The Birth Of Yugoslavia Volume Ii Part 16

Goad, against his legitimate rulers. Yet we must be lenient with our Mr.

Goad, for he himself admits that "few can write of Balkan politics without revealing symptoms of that partisan disease." He has made up his mind that the Serbs are the villains of the piece, and there, for him, is the end of it.

A delegation from the Mirditi, consisting of the Rev. Professor Anthony Achikou and Captain Dod Lleche, came to Geneva in October 1921, and requested the League not to issue a confirmation of the Tirana Government. They showed that this Government had no other aim than to turn Albania into a small Turkey. No doubt the Moslems, as the most numerous element, had a right to have a majority in the Cabinet, but there was no justification in their appointment of pure Turks. (The Tirana Government proposed in the autumn of 1921 that any Albanian coming from Turkey, who has held a public office there, shall be refused admittance into the Albanian Administration until two years after his return. This is a proposal but not yet, I believe, an effective law.) The Minister of Justice has been old Hodja Kadri, and the Minister of War one Salah el Din Bey, an officer of Kemal Pasha, and neither of these was acquainted with the Albanian language. When the Mirditi started to show their dislike of this Government, the War Minister commanded his troops to slay without mercy anyone who dared to raise his voice. Thus it came about that the villages of Oroshi, Laci, Gomsice and Naraci were destroyed, while those of the inhabitants who could escape fled across the frontier to Serbia. As for particular cases of iniquity we may instance that of the Moslem officer, Chakir Nizami, who, as a manifestation of his hatred for the Christians, had violated at Scutari a girl of fourteen whose name was Chakya Hil Paloks. He was sentenced by the French military authorities and was liberated by the Minister of Justice as soon as the French had quitted Scutari. On the other hand, Kol Achikou, a brother of the delegate, had killed a Moslem in self-defence and been acquitted by the French court martial; after their departure he was taken to Tirana and sentenced to death. But apart from all such misdeeds the Mirditi complained that the Tirana Government, which could not openly wage war with Serbia, had organized the "Kossovo"

Committee, whose object it was to foment trouble in Serbia and to send armed bands of marauders on to Serbian territory. At the very moment when the delegation was at Geneva, one of these bands (in the night between October 12 and 13) raided the village of Mojite, near Gostivar. Furnished with Italian machine guns and bombs they came over the mountains, set fire to the village and killed many of the people as they fled. They are accustomed on such expeditions to steal the children and hold them to ransom--a lucrative operation which d'Annunzio's arditi[91] may have copied from their Albanian colleagues. It would seem, then, according to the statement of the Mirditi, that in the conflict on the Black Drin, of which Europe had vaguely heard, the Tirana Government and not that of Serbia was the aggressor. Mr. Aubrey Herbert may write pathetic letters to the Press, Miss Durham may write letters of indignation, but how could their proteges of Tirana be said to be valiantly defending themselves against the wicked Serbs when the very villages which, said Mr. Herbert, were destroyed--Aras and Dardha and so forth--were situated in the district to which the Serbs were legally ent.i.tled?

The Mirditi delegates had an interview in Geneva with Lord Robert Cecil.

An attempt was made by the Tirana delegates to discredit Professor Achikou, by publishing a telegram from Monsignor Sereggi, the Archbishop of Scutari (but which the Professor accused the rival delegate, the bearded, bustling Father Fan Noli, of having composed himself),[92] and in that message it was stated that Achikou was expelled from Albania.

This he did not deny; he was, he said, one of 4000 who had been driven out by an arbitrary Government and he hoped that they would soon be able to return. The message called Achikou a traitor; but that is a matter of opinion. It said that he was in the service of a foreign Power; he replied that the Mirditi had never concealed their wish to live in friendship with their neighbours, and the proof that they envisaged nothing more than friendship was that they were pet.i.tioning the League to recognize the Mirdite Republic. Among the other charges against Achikou was one which said that he was sailing under false colours. This was an absurd accusation, and one which enabled the reverend Father to mention that his opponent Monsignor, who was then being called Bishop, Fan Noli, was neither a bishop nor an Albanian, but a simple priest, a Greek from Adrianople, whose real name was Theopha.n.u.s.[93] This clever man, who had decided to form an Orthodox Albanian Church and had apparently become its bishop without the formality of consecration, had enjoyed some success at Geneva owing to his knowledge of languages. He circulated a telegram from Tirana which purported to be a disavowal of the Mirditi delegation by a number of Mirditi notables; but a reply was sent by Mark Djoni, the President of the Mirdite Republic, an elderly man of great sagacity and experience, for in Turkish times he had been chief magistrate of the Mirditi. He pointed out that all the notables and all the tribal chieftains had gone, like himself, into exile, and that the names were those of insignificant persons who had acted under fear of death. Djoni did not in this telegram allude to the position of those Catholic priests and others in northern Albania who support the Tirana Government and its Italian paymasters; some of them may believe that they are acting in the interest of their country--to act otherwise would be perilous, and everyone seems to know the precise number of napoleons a month--ranging from the 150 of an ecclesiastical magnate down to 7 (the pay of a simple gendarme)--which they are alleged to receive. Do they ever think of the starving Italian peasants?

On October 7 another telegram was sent from Oroshi (the capital of the Mirditi) to the Tirana Delegation which "protested energetically against the activities of a certain Anthony Achikou." Yet, on October 9, an individual called Notz Pistuli, who had travelled specially from Scutari, presented himself at the Mirdite delegates' hotel, and in the name of the Scutari National Council asked whether a reconciliation could not be made between the Mirditi and the Tirana Government.[94]

Being told that the Mirditi would have nothing to do with the Turkish Government of Tirana, he held out hopes that another Government more representative of Albania would soon be const.i.tuted. It was remarkable that Tirana should have dispatched this envoy after giving out that the Mirditi were traitors and that their delegates represented n.o.body.

