementioned Yugoslav forces should be noted--after more than six years of heroic fighting against the Turks, the Bulgars, the Austro-Germans, the Albanian blizzards, and again the Bulgars and the Austro-Germans there did not survive a very large number of the splendid veterans of Marshal Miic, and in Macedonia the ranks were filled by Yugoslav volunteers from the United States. Many of these Yugoslavs (over half of them Dalmatians and Bosnians) were included, in the army which entered Montenegro. The whole force at the time of the National Skuptina consisted of about 200 men, ten of whom were Serbs from the old kingdom--and if anyone maintains that 200 men could impose their will upon a population of 350,000 which has arms enough and is skilful in the use of arms, he makes it clear that he knows little of the Montenegrins.

THE a.s.sEMBLY WHICH DEPOSED HIM

The Podgorica Skuptina was not elected by these troops. No one will pretend that in the excitement of those days the voting was conducted in a calm and methodical fashion. Here and there a dead man was elected; the proceedings--though they were not faked, as in Nikita's time--were rough-and-ready. But if the deputies had been selected in a more haphazard fashion, say according to the first letter of their surnames, the result would have been identical--they would, with a crushing majority, have deposed their King and voted for the merging of their country in the rest of Yugoslavia. If the former Skuptina had been convoked, as some people advocated--it would have most effectively nonplussed the pro-Nikita party here and elsewhere (it might even have silenced Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., who a.s.serted[28] that this "packed a.s.sembly" consisted of "Serbian subjects and bought agents in about equal numbers")--but then two-fifths of the country--those territories acquired in the Balkan War--would not have been represented. Observe, however, that the Skuptina in Nikita's time was for union with Serbia. Even then--although of the 76 deputies the king nominated 14, while the other 62, of course, were people whom he pretty well approved of--even then they had pa.s.sed resolutions in favour of an economic union, a common army and common representatives abroad. The Podgorica Parliament had 168 members, of whom 42 were from the new areas. The Const.i.tution did not provide for such an a.s.sembly; but Nikita's friends who clamoured for the Const.i.tution evidently had forgotten that under Articles 2 and 16 a king who deserts his country and people is declared to have forfeited his legal rights. Those foolish partisans who cried that it was monstrous not to wait until all the interned Montenegrins had come back from Austria and Hungary, may be reminded of Nikita's Red Cross parcels which these prisoners had refused to take. Moreover, certain of them were elected, after their arrival, as vacancies occurred, and they were also represented among the dozen deputies whom the Skuptina chose for the Belgrade Parliament. No disorders happened during the elections, the best available men were chosen--76 of them having enjoyed a university education. It is worthy of remark that while 20 of the Podgorica deputies had sat in Nikita's former parliaments, another 150 of these ex-deputies survive, and yet out of the total number of past and present deputies (_i.e._ over 300), only 15 declared for a kind of autonomy, but were in favour of Yugoslav union.

The Metropolitan of Cetinje, the Bishops and five of the six pre-war Premiers gave their unreserved support to the new regime. With them was the Queen's brother, the Voivoda Stephen Vukotic, a grand-looking personage who has remained all his life a poor man; he was questioned by General Franchet d'Esperey as to whether he had also voted against his brother-in-law. "If I had seven heads and on each of them a crown,"

answered the Voivoda, "I would give them all for the union of the Southern Slavs." ... Where was the opposition to Yugoslavia? "The Black Mountain," said Nikita at Neuilly--"the Black Mountain, as well as her national King, has always pursued the same path, the only one leading to the realization of our sacred ideal--that of National Unity." One might object that a national King should really not have written to his daughter Xenia on October 19, 1918, that he would propose a republic for all the Serbs and Yugoslavs, with the abdication of the two kings and the two dynasties. He added that the Serbs were not ripe for a republic, but that in advanced circles his suggestion would be enthusiastically received, and in a short time he would reap the benefit. "That," he wrote, "is my impression--it may be that I am wrong--but I do not know what else I can do." And a truly national King--but the world, as Sophocles remarked, is full of wonders, and nothing is more wonderful than man--a truly national King should not have supported those twenty Montenegrins who in the summer of 1919 a.s.sembled at the monastery of Decani with the design of establishing a Bolevik republic. Before the Yugoslav troops could reach the spot these men were surrounded by Albanians and overpowered, so that another wild dream of the old intriguer was dissipated.... When Mr. Leiper, the _Morning Post's_ acute representative, was in Montenegro during the summer of 1920 he found only one person in three weeks who pined for the return of Nikita.

