The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 5

(_e_) Socialists:

(1) the Slovene non-communistic Socialists.

(2) Korac's party, chiefly from Slavonia and Serbia.

This remarkable man, whose mind floats serenely in a body that is paralysed, has twice been included in the Cabinet.

By many he is looked upon as too subversive, but he believes that a revolution will come unless his department acts in a revolutionary fashion. His programme includes old-age pensions from the age of sixty--the people being now enfeebled by the wars--and obligatory insurance with regard to all those, including State employees in the railway service and the post office, who do not enjoy an independent existence, half the insurance being paid by the employer and half by the employee, while with regard to accidents the whole would be paid by the employer. He has also very firm ideas for the safeguarding of the human dignity of the pensioners.

(3) Dr. Radoevic's party. This gentleman was said to adore Lenin, on whom he lectured. His party had no strength except such as it derived as a protest against any forced centralization.

(_f_) Republican party, consisting of 90,000 Croat peasants under Radic.

Of these by far the most important were the first two. In Serbian political parties the personal question used to be nearly always uppermost, and now, in the case of parties (_a_) and (_b_), it was most difficult to understand what aims the one had which the other did not share. One may say that each of them was a group under a wily politician who was able, not only to forge out of various elements a h.o.m.ogeneous group, but to persuade them that there was a fundamental difference between their group and any other. Here one has not so much the Western system, under which a man enters a Cabinet as the exponent of party principles, but the Eastern system under which a Minister uses his influence to found a party, which is based inevitably on the disappearing relics of the past. In the spring of 1919 many foreign observers fancied that new parties were surging up like mushrooms and proving, no doubt, that the people's vitality was strong, although one would have waited willingly for this evidence until the country's external and internal affairs were more settled. As a matter of fact these rather numerous parties, of which the outside world now heard for the first time, had been in existence or semi-existence for years. There was, however, a certain bewildering vacillation on the part of some of the deputies. The Bosnian Moslems, for instance, could not make up their minds whether they would be Serbs or Croats and belong to (_a_) or (_b_). Finally most of them settled down in (_b_), while two others formed an independent group. It must be remembered that they, like all the other deputies, were not really deputies but delegates, since it was not yet possible to hold elections. There would naturally be many changes after the first General Election; for one thing, the Moslems intend to join in one group with their brethren from Macedonia and Novi Bazar.... As we shall see, later on, the changes produced by the first General Election--which was the election held in November 1920, for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly--were extremely sweeping. While the Radicals and Democrats returned with close on one hundred members each, the Koroec party met with comparative disaster, and the Starcevic group was overwhelmed. With about fifty members apiece, the Communist and the Radic parties gave expression, roughly speaking, to the discontent produced by the unsettled conditions--unavoidable and avoidable--of the new State's first two years. The Moslems came back with nearly thirty members, and a healthy phenomenon for a country in which the peasant so largely predominates was the success, apart from the Radic Peasant party, of the Agrarians with some thirty deputies, and the Independent Peasant party with eight.

The Italian Press disposed in five lines of the historical Act of Union which occurred when the delegates of the Yugoslav National Council were received by the Prince at Belgrade on December 1, 1918. In the address, which was read by Dr. Pavelic, it is recorded that "the National Council desires to join with Serbia and Montenegro in forming a United National State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, which would embrace the whole inseparable ethnographical territory of the South Slavs.... In the period of transition, in our opinion, the conditions should be created for the final organization of our United State." And there is a dignified protest against the Treaty of London and the Italian encroachments which even went beyond that which the treaty gave them. In his reply the Prince, among other remarks, said that "in the name of His Majesty King Peter I now declare the union of Serbia with the provinces of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in an indivisible kingdom. This great moment should be a reward for the efforts of yourselves and your brothers, whereby you have cast off the alien yoke. This celebration should form a wreath for the officers and men who have fallen in the cause of freedom.... I a.s.sure you and the National Council that I shall always reign over my brothers and yours, and what const.i.tutes the Serbs and their people, in a spirit of brotherly love.... The first task of the Government will be to arrange with your help and that of the whole people that the frontiers should comprise the whole nation. In conjunction with you I may well hope that our powerful friends and Allies will be able justly to appreciate our standpoint, because it corresponds with the principles which they themselves have proclaimed and for the achievement of which streams of their precious blood have been poured out...." The Prince spoke of Italy in phrases to which we have already alluded.[30] He reminded her of the Risorgimento and of the principles with which her great sons had then been inspired. But the Italian Press preferred to moralize in column after column on the variety of the political groups of Yugoslavia, with the object of showing to the world that they were a people of no cohesive capacities and of no real national consciousness.

THE SLOVENE QUESTION

This matter of the frontiers had been very lucidly set before the Allies with regard to Dalmatia and Rieka; it now remained for the Slovenes to formulate their case. From the statement given by Dr. Trumbic to the Council of Ten in Paris we will take these extracts: "The province of Gorica-Gradica may be divided into two different parts, both from an ethnical and economic point of view. The western part, up to the line Cormons-Gradica-Monfalcone, is economically self-supporting. If we estimate the population on a language basis, there are about 72,000 Italians and 6000 Slovenes. Geographically it is simply the prolongation of the Venetian plain. We do not claim this territory called Friuli, which belongs ethnologically to the Italians. The rest of this province to the east and the north of the Cormons-Gradica-Monfalcone line, which comprises the mountainous region, is inhabited by 148,500 Slovenes and 17,000 Italians, of whom 14,000 are in the town of Gorica, where they const.i.tute half the population.... The Slovenes are an advanced and civilized people, acutely conscious of their racial solidarity with the other Yugoslav peoples. We therefore ask that this district should be reunited to our State.... Istria is inhabited by Slavs and Italians.

According to the latest statistics, there were in it 223,318 Yugoslavs and 147,417 Italians. The Slavs inhabit central and eastern Istria in a compact ma.s.s. More Italians live on the western coast, particularly in the towns. They inhabit only five villages north of Pola, and their populations have no territorial unity. Istria is territorially linked with Carniola and Croatia, whereas it is separated from Italy by the Adriatic, and therefore it ought to belong to the Yugoslav State....