Lord Robert Cecil did not at first seem to think that their desire for a republic independent of Tirana could be gratified, but on being initiated into the facts of the case and told that definitely to reject them would look as if he were a foe to Christianity, Lord Robert said that such was far from being the case. He would do whatever he could to help them. And on the next day it was decided that, in accordance with the Mirdite request, a Commission should proceed to Albania.

The Italian delegate, Marquis Imperiali, submitted that there was no need to hurry this Commission and Monsieur Djoni explained in a telegram[95] that if the Commission went forthwith it would discover in Albania cannons, rifles and other war material from Italy, that it would find numerous Turkish officers of the Kemalist army who had been brought from Asia Minor in Italian ships, and that it would perceive that the cannons, the Turkish Government of Tirana, the rifles, the Turkish officers, certain Catholic ecclesiastics--in a word, the whole of Albania such as it is to-day is nothing else, said he, but a masked Italian instrument of war against Serbia--while all the b.l.o.o.d.y consequences of this perpetual struggle have to be endured by the border population.... One afternoon, at the beginning of November, 650 Tirana soldiers, pursued by the Mirditi, gave themselves up to the Serbian authorities on the Black Drin. They had with them a dozen officers of whom two were Italians, and these accounted for themselves by saying that they had come out to organize and to lead the Albanian army.

Now, would this be the best solution of the Albanian problem, that the Mirdite Republic and that of Tirana should both be recognized, since it is quite clear that it would be immoral--and very useless--for Europe to try to persuade the Mirditi to place themselves under the Tirana regime?

But there appears to be no doubt that the Moslems of northern Albania--however much they may now sympathize with the Mirditi in their att.i.tude towards Tirana--would just as strenuously resist their own incorporation in a Christian Republic.... Down at the bottom of their hearts all the Albanian delegates who came to Geneva must know that if an Albanian State is larger than one tribe it will go to pieces.

Whatever good qualities may be latent in the Albanian, he is as yet--with rare exceptions--in that stage of culture which has no idea of duty on the part of the State or of duty towards the State. As an example of his views on the exercise of authority we may instance the case of the 82 Albanians, led by Islam Aga Batusha (of the village of Voksha), who stopped Pounia Racic and his companions in the summer of 1921 while they were riding one day from Djakovica to Pec.

Pounia enjoys the fullest confidence of the border tribes because he has never been known to break his word; they are very conscious that even their vaunted "besa" is not nowadays observed as it was, say fifty years ago, for the Austrian and Italian propaganda schools have had an unfortunate effect. Well, as the 82 sat round Pounia and his friends in the courtyard of a mosque, where they spent the whole day confabulating, they said they hoped that he, a just and wise man, would help them; and their princ.i.p.al grievance was that the Serbian police no longer allowed them to kill each other. Why should the police interfere in their private affairs? Recently the police had arrested a man whom one of these protesters wanted to kill, and therefore he thought he would have to kill one of the police. Even those who have spent their lives in Serbia are too often at this stage of development--a few years ago, in the village of Prokuplje, an Albanian a.s.sa.s.sinated his neighbour and was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. The judge asked the dead man's brother if he was satisfied. "No, I am not," he answered, "because now I shall have to wait twenty years to kill him." Their ancient custom of blood-vengeance continues to flourish, though in Serbia the police and public opinion are against it; thus, at Luka, in the department of Pec, one Alil Mahmoud was murdered by a Berisha to avenge his uncle, so that now the sons of this Mahmoud propose to kill a Berisha--not the murderer, but one equal in rank to their late father, and in consequence Ahmed Beg, son of Murtezza Pasha, of Djakovica, is afraid to leave his house, which the Serbian police, at his request, is guarding.

How much the Albanian conceives that he owes a duty to the State may be instanced by the application of a smuggler that he be granted a permit to go to Zagreb in order to dispose of 6000 oka[96] of tobacco which he had brought over the frontier. He was talking to a Serb who has the confidence of the Albanians because he does not treat them as if they were Serbs; and when this father confessor advised him to get rid of the tobacco locally (which he succeeded in doing) the Albanian objected that the excise officers gave him constant anxiety, they were thieves who insisted on payment being made to them if they came across his merchandise. And if it be said that this is too humble a case, we may mention that of Ali Riza, one of the chief officers of the Tirana army which was last year operating against the Serbs. So indifferent is he as to the uniform he bears that the year before last, in Vienna, he begged an influential Serb to recommend him for a lieutenancy in the Serbian army. (His request was not granted because it was ascertained that, besides being unable to read and write, his work as an Austrian gendarme had been more zealous than creditable.)

12. SERBIA'S GOOD INFLUENCE

What, then, is Europe to do with these wild children of hers?... The tribes, Catholic and Moslem, who dwell between the Big Drin and the frontier allotted to Serbia in 1913, asked the aforesaid Pounia in 1919 to intervene in their quarrels; and the result was that a small number of Serbian soldiers were scattered about that country. They were placed at the disposal of the chief, whom they a.s.sisted in maintaining order. (Needless to say, they collected no taxes or recruits, and all their supplies came to them from Serbia.) The people were impressed not only by the uniform but by the men's conduct. Before going to these posts--where they were relieved every two or three months--the men were instructed with regard to Albanian customs, and no case occurred of any transgression. So rigidly did they enforce the precept that anyone who tried to violate or carry off a woman was, if he persisted, to be shot, that last year, at Tropolje in Gashi, when the girl in question was said to be not unwilling, they pursued the abductors, and in the subsequent battle there were fatalities on both sides. The Serbian soldiers, for whose safety the village was responsible, made themselves so popular that when the Tirana Government appointed one Niman Feriz to go to those parts as sub-prefect he was chased away by the people headed by the mayor of the Krasnichi, who is a nephew of Bairam Beg Zur, the illiterate ex-brigand and ex-Minister of War of the Tirana Government.

