Chapter XIII: Introduction: The Tragedy of a Frontier (11)

"They came exhausted into Scutari, one by one or in small groups," says Monsieur Boppe, the French Minister,[97] "some of them on horseback, some on foot; here and there one saw a trace of military order, but most of them had no weapons. They looked as if they could not march another mile, these moving skeletons, so painfully they crawled along, so haggard, so emaciated, with a colour so cadaverous and eyes so dull. This mournful band of brothers struggled into Scutari for days, beneath the rain and through the mud. No bitterness came from the lips of those who had undergone every privation; as if impelled by destiny, they passed along in silence; from time to time, indeed, one heard them say 'hleba' (bread)--that was the only word they had the strength to pronounce. For several days the majority of them had had nothing to eat, and in the cantonments where they were lodged outside the town their Government could only provide a meagre ration." A hundredweight of maize cost 300 francs in gold.... But what of the women who had remained in Belgrade? Miss Annie Christi['c], whose unflagging work for her people is so well known in this country, has told us how the Austro-Hungarians started paying out relief money to the families of State officials. They advertised their generosity on a large scale, but the amounts were very small, and many women were too proud to accept this dole from the enemy. They preferred to do any kind of work offered by the municipality of Belgrade. Thus one saw women in furs or smart clothes--the remnants of former days--trundling wheelbarrows of stone for road repairs, or carrying heavy loads. Delicately nurtured girls could be seen working at the slaughterhouse among the entrails and offal for twelve hours on end. The wife of a professor scrubbed office floors for many months before her husband at the front could send her any money. Street-sweeping was a common occupation for women of all classes.

"We rescued the gallant Serbian army," said the Italians, in the course of a long and rhetorical placard which in 1919 they pasted up throughout Rieka and the Adriatic lands they occupied, and which was not more convincing than the caravan of Dalmatian mayors whom, after the War, they very proudly exhibited in Paris, a suave official from the Embassy acting as the showman. (The Italian authorities had taken in hand the election of these mayors--save Signor Ziliotto of Zadar, who was elected by his fellow-townsmen.) ... When the wretched Serbs who found themselves staggering through central Albania--among them large numbers of boys so young that they would not have been called up until 1919--when they hoped to reach the Adriatic at Valona, they were told that this route was barred to them. Having eluded the Austrians, the Germans and the Bulgars, they were left by the Italians to die of starvation and fatigue. It may well have seemed to them, as to Bedros Tourian, the Armenian poet, that "All the world is but God's mockery." When King Peter, worn out by the journey and his ailments, reached Valona by way of Durazzo, he was ordered by the commandant of that place to depart with his suite--which consisted of four persons--within twenty-four hours.... In the middle of December a French relief mission arrived on the Albanian coast, General de Mondesir reached Scutari and a large British mission under General Taylor landed at Durazzo. These did what was possible to save the remnants of the Serbian army. But, after a short time, a fresh series of obstacles arose. The King of Montenegro, very loyal to the Austrians, facilitated their advance across his country. Thus it was impracticable for the Serbs to concentrate and to embark from those few wooden huts which are called, in Italian, San Giovanni di Medua. Between the bare cliffs and the sea the miserable men and boys and women were compelled to plod towards the south. One hundred and fifty thousand survivors were eventually carried by the Allies to Corfu.

THE SHADOW OVER MONTENEGRO

These had been busy days for Nikita and his sons. A royal order was issued to the Montenegrin military and police authorities, commanding them to prevent the population from giving or selling any provisions to the Serbian army. "Ne bogami, svetoga mi Vassilija ne!" ["Goodness gracious, no! And by St. Basil, no!"] was the phrase which greeted the Serbs;[98] and when they remonstrated with the Montenegrins for demanding eleven Serbian dinars in silver for ten Montenegrin perpers--the exchange was at par, but the people were acting under orders--"If I had ten sons I would give them to King Peter," was the usual reply, "but money is money." Yet the Austrians were not as grateful as they might have been. Nikita was intending, after the annihilation of the Serbs, to conclude a separate peace with Austria and to rule, as an Austrian satrap, over an enlarged territory. But they ignored his aspirations; they did not take into account that he had been so kind to them at Lov[vc]en and elsewhere. They swarmed over his country--this time he was not play-acting when he showed his indignation--and the deceived deceiver was forced to fly. On January 10, Lov[vc]en had fallen. A characteristic telegram:

Ku[vc]a mi gori,
Ku[vc]i mi trebaju--

["My house is burning, I want the Ku[vc]i"] was sent by Nikita to his best fighting men, the Ku[vc]i, whom he had left in reserve at Danilovgrad. When General Gajni['c] received this he marched all night with his brigade and reached Cetinje in the morning. Nikita met them and announced that, after all, he did not require them. He would conquer without them. And Lov[vc]en fell.