Triest and its neighbourhood is geographically an integral part of purely Slav territories. The majority of this town--two-thirds, according to statistics--is Italian and the rest Slav. These statistics being on the language basis, include Germans, Greeks, Levantines, etc., as Italian-speaking, among the Italians. The Slav element plays an important part in the commercial and economic life of Triest. If the town were ethnically in contact with Italy we would recognize the right of the majority. But all the hinterland of Triest is entirely Slav. Yet the commercial and maritime value of Triest is what chiefly counts, and it is a port of world trade. As such it is the representative of its hinterland, which stretches as far as Bohemia, and chiefly of its Slovene hinterland, which forms a third of the whole trade of Triest and is inextricably linked with it. Should Triest become Italian it would be politically separated from its trade hinterland, and would be prejudiced in a commercial respect. Since Austria has crumbled as a State, the natural solution of the problem of Triest is that it should be joined to our State."

THE SENTIMENTS OF TRIEST

It would be futile to talk of Triest without considering the relations between Italians and Germans. We have seen already how at the elections they combined against the "common enemy." But in commerce the Germans were in need of no alliance, for the Italians have relatively so little capital to dispose of that they were unable to keep the Germans from attaining that very dominant position in Italy. As the Italians have, as a general rule, a lack of initiative and enterprise with respect to modern industry, it was to German efforts that the great industrial and commercial awakening of Italy and of Triest were largely due. In that town the Italians were princ.i.p.ally agents; and it is to be feared that if it ultimately falls into their hands it will become a German town under the Italian flag. It would be the object of the Italians to emanc.i.p.ate Austria from the Yugoslavs, giving them an outlet to Triest over Italian territory; and it would be to the Italian advantage if Austria were joined to Germany. Therefore it is preferable for all the Allies, except the Italians, that Triest should be international.

Conditions could then be offered to the Austrians that would cause them to prefer these rather than to join themselves to Germany. But, in the opinion also of many enlightened Italians, it is not in that country's interest that she should hold Triest. Apart from the older publicists and statesmen, including Sonnino, who might wish to modify their opinions, one of the best-informed writers on Triest and Istria, A.

Vivante, a native of Triest, in his _L'irredentismo adriatico_ (1912) is a most determined adversary to an Italian occupation of Istria or Triest; his book has been withdrawn from circulation by the Italian Government. Other resolute opponents have been all the inhabitants of Triest, except the extreme Nationalists. The town's prosperity dated from the time when the Habsburgs were driven out of Italy. Triest has not forgotten what occurred when she and Venice were under the same sceptre; and this it was which brought about, at Austria's collapse, the autonomous administration in which practically all the elements of the town partic.i.p.ated. Only the Irridentists then thought that Triest's liberation need involve union with Italy and economic separation from the hinterland on which it depends.... When the occupation started, in November 1918, the Chief of the Italian police summoned before him the members of the Yugoslav National Council of Triest. Only two of them answered the summons, whereupon a lieutenant read them the following order from the Italian Governor: "In view of the fact that the Italians troops have occupied the line of demarcation and that traffic over this line is suspended for the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, it is ordered that, for strategical reasons, the South Slav National Council in Triest be dissolved and its offices closed." The Slovenes demanded a copy of this order, which, however, was refused. They were not allowed to depart until the books and national emblems had been removed from the premises of the National Council, the doors sealed and a guard stationed. "We others, Italians," an Italian writer had said in the _Edinost_, the Slovene paper of Triest, on August 18, 1918, "should understand that if we want our freedom we must see that this is likewise given to our neighbours." And the _Mercure de France_ of October remarked that these wise words would be listened to at Rome. In the realm of navigation the Italians were not idle. They started at once to negotiate with the Austrians for the sale to themselves of the Lloyd Steamship Company, the Austro-Americana and the Navigazione Libera, the three largest Austrian companies. By the end of February 1919, a Mr.

Ivan vegel related in a well-informed article,[31] the Italians had, by acquiring a large portion of their shares, obtained the decisive influence in these companies. The deal which was carried through with the a.s.sistance of the Austrian Government and which, according to the _Neue Freie Presse_ of February 22, "fully satisfied the needs of Austrian commerce," was transacted during the Armistice and behind the back of public opinion. Surely the Austrian mercantile marine, to which the Yugoslavs contributed the majority of the personnel and which they, with the other nationalities of the late Empire, helped to build up with the aid of considerable subsidies, should not have been permitted to fall an easy prize into the lap of Italy, but ought rather to const.i.tute an a.s.set in the liquidation of the late Austrian State and a subject of public discussion.... In consequence of the Italian att.i.tude towards Austria on the one hand and the Slovenes on the other, the Austrians made an attack from northern Carinthia near Christmas and despoiled the Slovenes of about half the territory they had occupied. An American mission asked both sides to cease from hostilities, saying that the question of frontiers would be decided by Paris in a few weeks. Two Americans, who unfortunately could speak neither German nor Slovene, motored through the country, made some inquiries, especially in the towns, and departed for Paris. It would have been as well if, like the French farther to the east, they had deliminated between the two people a neutral zone. Sooner or later the troubles were bound to recommence.

MAGNANIMITY IN THE BANAT

Meanwhile, of all the lands which the Yugoslavs were inheriting from Austro-Hungary, that which was pa.s.sing through the period of transition with the least disturbance was the Banat. Those Magyars who stayed were saying wistfully that it had been Hungarian for a thousand years, but considering what they had done they could not have brought forward a worse reason for their reinstatement. Here and there at places near the frontier, such as Subotica, they waylaid and murdered lonely Serbian soldiers; after which, with the complicity of Magyar officials whom the Serbs had not removed, they managed to escape to Hungary. But as a rule they thought it wiser to stay peacefully in the Banat than seek their fortunes in a land so insecure as Hungary was then. While Count Michael Karolyi's Government was doing its utmost to cultivate good relations with France, England and America--printing in the newspapers cordial articles in French and English, surrounding the Entente officers even in their despite with the old, barbaric hypnotizing Magyar hospitality, a.s.suming in a long wireless message to President Wilson that the Hungarians were among those happy people who at last had been liberated from the yoke of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire--("I beg you, Mr.