Let this system of small Serbian posts be extended over the whole of northern Albania, that is to say, in those districts where the natives are willing to receive them. After all, the Serbs understand these neighbours of theirs. Telephones and roads will be built and eventually the railway along the Drin. The northern Albanians will then, for the first time, be on the high-road towards peace and prosperity; and if the rest of Albania has by then attained to anything like this condition everybody would be glad to see a free and independent Albania.

Now what prospect is there of the rest of Albania taking any a.n.a.logous steps? If the regions which at present submit to Tirana decline to modify their methods, it would seem that warfare between them and their kinsmen to the north and north-east must continue, and that the foundations of a united, free Albania will not yet be laid. One might presume, from their bellicose att.i.tude, that the Tirana Government (extending to and including the town of Scutari) is all against a pacific solution; and if one argues that their att.i.tude would be quite different without the support they receive from Italy, then the Italians would doubtless reply that they have as much right to a.s.sist the Tirana Albanians as Yugoslavia has to a.s.sist those of the north.

But this is not the case. Between Italy and the Albanians there are no such ancient political and economic ties as between the Albanians and the Serbs. The mediaeval connection with Venice has left with many Albanians a dolorous memory, for apart from the fact that Venice, as in Dalmatia, was pursuing a merely selfish policy, it was directly due to her that the Turkish Sultan, in the fifteenth century, was able to establish himself in Albania. Thrice his troops had been repelled by those of Skanderbeg when the arrangement was made for them to enter the fortress of Rosafat in Venetian uniforms, and then four hundred years elapsed before the Sultan's standard was pulled down. In recent times the Government of Italy has been furnishing the Shqyptart with schools, and these were not its only acts of benevolence towards that wretched people. They have given schools and rifles and munitions and gold. The Albanians were willing to accept this largesse; but that it forged a link between patron and client, that it conferred on the Italians any rights to occupy the country, they denied, and enforced this denial in 1920 at the point of the bayonet. Mr. H. Goad said in the _Fortnightly Review_ that this remark of mine is quite unhistorical, since Italy, says he, "was in course of withdrawal when certain Albanians, stirred up as usual by Jugo-Slavs, attacked her retreating troops." If the Albanians had only known that Italy, despite her having been, says Mr.

Goad, "supremely useful to Albania," had resolved to quit, they would perhaps have let them go with dignity. But if Mr. Goad will read some of the contemporary Italian newspapers he will see that my allusion to the bayonet was much too mild. Utterly regardless of the fact that the Italian evacuation was "according to plan," the Shqyptart treated them abominably--it brought up memories of Abyssinia--or does Mr. Goad deny that even a general officer was outraged and blew out his brains? This Albanian onslaught was so far from being stirred up by the Yugoslavs that, as we have seen,[97] the Belgrade Government refused to furnish them with munitions. This is not to say that they did not approve of the Albanian push, for they maintain, in spite of Mr. Goad, the principle of "The Balkans for the Balkan Peoples." If Italy, as our strange publicist a.s.serts, has a mandate--presumably a moral one--to defend Albania against aggression he will find, I think, that the Yugoslavs heartily agree with this thesis and that they are also quite determined to defend Albania from aggression.... When he a.s.serts that various ties existed between Italy and the Albanians--the Albanian language, the feudal architecture, much that is characteristic in Albanian art and so forth--I would refer him to M. Justin G.o.dart, with whom I am glad for once to be in agreement. "There is no traditional or actual link," says he, "between the two countries; if, on account of this geographical position, they propose to have commercial relations, then everything has yet to be established. If there is to be a friendship, we believe that Italy must do her best to wipe out many memories.... She has not profited from the large number of Albanians in her southern provinces in order to have an Albanian policy."

However, the magnanimous Italians came back, declaring that on this occasion they would not occupy the country (except the little island of Saseno); but that they really could not restrain themselves from bestowing the schools, the rifles, munitions and gold. Once more the Albanians agreed to accept them; they also accepted the Turkish officers and officials whom the Italian ships brought to them from Asia Minor, and when their Government became more and more Turkish and more intractable they found that they had excited the hostility of large numbers of their own compatriots. This developed during 1921 into violent conflicts; and the bountiful Italians provided the Tirana Government's army with expert tuition. Nevertheless, in the Albanians'

opinion, there are no bonds between the two races, and if the Italians would retire from Albania, permitting the Balkans to be for the Balkan peoples, and if the fanatical Turks went back to Asia Minor, it would soon be seen that the present rage between northern and central Albania would peter out into the isolated murders which the Albanians have hitherto been unable to dispense with. Left to themselves the Albanians of Tirana would eventually ask for some such a.s.sistance from Serbia as the northern tribes have received; three months after the departure of the Italians from Scutari a plebiscite would show that this town, which has lately gone so far as to refuse--yes, even her Moslems have refused--to fill the depleted ranks of the Tirana forces, was anxious to come to a friendly settlement with her Albanian neighbours and the Yugoslavs. This would be a victory of Scutari's common sense over all those fanatics and intriguers whose activities involve her death; for she cannot possibly thrive if she persists in cutting herself off from the hinterland and from the benefits that will accrue from the ca.n.a.lization of the Bojana.