That Adriatic Gibraltar, which rises gaunt and sheer to some 6000 feet, was entrusted by Nikita to his youngest son, Prince Peter, a young man of marvellous vanity. He used to deny, after the surrender of Lov[vc]en, that he had consorted at Budva with Lieut.-Colonel Hupka, the former military attache at Cetinje, whom the Austrians brought specially from the Italian front for this purpose. The well-known patriot, Dr. Machiedo of Zadar, who happened to be confined during the summer of 1915 by the Austrians in the fortress of Gora[vz]da, which lies above Kotor, read in the telephone book certain messages from Prince Peter, asking for an interview with Hupka--these messages were carried by a patrol to the lines and thence telephoned to Gora[vz]da. When the Prince at last acknowledged that he had been meeting Hupka--which he naturally had done at his father's command--he stated that it was with the object of preventing the bombardment of open towns by Austrian aeroplanes. Between him and Hupka the arrangements were made; many of the Austrians exchanged their military boots for the Serbian national sandals, so that they could more easily scale the rocks; and Peter sent verbal orders to his two outlying brigadiers that they must not resist. General Pejanovi['c] demanded, however, that this should be put in writing, and the document is extant. Thirteen Austrians lie buried in a little graveyard on the slopes of Lov[vc]en, mostly men who missed their footing; and this was the price that Austria paid for the tremendous mountain that she had coveted for years; she had been willing, more than once, to let the Montenegrins, in exchange for it, have Scutari. The great picture of "The Storming of Lov[vc]en," which Gabriel Jurki['c], the Sarajevo artist, was commissioned by the Austrians to paint, was never painted; and when Nikita motored out from Cetinje to meet the men who were retiring from Lov[vc]en he had the hardihood to rebuke them as traitors. "It is not we who are traitors," shouted a colonel, "it is you and your sons!" "Oh! that I must hear such words!" groaned the King, "I want to die!" But he did not die; on the contrary, he went to Paris. His eldest son had announced, early in the campaign, that he was unwell, and he had gone to France by way of Athens. There he was very accurately told by Constantine in which month Mackensen and the Bulgars would descend upon Serbia. When the Prince arrived at Nice he mentioned this to his friend, Jovo Popovi['c], the former Montenegrin Minister at Constantinople, and to Radovi['c]. They advised him to inform the Entente, in order to rehabilitate himself. But when he telegraphed to his father the reply was "Be quiet." Prince Danilo has never denied the allegations that while he was at Nice, Signor Carminatti, the Montenegrin Consul-General in Milan, conducted negotiations on his behalf at Lugano with a certain Herr Bernsdorf of the Deutsche Bank, with a view to a separate peace by Montenegro. The amount of the financial consideration is not known. And the business-like Prince, realizing that it would be impossible for him to return to his native land, secured himself against the future by selling, through a couple of confidential agents, his real estate to the Austrians. He likewise disposed of a good deal of forest which is alleged to have belonged not to him but to the State, and when his father heard of the resulting sum of a hundred million francs he was exceedingly annoyed that this robbery and trafficking with the enemy during the War had only replenished Danilo's and not his own exchequer. When his political opponents heard of these transactions he denied, over and over again, that they had taken place; but we have his autograph letter on the subject to Danilo. Before the King left Montenegro he found another opportunity for a grandiose attitude. He appeared at Podgorica where he made an eloquent speech, exhorting his people to march on the morrow against the hated Austrian and assuring them that their old King would fire the first shot, whereas he decamped in the night for Scutari, which is in the opposite direction. He and the Queen, Prince Peter and Miu[vs]kevi['c], the Premier, fled the country; while Prince Mirko, the remainder of the Cabinet, the National Assembly and--above all--the army had instructions to remain behind. How much easier it would have been for his army than for the Serbs to reach Corfu. But this terrible old man delivered 50,000 of the best Yugoslav soldiers to the enemy. On January 21 he sailed away. I do not know if anybody sang the National Anthem--"Onamo! Onamo!" ["Yonder! Yonder!"]--which in his youth Nikita had himself composed. And a few years later when the gallant Montenegrins could again lift up their voices and sing "Onamo!" how many of them thought of him who was skulking and of course intriguing yonder in France.

We have alluded to the treatment which in their distress the Serbs received from their Italian Allies; but in Albania the Italian army did render a certain amount of assistance--every day at eleven o'clock the Austrian aeroplanes would reach Durazzo, and the Italian soldiers, sentries and all, would rush helter-skelter from the plentiful food to which they were just sitting down. The Serbs, many of them, after their privations, looking like grey ghosts, were always in the neighbourhood of the Italian barracks and very glad they were to see those aeroplanes which permitted them to enter in and enjoy a bounteous meal. When the senior Italian officer complained to his Serbian colleague, "Surely," said the latter, "you have a sentry at the door. He can prevent anyone from going in." At some distance inland a Serbian major, a friend of mine, was resting on the side of the road; he had eaten nothing for four days. A spick-and-span Italian lieutenant of _gendarmerie_ paused in front of him and was clearly interested. The major wondered whether he would have some food about him. But the lieutenant did not even offer him a cigarette. "Pardon me," he said with a friendly smile, "but will you allow me to take a photograph?" Large numbers of mules were brought over by the Italians and apparently it gave them pleasure to cut their throats. The officers purchased many Serbian horses--their owners were too destitute to bargain. But in fairness it must be said that some Italian ships worked with the French and British vessels in conveying the Serbs, soldiers and civilians, from the coast of Albania.