"Presently," he says, "we were accosted by an ancient, wild-looking 'pope,' with a face rugged and stormy as the crags among which he lived, and long, straggling hair tied in behind by an old leather boot-lace....

The talk turned to politics. My friend wailed over times and morals.

Food was scarce, the wicked flourished like green bay trees, honest folks were oppressed, starved, neglected; for example, his own self that sat before me--would I believe it?--after forty years' service he had not so much as attained the dignity of Archimandrate.... They were a rascal lot, those at present in power, ripe for hanging, every man-jack of them. And oh for the days of good King Nicholas, who would have given them short shrift!" Mr. Leiper subsequently learned that Nikita's panegyrist had spent his life in the wilds of Macedonia, where he acted as agent and decoy of the then Montenegrin Government. One murder, at least, for which he received a good sum of money, could be laid to his charge. Now he was living in retirement, hoping no doubt for better days, and meanwhile winked at by the tolerant authorities.

After the a.s.sembling of the Podgorica Parliament a proclamation was issued by the joyous Montenegrins at Cetinje. "Montenegrins!" it began, "the great and b.l.o.o.d.y fight of the most terrible world war is over!

Despotism has been smothered, freedom has come, right has triumphed....

Montenegrin arms and the heroic deeds of our Homeland have distinguished themselves for centuries. The fruits of these great deeds and colossal sacrifices our people must realize in a great and happy Yugoslavia....

Let us reject all attempts which may be made to deprive us of our happy future and put us in a position of blind and miserable isolation henceforth to work and weep in sorrow.... Before us lie two paths. One is strewn with the flowers of a blessed future, the other is covered with dangerous and impenetrable brambles." If any disinterested and intelligent foreigner, say a Chinaman, had been asked whether he thought that it was more to the advantage of Montenegro that she, like Croatia, Bosnia and the rest, should merge herself in the Yugoslav State or whether he considered that the sort of federation which the ex-King had suggested would a.s.sist more efficaciously the welfare--social, economical and national--of the Montenegrin, he would not have thanked you for asking so superfluous a question.... Nikita then a.s.serted that those terrible Serbian bayonets had caused the Podgorica Skuptina to vote as it did. Anyone who has spoken to one of those Bocchesi or Dalmatian volunteers who were at that time in Montenegro will quite believe that they applauded the result, but to pretend that they drove the Skuptina with bayonets to do what every reasoning creature would have done is so farcical that one might have thought it would not even form (as it did form) the subject for questions in the British House of Commons.... The only part played by bayonets was when on November 7 (one day previous to that fixed for the elections) a detachment of the Italian army landed at Antivari and another marched to within about six kilometres of Cetinje, where they were met by the Montenegrin National Guard, were told that bigger forces, which it was difficult to restrain, would shortly arrive and were given one hour in which to depart. Of this they availed themselves, announcing that they were all Republicans. They left behind them an elderly man who was sick and requested the Montenegrins not to murder him. The Italians and Nikita's friends soon afterwards spread a report of horrible murders in Montenegro. Certain Allied officers went up to investigate the matter and found that the charges were baseless. They were told by Mr. Glomaic, the prefect of Cetinje, that the Allies, apart from the Italians, could go anywhere in Montenegro, but that the Italians would be opposed by force of arms and that if the Allies came up together with the Italians, then they too would be attacked. Thereupon the Allied officers invited Mr. Glomaic to lunch.

NIKITA'S SORROW FOR THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Nikita had no hopes that any good would come from such a Skuptina.