President, to use your influence that no acts of inhumanity or abuses of authority may threaten our new-born democracy and freedom from any quarter. They would cruelly wound the soul of our people and hinder the maturing of that pure pacifism and that mutual understanding between the peoples without which there will never be peace and rest on earth.... We will not discredit or delay with acts of violence the new-born freedom of the peoples of Hungary or the triumph of your ideas....")--at a place called Nagylak the free Hungarian people requested the authorities to give them an official doc.u.ment permitting them to plunder for twenty-four hours; at a place called Szentes there was a car which had been stolen from a man at Arad, sixty miles away; hearing where it was he telegraphed to the authorities and nothing happened; so he hired another car and went himself to Szentes where the Magyar Commissary confiscated this one also. It was better to remain in the Banat if one had anything to lose. The treatment which the Magyars received was such that Mr. Rapp, Commissary of the Buda-Pest Government, published a proclamation on the generous conduct of the Serbian troops occupying southern Hungary: "Our nationals," he declared, "though vanquished and in a minority, are safe. The Serbian officers in command treat them in a most humane and chivalrous fashion."[32] At Pancevo, for example, the Magyar officials were placed, for their protection, on board a boat by the Serbian authorities and kept there, provided with food and cigars, for twelve hours, after which, as the danger was past, they were set at liberty. In the same town, forty years earlier, the language used in the law courts had been Serbian; no one, in fact, spoke Magyar, except the cab-drivers--if you spoke it people said you must have been in prison. Yet, although the Magyar judges had, to put it mildly, not been too considerate towards the Serbs, they were retained in office on the understanding that they would learn Serbian within a year; nor were they asked, as yet, to administer the law in the name of King Peter, but in the name of Justice. This magnanimity was not displayed because, as with the railway employees, the Serbs were short of people for those posts, since they had barristers well qualified to be employed, as they were, for example, at Sombor, in the position of temporary judges. Even the town advocate was not dismissed, although this healthy gentleman had superseded a Serb forty-two years of age, considerably older than himself, who had been compelled to join the army. Not alone were all these functionaries left in office, but the papers sent to them were in their own language, Magyar or German. And in return they generally were loyal to the Yugoslavs.

TEMEVAR IN TRANSITION

An extraordinary state of things was to be seen at Temevar, where the Magyar mayor was one of the most worried men in Europe. Until February 1919 he was being asked to serve not two but several masters.

Some uncertainty existed as to whether the town was under French or Serbian military command, but that was not a very serious question.

There was at Novi Sad a temporary Government for all the Voivodina, this was the "Narodna Uprava" (National Government), consisting of eleven commissaries, each over a department, who had been appointed by the Voivodina a.s.sembly of 690 Serbs, 12 Slovaks, 2 Magyars and 6 Germans--one deputy for every thousand of the population. The mayor of Temevar could have reconciled the wishes of the Narodna Uprava and the military authorities, but there was a Magyar Jewish Socialist, a certain Dr. Roth, who had elected himself to be head of the "People's Government," and was subsequently appointed by telephone from Buda-Pest the representative of the Hungarian Government. Roth organized a civil guard, mostly of former Hungarian soldiers, who--although he paid them well (since Buda-Pest had given him 12 million crowns for propaganda purposes), yet had a way of borrowing a coat or cap from Serbian soldiers and, arrayed in these, holding up pedestrians after nightfall.

Roth had therefore been granted the right to rule, but--save for the dubious guard--his power was only that which the Serbian or French authorities would give him. He issued many orders to the mayor, some of which were very questionable, as for instance when he sent provisions out of the Banat to Hungary. This produced so great a scarcity that the flour-mill employees thought it was the time to go on strike; they demanded 80 per cent. increase in wages, without undertaking to go back to work if they received it. "I am not a politician," said the hara.s.sed mayor, "I only want to save the town from starving." But the Narodna Uprava would send no food, since the town (that is to say Roth) would not acknowledge its authority. There were many rumours as to how Roth spent the sums from Buda-Pest, and a weekly Socialist sheet, which he himself had founded, but had now made over to a couple of his friends (likewise Magyar Jews), called Furth and Isaac Gara, started to bring charges against its founder. Roth, whose previous resources were not large and were well known to Furth and Gara, used now to frequent the fashionable cafe and indulge, night after night, in potations of champagne, inviting to his table not Furth nor Gara, but the French General. This officer, in the advance through Serbia, had captured a great many prisoners and a very large number of guns, arousing everybody's enthusiasm by his personal bravery, his dashing tactics and the skill with which he executed them. He was a most original person, who would sometimes about midnight in that cafe at Temevar leap on to one of the marble tables and there perform a _pas de seul_. Dr. Roth succeeded in worming himself into this merry warrior's good graces, and Furth and Gara looked with jaundiced eyes on the carouses of these two.

And in their newspaper, the _Temevar_, they said very biting things.

Thereupon Roth complained about them to the Serbian authorities, asking that they should be sent to Belgrade. When the Serbs did nothing he made application to the French, and they--not aware of all the circ.u.mstances--sent the couple under guard to Belgrade, where they were interned. The mayor continued to receive the orders of the various parties, and then suddenly Roth organized a strike which lasted for two days--the railways, the electric light, the water-supply and the shops all joining in the movement. There was even a Magyar flag on the town hall, and cries were raised by a procession for the Magyar Republic. But this time he had gone too far. An order came from Belgrade, from General Franchet d'Esperey, and Roth was taken in a car to Arad, where he was deposited on the other side of the line of demarcation.