As for the Montenegrin King, he had attempted, before his departure, to put the whole blame on the shoulders of Colonel Pe[vs]i['c]. He sent--in order to make more certain the success of the Austrian army--a telegraphic command[99] to the Voivoda Djuro Petrovi['c], the chief of the Herzegovinian detachment, in which he required him to destroy his cannons and machine guns and then (although the enemy was exerting no pressure upon him) to withdraw towards Nik[vs]i['c]. This order was issued in the name of Colonel Pe[vs]i['c], the signature being forged. In fact Nikita thought his Serbian Chief of Staff was quite a useful personage. But there exists a letter in which the Colonel wrote that, in order to avoid capitulation, a supreme effort would be necessary at certain positions which he indicated and anyhow the army should be withdrawn to Scutari and the defence of the town organized. Scutari, by the way, was the scene of another of Nikita's exploits: he caused the Bank of Montenegro to send money to the Austrian Consul there, the cash being delivered by Martinovi['c], the Montenegrin Consul. It was used to incite the Albanians to take military action against the Serbs between Prizren and Djakovica. When this affair was exposed all the Montenegrins knew by what traitors they were governed. The fall of Montenegro had been brought about more swiftly by the Austrian submarines which in the Gulf of San Giovanni di Medua torpedoed practically every ship that carried food or munitions, while other boats were not molested. An investigation showed that the shipping news had been telegraphed to Prince Peter, and he in his turn handed it on to the Austrians. The Prince's egregious parent wanted to be in a position to say that, owing to the lack of food and munitions, he had been compelled to surrender. One of his final acts was to summon the Skup[vs]tina, as he did not wish to be saddled with the responsibility of making peace. At a secret sitting on December 11, 1915,--when the retreating Serbs were in San Giovanni, Scutari and Podgorica,--the Government declared that they had no resources, that the Entente could not assist them and that they would wage war for so long as they had the means--in other words, that the war would cease. It was continued, however, by those Montenegrin troops between Kola[vs]in and Bielo Polje, who--even after the fall of Lov['c]en on January 10, and the flowing of the Austrian army towards Scutari--were ordered to make a counter-offensive, during which they had over 1500 dead and wounded. The reason for this was that Nikita wished to prevent his army from escaping to Scutari; he was afraid lest, if they escaped with the Serbs, they would dethrone him forthwith. Afterwards he gave an explanation that he had ordered the Chief of Staff, Yanko Vukoti['c], to rescue the army, which order he alleged he had wirelessed from Brindisi. Vukoti['c], together with Prince Mirko and the Ministers who stayed behind, declared in the _Pester Lloyd_ that Nikita was lying. They added that he could have sent no wireless from Brindisi, because there was at that time no receiving station in Montenegro, the French one at Podgorica having been destroyed at the order of the British Minister, Count de Salis, the doyen of the diplomatic corps. The King, by the way, had endeavoured for some time to rid himself of the diplomats, who were inconvenient witnesses of what was in progress. On December 31 a telegram was sent by the Ministers of France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, in which they said that "Apparently our presence is displeasing to the King and he is trying to disengage himself from us. He has begged us on several occasions to depart and last night he insisted, with the asseveration that in forty-eight hours it would be too late. We suspect that His Majesty is playing a very ambiguous game...." And on January 9 the French Minister telegraphed, among other things, that "My Russian and English colleagues are of opinion that the King is merely performing a comedy with us and that this comedy will end in a tragedy for the belligerents." Nikita, on his arrival in France, proposed to settle down at Lyons, but the French authorities did not care for him to be so close to Switzerland, which was one of his intriguing centres. So they placed at his disposal a chateau near Bordeaux and it was not until he had made repeated requests that they permitted him to come to Neuilly, a suburb of Paris. He replaced Miu[vs]kevi['c] as Premier by Radovi['c], the former victim of the Bomb Trial, hoping by this move towards the Left to silence his critics. But in August 1916 Radovi['c] presented a memorandum in favour of the formal union between Montenegro and Serbia, under King Peter's son and King Nicholas' grandson, Prince Alexander. The Montenegrin monarch was enraged at this and, after Radovi['c] had resigned, one after another all the Montenegrins of any standing withdrew from Nikita, who