However, the Italians--officially or unofficially--will not yet awhile leave Albania. And how will this r.e.t.a.r.d or modify the reasonableness of those parts which acknowledge Tirana? As for the town of Scutari, it is probable that if she found herself permanently cut off by the Mirditi from direct communication with Tirana she would allow her incipient independence to come more to the surface. With Tirana less capable of enforcing her behests the Scutarenes would gradually venture to act in their own interests; they would aim at local autonomy within the sphere of Yugoslav influence and in the same sphere as their markets. It is to be hoped that Yugoslavia will be prepared for this, since she does not possess too many educated citizens who understand the Albanian mentality. A course of conduct which pays no attention to this would alienate even the Turks from Podgorica and Dulcigno, whose acquaintance with the very language of Albania is so limited. There seems, however, to be no reason why the mixed population of Albanian Moslems and Catholics, of Orthodox Serbs and of Moslems who declined to come under the all-too-patriarchal rule of Nicholas of Montenegro should not have the same happy experience as the inhabitants of Djakovica and Prizren.

Later on the Scutarenes will be called upon to decide whether they prefer, like those other predominantly Albanian towns, to remain in Yugoslavia or whether they wish to throw in their lot with a free Albania, and in that case their town would become the capital of the country. Failing Scutari, the capital would most probably be Oroshi, which is now the capital of the Mirditi.

And why, we may be asked, why should not Tirana be the capital? In the central parts of Albania, in the country round Tirana, where the natives are derisively called "llape" by the warriors of the north and by the cultured Albanians of the south, we believe that the a.s.sistance of Italy will be unable to prevent a collapse. (It must also be remembered that the people of the district of Tirana are, for the most part, in opposition to the present Tirana Government. This became clear when the partisans of Essad Pasha's policy[98] overthrew and imprisoned the Tirana Ministers.) Economically and morally Tirana will decline, until she is compelled to seek a union with the people of northern Albania, those of the south having meanwhile gravitated towards Greece. Then the moment will arrive when the north and the south, in their task of building up a free and united Albania, will admit the centre under various conditions. These will have to be of a rather stern character, or so at any rate they will seem to the folk of Tirana: taxes will have to be paid, military service or service in the _gendarmerie_ will have to be rendered, and schools will have to be established for both s.e.xes.

This, then, is the future country of Albania, which--if one is rash enough to prophesy--may exist in fifty years. But there is no risk whatever in a.s.serting that a free, united Albania is in the immediate future quite impossible.

13. EUROPEAN MEASURES AGAINST THE YUGOSLAVS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Berati Beg, Tirana's delegate in Paris, said in an interview with a representative of the Belgrade _Pravda_, at the beginning of November 1921, that he regretted that European diplomats should interfere in the Serbo-Albanian question. "Are we not all," said he, "one large Balkan family? And if the Powers intervene they will not act in our interests, but in their own." He said that it used to be Austria which grasped at Albania, now it was Italy. So the delegate showed that he was a clear-sighted man; he also showed that in Tirana they are not unanimous in loving the Italians. But alas! the Great Powers, urged by Italy, made a most disastrous plunge; they actually, at least Great Britain, charged the Serbs, their allies, on November 7, with being guilty of overstepping the frontier, and on November 9 informed them where this frontier was. It is a pity that Mr. Lloyd George should have launched such a thunderbolt, the French Government not being consulted.[99] But the most probable explanation of this lack of courtesy towards the Serbs, and lack of the most elementary justice, is that the Prime Minister, with his numerous preoccupations, allowed some incapable person to act in his name.[100] The world was told, however, that Mr.

Lloyd George had sent a peremptory demand for the convocation of the Council of the League of Nations so that a sanction should be applied against the Yugoslavs. Mr. Lloyd George's subst.i.tute was so little versed in the business that he did not even know that the League of Nations is not a gendarme to carry out the decisions of the Amba.s.sadors'

Conference. He should have been aware of the fact that this was a problem for the Allied States, to be settled by diplomatic or other measures, and he should also have known that the League of Nations does not--except if invited to arbitrate--concern itself with the unliquidated problems left by the War, such as the Turkish question.

Perhaps that dangerous confusion in the mind of this unknown official would not have occurred if Albania had not been illogically admitted to the League of Nations. But now, in November 1921, not an instant was to be lost in settling this frontier question, which--as the _Temps_ pointed out--would have been settled months before if Italy had not prevented it. (She wished as a preliminary step to have certain claims of her own in regard to Albania conceded.) So the Council of the League was to be invited to apply Article 16, which could scarcely be invoked unless Article 15, which defines a procedure of conciliation, had been found of no avail.[101] Thus the misguided person who spoke in the name of Mr. Lloyd George was apparently too impetuous to read the texts. And then the Serbs were told that they must withdraw practically to the frontier which Austria, their late enemy, had laid down in 1913. Well might Berati Beg deplore that Italy should take the place of Austria.

But such commands achieve so little. Very soon, when the troubles in Albania continue, as they certainly will, Mr. Lloyd George will see that he was misled.... But here it should be stated that while Italy persisted throughout in demanding the 1913 frontier (with the ludicrously inconsistent proviso that she herself should have the island of Saseno, which in 1913 she had demanded for independent Albania), and France raised no finger against her, the actual improvements of the frontier adopted were entirely due to Great Britain. No one is more qualified to speak on this matter than Mr. Harold Temperley of Cambridge, who was one of our experts. In his illuminating little book, _The Second Year of the League_, he has pointed out that the new Albanian frontiers are an improvement on the old--than which, indeed, they cannot be worse--because they conform more to natural features, they take into account an important tribal boundary (leaving the Gora tribe in Yugoslavia), and restore to both parties freedom of communication--the road between the Serb towns of Struga and Dibra being given to the Serbs, while to Albania is given the road from Elbasan to the Serb town of Lin. The rectifications in the Kastrati and the Prizren area involve the subst.i.tution of natural boundaries for unnatural ones in order to protect the cities of Podgorica and Prizren. They confer no offensive advantage on the Serbs, nor do they enable them to menace any Albanian city.