A SORT OF WAR IN CARINTHIA

But the German-Austrians in Carinthia, seeing how the Slovenes were being treated by the Italians, could not resist attacking on their own account; and here the most tragic feature was that in the German ranks were many Germanized Slovenes. This had been the case at Maribor in Styria, where the population rose against the 70 Slovene soldiers during the visit of an American mission. Many of those who were afterwards questioned were obliged to admit that they were of Slovene or of partly Slovene origin, but Austria had taken care of their national conscience. Had they been freely left to choose between the two nationalities, and had they, out of admiration for the German, selected that one--you would not endeavour now to make them Slovenes; but of course these people were never given the choice, and therefore every effort should be used to make to dance that portion of their blood which is Slovene, and sometimes all your efforts will be fruitless. That those who fought in Carinthia against the Slovene troops were of this origin can be seen by the names of the officers of the so-called "Volkswehralarmkompagnien" (_i.e._ the People's Emergency Defence Companies). A doc.u.ment, marked W. No. 101, and signed by a Captain Sandner, fell into Slovene hands on February 21. It gives very full arrangements for these companies in Wolfsberg and the neighbourhood. At St. Paul, for instance, men are to gather from three other regions, to wit 40 from St. Paul itself, 120 from Granitzthal, 60 from Lagerbuch and 30 from Eitweg; the officers of this St. Paul contingent are called Kronegger, Andrec, Klotsch and Gritsch--the last three are of Slovene origin. These Defence Companies consisted largely of ex-soldiers, under the command, very often, of a schoolmaster or some such person; and if they had done nothing more than to defend their own soil, one would have less to say about them; but as a matter of fact they sent arms across to their adherents in the territory occupied by the Slovenes. Thus at Velikovec (Volkermarkt) and Donji Dravograd (Unter-Drauburg) shots were fired from houses which had been armed in this way. Incursions were made into Yugoslav territory, where the people were urged to rise; and as these Defence Companies did not wear any uniform their members could, if captured, protest their innocence. The officers were given 20 crowns a day, the men six crowns, with 5.44 a day for their keep during the time of emergency, and four crowns daily in addition if they went outside the garrison town. As it would not be possible to get the commissariat at once into working order the men were asked to bring at least sufficient bread with them for a few days. Most of the men had their own guns; those who had not would be lent one at the village office on the understanding that it was brought back there when the emergency was over. These Defence Companies were joined in the spring by 2000 of the proletariat of Vienna who, at the railway station before they started, were cheered by speeches on the subject of plunder; at Graz they were joined by some students who proposed to maintain order.... It was in April that the Germans began nearly every day to fire on the Yugoslav troops, regardless of the Americans, who said that any infringement of the Armistice would be severely punished. The Slovene bridgehead around Velikovec was, towards the end of April, bombarded for several days with heavy artillery, and the local commander, on his own initiative, crossed the Armistice line in order to seize this artillery; he did, in fact, carry off some twenty pieces, with which he returned to his old positions. This caused the Germans to send through Zurich most indignant telegrams to the Entente Press, denouncing the Yugoslavs for having flagrantly crossed the Armistice line by 10 kilometres (cf. _Le Journal_, for example, of May 5). In the same report they were held up as villains for having crossed the river Drave at several points and cut the railway line; as a matter of fact their infantry was at least 11 kilometres to the south of the Drave, and the artillery, of course, still farther off. This railway line, which was the means of communication between Austrians and Italians, was the subject of very fierce talk on the part of the latter. All this time, be it remembered, the Slovenes had feeble forces; and their own officers do not pretend that they approach the Serbs as combatants. After centuries of servitude--a more insidious servitude than if their masters had been Moslem--they have now awakened to devote themselves, and with great success, to agriculture and industry. Nevertheless the old fighting spirit of the Slav has not been quite extinguished in them. Their opponents on May 2 made a big attack upon Celovec (Klagenfurt) and Beljak (Villach), where they had at their disposal the munitions of the entire 10th Austrian army. Several battalions had come down from Vienna, as well as 340 unemployed Austrian ex-officers, who were clothed as infantry privates. These officers were serving for the love of their country--up to May 1 at all events they were in receipt of no pay. The Slovene ranks were somewhat depleted by Bolevik tracts, telling them to go home, as there would be no more war; and yet at Gutenstein sixty men with three machine guns, under Lieut. Maglaj, a Slovene from Carinthia, kept 1500 men at bay from 9 a.m. till 3.30, after which they slowly withdrew until the fighting ceased at six; a corporal and two men of a machine-gun detachment were cut off and concealed themselves in the shrubs of a defile. Suddenly they heard a German company come down the road, singing as they marched. The three men opened fire--the Germans in perplexity stood still and then retired in disorder. The whole German-Austrian movement was checked by General Maister. And when the Serbian veterans, men of all ages, with uniforms of every shade, marched through the streets of Maribor, it was felt that there need be no more anxiety as to that particular frontier of Yugoslavia.

YUGOSLAVIA BEGINS TO PUT HER HOUSE IN ORDER

It was not until now that Great Britain (on May 9) and France (on June 5) formally recognized the new Serbo-Croat-Slovene State.[33] As the _Times_ said, two years afterwards,[34] "it was not the Allies who created Czecho-Slovakia or brought about the establishment of Yugo-Slavia. These events were the inevitable result of the previous history which the Allies could not, even if they had desired to do so, prevent." The Americans had not been so extremely considerate to Italy, for they had recognized the Yugoslav State on February 7, a few days after Norway and Switzerland.... And how necessary it was for the Yugoslavs to have some leisure for their home affairs, which presented so many complications. Here one system of laws and there another--with the best will in the world and waiving to the uttermost one's own idiosyncrasies, the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes were faced, at the beginning of their union, by most arduous problems. The Agrarian question was regarded generally as one of the most urgent. In Serbia itself, with practically the whole country in the hands of small peasant proprietors, this question did not arise; but in the provinces which had been lately under Austria-Hungary no time was to be lost, and yet a good deal of time would be needed to cope with a problem so full of complications. One difficulty was that each political party was inclined to solve this matter in accordance with its own interests. Among the three Slovene parties, for example, the Socialists would naturally work for their own principles, the Christian-Socialist party, whose supporters were chiefly the small farmers, would prefer to legislate for them, while the Liberal party, having in its ranks the larger landowners, would wish that all, except the very largest, should if possible be left intact; the very large landowners, moreover, will with the spread of democratic ideas lose their influence over the voters.

There are several points on which all parties are agreed: thus, it is most undesirable that a man's holdings should, as now, be separated from each other, often by considerable distances, so that half his time may be spent in going to and from his fields and a good deal of the other half in the disputes which naturally spring from such a scattered ownership.... In Bosnia, where the Agrarian troubles had produced such frequent outbreaks and savage repression, the Austrians were given the mandate in 1878 in the hope that they would regulate this matter. They did not do very much; all that they really did was to modernize a little. They wrote down in a book who was the landlord and who were the kmets, and a copy of these details was available for each one of the kmets. He had the right to remain where he was--unless his conduct was exceptionally bad--and to retain two-thirds of the produce of the land.