was openly working against the Serbs. He and the Princess Xenia conducted all the Government business, though he distributed among his tiny clique of adherents various empty titles. An aged friend of his, Eugene Popovi['c], a native of Triest and a naturalized Italian, was made Premier, to give pleasure to Italy; a more active person was the War Minister, Hajdukovi['c], a former shipping contractor in Constantinople, where a long time ago he had been one of those young Montenegrins who, to the number of twenty, the Sultan used to educate--a process which, in the case of idle boys, was not very irksome. During the Great War Hajdukovi['c] was invited by the Allies to quit Salonica, as they had certain suspicions against him. He had also, on behalf of his King, urged the Montenegrin volunteers who had managed to get to Salonica not to allow themselves to be commanded by Serbian or French officers, but to demand Montenegrin officers, of whom there was no adequate supply. These men had ultimately to be sent to Corsica and kept there till the end of the War. What Hajdukovi['c] performed at Salonica, another royal agent, one Vukovi['c], a bootmaker, attempted at Marseilles, where he continually went on board the vessels that were bringing Montenegrins and, to a smaller extent, other Yugoslavs from the United States and South America to the Salonica front. These travelled men were less easily influenced than those who obeyed Hajdukovi['c]; but 300-400 did refuse to proceed. They were installed in a factory at Orange, where the Montenegrin Government fed them and paid them. Now and then they were encouraged by being told that if they had gone to the Front the Serbian officers would have flogged them.... And so the little Court at Neuilly occupied the years with many a congenial intrigue. Feelers were stretched out to this country, where an English edition of Radovi['c]'s _Montenegrin Bulletin_, the pro-Yugoslav organ, was being published by my friend Vassilje Buri['c] to the furious indignation of the busybodies who supported the King and of the Italian Embassy. From these two sources and from Neuilly the Foreign Office was bombarded with protests, begging it in the name of justice, etc., to put a stop to this dire scandal. One day a charming Foreign Office clerk, an acquaintance of mine, had Buri['c] to lunch at the Royal Automobile Club; in the course of the meal he suggested that, as Buri['c] was not looking well, they two should have a little holiday in France. Buri['c] said he would be very glad to go with him, but he thought it would be nice to stay in England. The charming official held out for the Continent, and with such obstinacy that Buri['c] at last put his hand upon his arm and invited him to promise that they would both of them come back to England. Thereupon the host acknowledged that a perfect flood of letters had been pouring on the Foreign Office with respect to the _Montenegrin Bulletin_, and they were weary of receiving them.... Sometimes the Neuilly Court was plunged in gloom, as when old Tomo Oraovac's little book appeared with seventy-five awkward questions to Nikita. For three days the King shut himself up in his room, trying to decide as to whether he should issue an answer. He decided to do nothing. Now and then a French review or newspaper referred to him. "The official courtesies extended by the French Government to Nicholas I. and his family should not deceive the public," said the eminent publicist Monsieur Gauvain in the _Revue de Paris_ (March 1917). M. Gauvain showed that the Petrovi['c] dynasty constituted the sole obstacle to a union of Montenegro with Serbia and the rest of the Yugoslav lands. As Nikita drove past the office of the _Revue de Paris_ he may have been thinking, rather wistfully, of that brave afternoon at Nik[vs]i['c].[100] ... Sometimes the old man was worried by his sons. Peter, for example, who had been the spoilt child and who had been given posts for which he was unfitted, now discovered in himself, during the autumn of 1918, a great desire to obtain a certain Madame Violette Brunet, the legal wife of Monsieur Brunet, who was in Nikita's service. The ardent lover, regardless of the ancient Montenegrin custom which inflicted stoning on the guilty married woman, while the husband sometimes cut her nose off, wrote to his parents, asking them to arrange the matter, and when the ex-King raised objections, Peter blackmailed him by threatening to divulge to the world at large all the unsavoury details connected with Lov['c]en. "My dear son," wrote Nikita in November 1918,[101] "You write again asking me to send an emissary to represent myself and your mother in suing for the hand of the woman of your choice, failing this, you say you will make a scandal whereby the honour of both of us and of the whole family will suffer; to obviate this unpleasant possibility we may see our way to agree to your wish, but under the following conditions...."