In 1912 it had been different; with a budget of some 6,200,000 perpers (or francs), including the Russian subsidies and the revenues from the Italian tobacco monopoly, the royal civil-list comprised 11 per cent. of the expenses, while the police accounted for 12 per cent., agriculture and commerce 1 per cent., public works 4 per cent. and education 5 per cent. The Skuptina of that period had not caused him to pay more attention to the people's requirements. The darkness in which they lived was so profound that when Montenegro had to pay the interest on a six-million-franc loan from Great Britain no one in Cetinje could calculate how much was due; a telegram was therefore sent to London asking for this information and the date when payment should be made. If his people did not prevent him from allocating merely 11,000 francs to the Ministry of Justice for the increase of salaries and so forth, while the Ministry of the Interior received 700,000 francs for the work of spying, the expense of killing people and various propaganda--both these items being labelled "special expenses"--then Nikita had no fault to find with his Skuptina. Things were almost as satisfactory as before 1907, when for the first time a budget was issued and the people were told how their contributions were spent. The personal property of the sovereign had indeed been formally separated from that of the State in 1868; but Nikita's manipulations were so little supervised that, even when he had established the Skuptina, he could say with truth, "L'etat c'est moi." The Skuptina of 1918 was going to make vast changes.

THE STATE OF BOSNIA

In Bosnia, for some time after the Austrian collapse, it was inconvenient to travel. If you went by rail you were fortunate if you secured a good berth on the roof of a carriage; by road you went less rapidly and therefore ran a greater risk of being waylaid by the so-called "Green Depot," who were deserters from the Austrian army--either through national or other reasons--with their headquarters in the forests. Some of them were simply men who had gone home on leave and stayed at home. Here and there a National Guard of peaceful citizens, irrespective of nationality, was formed against them. But it was some time before they were induced to lead a less romantic life.

What happened afterwards in Bosnia between the Serbs, the Croats and the Moslems was so much a matter of routine that the Italians should not have run off with the idea that this imperilled Yugoslavia. Of the 1,898,044 inhabitants in 1910 the proportions were as follows: Orthodox, who call themselves Serbs, 4349 per cent.; Moslem, 3225 per cent.; and Catholics, who call themselves Croats, 2287 per cent. (The remainder are miscellaneous persons, such as 850,000 Jews, who speak the usual Balkan Spanish; they play an inconsiderable part in public life.) The Serbs, the Moslems and the Croats are identical in race and language, but have hitherto been much divided. Those who joined together in the Turkish days were led to do so as companions in distress; the rule of Austria, or to speak with greater accuracy the rule of Hungary--no one knew exactly who possessed the land, but the Magyars took it for granted that it was theirs--this rule, of course, did nothing to unite the various religions. The Moslems, especially after their complete isolation from Turkey, were the most favoured, while the Serbs, owing to the proximity of Serbia, were the most oppressed. And during the War it was the Serbian population which was chiefly tortured. Besides all those who were dragged away to such places as Arad, hundreds and hundreds were hanged in their own province. Not satisfied with using, as we see in so many of those ghastly photographs, their own army as the executioners, the Austro-Hungarians also organized local bands among the lower cla.s.ses of the towns, and in so doing they availed themselves of any latent religious fanaticism among the Moslems. From the day of the Archduke's a.s.sa.s.sination it was the Serbs who suffered most; and many onlookers must have expected in the autumn of 1918 that they would take a very drastic revenge. For some weeks the people were left very much to their own devices, with no troops or police--the Austrian _gendarmerie_ having to be protected by the better cla.s.ses, who explained to the peasants that it was not right to regard only the uniform of those who had so often maltreated them; yet the gendarmes took the earliest opportunity of getting into mufti. There was also for several months a dearth of detectives. Many of those who had worked under Austria and were more or less criminal, fled at the collapse; others continued to act, but in a half-hearted way. Sixty new detectives were taken on by the Yugoslav authorities, and fifty-six of them had to be dismissed. After all, if one can judge a person's character from his face, the detective who allowed you to do so would be so incompetent as not to warrant a trial.

And after six or seven months of Yugoslav administration only thirty-three out of fifty-two detective appointments in Sarajevo had been definitely filled. So there was not much restriction on the peasants in their dealings with each other. A few of them were murdered.

