The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 9

The little, ancient town of Trogir lay some twelve miles to the south of the demarcation line. Its inhabitants, with the exception of five Italophil families, are Yugoslav; and in the month of September 1919 the Yugoslav army was represented by eight men. Truth compels us to mention that on a certain night these men, instead of doing patrol duty, were sleeping off the effects of a carouse; and when the townsfolk looked out of their windows in the morning they saw machine guns and Italian soldiers. At 4 a.m. they had crept into the town with the help of a certain Conte Nino di Fanfogna, who had a.s.sembled a National Guard of thirty peasants, the employees of those five families. Conte Nino was striding to and fro; he muttered threats of death. Some of the chief men, such as Dr. Marin Katalinic, Dr. Peter Sentinella and others, came together and were at a loss for some effective means to chase out the Italians, since they had not even a revolver. An American boat appeared, but the captain, when appealed to, said that he was only cruising and could not come ash.o.r.e. In the town hall Count Nino, labouring under some excitement, dismissed the mayor; and when Ferri, the mayor, told him to go about his business, he protested that he was the dictator and would, if necessary, use force. Outside in the square the Italians and the people stood face to face, and suddenly a few Yugoslav flags were fluttering, and then an old man, Dr. Sentinella's father, climbed up to the place in the town hall where the Italian flag had been hoisted. He tore it down. The soldiers were for shooting him, but the people began pulling the rifles out of their hands. Other soldiers, full of apprehension, dropped their rifles; the people picked them up, and those who were unacquainted with the mechanism cried out certain awe-inspiring sounds. Women and children--I fear this will not be believed; it is none the less true--women and children removed some of the men's helmets, and one group of children turned a helmet into a football. "I am a father of a family!" cried a soldier. "I am innocent, I have been deceived!" cried another. "O, Mama mia!" cried a third. They wept, they bolted into the courtyards, and the women showed them little mercy, for they tore off the men's belts and even struck them with their fists. A Mrs. Sunjara routed four men and went home with their machine gun on her back. In a few minutes the square was free of soldiers, and forty rifles were stacked in the town hall. Fifty soldiers on the quay were dealt with by a butcher who started firing at them; when they heard the shouts of the approaching crowd they threw down their weapons and fled. Two large motors escaped; the third was intercepted at the bridge, and although young Sentinella, who ordered them to stop, had forgotten his own rifle, they all--thirteen men and two officers--threw theirs away. It was suggested that the running soldiers should be pursued.

"No," said an old man, "for we would kill them all. Let them rather go back without arms or helmets. It will frighten the others." ... Two hours later a party of Serbian soldiers arrived, but they were not needed, save for the protection of those who had thrown in their lot with the Italians. From Split, a few miles away, 1500 volunteers, who speedily a.s.sembled, came with knives or agricultural implements or any other weapon. "The Yugoslavs must realize," said Nitti, "that it is to their interest to maintain sincere relations of friendship with Italy."