THE BROKEN SERBS AT CORFU

Meanwhile the Serbs had, ever since the early days of 1916 when they began arriving in Corfu, been hard at work upon their army. Thousands landed at Corfu in such a state that only with continual care, with warmth and nourishing food could they be rescued. But on the little island of Vido where they were deposited the tents were few, the beds were fewer, wood was lacking, so that fires could not be made, and thousands died where they sank down, amid the olive groves and orange trees. The doctors nursed as many as they could in that one empty building; but for very long about a hundred corpses were each day piled in a little boat and taken out to sea. Usually they had died of pure exhaustion. Out of the 16,000 boys who had scrambled along with the army as far as Durazzo, about 2000 died on the sea and another 7000 on the Isle of Vido.

At Corfu the Serbs, with the other Yugoslavs, had also to set about securing the foundations of their State that was to be. The Russians, at the time of the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of London, had been looking forward to an Orthodox State, a Greater Serbia, bounded by the river Narenta. This, if it had been carried out, would have jettisoned, and probably for ever, the Croats and Slovenes. That was the incredibly stupid old Russian policy of identifying Slav patriotism with the Orthodox Church, a policy held up to ridicule by Strossmayer. It was the Yugoslav Committee, working chiefly in London, assisted by English friends, working there and at Corfu, which caused the Serbs, the Croats and Slovenes to publish on July 20, 1917, the historic Corfu Declaration, which laid it down that the nation of the three names was resolved to free itself from every foreign yoke and to become a constitutional, democratic and Parliamentary Monarchy under the Karageorgevi['c] dynasty. It is said that those two excellent friends of the Southern Slavs, the brilliant Mr. Wickham Steed and Dr. Seton-Watson, than whom no publicist is more conscientious, had to face a determined opposition on the part of M. Pa[vs]i['c] before it was agreed that the Roman Catholic religion should in the prospective State have equal rights with the Orthodox. One would be disposed to criticize the Serbian Premier on account of a narrow policy dictated by his excessive wish for self-preservation--he saw very well that these clauses of equality might undermine the long reign of the Radicals--but it must be acknowledged that if the Southern Slavs had limited themselves to a Greater Serbia, in which the Radical party had been supreme, they would not have wasted so much of their energy, after the War, in domestic political conflict. They would also, very probably, have gained more favourable terms from the Entente; and the union with the Croats and Slovenes might have been effected later. But against this is the opinion of those who argue that the separation would have become permanent. However, if the union of the Southern Slavs could not be postponed, we may believe that it would have been wise to call the new country, for a couple of years, Greater Serbia. No doubt the logical Italians would have pointed out to the rest of the Entente that their bugbears, the Croats and the Slovenes, were included in this State; but the Allies as a whole would have been more inclined to be indulgent towards a country whose name they honoured than towards the same country whose various new-fangled designations--Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; or Yugoslavia; or S.H.S.--they found so puzzling. The Transylvanians who, one supposes, will play the chief role in Greater Roumania have as yet, much to the profit of all the Roumanians, permitted the retention of that name. This course was not adopted by the Southern Slavs, and Pa[vs]i['c] giving way to Messrs. Steed and Seton-Watson, appointed M. Yovanovi['c] to London with the object of working on the lines of the Declaration of Corfu.

THE SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE UNITED STATES

The building of the new State and its army was also being undertaken with great fervour in America, New Zealand and Australia. North America contained about 100,000 Orthodox Serbs, 200,000 Catholic Slovenes and 400,000 Catholic Croats; South America had some 50,000 Yugoslavs, chiefly Catholic Dalmatians; while the 8000-10,000 in Australasia were mostly of that origin. Two kinds of Southern Slav newspapers were being printed in North America, namely those which the Austrian Ambassador supported, and those which were national. The chief argument of the former species was the Treaty of London, which, as the editors pointed out, gave up a large part of Dalmatia to the Italians. Two of these editors, by the way, were imprisoned for other reasons by the authorities. They had constantly threatened the terrible punishment that Austria would inflict on those who had worked against the Fatherland--many of the Southern Slavs, like the Roumanians, Czechs, Ruthenians and Magyars, were employed in munition factories, and the Austrian Embassy, in concert with the German, hoped to see them on the land. After a time the Yugoslavs took an office in Washington and attacked this propaganda, their example being followed by the Czechs and the Poles. When the United States entered the War these Austrophil papers no longer wrote in favour of Austria, but confined themselves to animadversions against the Serbian leaders, suggesting likewise that Croatia and Slovenia should be independent.... The patriotic Yugoslav papers--three dailies in New York, three in Chicago, and over twenty weekly organs--were not subsidized by the Yugoslav Committee in London or by the Government in Corfu; and some of the editors did not display a very prosperous appearance. But the poor Yugoslav workers contributed 20 million dollars to the first three Liberty loans, and when the National Council at Pittsburg in November 1916 united the different charitable, gymnastic and political associations, a call was made for volunteers. Between 25,000-30,000 men joined the United States army, a good many joined the Canadian contingents, and about 10,000 sailed for Salonica. The Yugoslavs in South America were in different circumstances: the Dalmatian temperament being nearer to the Spanish they found it easier to make their way; besides which, those who went to South America were on the average more advanced than those who preferred the North. In Chili, the Argentine and Bolivia the Yugoslavs are often very prosperous merchants and shipowners. They organized the Yugoslav National Defence and found all the funds for the Yugoslav organization in London. From New Zealand, where there is a Yugoslav paper called _Zora_ (the _Dawn_), about 300 volunteers sailed to the Dardanelles, and others, when the Salonica base was established, joined their compatriots in that port.