This kmet-right was not hereditary in the female line; but the kmet could buy his portion--this was an old right, which Austria regulated--and become a free man, a beg. He would sometimes be a free man in one place and a kmet in another. In Bosnia there are, of course, some extremely large landowners; but most of the begs are poor folk, who live on the third part of a few farms. It would be better if these men were not compensated with cash, but rather that they should be established on farms which they would work themselves, the distinction between the small begs and the kmets thus disappearing.

THE PROBLEM OF AGRARIAN REFORM

A special Ministry was created to supervise, throughout Yugoslavia, the question of Agrarian Reform; but the Cabinet was frequently engaged in discussing this important topic and, many months afterwards, when the ownership of a good deal of the land had been changed, it was acknowledged that the problem had been attacked more often than it had been solved. Mr. Paic, who does not believe in hasty legislation, pointed out that the Austrians had in forty years done really very little in Bosnia. He was told, however, that in Croatia, for example, the revolutionary spirit at the end of the War was so intense that if the Government were to postpone the necessary reforms then the people would simply seize whatever land they wished to have. It is true that violence was rampant in those parts--the peasants believed that with Austria's collapse there would arrive the Earthly Paradise, and in order to bring this about they ravaged a good many fine estates and set fire to various castles. They were going to stand no nonsense. At a place called Lubiica in Croatia--where the 350 families lived in 260 houses--the landowner, out of the goodness of his heart, bestowed twenty "joch" of meadowland on the village in 1864. A law was pa.s.sed which obliged him to devote a certain amount of land to the support of the church and the school--he gave the identical twenty joch. And at the end of the War the peasants maintained that at last this land was going to be restored to them; they drove their cattle on to it, but the priest with the help of _gendarmerie_ drove them off again. Once more the cattle came back and then the priest seized a gun; he fired at his parishioners and wounded in the head a sixteen-year-old boy, as well as three other persons. This so enraged the village that they went in a body and slew the priest.... And the authorities, although at that period they were faced with so many problems, attempted to settle right away this very complicated question. The Dobrovoljci--volunteers with the Yugoslav forces who had come home from the United States, Canada and Australia or who had managed to escape from the Austro-Hungarian army--had been promised so many acres, each of them, after the War. And these Dobrovoljci and the agitated peasants found that the land was, so to speak, thrust upon them. A lawyer-politician would take a map, would a.s.sign a certain area to A, another to B, and imagine he had done a good morning's work; but unhappily the lawyer often forgot that a farm, to be of any use to its tenant, must have a road leading to it, must have a well, a cart, a horse, some oxen and so forth--to say nothing of a dwelling-place. Thus it would happen that the new tenant would go to look at his holding and in disgust would go away, or--contrary to law--would sublet it or sell it back to the original owner. If, on the other hand, he remained the State would, from an economical point of view, only benefit in those regions where the land had hitherto been more or less uncultivated; where it had been cultivated by the moderately large or the very large landowner it always returned a harvest more considerable than that which the new tenant, insufficiently equipped and experienced, was able to achieve. Not only would there be this diminished production--frequently in the proportion of six to ten--but a large number of employees were thrown out of employment: sometimes a clever Czech overseer, whose family of six children had almost become Croat, and sometimes a native farmer whose house was wanted for the Dobrovoljci. The Czech would return to his own country and the dispossessed farmer would become a Communist. Yet these material and human losses to the State might have been endured if there had been a compensating political advantage, that is to say if the new tenants had been satisfied. But in far too many instances they were not. And one cannot help thinking that, in the vast majority of cases, they themselves would have preferred to wait until the Peasants' Co-operative a.s.sociations--such as flourish in Denmark--had been established. It need scarcely be said that, from the point of view of the peasant and of the State, these a.s.sociations are an absolute necessity. The most deplorable example of the measures that were taken in such haste is seen, of course, in a model-property, such as that of Count Cekonic in the north of the Banat, where the new tenants, seeking as elsewhere to satisfy only their own wants and paying no heed to any possible exports, allow a highly developed property to go in a retrograde direction. If the Dobrovoljci had been skilled agriculturists there would have been no harm in settling them on this excellent estate; and with a Co-operative a.s.sociation the 3000 joch of sugar that were grown there during the War would not now be reduced to 88 joch. But as it is, what with the unfortunate inexperience of most of the new tenants and their lack of means, and what with the stupidity of the local authorities who left to the previous owner one field here and one field there in the most absurd fashion, it would have been better both for Count Cekonic and for the State if he had simply presented to the Dobrovoljci half his land. A great many mistakes have been made in this question of Agrarian Reform, one of the most cardinal being--as Radic, the spokesman of the Croat peasants, has pointed out--to bestow the land not on people because they can farm it, but because they were heroes in the War.[35] It is a matter for congratulation that the measures now in force are not definite--the final dispositions will be taken in two or three years.[36] And perhaps then some part of the counsel of Radic may be adopted--Radic, whose critics are never weary of denouncing him for being a demagogue, a firebrand and various other things, but who by that time may very likely be a Cabinet Minister. He advises that there should be a compromise, that the ownership of land in Yugoslavia should not be strictly individualist nor strictly communist, but that while preserving the spirit of the _zadruga_ (ownership by the community) there should also be the mobility of individual ownership.

But in the field of Agrarian Reform there has been one excellent plan, the transference of men from the unfertile districts of Montenegro and Lika, also of landless men from the Banat and Backa, as also Serbs from Hungary and Slovenes from Istria, to those parts of Kossovo and Macedonia which were lying ownerless. The Albanians in Kossovo are mostly shepherds, and the land, which by Turkish law had belonged to "G.o.d and the Sultan," was now at the disposal of the Yugoslav authorities. Down to the spring of 1922 they had placed some 35,000 persons in these regions, the Montenegrins being generally allocated to an Albanian neighbourhood, for they are accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the Shqyptart. At first the Albanians viewed the new settlers with disfavour, but now so great a sympathy has developed between them that on various occasions the Montenegrins have remonstrated with the gendarmes for the excessive order they enforce and which, the Montenegrins say, you really cannot ask of an Albanian. Against the Montenegrins the Albanians do not care to use their rifles, since the custom of blood-vengeance is in the Montenegrin blood. In fact, these Albanians are very fair neighbours, the most unruly of them living in the mountains of the frontier. And the Montenegrins have been showing that when they are not compelled to live with weapons in their hand they can be quite industrious. There has, till now, been more colonization of Kossovo than of Macedonia; but there are wide tracts of country around Skoplje which will be settled, once they have been freed from malaria.