THE SUCCESSION STATES AND THEIR MINORITIES

The Yugoslav Government--as if it had not sufficient problems to solve--was ordered now by the Peace Conference to accept sundry regulations as to the rights of minorities, the transit of goods, and an equitable regime for international commerce. The other States which had inherited the Habsburg Empire were, all of them, faced with the same demands; and they objected that to sign such Articles was inconsistent with their sovereignty. The most onerous item--relating to the racial and religious minorities--had been imposed--at America's instance, owing to the manner in which the Jews were treated in Roumania, despite King Charles' promises in 1878. The Yugoslavs, with a far smaller number of Jews and no Jewish outcry, were concerned only for the principle of independence. Not having persecuted the Jews they resented having to undertake that for the future they would act in a liberal spirit. "I will have nothing to do with tolerance," said the Orthodox Bishop of Verac to a deputation of Jews, when he made his formal entry into the town of Pancevo. And when they stared at him, "It is not tolerance that I will show," said he, "but love." Perhaps the Opposition in the Yugoslav Skuptina might have exhibited more kindliness in its att.i.tude towards the Government and have refrained from rousing a storm against the signature of the obnoxious Articles. The Government and the Opposition being practically of equal strength, the Ministers, who in a calm atmosphere could have explained the realities of the situation, found themselves at a grave disadvantage. They could have shown that they would be a.s.suming obligations which they had a.s.sumed already. In Macedonia, as any traveller could see, the time-honoured custom of persecuting him who happened to be the under-dog was abandoned; the authorities preferred to ignore the religious difference between themselves and the Bulgarian party, and as the difference consisted in praying for the Exarch instead of the Patriarch in the liturgy there was not the slightest persecution needed to persuade the Exarchists to become Patriarchists. Many who had been unaware of this new spirit which informed Yugoslavia and had fled with the Bulgarian army, afterwards came back to Macedonia. Nor did the Moslems complain: two Bosnian Moslems were expressly included in the Cabinet, and every consideration was shown to them--at Ghevgeli, for instance, where building material was, after the War, so scarce that many of the inhabitants had nothing but a hole in the ground, the prefect caused the two mosques which had been destroyed by sh.e.l.l-fire to be reconstructed.

OBLIGATIONS IMPOSED ON THEM BECAUSE OF ROUMANIAN ANTISEMITISM

If the Serbs were to express their grievance against the Roumanian ruling cla.s.s for having landed them in this position, the Roumanians would reply that the Serbs do not run the same risk as themselves of being swamped by the undesirable Galician Jew. The Roumanians argue that their peasants will go under if they are not shielded. "In our last great manuvres," said the late King Charles to M. de Laveleye,[45]

"it was proposed to entrust the supply of food to Christians. On the first day the provisions came; on the second everything was late; on the third day the whole army was dying of hunger. I was forced to make a hasty appeal to the Jews. They have great qualities--they are intelligent, energetic, economical; but these very qualities make them dangerous to us on economic grounds." Roumanians acknowledge that the agrarian policy of a few vast landowners and a submerged peasantry did not admit of peasants being made more formidable by increased education, and they doubt whether their country-folk, so fond of music and dancing and drinking, have it in them to rival those Serbian non-commissioned officers who, early in 1919, became millionaires by skilful operations on the money market in the Banat. Yet the Serbs are as much addicted as anyone to the aforementioned delights, and it is probable that the Roumanian boyars do their own people an injustice. But while the people were favoured at the expense of the immigrants--not always very effectively: the Jews have been prohibited from owning land, yet a fifth of the whole of Moldavia belongs indirectly to a single Jew--one would suppose that some distinction might have been made between the more or less pernicious alien who is apt to get the village into his toils and that other Jew whose family has lived perhaps two hundred years in the country, who feels himself a Roumanian but is legally a foreigner. One Magder, a Jewish barrister, performed such exploits at the front during the Great War that he was mentioned in the communique, a distinction only conferred upon two other soldiers. For one and a half years the official publications insisted on Roumanizing his name into Magdeu, after which three Cabinet meetings occupied themselves with the subject and finally announced that the error was not intentional but typographical. A French officer wished the Roumanian Croix de Guerre to be given to him, but Headquarters refused the request on the ground that he was a Jew. One cannot blame the United States for taking the initiative in compelling the Roumanians to modify their legislation, since the clauses of the Treaty of Berlin were merely carried out to the extent of naturalizing a maximum of fifty Jews a year, each case having to undergo innumerable formalities, accompanied with payments to deputies and others that rose to 30,000 francs. Many Jews volunteered for the army in 1913 for the sake of thus obtaining the naturalization that was promised them as a reward; but these promises were frequently not kept. A good deal of injustice occurred during the Great War: the _Moniteur Officiel_, No. 261 (of February 2, 1918), printed a decree relating to one Kaufman, who together with two Christian soldiers had been away from his corps for twelve days in the previous September.