To any impartial observer it is quite unjust that the Yugoslavs should have had to plead against the frontier of 1913. They have not the least desire to plant their flag on those undelectable mountains. If the frontier of 1913 could be held with moderate efforts against these people they would not wish to go an inch beyond it. But those who drew this frontier, namely the Austrians, were not much concerned as to whether it afforded adequate protection to the Serbs; what they had in view was to keep them away from the Adriatic (for which reason an arbitrary line cut through the proposed railway which was to link Pec to Podgorica and the sea) and to compel the Serbs to station in those districts a goodly portion of their army, to which end--so that the frontier should be weak--the towns of Djakovica and Prizren were separated from their hinterland. The Austrian plan likewise prevented the towns of Struga and Prizren from being joined by a road or by a railway along the Drin; to go from one to the other it became necessary to make an enormous detour. With the rectifications to which we have referred, the Amba.s.sadors' Conference decided to insist on them returning to this miserable line, instead of permitting them to take up their position where General Franchet d'Esperey perceived in 1918 that they could be fairly comfortable. Monsieur Albert Mousset, the shrewd Balkan expert of the _Journal des Debats_, has remarked that on too many parts of the 1913 frontier it is as if one forced an honest man to sleep with his door open among a horde of bandits.... The Albanian Government, admitted to the League of Nations in December 1920, claimed that the international statute of 1913, creating a German prince, the Dutch _gendarmerie_ and the International Financial Commission--which happened to be inconvenient--was no longer in force; but that the international decisions as to the frontiers of Albania--which happened to be convenient--were still valid. However, during the War the country had been plunged in anarchy, and the Great Powers decided that Albania was, in Mr. Temperley's words, a _tabula rasa_, a piece of white paper on which they could write what they wished. In November 1921 the Amba.s.sadors' Conference finally decided on the frontiers. The gravest violation of the ethnic principle was in the Argyrocastro area, where many thousands of Greeks and Grecophils were handed over to Albania; as for the Serbs, it was only through the efforts of some British experts that they obtained any satisfaction at all.

Why did the Amba.s.sadors' Conference arrive at this peculiar decision?

For a long time the European Press had been publishing telegrams which told how the Serbs were ruthlessly invading Albania. Had they advanced about half the number of miles with which they were credited, they would have found themselves near to the offices of those Italian Press agencies. They were held up to vituperation for their conduct towards a feeble neighbour. The Mirditi, we were told, had to fly before them; whereas the truth was that the friendly Mirditi were driving the troops of Tirana helter-skelter towards the Black Drin, where the Serbs--not advancing an inch from the boundary which the Allies had for the time being a.s.signed to them--received their prisoners. Again we were told that the piratical Serbs had seized the town of Alessio. It must have annoyed the Mirditi to have this exploit of theirs ascribed to other people. And if the newspapers contained too many telegrams of this kind they were strangely reticent with regard to what was taking place in the shallow Albanian harbours; but the two Italian vessels which--as I mentioned in a telegram to the _Observer_--were unloading, without the least concealment, munitions and rifles for the dear Albanians at San Giovanni di Medua in September 1920, were probably not the only ones with such a cargo. Europe and the Amba.s.sadors' Conference were simply told that the truculent Serbs were destroying a poor, defenceless, pastoral nation. Therefore these Serbs must be ordered back, and whatever might be the merits of a hostile Austrian frontier as compared with a well-informed French one, at any rate the first of these was farther back, so let the Serbs be ordered thither.

It was noticeable that when, on November 17, the British Minister of Education, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher (representing Mr. Lloyd George), explained before the Council of the League of Nations why Great Britain had thought it necessary to act in this Serbo-Albanian affair, he founded his case not on Article 16 but on Article 12, which obliges two conflicting nations who are members of the League to have their case examined by the League. Evidently the suggested application of Article 16 was now acknowledged to have been a mistake. The blundering official in Whitehall should have seen the dignified sorrow with which Yugoslavia heard of her great Ally's unjustifiable procedure. So much faith have the Southern Slavs always had in the Entente's sense of justice that from 1914 to 1918 they continued to give their all, without making any agreement or stipulation; more than once the Serbian Government had the offer of terms from the Central Powers, but on each occasion, as for example during the dark days at Ni in 1915, they declined to betray their Allies.

Mr. Fisher announced that the British Government's action was in no way caused by feelings of hostility against the Southern Slavs. All Englishmen, in fact, remembered the heroism and fort.i.tude of the Serbs; they cherished for Yugoslavia the warmest sympathy. In Mr. Fisher's own case it might conceivably have been a little warmer--he was not ashamed to repeat the reasons which had induced Great Britain to summon the Council of the League. Yet he must have known the comment that he would arouse among his audience when they heard him base his arguments exclusively upon reports of the Tirana Government, while those of Belgrade were ignored; and in their place the delegate thought fit to bring up various extracts which had been collected from the Belgrade Press. If every organ of this Press were filled with a permanent sense of high responsibility, and if Mr. Fisher had made inquiries as to the existence in Belgrade of humorous and ironic writers, one is still rather at a loss to understand why these miscellaneous cuttings were placed before the League, which could scarcely be expected to treat them as evidence. The delegate added that he did not think a single nation was animated by unfriendly sentiments towards the Southern Slavs--so that Italy's unflagging efforts to strengthen the Tirana Government's army were prompted purely by the deep love which the Italians--despite their having been flung out of Valona--bear for the Shqyptart. Mr.