In Sarajevo the National Guard was largely composed of well-meaning street boys; the Serbian troops did not arrive until November 6, and in many parts of Bosnia not until the end of the month. And yet in the whole country, with people on the track of those who in the pay of Austria had denounced or murdered their relatives, and with the poor _kmet_ at last able to rise against the oppressive landlord, there were in the first six months under fifty murders, and these were mostly due to the desperate straits of the Montenegrins, who came across the frontier in search of provisions, during which forays they a.s.sa.s.sinated various people. In the Sandjak of Novi Bazar there was no doubt less security; but to anyone who knew, say the Rogatica district, under Austria's very capable administration, it will seem that Bosnia, after the collapse, was singularly tranquil. Anyhow the population, in the summer of 1919, were living on much more amicable terms with one another than for many years. The Government met with some criticism, for it was alleged to be reserving all the lucrative appointments for the Serbs; one had to take into account, however, that it was the Serbs who had been chiefly ruined by the War, and it was just that the concessions for the sale of tobacco, for the railway restaurants and so forth, should be, for the greater part, given to them. Nevertheless it may interest travellers to know that the restaurateurs at the stations of Ilide and Zenica are Catholics--the Moslems are not yet very competent in such affairs. They are, as their own leaders sadly confess, the least cultured and the least progressive cla.s.s. As elsewhere in Islam there has been a total lack of female education--the mothers of the Sarajevo Moslem _intelligentsia_ can neither read nor write, while their sons are cultivated people who speak several languages. A change is being made--there are already five Moslem lady teachers employed in the mixed Government schools; this a few years ago would have been thought impossible. It is to be deplored that these divisions into Moslem and Orthodox and Catholic should be perpetrated--the Moslem leaders look forward to the time, in a few years, when their deputies will no longer group themselves apart on account of their religion; but it is unwise to introduce too many simultaneous innovations, considering that the illiterates of Bosnia number about 90 per cent. of the population. The Yugoslav idea will prosper in this country; and, by the way, while you meet an occasional Serb who hankers for a Greater Serbia, an occasional Croat who would like a Greater Croatia, the Moslems have no aspirations save for Yugoslavia. [They speak of "our language," since the word "Serbian" has for them too much connection with the Orthodox religion, the word "Croatian" with Roman Catholicism.] They are not indifferent to the fact that to their own 600,000 in Bosnia they will add the 400,000 of Macedonia and Old Serbia, together with the 200,000 of Montenegro and the Sandjak.... One was inclined to think that the least desirable person of the new era in Sarajevo was the editor of the _Srpski Zora_ ("Serbian Dawn"); his methods had a resemblance to those of Lenin, for he printed lists of persons whom he called upon the Government to prosecute, and when he was himself invited to appear in court and answer to some libel charges he declined to go, upon the ground that the laws were still Austrian and the judge a Magyar. He disapproved of such tolerance, he disapproved of the Croats because they declined to recognize that the Serbs had more merit than they, and as for Yugoslavia--it was a thing of emptiness--he laughed at it and called it Yugovina, the south wind. The only chance of life it had was if you left the whole affair to the Serbs and then in two years it would be a solid thing. It may be thought that the local Government, since they left him at large, endorsed his theories; but they were reluctant to give him a halo of martyrdom. They imagined that he was nervous because he was losing ground--they acknowledged, though, that he still gave pleasure to a great many Serbs, who were carried away by his appeals to their old prejudices. It is undeniable that with the peculiar traditions and customs of Bosnia, that province must for some years have a Government--whatever method is evolved for the other parts of Yugoslavia--whose eyes are not turned constantly to Belgrade. It might even be well to set up a local Chamber in which all cla.s.ses would be represented. The Moslems and Croats would thus lose any lurking fear that they were being swamped, and by coming into contact with other political parties even the less cultured cla.s.ses would gradually tend to discard these fatal religious, in favour of political, divisions. A somewhat primitive Balkan community cannot be expected of its own accord to love henceforward in the name of politics those whom hitherto it has hated in the name of religion. And as yet they are much more interested in the harvest than in politics; from day to day they change their views, according to the views of the last orator from Belgrade, Zagreb or Ljubljana. Only the Socialists appear to be well disciplined. Of course the present political parties in Yugoslavia are not wholly free from religious prejudices, an important party, for example, among the Slovenes being based on Roman Catholicism. But as the Slovenes are, as yet, the best upholders of the Yugoslav idea, it is obvious that education covers all things, and that with the increase of education in Bosnia the religious differences will be less important. Anything that can be done against this tyranny is beneficial, whether the St. George be a political orator or a schoolmaster. And as the effects produced by the former are more rapid, so should he be encouraged. He is, in fact, appearing in Bosnia, he will carry away, more or less, the _clientele_ of the _Srpski Zora_, and the shattered nervous organism of its editor, Mr. c.o.korilo, will be, one trusts, reconst.i.tuted and devoted, as it can be, to a n.o.bler purpose. One of its deplorable effects has been that the organ of the Croat party, a paper called _Jugoslavija_, has been compelled to write in a similar strain, whereas the editor, a dapper little priest, a.s.sures one that he would prefer a more elevated tone.