Kaufman was condemned to death, and the others to five years' hard labour. When the King was asked to deal more equitably with the three men, Kaufman's sentence was commuted to "hard labour without limit,"

_i.e._ for life. It is superfluous to give many ill.u.s.trations: at Falticeni seventy-two Jews were imprisoned without a trial for four months, though twelve of them were Roumanian citizens and veterans of 1877, while most of the others had sons at the front; at the village of Frumusica a major caused the Jews to come out of their synagogue in order to listen to a speech in which he advised the Christian soldiers to watch them well, as they were worse than the Germans. No doubt there were Jews in the Roumanian army whose patriotism was less than ardent--and who can blame them? In the 69th Regiment a special corps of Jews was clothed in the discarded, dark uniform that was more visible to the enemy. In the 65th Regiment Jon Dumitru was paid 14 francs a month for spying on his Jewish comrades. At the battle of Savarat, to cover the retreat of three battalions, a special corps of Jews was formed--one hundred and twenty-two men under a Jewish second lieutenant; all but three of them were killed or wounded. After this retreat the General, who lost his head, commanded that the survivors should be killed wholesale on account of self-inflicted wounds; but seeing that they were so numerous (and innocent) he pardoned them, and only executed two Jews, Lubis Strul and Hascal Simha, _pour encourager les autres_. A young doctor, 2nd Lieutenant Cohn, who came back from Paris, contracted typhus at the hospital where he was serving; afterwards he was sent to the 26th Regiment and kept under observation; it was most suspicious, said the authorities, that a Jew should return from France for his military service. A reward of 2000 francs was offered to anyone who could supply incriminating evidence against the doctor, but this was offered in vain.

The Jews, by the way, were told that while they would be removed from menial positions in the hospitals they "would be tolerated" as doctors--and nearly a hundred of these doctors died on active service.

The better cla.s.s of Roumanians, such as Take Jonescu, is opposed to such methods--he was therefore charged with being in the pay of the Jews, although he was a wealthy man (a very successful barrister) whom politics made poorer. It remains to be seen whether the Roumanians--whose position with regard to the Jews is, partly through their own fault, not without peril--will be willing to put into effect those reforms to which the Supreme Council compelled them to subscribe.

The Article in question will probably become a moral weapon, since the Roumanians regard themselves as on a higher level than the Balkan peoples, and will not desire that continual complaints should be made against them. One does not expect their prejudices and their apprehensions to be suddenly renounced--instead of judging each case individually, the railway administration, after the Government had agreed that the Jews _en bloc_ could become citizens, barred them _en bloc_ from that particular service by requiring that candidates should present their certificates of baptism. The Agricultural Syndicates have also introduced a statute which limits their organizations to Roumanian citizens who profess the Christian religion. Gradually--one hopes, for the sake of their country--the Roumanians will bring themselves to adopt a less timorous spirit, and to acknowledge that it is more dangerous to the Fatherland if a Jew as such is prevented than if he is permitted to hold the office of street-sweeper. From such lowly public offices, or from that of University Professor, no citizen should be excluded on religious grounds or admitted to them "by exceptional concession." And if a Jewish cab-driver at Bucharest is so severely flogged by his pa.s.sengers outside the chief railway-station that he succ.u.mbs in the hospital to his injuries--a fate that overtook one Mendel Blumenthal, a man fifty-three years of age, in September 1919--one trusts that a newspaper article asking for an inquiry will henceforward not be censored. "It is true," said Dr. Vaida-Voevod, then the Prime Minister, "that the Jews still evince some reluctance to a.s.similate intellectually with our people or to identify their interests with those of the Roumanian State. But goodwill should be shown on both sides, and the overtures should be reciprocal." Thanks very largely to the former Liberal Premier, M. Bratiano, whose party was responsible for much illiberal legislation--one of his powerful brothers was popularly said to eat a Jew at every meal--the Supreme Council acted in such a manner as to produce a particularly unwanted crisis in the Yugoslav political world. Neither Roumanian nor Yugoslav need, in the opinion of Take Jonescu, have considered that their dignity was being slighted, for the tendency of the League of Nations is to limit the free will of each of them. The cardinal doctrine of the League, as Lord Robert Cecil has pointed out, is that its members are _not_ masters in their own house, but must obey the decision of the majority. However, the Opposition in the Belgrade Skuptina could not resist from using the delicate situation for what many of the deputies thought was a patriotic course of conduct, and nearly all of them regarded as an admirable party cry.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _The Defeat of Austria, as seen by the 7th Division._ London, 1919.]