CASH AND THE MONTENEGRIN ROYAL FAMILY

While the distant Yugoslavs were, in one way or another, helping the cause, that family of criminals which reigned in Montenegro did not shrink from malversation of the funds of the Red Cross. A young Croat, Mr. Mili[vc]evi['c], who before the War became a naturalized Montenegrin and in Neuilly served as Minister of Justice, has related how the Government continually borrowed (and did not repay) large sums of Red Cross money, and that if new clothes came from England for the refugees they would in Paris be replaced quite often for much older ones. How did the people fare? After the country had been occupied by the Austrians, most of the Allies consented that it should be revictualled on the same lines as Belgium. Even Austria offered no objections. One State only and one man were hostile to the scheme, and that man actually the King of Montenegro. "A poor and starving people," he argued, "is the most subservient. My interests will suffer if commodities are given to the Montenegrins. Let them wait. And when the moment comes for my return, I will go back with large supplies and be most popular." Even when his Ministers had realized that there must be no more delay in asking for the King of Spain's good offices--since the Italians (presumably in concert with Nikita) fought against the plan--and when the letter to the King of Spain was drafted it produced another one from Nikita to his Ministers--written by Nikita, but signed by his aide-de-camp. "The King," he said, "considers that the letter to the King of Spain should stand over, so long as one cannot be sure that Italy will permit the transit of foodstuffs destined for the people." He desired no mediation between himself and the Italians. Perhaps the most audacious act of spoliation was the sale of the State stores at Gallipoli, just when the Allied offensive on the Salonica front was leading to the collapse of the enemy. Instead of forwarding the 25,000 greatcoats, the 20,000 kilos of leather, and great quantities of material, medical and other stores, to Montenegro and rendering first aid to the liberated population, the managers of the Royal Treasury deemed it wiser to transfer the value of all these stores into their own pockets, disposing of more than 21/2 million francs worth of goods to trusted figureheads for a few hundred thousand Italian lire. Fortunately the French naval authorities put a stop to this brigandage, and the honest guardians of the people only succeeded in diverting a few hundreds of thousands. You may suppose that there is no excuse for conduct of this kind; but the Royal Family could say, "Behold, the people do not want our gifts." The Montenegrins, for example, who were interned at Karlstein in Austria, where they were not overfed, sent a telegram on November 27, 1916, to ask at whose initiative the Red Cross parcels had been sent to them. This was (in German) the prepaid reply: "Montenegrin Committee, President, Professor Pugnet, supported by the Red Cross. (Signed) THE BAKERY." As Pugnet was Danilo's professor, all the interned, except six or seven, declined the parcels.[102] Among the half-dozen were some relatives of Nikita, and some who explained that "We take the traitor's bread, for otherwise we should die; and after all it is the Entente which sends it. How unfortunate for us that they regard Nikita as our King." After the Armistice Nikita and his adherents complained bitterly that the Podgorica Assembly which deposed him was convened before these internees had come back from Austria!

Although the funds of the Montenegrin Red Cross were, as we have seen, not devoted to the needs of many of the Montenegrins, yet the Royal Family were very energetic in collecting cash. They caused a letter to be written to the French Red Cross, which had collected two millions for the Serbs, and in the letter they asked for a part of the two millions. A diplomatic answer was received. "You are only working," it said, "for Montenegro, whereas we are for all the Yugoslavs." This lack of success in financial matters was a new experience for the Royal House. When Russia sent the Montenegrin officers their pay during the War, an arrangement was made for it to come _via_ Serbia in Serbian dinars. The King of Montenegro kept the dinars and paid his officers in paper money. Later on he sold such enormous quantities of dinars on the Paris Bourse that the Serbian Minister, Mr. Vesni['c], had to protest. One remembers the haste with which Nikita left his country--both his people and his army he forgot, but not his gold. And for two years in France he struggled to get into his own hands this bullion which belonged to the State. Apparently he did at last receive it when he was at Pau in 1918. He was granted, for the expenses of his Court, a monthly allowance of 100,000 francs by Great Britain, the same by France, and 300,000 by Italy, which latter was not registered in the books. It would be interesting to know how much of this money was used for objects that Great Britain and France would never have countenanced. Virulent anti-Serbian newspapers were published in Switzerland--the _Srpski List_, the _Na[vs]a Borba_ and the _Nova Srbija_. The tone of these papers was so pleasing to the Austrians that they bought up large numbers and distributed them throughout the Southern Slav lands they were occupying. We are, therefore, not astonished that the British subsidy came to an end in the course of 1917; to be resumed, however, in 1918 and finally stopped in June 1919, much to the indignation of Nikita and his partisans, who pointed out that it had been decided in Paris in the beginning of the War that the little nations participating in it should be helped pecuniarily. France stopped her payment four months after England and said, in answer to a Montenegrin Note, that if Great Britain resumed payment they would follow her example. Pa[vs]i['c] asked that the subsidies should be discontinued, thus reducing "this little country to such a state of despair," said Mr. Ronald M'Neill in the House of Commons in November 1919, "and to strip it so naked before the world that it will be compelled, having no other course to take, to accept union with Serbia, as the only way out of hopeless misery and bankruptcy." It is possible that Mr. M'Neill is referring to some subsidy other than that given to Nikita, but I have my doubts. In the same speech he alluded to American Relief work in Montenegro, saying that 70 per cent. of it was consumed by Serbian troops and the rest sold to profiteers. He confused the American Red Cross, which maintained four hospitals and distributed vast quantities of clothing and food among the inhabitants of Montenegro, and those American supplies which the Yugoslav Government purchased, mainly for the troops. But Mr. M'Neill, M.P., is very angry with the Serbs for spreading, as he says, reports discreditable to the King of Montenegro--if he knew a little more I think that he would say a good deal less--and Nikita must have deprecated the remark that no facilities at all had been given by the Great Powers to enable him and his Ministers to return to Montenegro. If every Serbian soldier were to be withdrawn the country would, with a tremendous majority, have been adverse to the ex-King and his family. This was recognized by Danilo when his father suggested that he should go out in the autumn of 1918. On December 5 he replied from Cap Martin saying that the appendicitis from which he had suffered since the War prevented him even from going into the garden. Mr. M'Neill and a few similar enthusiasts are not weary of repeating that the Serbs and the Montenegrins are quite distinct peoples. This, no doubt, is Mr. M'Neill's opinion, and if he wishes to retain it he is welcome to do so. But I should like to refer his audiences in the House of Commons and elsewhere to the Patriarch Brki['c] of Pe['c], who wrote in the eighteenth century concerning some of the Turkish provinces. No one would pretend that Brki['c] was profoundly versed in philology or in ethnography, and I believe he studied the Slav languages not any more than does Mr. M'Neill. He was a Montenegrin whose education had been that of an ordinary pupil in a monastery. He spoke the Southern dialect, and in his eyes all those who had another accent were not veritable Serbs. Even in our time there are many Montenegrins whom it is quite difficult to convince that they are not the only true Serbs.