The political consequences that this will have on Macedonia, by the stabilization of economic conditions, the supersession of the wooden plough by the steam plough--in fact, the advent of a new European spirit need scarcely be enlarged upon. In Serbian Macedonia, or South Serbia as it is now officially called, more than seven million acres of good soil are as yet not being used.

FRENZY AT RIEKA

As the months rolled on at Rieka the Italianists became more frantic.

Their telegrams to Rome, in which they begged for instant annexation, were in vain, and after all, what was the use of adopting the system of Lieut.-Colonel Stadler, their energetic podesta at Abbazia, who would go into the hills, accost the peasants and instruct them that they must not say: "It will be settled by the Paris Conference," but rather--"It has been settled by the Paris Conference." All the world was learning what was the position of affairs at Rieka; one of the most important of these plaguy Allied officers had said that when he first came to the town he thought it was Italian, but he had soon perceived that it was all a comedy, and the Italianists were dreadfully afraid that memoranda and statistics and what not had been dispatched to Paris and that there was the faintest, awful possibility that one could say: "It has been settled by the Paris Conference." Everyone, alas! was studying the case--one heard that Cardinal Bourne, in the course of being feted at Zagreb, was reported to have shown himself quite intimate with Croatian history and to have discussed especially the story of Rieka. But by far the shrewdest blow to the Italianists was Wilson's Declaration. What had his emissaries, who had listened with such care to everybody, told him?

One must have a grand procession through the town to show the whole world what the people wanted! As for Wilson, it was good to hear the l.u.s.ty shouts of the "Giovani Fiumani": "Down with Wilson! down with redskins!" Some of the demonstrators, after shouting that Wilson was a donkey, a horse, a ruffian, would acclaim the new suggestion, that their enemy was not Wilson at all but Rudolf of Austria, who was still alive.

Another very good idea would be to have great posters made with Wilson's head crowned by a German helmet, and now, of course, the Hotel Wilson must become the Hotel Orlando. Let them put a large black cross on all the Croat houses of Rieka--well, on second thoughts, next morning, that was not a very brilliant idea, because the crosses were too numerous; so let the soldiers rub them out again. And where the Croat names on banks and shops and elsewhere had been effaced, demolished--one could hide them by long strips of paper which they were so busy printing: "Either Italy or death!" "Viva Orlando!" "Viva Sonnino!"--those papers were the best reply to people who were asking if the entire Italian Cabinet was in harmony with Sonnino. Not merely in harmony--the Cabinet _was_ Sonnino and more particularly Orlando was Sonnino. An Italian major came out on to a balcony one evening, in uniform, and opened his Italian heart to the crowd. What would the Allies say to that? The _Dante Alighieri_, the great dreadnought, manuvring with her searchlights, let them rest awhile upon the _Schley_, an American destroyer. What would the Yankees do? "Avanti Savoia!" Perhaps in the old days they would have sent a shot or two into the searchlights, just for luck, but now they did nothing. And what a scene at the Opera when _Andre Chenier_ was performed and one of the singers came to the word "Traitor!" and some one shouted "Wilson!" and the whole house shouted "Wilson!" and the singer, forced to repeat the blessed word, added amid indescribable enthusiasm the name of the President, that ignominious President concerning whom it was revealed by one of their newspapers that he must obviously have pocketed Yugoslav money, perhaps a million, and who most probably had a Yugoslav mistress--when that opera-singer had emended the phrase, did that very exalted Italian officer leave his box? Why, no--he stayed until the end of the performance.... Did any Italian in Rieka read to the end a small and lucid American book, _Italy and the Yugoslavs, A Question of International Law_, by C. A. H. Bartlett of the New York and United States Federal Bar? "It is an admitted fact," says Mr. Bartlett, "that Italy at the outbreak of hostilities had no rights to, or in, the territory to which she now makes claim. Her t.i.tle, therefore, has arisen since the commencement of the War, and must be founded on either effective possession legally acquired or on doc.u.mentary evidence or some other right recognized by international law." And quoting Professor Westlake (_International Law_, Part I. p.

91) as to the four grounds on which a State may vindicate its sovereignty over new domain, he discusses the position in the Adriatic, and concludes that Italy can claim no t.i.tle by occupancy, cession, succession or self-determination. We refer elsewhere to Mr. Bartlett's commentary on the London Treaty, which is the instrument invoked by the Italians for their claims to Dalmatia. With regard to Rieka, which, as everybody knows, was not included even in the London Treaty, Mr.

Bartlett says that while "admitting, for the purpose of argument, that the seizure has since resulted in an effective possession, yet, as that is not sufficient in itself to give t.i.tle, it has no legal or effective force, but can be compared with nomads squatting on the roadside and then claiming a right to the soil. Italy was ashamed to a.s.sume the responsibility for the original appropriation of Rieka, which was made in violation of every legal right of those to whom it belongs, and she might well be, for a more audacious, unjustifiable proceeding in violation of every principle of international law it is difficult to imagine." ... As for the Italian National Council, listen to the stirring sentences of Mr. Grossich, its old President, after they had unanimously voted on May 17, and with pa.s.sionate conviction, an order of the day directed to Orlando. In that order it was stated that they looked upon the plebiscite of October 30, 1918, as an indestructible, historical and legal fact. Grossich exposed the situation and was then for some instants mute. His voice was trembling when he spoke: "The sacrifice which circ.u.mstances may demand is tremendous, but if it is required by the supreme interests of Italy we will know how to support it. More than a citizen of Fiume, I feel myself an Italian" ("Primo che fiumano mi sento italiano"). At this point the old patriot broke into tears. "Fiume will defend herself with arms against all those who desire to violate her will, her national conscience. Seeing that her tenacious, indestructible Italianity is a grave impediment for Italy in the attaining of other objects, let Fiume be left to look after herself, sure as she is of her sons, prepared as she is, to-day more than ever, to sacrifice herself. She will defend herself against all and from wherever they come." Those who listened thought that this must mean that either the _Pester Lloyd_ of April 29 was lying when it printed an official message stating that General Segre, the Italian representative at Vienna, had in the name of his Government requested the Hungarian Soviet Republic to undertake the care of Italian subjects in Rieka, or else that the Magyars had told him that the 22,000 or 23,000 Italian soldiers in Rieka ought to be sufficient, as this was practically one soldier for every person who had been described as an Italian. But the I.N.C. had now resolved to take no risks; they entered into negotiations with Sem Benelli, a well-known poet of the school which some critics call enlivening and other critics call inflammatory. Anyhow, on the afternoon of June 13, Mr. Benelli was made a citizen of Rieka, a member of the central committee and was entrusted with the portfolio of Minister of War, that is to say Commissary for Defence. He thanked the I.N.C. in a long speech, and declared that his appointment was the wedding of Rieka and Italy. Then Dr. Vio proposed a law, respecting the defence to the uttermost of Italian rights--that an army should be created and that the expenses should be met by the issue of bonds for a hundred million lire. The citizen Benelli was asked to undertake the organization and the command of the army.