[Footnote 2: _Contemporary Review_, February 1920.]

[Footnote 3: Afterwards Yugoslav Minister at Madrid and then at Washington.]

[Footnote 4: _Fortnightly Review_, June 1919.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. _Manchester Guardian_, December 13, 1918.]

[Footnote 6: _Land and Water_, May 29, 1919.]

[Footnote 7: _Nineteenth Century and After_, November 1920.]

[Footnote 8: _Au Secours des Enfants Serbes._ Paris, 1916.]

[Footnote 9: Several old wooden warships, such as the _Aurora_, the _Schwartzenberg_ and the _Vulcan_, were lying for years in ibenik harbour, where they were used as repair-ships, store-ships, etc. When the Italians evacuated Dalmatia they took these vessels with them, but whether on account of their contents or their history we do not know.]

[Footnote 10: Cf. _Die Handelsstra.s.sen und Bergwerke von Serbien und Bosnien wahrend des Mittelalters_, by Dr.

Constantin Jirecek. Prague, 1879.]

[Footnote 11: It is instructive to examine the attendance figures at the schools of this the only Italian town of Dalmatia, as the Italians call it. The figures are those of the school year 1918-1919, and refer both to elementary and secondary schools:

YUGOSLAV SCHOOLS.

Elementary School for Boys Pupils, 342 Elementary School for Girls " 331 Combined Elementary School " 222 Higher Elementary School for Girls " 121 Teachers' Training College " 70 Cla.s.sical College " 469 ---- Total of Yugoslav Pupils, 1555 ----

ITALIAN SCHOOLS.

Elementary School for Boys Pupils, 250 Elementary School for Girls " 221 Higher Elementary School " 93 Cla.s.sical College " 157 Technical College " 181 ---- Total of Italian Pupils, 902 ----

I do not know what were the facts ascertained on the spot by Mr. Hilaire Belloc which enabled him, without any reservations, to inform the readers of _Land and Water_ (June 5, 1919) that "Zara is quite Italian." He added that "Sebenia is Italian too." If this be so, how comes it that in 1919 the Italian authorities found it necessary to terrorize Sebenico (ibenik)--which is presumably the town Mr. Belloc refers to--with machine guns and hordes of secret police and the very lurid threats of Colonel Cappone, the town commandant? I believe it is nearer the truth to say that the population of this town consists of some 13,000 Yugoslavs and 400 _Italianists_.]

[Footnote 12: This prelate died in December 1920. With fearless patriotism, said the _Tablet_ (January 1, 1921), he "had defended his flock from the Germanizing influence of the Habsburgs and the more insidious encroachments of the Italians."]

[Footnote 13: The population of Veprinac, according to the last census, is: Yugoslavs, 2505 (837 per cent.); Italians, 24 (08 per cent.); Germans, 422 (41 per cent.).]

[Footnote 14: Pribicevic issued a statement to the effect that the interviewer, Magrini, had put into his mouth the precise opposite of what he had said with regard to Triest and Pola. Pribicevic had told him that the whole of Istria, with Triest, should be Yugoslav. He reminded Magrini that a third person was present at the interview.]

[Footnote 15: The supplies for the Austro-Hungarian army in Albania had been concentrated at Rieka. These had to be guarded by Yugoslav troops, as the Hungarian watchmen at the port had disappeared, and the Russian prisoners employed there--about 500 men--had also vanished. In order to keep off nocturnal plunderers, the Yugoslav troops were told to fire a few shots now and then into the air. Is it not possible that the two Italian boys who, as Mr. Beaumont reported, were hit during the night by stray bullets and succ.u.mbed in hospital to their injuries--is it not possible that they were out for plunder and that this incident should not be used to ill.u.s.trate what Mr.