Fisher proceeded to say that no better proof was needed of the general friendship for the Southern Slavs than the decision of the Amba.s.sadors'

Conference which, instead of allotting to Albania the frontiers of 1913, a method that would have been simpler, had resolved on several rectifications in favour of Yugoslavia, in order to prevent disturbances on Albania's northern frontier. After what Mr. Fisher had already had the heart to say we cannot really be astonished that he, or the people on behalf of whom he spoke, should have thought the enemy-drawn frontier of 1913 as worthy of the slightest consideration. We are all, I think, unanimous, said Mr. Fisher in effect, we are unanimous in our esteem for the Yugoslavs and could do nothing which that nation would find hard to bear. But after stating that some rectifications had been made in favour of Yugoslavia he should have referred to the village of Lin on Lake Ochrida whose transference to the Albanians will probably give rise to a great deal of trouble, since it is the most important centre for the fishing industry. A few of the best Belgrade papers, careless of the more than Governmental authority which they enjoyed in the eyes of Mr.

Fisher, went so far as to allege that Lin's change of sovereignty was due to the formation on Lake Ochrida of a British fishing company.... We have said that the frontier rectifications were inadequate; but under the circ.u.mstances they were the best that could be obtained. They were most bitterly contested by the Italians, who demanded, as we have said above, that Yugoslavia should be given the 1913 frontier. France did nothing to help the Yugoslavs in this hour of need, and had it not been for the absolutely determined support of Great Britain the pernicious frontier of 1913 would have been adopted intact.

Coming to the Mirdite revolt, Mr. Fisher's description is hardly what you would call felicitous. Mark Djoni and the other members of the Mirdite Government were compelled last July to seek refuge at Prizren in Yugoslavia, and since then they have conducted their affairs from that place. These circ.u.mstances, in Mr. Fisher's opinion, go to prove the existence of a Yugoslav plot whose aim it is to separate northern Albania from the Tirana Government. Again Mr. Fisher points an accusing finger at the Yugoslav officers who, in August, were helping the Mirditi; but is it not more natural that these officers should give their services to the Christian tribes for whom, as Mr. Bokovic, the chief Yugoslav delegate, said, the Southern Slavs do not conceal their sympathy[102] nor the hope that they will gain the necessary autonomy--is not this more natural and more deserving of Mr. Fisher's approbation than the fact (of which he says no word) that the Moslem Government of Tirana has had the active a.s.sistance of Italian officers, such, for example, as Captain Guisardi, who, in the sector of Kljesh, has been in command of the artillery? A further proof that the Mirdite movement has been engineered by the Southern Slavs is, in Mr. Fisher's opinion, the d.a.m.ning fact that the Republic's Proclamation was composed in Yugoslavia and dated there--how brazen some people are! And the official Yugoslav Press Bureau has actually circulated the announcements of the Mirdite Republic. The question is whether the Yugoslav Government was more than benevolently neutral in thus a.s.sisting their guests at a time when these had not yet got their machinery into working order. When the Mirdite Government had made suitable arrangements it spoke to the world through its representatives at Geneva or through direct communications to the British and French Press. Surely, in considering whether the Yugoslav Government allowed themselves to exceed the limits of neutrality, one must remember that the Mirdite authorities at Prizren were out of all touch with their own army, which was engaged in a guerilla warfare. In conclusion, according to Mr. Fisher, the British Foreign Office was persuaded that the Mirdite Republic was nothing but an instrument of the Yugoslav Government, and that desire for Albanian unity extended also to the Christians of that country. The Foreign Office had, no doubt, been told that the Tirana Government received the support, at last spring's elections, of some north Albanian deputies; and possibly they gave no credence to the rumour that these gentlemen were much indebted to Italian support. It may have been mere harmless curiosity which kept Captain Pericone, the Italian commander, during all that day at the Scutari polling-booths, but what is certain is that, owing to the influx of Italian money, the value of a hundred silver crowns in the morning was 92 lire, and in the afternoon had fallen to 75. It is likewise a fact that numerous Malissori, finding themselves for the first time in possession of bundles of paper and feeling far from confident that this was money, hurried off to the bazaar and spent it all. Thus were the four friends of the Moslem-Italian[103] Government elected, the four deputies who were in favour of Albanian unity under that Government; three of them are Christians (Messrs. Fichta, Andreas Miedia and Luigi Gurakuqi); one, Riza Dani, is a Moslem. How the latter travelled to Tirana I do not know, but the three Christians found that the population was so incensed against them that they could not go by the direct road; they were forced to sail down the Bojana on the Italian ship _Mafalda_, and then along the coast. This, I presume, will be considered sufficiently strong evidence that these deputies did not represent the people, and that their independence was not exactly of the sort ascribed to Gurakuqi by a writer in the _Times_;[104] one need not labour the point by mentioning what happened to Father Vincent Prennushi whose candidature was vetoed in Rome, so that he was replaced by Father Fichta.

This being the state of things one can scarcely argue that the people of the north are in favour of a united Albania, as it seemeth good to the Amba.s.sadors' Conference, the League of Nations, etc. "We Germans, knowing Germany and France," said Treitschke in 1871, "know what is good for the Alsatians better than these unfortunates themselves.... Against their will we wish to restore them to themselves." The north Albanian deputies may join with those of the south and call themselves the group of "sacred union"; but they themselves are well aware that it is only in the south-central districts that the Government has a majority. That is one of the reasons why the seat of Government is Tirana in the central part of the country, for the Cabinet lives in apprehension of the followers of the late Essad Pasha, and by residing in that country they hope to be able to keep it quiet. How long will they be able to do so?