ADMIRAL MILLO EXPLAINS THE SITUATION

Farther down the coast and on the islands the Italians seemed, with few exceptions, to have relinquished every effort to make themselves popular with the Slavs. Of course one naturally hears more of the cases of tension than of those where friendliness prevails; but in the towns or villages where the Slav _intelligentsia_ appreciated that an officer was doing his best, they were obliged invariably to add that he was doing it in spite of his men, and that his control of these men was more or less defective. Numbers of the soldiers, marines and carabinieri may have been animated, when they landed in Dalmatia, with excellent intentions, but their months amid an alien population had produced in them too often a deplorable effect. It must be taken into account that many of them had an almost insurmountable desire to be demobilized. At Gradica, where many Slovenes were interned, with fences round them but with no roof other than the sky, their guards with other soldiers had risen in revolt. This outbreak was suppressed, certain soldiers--some say sixty, but the number is doubtful--being shot; and all the others took an oath that on the first occasion of a deserter being shot at, they would, down to the last man, leave the barracks. This movement had been growing since the withdrawal of Bissolati from the Cabinet. As for the young officers, they had been exhorted, in a communication from Admiral Millo, the Governor, that they must realize the position they were in. The Admiral's memorial, which was marked with wisdom but also with a too-sweeping air of superiority, was labelled "Secret Doc.u.ment: No. 558 of Register P. Section of Propaganda. Sebenico, March 21, 1919." A copy was found by the Yugoslavs under an officer's mattress, was transcribed and replaced. Since it made admissions with regard to the Croats the contents were telegraphed to Paris. It is a lengthy and to us at times a rather rhetorical expose, of which it will suffice to make some extracts. "The Officer," says Admiral Millo, "should place himself in a calm and dignified fashion outside and above the disputes which divide the sentiments of the local population. And in accounting, psychologically and historically, for the detestations and the aspirations of either party, he must regard the situation with the serene mind of a judge.... The position of officers is extremely delicate, more particularly in the small centres. It is known that outside the towns the population in its great majority and often its totality consists of Yugo-Slavs or Slavs of the South, that is to say, Croats or Serbo-Croats. It is a people of another race, of that formidable Slav race which for centuries has been pressing against the West, athirst for liberty and eager for the sea; a people with a psychology, a mentality, a civilization, habits, traditions, a national consciousness and a quite special individuality. This population is fundamentally good, good as simple and primitive people are. But the simple and primitive peoples are also extremely sensitive and suspicious and violent in their impulses.... May Heaven preserve the officers from not taking these things into account and from letting themselves be guided solely by their Italian feelings.... Firm nerves, sangfroid and an evenly-balanced mind are required in order to prevent the hostility of the population from causing, as a reaction, resentment and a spirit of revolt, of vengeance and of oppression on our part. The officer must ... become an element of moderation and pacification, with the object of a.s.suaging and obviating the bitter feelings which have been created and fed by a past that is and must be wiped out for ever; and of dissipating that hostility which, determined by a political situation and events, has been and is being incited and strengthened by blind pa.s.sions and an artificially created campaign of interested parties (_da artificiose interessate campagna_).... It must be remembered that this is the first contact (_il primo contatto_) which the population, as yet primitive and uncultured in its ma.s.s, has had with Italy, where it instinctively sees the enemy and the new oppressor. We must do our best to make them see in Italy their friend and liberator.... It is evident and it leaps to the eyes of all how delicate and important is the moment of this first contact. Nothing more than a superficial knowledge of the circ.u.mstances is needed for the officer to understand that in all his official and personal acts he must behave in such a manner that the population, which is primitive and simple and therefore all the more susceptible to suggestions, should regain the impression that Italy is a great country, the country of liberty and right, that its people is educated and civilized, that its officers and soldiers are here to fulfil a work of civilization and education, of love, in a country which must be Italian on account of historic rights and for the exigencies of Italy's defence: in which the Slavs, who have been introduced by the course of events and as an effect of the expansive potentiality of their race and the artifices of those who dominated the country, will find in the independence and development of their nationality a great fatherland which is civilized, powerful, humane and free.... In estimating the enmity of the Croats the fact must be taken into account that the Croatian world, I mean to say the Croat people, with its action in the interior of Austria while the Italian army was acting outside, resolutely and victoriously, has co-operated in precipitating the downfall of Austria and in freeing itself from a detested regime; particularly in the last year of the War this sentiment of nationality became accentuated with the fervent aspiration for liberty.... These are the circ.u.mstances which have determined a special psychology composed of joy and ecstasy--both elements which, in minds that are laden with all the influences of the East, produce a facile and dangerous excitement.

On the other hand there survives in the Italian population the hatred against the Croatian supremacy, a hatred which is comprehensible but which in time must give place to other sentiments, rendering possible a fair coexistence of the two populations, whose aim should be common--the prosperity and development of Dalmatia, in the prosperity and for the prosperity, in the greatness and for the greatness of Italy. From this picture it must be instantly clear to every officer that his duty here is ... a truly lofty mission of civilization.... Especially the officer who is in charge of administrative work must awaken impressions that are naturally caused by the sense of justice for all; his severity must be good and his goodness must be severe, and from every act there must transpire the dignity which comes from the might and right of Italy, the kindness and generosity which come from the virtue of the race.... There is already an impression on the part of the Croats that the Italians are good, that Italy is strong. There must also be born and reinforced the other conviction that we are not oppressors but liberators.... The best propaganda, the most efficacious, because spontaneous and unexpected, is done by the officer and his men. The Italian officer ... with the harmony of manners which distinguishes him, obtains very easily the sympathies of this population, a sympathy, however, which for an optimist may become dangerous. Young officers must not forget that the propagators of the great Yugoslavia still exercise with their megalomania a potent influence over the primitive population and that a gesture of theirs, a word, an att.i.tude, may even yet indirectly favour the Croat cause and make difficulties for us in exhibiting our mission of civilization."