Beaumont (of the _Daily Telegraph_) calls "the worst characteristics of Balkan terrorism" on the part of the troops?

During the twenty days of the Yugoslav regime their authorities sold, as they were justified in doing, tobacco from these warehouses to the value of 120,000 crowns. It was generally said in Rieka that the Italians in four days had given away six million crowns' worth, that large quant.i.ties of flour were removed until the British put a stop to this, and that the robberies were flagrant. These allegations may have been untrue or exaggerated, but individuals were pointed out who in a mysterious manner had suddenly become affluent; it would at any rate have been as well if the I.N.C. had ordered some investigation. Since they failed to do so, it is natural that gossip flourished. In Triest, by the way, even the Italian population is reputed to have been disgusted when about forty waggon-loads of flour and twenty of sugar were taken from the stores of the former Austrian army and shipped to Italy.]

[Footnote 16: Most people have a.s.sumed that this was done in order that Rieka should be left to Austria-Hungary, although they should have taken with some grains of salt this Italian generosity which presented the Habsburgs with a good harbour instead of one of those others in Croatia which the Italians of to-day are never weary of extolling. The real reasons why Rieka was omitted from the Treaty of London are, as the _Secolo_ (January 12, 1919) remarks, perfectly well known. "In order,"

it says, "to claim Fiume it is necessary to make appeal to the right of the people to dispose freely of themselves. In this case the same principle must be admitted for the people of Dalmatia, who are Slav in a crushing majority. But this is precisely the negation of the Treaty of London."]

[Footnote 17: The Italianist employes of the Rieka town council who took the census in 1910 asked the humbler cla.s.ses if they were acquainted with the Italian language; those from whom they received an affirmative reply were put down as Italians. Had they, on the other hand, asked the people if they spoke Croatian and put down as Croats those who answered yes, there would, in the opinion of an expert, Dr. Arthur Gavazzi, have remained not one single Italian--certainly not the members of the Italian National Council--as everyone, he says, speaks and knows Croat. This is a fairly emphatic proof that the fortunes of Rieka are bound up with those of its suburbs and the hinterland.]

[Footnote 18: Being the senior in rank of the Allied Generals, General Grazioli claimed supreme command of all the Allied troops, but this the French General refused, maintaining--much to the disgust of the Italians--that he was under the orders of Franchet d'Esperey, who was then in command of the Army of the Orient. The Italians were so determined to preserve in their own hands the military supremacy that a very senior General, one Caneva, was kept in the background of the palace with the sole object of stepping forward if any Allied officer senior to General Grazioli should by chance be posted to the town. The disrespectful Allies used to call Caneva "the man in the cellar."]

[Footnote 19: The town of Yugoslavia which, after Austria's collapse, was stirred the most profoundly by its postage stamps was Zagreb. In order to commemorate the establishment of the new State the Croatian Post Office published four stamps, which were on sale on November 29. The whole edition consisted of 100,000 stamps, of which 24,000 were allotted to Zagreb, the rest going to other parts of the province. It was obvious that there would be a great demand for these stamps, and in order to check any abuses or clandestine traffic it was decided that they should be sold nowhere but at the post offices, also that each purchaser would only be allowed to buy a limited quant.i.ty.

At 8 a.m. the sale began, but at seven many hundreds of people were waiting outside the chief post office, the post office at the station and another in the Upper Town. The face value of the four stamps, added together, was one crown. At first they were resold for between 4 and 20 crowns, then the price jumped to 30, and by 10 a.m. the 45-h.e.l.ler stamp (of which only 15,000 had been printed) was sold out. Collectors were paying 8 or 10 crowns for it, in order to complete their sets. At noon the offices were all shut, as the rush was considered too dangerous. More than 1000 persons were in the great hall at the Head Office and another 2000 were gathered outside. Nearly all the windows where the stamps were being sold were broken. At the Station Post Office the people began to fight with the sentries. The National Guard had to be sent for. At 4 p.m. the post offices had no stamps left (and citizens who had been waiting all day to buy an ordinary stamp could not be served).