Have they statesmanship enough to turn aside the animosity of their own countrymen? Does their Premier and Foreign Minister, Mr. Pandeli Evangheli, possess intellectual resources of a higher order than those which one commonly a.s.sociates with the ownership of a small wine-shop?--that was his occupation till he came, some two years ago, from Bucharest. When this gentleman had a, perhaps temporary, fall from power, the _Times_ of December 16, 1921, wrote of him that "there is no Albanian public man with a better record for long disinterested service in his country's cause." Alas, poor Albania! We may surmise that Mr.

Evangheli and his companions do not rely very greatly on their Western European patrons who, when it comes to the pinch, will do very little for them. I should be surprised to hear that they have caused the provisions of the Amba.s.sadors' Conference to be traced in golden letters on a wall of their council chamber. And I doubt whether they take very great stock of a resolution signed in November 1921, by some twenty Members of Parliament and a few outside persons. These expressed their approval of Mr. Lloyd George's step in convoking the League of Nations for the settlement of the Serbo-Albanian question. If this resolution served no other purpose it showed, at any rate, that the signatories are such thoroughgoing friends of the Tirana Government that they rushed enthusiastically to their a.s.sistance, though their deep knowledge of affairs--without which, of course, they would never have signed--must have caused them to regard the Prime Minister's impulsive action with something more than misgiving. It is a minor point that the signatories sought to enlist the world's sympathy on the ground that a small "neutral State" had been wantonly attacked by the Serbs, because if this accusation were true it would not be worth objecting that the Albanians were scarcely a State (though some of them were trying to make one) and that their neutrality during the War consisted in the fact that they were to be found both in the armies of the Entente and--rather more of them, I believe--in those of Austria. But the accusation is untrue; there are, undoubtedly, a number of fire-eaters in Serbia, as everywhere else, yet the Government is not so childish as to wish to squander its resources in a region where there is so little to be gained. (The Tirana correspondent of _The Near East_ said on November 3, 1921, that the Serbian Government was reported to be committing unwarrantable acts, giving as an example that Commandant Martinovic had had six million dinars placed at his disposal in order to recruit komitadjis and that he had himself promised 2500 dinars to each of his men if they succeeded in entering Scutari. But this gentleman, a retired officer, lives almost exclusively at Novi Sad, where his very beautiful daughter is married to M. Dunjarski, one of the wealthiest men in Yugoslavia. Yet neither his son-in-law nor the Serbian Government has ever given General Martinovic the afore-mentioned sum or any sum at all for the afore-mentioned purpose. He goes at rare intervals to his old home in Montenegro, of which country he was once Prime Minister. It is natural that the numerous refugees from Albania should flock round him--in view of his own past prominence and of M. Dunjarski--begging for money and food.) The protesting British Members of Parliament registered their sorrow that the Serbs should have employed on their anti-Albanian enterprise "the strength and riches which they largely owed to the Allied and a.s.sociated Powers." I was under the impression that the Serbs had expended a far greater proportion of their strength and riches than any of the Allies,[105] that the Allies had, in 1915, left them in the lurch, and that the final success on the Macedonian front was due quite considerably to the genius of Marshal Miic and the valour of his veterans. As for the strength and riches which the Southern Slavs possessed in 1921, it surely would not need an expert to perceive what the Southern Slav children knew very well, namely, that they could be more profitably employed in many other directions. May better luck attend the future labours of these Members of Parliament.... A week or so before the publication of this foolish manifesto there had been issued an equally deplorable Memorandum by the Balkan Committee (of London), which, I am glad to say, caused Dr. Seton-Watson to resign from that body. This jejune and impudent Memorandum attempted to dictate the terms of the Const.i.tution of the Triune Kingdom--an attempt very rightly reprobated by _The Near East_.[106] If the Yugoslav Government were to adopt the recommendations of the Balkan Committee they would, it seems, be in a fair way to solve the Albanian question. Likewise that of Macedonia--when will the Committee cease to trouble Macedonia? Their object, in the words of Mr. Noel Buxton, is to aim at allaying the unrest in the Balkans; it would--I say it in all kindliness--be a move in that direction if the other members were to follow Dr. Seton-Watson's example.

14. THE REGION FROM WHICH THE YUGOSLAVS HAVE RETIRED

What of the population which inhabits the zone between the two frontier lines? We have alluded to them as a horde of bandits, we have also spoken of the six battalions which they placed at the disposal of the Yugoslavs. If it is true that a poet has died in the bosom of most of us, it is equally true that in most of the Albanians a brigand survives.

And if not a brigand, then a mediaeval person with characteristics which are more pleasant to read about than to encounter. Yet the Shqyptar, as he calls himself (which means the eagle's son) is not without his aspirations. Reference has been made to those northern tribes, such as the Merturi and the Gashi, who benefited from the small Serbian detachments which came in answer to their urgent wish. And on the Black Drin the six battalions have shown their fidelity. There would be no need to guard oneself against such people. But unfortunately the Albanian is so const.i.tuted that if, in a hamlet of ten houses, five of them are amicably disposed towards you, there is a strong tendency among the others to be hostile. When these torch-bearers of an ancient tradition come under the rule of an organized State, then they gradually feel inclined to discard some of their customs which the State frowns upon. This can be seen in the changes among the people of Kossovo since it came into Serbian hands. Were the country between the two frontier lines to remain under the Serbs it would not be long before some of the time-honoured sensitiveness of the Albanians towards each other and towards each others' friends would vanish--though it has been found that it takes a number of years before they cease observing or from desiring to observe the very deeply-rooted custom of blood-vengeance.