RADIC AND HIS PEASANTS

Those who wished that Yugoslavia would be an idle dream have had their hopes more centred in Croatia. They told the world that horrible affairs took place, that there has been a revolution, several revolutions, that castles have been sacked and that the statesman, Radic, was imprisoned. If you met this little pear-shaped man, who is a middle-aged, extremely short-sighted person, with a small, straggling beard, an engaging smile and a large forehead, you would say that surely he had spent a good many hours of his life in some university garden where the birds, knowing that he could not easily see them, were in the habit of alighting for their dinner on his outstretched hands. He is a very learned little man, who started his career by obtaining the first place at the famous ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris. But Stephen Radic happens also to be very much interested in politics and extremely impulsive, so that his wife and daughter have often had to look after the bookshop, since the Government--that of Austria-Hungary and afterwards that of Yugoslavia--had consigned him to prison. He probably expected nothing else, for his eloquence--and he is an orator in several languages--has frequently carried him along and swept him round and round, like a leaf, not only in a direction opposite to that which he previously travelled but flying sometimes in the face of the most puissant and august authorities. So, for example, he began to agitate in 1904 against the vast territorial possessions of the Church in Croatia. This resulted in the then Archbishop issuing an interdict against him and his meetings--a measure which, I believe, is still in force. He was described as Antichrist, with the consequence that his audiences, out of curiosity to see what such a personage might look like, became larger than ever. For many years he was the only Croat politician who gave himself the trouble to go amongst the peasants. "In politics," said Radic to me--he said a great many other things in the course of our first conversation, which lasted for four hours, though it seemed a good deal shorter--"In politics," said he, "one should not, as in art, try to be original. One should interpret not only the living generation but the ancestors." The peasant, who feels what Radic expresses, has repaid him well, for there is now no party in Yugoslavia which is more devoted to its leader. He has taken the place once occupied by the clergy--he is by no means hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, but he is the foe of clericalism. "Praised be Jesus Christ! Long live the Republic!" is the usual beginning of one of his orations, so that his enemies accuse him in the first place of being a hypocrite, and in the second of holding views which cannot possibly amalgamate with those of monarchical Serbia. But the reference to Christ appears perfectly natural to the Croat peasant--at an open-air meeting of 10,000 of them I saw their heads uncovered, and all bowed in prayer for a few minutes on the stroke of noon. As for the Republic, this first came into the picture on July 25, 1918, when the cry was raised at a meeting of the Peasants' party. A large number of peasants had imbibed this idea in America--those who emigrated have been in the habit of returning, and even if their home is in the desolate parts of Zagorija or among the rocks of Primorija, the coastal region. And thousands of Croats had spent part of the War as prisoners in Russia--having deserted from the Austro-Hungarian army--so that they had seen how the Great White Tsar, previously regarded as an almost divine being, could be dethroned. Four months after this famous meeting a Convention was held, in the American fashion, with 2874 delegates, who represented some 100,000 people. They p.r.o.nounced themselves to be Republicans and Yugoslavs. It is quite true that many of the farmers in Croatia have a pretty vague idea of the Republic. "Long live Mr. Republic!" has been heard before now at one of their meetings, while a landowner of my acquaintance was asked by two of his aged tenants whether in the event of this Republic being established they should choose as President King Peter or the Prince-Regent or King Charles. But we should remember that in 1907 a printing press was founded by the Peasants' party at Zagreb, and those who gave their money for this cause were, to a great extent, illiterate. The people are groping towards the light, and they are willing to be told by those they trust that they have much to learn as to the nature of the light.