At 5 p.m. people who for the first time in their lives were taking an interest in philately, wanted 300-500 crowns from collectors for a whole series. Between 5 and 6 p.m. a stamp exchange was held in the entrance hall. Eight hundred to one thousand crowns were being demanded for the series. Soldiers were willing to give the four stamps in exchange for a pair of boots, others were asking for sugar, coffee or petrol. The price which was ultimately established was 250 crowns.]

[Footnote 20: Out of the hundreds of available doc.u.ments it will suffice if I print one. It is the report, given in his words, of a Dalmatian, a native of Sinj, who having been an emigrant could write in English. "On July 1915 I came to the Italian front, and on the morrow I went across the lines and deserted to the Italians. As soon as I arrived at the station of internment I requested the Command to be admitted as a voluntary into the Serbian army. This pet.i.tion of mine was answered by Italian authorities in the negative. After the Congress of Rome in 1918 I and some of my comrades who had recently applied for admission were permitted to join the Yugoslav legion on June 1. I was right away sent to the front of the Tyrol, where on August 7 I was wounded in a hard bayonet fight. On this occasion I was decorated by the Italian Commander for valour. After 45 days of hospital by my own request I was sent to the front, where I remained up to the break-up of Austria or until we Yugoslav legion were disarmed by Italians and as a reward for our partic.i.p.ation in the war we were interned as prisoners of war at Casale di Altamura in the province of Bari. Four days after my internment I succeeded in sliding away, so that on the Christmas Eve I was again in Dalmatia. (Signed) JAKOV DELONGA."]

[Footnote 21:

"In tra 'l gregge che misero e raro L'asburgese predon t' ha lasciato, Perche piangi, o fratello croato, Il figiul che in Italia mori."

("There among the woebegone where the most contemptible Habsburger has abandoned his prey, so that, O my Croat brother, it weeps for the dear son who died in Italy.")]

[Footnote 22: April 23, 1919.]

[Footnote 23: Cf. _La Slavisation de la Dalmatie._ Paris, 1917.]

[Footnote 24: The Italians are very poorly served by some of their advocates. For years they persisted in demanding the execution of whatever in the Treaty or Pact of London was obnoxious to the Serbs, while they regarded as obsolete another clause, respecting the formation of a small independent Albania, which was distasteful to themselves, and--if I rightly understand the Italophil Mr. H. E. Goad--they were justified because, forsooth, Bulgaria had entered the War on the other side. To say that the idea of this small Albania, with corresponding compensations to the Serbs and Greeks, was held out as a bribe to the Bulgars does not seem to me a very wise remark. However, "ne croyez pas le pere Bonnet," said Montesquieu, "lorsqu'il dit du mal de moi, ni moi-meme lorsque je dis du mal du pere Bonnet, parce que nous nous sommes brouilles." Let the reader trust in nothing but the facts, and I hope that those which I present are not an unfair selection.]

[Footnote 25: When Supilo, the late Dalmatian leader, heard about the secret Treaty, he went to Petrograd and saw Sazonov.

The interview is said to have been stormy, for the Russian Minister, according to the _Primorske Novine_ (April 23, 1919), "had not the most elementary knowledge of the Slav nature of Dalmatia, still less of Istria, Triest, Gorica and the rest."

Mr. Asquith, whom Supilo afterwards visited in London, is said to have been no better informed than Sazonov.]

[Footnote 26: And appearing subsequently in London, as Nikita's Prime Minister, was the central figure of a reception given by Lord Sydenham at the Savoy. But out of fairness to his lordship I must add that in an hour's conversation he impressed me with the fact that he was even less acquainted with Plamenac's antecedents than he was with other Montenegrin affairs, which he raised on more than one occasion in the House of Lords, endeavouring there--until Lord Curzon overwhelmed him--to play the part that was a.s.sumed by Mr. M'Neill in the Commons.]

[Footnote 27: We shall see that the subsequent history of this officer was less laudable.]

[Footnote 28: Cf. _Nineteenth Century and After_, January 1921.]