HIS MISGUIDED SUBORDINATES AT IBENIK

It is strange that this order should have been so scurvily treated in the town of ibenik, where it was issued and where the Admiral resided until the beginning of June, after which he transferred the seat of government to Zadar. At ibenik, by the way, the population comprises 13,000 Yugoslavs and 400 Italianists. On February 20, 1919, there arrived from Zadar, in consequence of an invitation from Admiral Millo, the Italian professor Domiakuic who, according to the sixth clause of the Armistice, was justified in a.s.suming the functions of school-controller, but was not authorized to become the inspector or in any way to interfere in didactic matters. Two inspectors existed in Dalmatia, one for the elementary and one for the secondary school, but the chief school authority of the province and the two inspectors under him were not informed of Professor Domiakuic's nomination. If the Governor intended him to abide by the stipulations of the Armistice, he must have been astonished at the schools being shut on the day after his arrival. And they remained shut, both the modern school and the middle-cla.s.s girls' school for months, because the Professor's quite illegal attempt to usurp the inspectorship was resented. The secondary school was closed and the teachers who had come to ibenik with their families, but whose permanent domicile was elsewhere, received an order, delivered by carabinieri, that they would have to leave the town in four days. A few Italians were brought from Split and the school was reopened, but the attendance, which had been about 200, was now 24, and of these only two were the sons of Yugoslavs--but Yugoslavs who had taken office under the Italians, one as President of the Court of Justice and the other as prison inspector; these gentlemen took their boys by the hand and led them to school. Perhaps the Admiral was unaware of these transactions; but various Yugoslav officials, whose salaries had been withheld because they would not sign a paper asking to be made Italian officials, continued, notwithstanding, at their posts for two months; after which the Government perceived that by the clauses of the Armistice they were compelled to pay them. Each of them received exactly what was due, while some Italian teachers who had signed the paper were given a war bonus, extending over five months, of 80 per cent. Whether the Admiral knew of this or not, it does not harmonize with his exalted sentiments. And the town-commandant spoke very darkly[37] on various occasions to the leading citizens of what would come to pa.s.s if the Italians by any chance were told to leave the place. His brave fellows, the arditi, so he said, had plenty of machine guns and of ammunition.

But this fair-haired German-looking officer was a rampageous sort of person who discharged, according to his lights, the Admiral's "truly lofty mission of civilization." It was not he, but another of the Admiral's subordinates at ibenik, who, when approached by a certain Mr. Ivaa Zoric with the request that something might be done to release his son, a prisoner of war in Italy, replied: "Your son shall be released in eight days, provided that you declare, in writing, that you are content with the Italian occupation." On Mr. Zoric saying that he was unable to do this, "Very well," said the officer, "then your son will be one of the last to be set free."

THE ITALIANS WANT TO TAKE NO RISKS

Altogether one might say that the schoolmasters were being treated in a manner that was at variance with the Admiral's doc.u.ment. To give a few examples: Ivan Grbic, the schoolmaster at Sutomicica, was arbitrarily imprisoned and was afterwards removed to another school at Privlaka. The Government school at the former place was closed, an Italian private inst.i.tution being opened in the same building, with a teacher who was devoid of professional qualifications. The pupils of the school which had been dissolved were compelled by soldiers to attend the new Italian school. The elementary schools at Zemunik were likewise closed and the schoolmasters, after a period of imprisonment, taken to another village. If in the rather dreary little Zemunik, where there is not one Italian, the schoolmaster was very dangerous to the might of Italy, let us compare with this the conduct of the Slovene authorities who permitted more than one priest of the old regime to remain in office--one of them at a village four or five miles from Ljubljana--though they knew that these clergy were wont from the pulpit to utter disloyal sentiments. Maybe the Slovene Government was unwise, but they had scruples in removing a priest; and moreover, they had not given up the hope that these gentlemen would by and by change their opinions. On the island of Pag the schoolmaster Buratovic and his wife, who was also a teacher, had to fly in order to escape imprisonment. The schoolmaster Grimani of the same place was obliged, with his wife, to follow the example of Buratovic, so that the school was necessarily closed; and an Italian school was started in this island with its 031 per cent. of Italians. The same edifying scenes must have taken place as in so many Magyar schools where the pupils--Serbs, Slovaks, Roumanians and so forth--did not understand what the teacher was saying. The Government of the occupied part of Dalmatia appointed to the elementary schools at Rogoznica and Primoten two young Italian law-students from Zadar, who had no pedagogic qualifications; and whereas the legal annual salary was 1080 crowns, these lucky young men were in receipt of 625 crowns a month, which covered more than handsomely any depreciation in the currency. But now to another subject:

Per cent. Yugoslavs. Per cent. Italians.

1. Zadar with 8025 with 1861 2. Hvar (Lesina) " 9294 " 675 3. Korcula (Curzola) " 9489 " 508 4. ibenik (Sebenico) " 9566 " 131 5. Starigrad (Cittavecchia) " 9798 " 191 6. Vis (Lissa) " 9898 " 092 7. Skradin (Scardona) " 9936 " 057 8. Knin " 9948 " 031 9. Drni (Dernish) " 9949 " 041 10. Benkovac " 9960 " 030 11. Tijesno (Stretto) " 9961 " 035 12. Biograd (Zaravecchia) " 9966 " 023 13. Pag (Pago) " 9967 " 031 14. Obrovac (Obrovazzo) " 9984 " 012 15. Kistanje " 9988 " 012 16. Blato (Blatta) " 9993 " 005

The London Treaty had conferred on Italy the foregoing Judiciary Districts, whose population, according to the last Austrian census, was as given on page 147.