A good many of the border Albanians have made it clear that they wish for some sort of a.s.sociation with their more cultured neighbours. But on this point they are by no means unanimous. The unregenerate part of the people will not be able to resist an occasional foray into Yugoslavia.

And although the reputation which the Serbs have left behind them may induce the tribes to be, for the most part, good neighbours, yet they have not been long enough under the civilizing process, and the more advanced among them would agree with the Yugoslavs that it would have been better for that regime to have continued over them. You may object that the finest patriots of the Albanians would have preferred to remain outside Yugoslavia. But they know that there are many thousands of their contented countryfolk in the neighbouring Kossovo and, what is more, they know that the towns of Kossovo are their markets.

The Yugoslavs have bowed to the decision of their Allies. And the official champions of the too-ambitious League of Nations--overjoyed, after various failures and after the Silesian award, to have really accomplished something, and something with whose merits the public was far less familiar than with the Silesian fiasco--performed a war-dance on the Yugoslavs. If that people had been as obstinate, say, as the Magyars in the case of Burgenland, no doubt it would have come to another Conference of Venice; and Yugoslavia would, like Hungary, have returned from there with something gained. But, of course, when it is an affair between Allies one scarcely likes to behave in that stubborn and unyielding manner which is apparently the right--at all events, the successful--conduct for a whilom foe. If the Yugoslavs, in simply accepting the judgment of their Allies, acted against their own ultimate advantage, they can, at any rate, believe that their complaisance, their extraordinary lack of chauvinism, will be recognized. It is true that when, on former occasions, such as during the prolonged d'Annunzio farce at Rieka, they displayed a similar and wonderful forbearance, they did not manage to free themselves from this foolish charge. There happen to be a good many people abroad who insist that the new States are, every one of them, chauvinist; they think it is the natural thing for a young country to be, and especially if part of it lies in the Balkans. But if Yugoslavia repeatedly acts in the most correct fashion the day may come when she will be able to put a lasting polish on to the reputation which her Allies have tarnished.

15. THE PROSPECT

We may look forward to seeing the majority of this frontier population resolved that the links between themselves and the Yugoslavs shall not be broken. Very little will they care for the edicts of European Amba.s.sadors. It would not have been surprising to hear that on the withdrawal of the Yugoslavs to the prescribed frontier their resourceful friends beyond it had procured from Serbia a few volunteers to take the place of the official Serbs. And failing this, that rough-and-ready people might simply declare themselves to be in Yugoslavia. This time they will be unable to persuade the Yugoslav Government to move its excise posts more to the west. But if these tenacious men have made up their minds to join their brethren on the right bank of the Drin and enter Yugoslavia, the Amba.s.sadors' Conference would preserve more of their dignity in accepting with a good grace that which they are powerless to hinder.... The minority of the border population will go raiding in Yugoslavia. If they had been consulted they would have drawn the frontier very much as it is. With large areas lying at their mercy they will keep the border villages in constant dread. And that is the other reason which should induce the Amba.s.sadors' Conference to cancel their unwise decision.

It is better when the politicians do not come with advice to the battlefield; and in those primitive regions, where part of the people cannot, as yet, be restrained from perpetual warfare, it would have been better if the politicians had done nothing but confirm the General's frontier. Franchet d'Esperey gave it to the Serbs "for the time being,"

and that period should last until there is no longer any military need to hold it. "No General, however distinguished, could possibly have any authority whatever to give to any nation the territories of another, such as can only be transferred and delineated by treaties and international recognition." So says Mr. H. E. Goad, or Captain Goad as he has the right to call himself. But it is a pity that he does not appreciate the difference between that which is temporary and that which is not.

Italy has been given against the Yugoslavs a purely strategic frontier, which places under her dominion over 500,000 unwilling Slovenes, whose culture is admittedly on a higher level than that of their Italian neighbours. And yet the Amba.s.sadors' Conference (in which Italy plays a prominent part) has refused to give Yugoslavia a strategic frontier against a much more turbulent neighbour, which frontier, moreover, would include of alien subjects only a small fraction of the number which Italy has obtained. The Albanian frontier now imposed on Yugoslavia is very much like that which the treaties of 1815 gave to France, when the pa.s.sage (_trouee_) of Couvin, often called erroneously the trouee of the Oise, at a short distance from Paris, was purposely opened. "Formerly,"

says Professor Jean Brunhes,[107] "the sources of the Oise belonged to France, protected, far back, by the two enclaves of Philippeville and Marienbourg, both fortified by Vauban." And M. Gabriel Hanotaux[108]

remarks that this opening of the trouee of Couvin was the reason why in 1914 France lost the battle of Charleroi.

The Amba.s.sadors' Conference has committed a grave injustice. "Let us hope," says M. Justin G.o.dart,[109] a French ex-Under Secretary of Hygiene, concerning whose very misguided mission to Albania we have written elsewhere,[110] "let us hope," says he--in my opinion one of the unjustest men towards Yugoslavia and Greece--"let us hope that Yugoslavia will understand that it is unworthy of her to contest the decision of the Amba.s.sadors' Conference." It has given to the Yugoslavs a frontier that necessitates the presence of a considerable army, and this is precisely what suits the Italians. Seeing that in Italy there are men alive who can recall their struggles against the Austrian oppressor, it is sad that their own country should now be playing this very same role. The Amba.s.sadors appear to have taken no notice of Italy's support of the Tirana Government, but to have been very drastic with respect to Yugoslavia's support of the Mirditi. They have punished the Yugoslavs by binding their hands in a district part of whose population long for the help of those hands in gaining some tranquillity, whereas the other part consists of persons against whom one must defend oneself.