THE BURDEN OF AUSTRIA'S SOUTHERN SLAV TROOPS

Meanwhile Austria's Yugoslav soldiers and sailors had been continuing their patriotic work. On February 2, 1918, a telegram was sent to the Army High Command at Baden (near Vienna). [This message is No. 974. It concerns itself with the Austrian navy, in whose ranks Sarkoti['c] perceives agitation. The rest of the message consists chiefly of the drastic remedies which the writer would apply.]

There follows a document, numbered 106,116, and dated May 5, 1918, in which the disaffection of Slovene troops is described. Not only have anti-dynastic ones been raised, but a N.C.O. has torn off his two Austrian decorations and has stamped on them, while troops have worn their national colours in their caps, though this is only authorized when they are marching to a battlefield.

In a notice on the subject of Southern Slav and Italian propaganda in Dalmatia, the military command at Mostar denounces the Southern Slavs, officers and men:

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ARMY: HIGHER COMMAND. _Chief of the General Staff._

Op. No. 109,942.

BADEN, _August_ 5, 1918.

[After discussing various manifestations of disloyalty, the writer says that he has observed how there is a kind of link between the Slav officers, educated at the Academy, and their men. He finds that Spalato is particularly given to these Southern Slav ideas, which he believes is to be accounted for from the fact that Dr. Trumbi['c], "the celebrated agitator," is mayor and deputy of that town.]

* * * * *

So much for the complaints with regard to Austria-Hungary's Southern Slav soldiers. Two military courts of justice sat at Zagreb through the War, the Imperial and Royal Court, and that of the Royal Hungarian No. 6 (Croatian-Slavonian) Honved Division. No statistics are to hand with reference to the various courts in Syrmia, and that one which earned such an evil reputation in the fortress of Peterwardein. The judgments of the two Zagreb courts, where Croat officers were able to make their influence felt, did not appear to the authorities of Vienna and Buda-Pest to be sufficiently drastic. No death sentences were pronounced, although these had been demanded; and on June 24, 1918, it was decided that any further trials for high treason or for offences against the military authorities should be held in Pressburg (Bratislava) and not in Zagreb. The following statistics, relating to the two Zagreb courts, were compiled from the official books which the Austrians did not remove. The figures shown opposite, which are certified by Captain Sto[vz]ir, Provost-Marshal, show the increasing determination to risk everything rather than to fight for Austria.

___________________________________________________________________________ | | IMPERIAL AND ROYAL COURT. | ROYAL HUNGARIAN AND | | | | HONVED DIVISION. | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------| |Year. |1914|1915 |1916 | 1917 | 1918 |1914|1915 |1916 |1917 |1918 | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Total Number| | | | | | | | | | | |of Persons |442 |2,730|4,790|11,275|25,095|632 |3,000|3,470|6,101|13,425| |tried. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Charged with| | | | | | | | | | | |Military | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences: | | | | | | | | | | | |Desertion, | | | | | | | | | | | |Self- | | | | | | | | | | | |inflicted |233 |1,688|2,737|7,782 |19,838|154 | 779 | 926 |3,248|8,039 | |Wounds, | | | | | | | | | | | |Insubordi- | | | | | | | | | | | |nation, | | | | | | | | | | | |Disregard of| | | | | | | | | | | |Calling-up | | | | | | | | | | | |Orders. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |against the | | | | | | | | | | | |State: High | | | | | | | | | | | |Treason, | | | | | | | | | | | |Espionage, | | | | | | | | | | | |Insults | 52 | 66 | 336 | 397 | 559 |257 |1,471|1,223| 727 |1,007 | |against the | | | | | | | | | | | |Emperor, | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |against | | | | | | | | | | | |Public | | | | | | | | | | | |Order. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |Persons | | | | | | | | | | | |Charged | | | | | | | | | | | |with | 53 | 78 | 375 | 414 | 568 |730 |1,875|1,261| 839 |1,018 | |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |under | | | | | | | | | | | |Rubric 4. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |those | | | | | | | | | | | |convicted | 3 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 46 | 48 | 22 | 17 | -- | |under | | | | | | | | | | | |Rubric 4. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------+ |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |those who | | | | | | | | | | | |committed | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences | 11 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 4 |116 | 179 | 89 | 89 | -- | |under Rubric| | | | | | | | | | | |4 and were | | | | | | | | | | | |acquitted. | | | | | | | | | | | |____________|____|_____|_____|______|______|____|_____|_____|_____|______|