Republicanism was fanned into flame by Radic's imprisonment and other causes, so that he says he is uncertain whether he can now persuade them to modify their demands. But if he tells them that in his opinion a const.i.tutional monarchy will meet the case, they will probably still consent to accept his view--and this has of late come to be his own opinion. It may very well be that he adopted the republican idea with no other purpose than to obtain for the peasants the social and economic legislation which they would otherwise not have secured. And, after all, there was something of a republican nature in Croatia's autonomy under the Magyars. As for his imprisonment, it was strange that the Belgrade Cabinet, who should have known their man, treated him as if he were a De Valera; and perhaps the conduct of a subsequent Cabinet, that of Mr.

Protic, who came out for Croatian Home Rule, was also strange in appearance, for while Radic was still in prison he was invited to decide as to whether the Ban, Croatia's Governor, should or should not remain in office. But Mr. Protic understood that at this period Radic's republicanism was somewhat academic.

His party had, in years gone by, been small enough in the Landtag; but the fact that his followers then numbered only two is anyhow of no importance, as his very real power was derived from the peasants, who were largely voteless. How often in his prison he must have yearned for those old Landtag days--apart from his advocacy of the peasants, he loves to speak. In two hours he would traverse the whole gamut of human thought, expressing opinions to which John Hampden and Jack Cade and Montaigne and Machiavelli would in turn a.s.sent. The words used to rush from his lips in a torrent, while to many of his faithful peasant followers he seemed, throughout his discourse, to be in direct contact with the Almighty. Next to the Almighty the Croatian peasant had been taught to revere Francis Joseph, so that when the heir to the throne was murdered in 1914 it was not very difficult to make the Croat peasants rise against this sacrilege by plundering the Serbian shops at Zagreb--Austrian officers coming with their children to look on--just as in other parts of Croatia and Bosnia. There is as yet within the Croat peasant a certain hostility against the Serb and for various reasons: one of them is that he was always taught by Austria to detest the adherents of the Orthodox religion, another reason is that for centuries they have had a different culture; and so, since Austria's collapse, when it has been explained to them what is a republic and what is a monarchy, they have often demanded the former for no better reason than that the Serbs prefer the latter. They were taught by Austria to look forward to a Greater Croatia, which would eliminate the Slovenes by delivering them to the Germans, for that celebrated corridor to the Adriatic. And it is from the Slovene Socialists that the peasants of Croatia might very profitably learn.... The Slovene influence, coming from a more highly organized province, would be beneficial both for Serbs and Croats, for the industrial workers and for the peasants. The nature of the Southern Slavs, say these Socialists, is democratic, and the State mechanism might be made more so. Now that the various parts of Yugoslavia have liberated or are liberating themselves from various yokes, they have approached one another with a different mentality; they will become much better known to one another. And it was hoped that when Mr. Radic regained his freedom and his book-shop he would find that his devotees preferred to hear him not as a Croat Jack Cade but as a Yugoslav Hampden. In his absence the party was leaderless.

As for the other Croats, only Frank's Clerical party, which numbered five or six deputies, and did not hide its persistent sympathies with the House of Habsburg, kept up Separatist tendencies. All the Coalition (now the Democrat) party and two-thirds of the so-called Party of Croatian Right were for a close union with Serbia and the regency of Prince Alexander. That is not to say that there was perfect unanimity with regard to the interior arrangements of this union; in fact Dr. Ante Pavelic, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Yugoslav National Council, who was received in special audience by the Prince at Belgrade, is also the leader of the old Starcevic party and as such an opponent of complete centralization. The _Obzor_, Zagreb's oldest newspaper, maintains this point of view, not paying much attention to the form of the State, monarchic or republican, so long as it is organized in a manner which would prevent the Croats being subordinated. Zagreb, it thinks, is destined to play the New York to Belgrade's Washington--but nowadays it looks very much as if Zagreb's role were to be that of Yugoslavia's Boston.

Among the Slovenes this anxiety for decentralization--which is very proper or exaggerated, according to the point of view--is less accentuated. It appears as if the Christian-Socialist party of Monsignor Koroec[29] is rather centralist in its Belgrade words and decentralist in its Ljubljana deeds. This party has shed some of its extremist clerical members, who to the cry, "The Church is in danger!"

were very good servants of the Habsburgs. Such of them as were unable to accept the new order of things--elderly priests, for the most part--retired from the political stage.

THOSE WHO WILL NOT MOVE WITH THE TIMES

There remains the Voivodina (Banat, Backa, etc.) party, some of whom are as much frightened of Croat predominance as the _Obzor_, for instance, is of Serb. The argument of these Voivodina politicians is that Serbia has lost so many of her _intelligentsia_ during the War that she must have special protection; they also found it hard to swallow the old functionaries whom the State took over from Austria. Of course it does not follow that if a Slav has been a faithful servant of Austria he will be an unsatisfactory servant of the new State. Obviously the circ.u.mstances of each case must be considered; and, as a barrister, a dissentient member of this party told me at Osiek, one must often put personal feelings aside; he himself had been arbitrarily imprisoned during the War by an official who was then an Austrian and is now a Yugoslav functionary. The most extreme exponent of this anti-Croat party seems to be a well-known editor at Novi Sad, Mr. Jaa Tomic. In his opinion you cannot join by means of a law in twenty-four hours people who have never been together; let it be a slower and a surer process. He is ready to die, he says, but he is not ready to lose his national name. Let the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes retain what is most precious to each of them. Let them not be asked to give up everything.

In the matter of the flag Mr. Tomic is justified, for now their former flag has been taken from each of them and a totally fresh one created, which is particularly hard on the Serbs after the sublime fashion in which their old colours were carried up the Macedonian mountains in the Great War. It would not have required much ingenuity--as they all three share the colours, red, white and blue, differently arranged--to have devised, not a mere new and unmeaning arrangement of the simple colours, but a method on the lines of the Union Jack or of the former Swedish-Norwegian flag, wherein all three would have remained visible. Mr. Tomic believes that a real _intelligentsia_ would demand of the people what it can execute, and he regrets to think that at least two-thirds of the _intelligentsia_ want the people to call themselves Yugoslavs. But Mr. Tomic has a far greater majority than two-thirds against him, because while his arguments would be admirable if the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes had no neighbours, they must be--and the vast majority of Yugoslavs feel that they must be--superseded on account of this imperfect world. By all means let each one of the three retain every single custom that will not interfere with the national security and will not interfere too much with the national welfare. If Mr. Tomic, who is much respected but generally looked upon as rather old-fashioned, is going to die sooner than give up something which the State considers essential he will be following in the footsteps of those whom Cavour, in the course of the welding of Italy, had to execute.

It may be said without fear of contradiction--in fact I was given the figure by one of the decentralization leaders of Croatia--that at least 90 per cent. of the Croat _intelligentsia_ wants the union with Serbia, and if a republic is decided upon they will mostly vote for King Alexander as President. While they discuss their internal organization--no simple matter when one considers their varied antecedents, their different legal systems and so forth--they will not let Yugoslavia go to pieces. The work of construction and of more or less strenuous, but necessary, criticism occupies by far the greater number of the politicians. They have not yet, all of them, given their adherence to this or that group, while new groups are arising--such as the Agrarian, which being far more interested in the peasant's material welfare than in anything else will give their alliance to that political party which is prepared to a.s.sist the villages towards improving their cleanliness and their manure.

THE YUGOSLAV POLITICAL PARTIES

The chief parties which in the new State's first two years evolved themselves out of those that previously existed in the various parts of Yugoslavia were:

(_a_) the Paic party, consisting chiefly of the Serbian Old Radical party, together with Serbian parties from the Voivodina and Bosnia.

(_b_) the Pribicevic party, consisting chiefly of the Croatian Coalition party, together with the Slovene Liberal party and the Serbian parties in opposition to Paic.

(_c_) the Christian Socialist party, under Koroec, consisting chiefly of Slovenes, together with a young group in Croatia and other Clerical groups that are forming in Dalmatia and Bosnia.

(_d_) the Starcevic party, under Pavelic, consisting of decentralizing parties in Croatia and Slavonia, and some Croats in Bosnia.