It may be of interest to give some details of one of the regiments whose composition was chiefly Slav. My informant, Dr. Ivo Yelavi['c], served as telephone officer on the staff of the 37th Dalmatian Regiment. At different times--at the fall of Gorica, in December 1916 at Sanmarco, and in June 1917 at Tolmein, three battalions went over to the enemy; 170 officers (of whom 169 were reserve officers) gave themselves up during the War. Some of them were Serbs, most were Croats. With respect to the fall of Gorica, this was not--despite the clamour that they made about it--due to the Italians, but to two officers, Tolja and Salvi, who took over with them all the plans of the underground forts and maps made to the scale of one step to a millimetre. Among the accomplishments which the officers of this regiment taught their men was how to surrender to the foe. Efforts were made to bring about a different state of things: German and Magyar regiments were placed behind it, with machine guns; the regiment itself was filled up with Magyars. On some occasions the 37th desisted from going over in order not to bring persecution upon their homes. In 1914, opposite the Montenegrins at Gora[vz]da, all the plans were worked out, but at the last moment Dr. Count Gozze (of Dubrovnik) said he had just thought of what would happen to their families, and they refrained. After the battalion had gone over in 1916 General Seidler told them he would do his best to have the regiment dissolved and the men divided among other regiments, but that not all the officers would go. This was an ominous hint that he intended to decimate them, after the fashion of Field-Marshal Liposcak. A fortnight later, in the presence of Field-Marshal Boroevi['c], General Wurm and General Seidler, they were highly praised; and when they, in company with a Magyar regiment, took Hill No. 166, it was announced that this had been achieved by the "fame-covered regiment," which was done to throw dust in the eyes of the Italians and the Entente. Various other methods were used to escape service at the front. A Slav doctor, whose hospital at Konjica could hold 400 patients, used to have 4000-5000 on the books; those whom he was unable to keep he gave convalescent leave. In this way he saved a great many of the Dalmatian _intelligentsia_. He and another Dalmatian doctor would send the men backwards and forwards, now to one hospital, now to another. One ordinary method for avoiding the front was to bribe the company commander and the N.C.O. who made out the lists. Yet sometimes there was no help for it. When, for instance, in September 1914 they were at Banjaluka, the enemy advanced to Pale, very near Sarajevo. My informant has a vivid recollection of the way in which a Viennese captain, the leader of the contingent, trembled. In a Bosnian valley they met a woman with five small children, one of whom was at her breast. The captain told my acquaintance (who was then a N.C.O.) to stay behind with some men and shoot her, but not to let him hear anything. He said that the General at Sarajevo had commanded that everything Serb that goes on two legs must be cut down. Yelavi['c] refused to carry out this order, whereupon the captain told Dr. Gozze, whom he greatly disliked, that he must do it. Gozze stayed behind, fired a few shots in the air and informed the captain that everything was over.

What the Austrian command really thought of the 37th Regiment, and of others, may be seen from a report dated December 2, 1916, and signed by the Archduke Frederick:

"... Certain events that have occurred can be explained only as the consequences of the weak attitude of the authorities towards the traitorous propaganda. On July 21, five soldiers of the 23rd Regiment deserted near Pogger, and gave the Italian Command important information regarding movements of troops and the course of the fighting near Gorica. Quite recently a lieutenant, two reserve officers, two N.C.O.'s and two soldiers deserted from the 37th Regiment, as did three soldiers from the 23rd Regiment. Since April, 244 desertions have taken place from the two regiments. Inquiry shows that these desertions occur regularly and immediately after the return of the soldiers from leave. Unless effective counter-measures are adopted it will be impossible to utilize these Dalmatian regiments."

It was not always an easy operation to surrender, even after one had reached the Italian lines. A friend of mine went over with another officer and eight men. In the first-line trenches they could see no one and felt uncertain what to do. However, they proceeded, and from the second-line trench their whispered calls were answered. They were made to pass in single file, holding up their hands, and with all the available weapons held in readiness against them. My friend, at his request, was conducted to the colonel, and the first thing that he did was to make a formal complaint against the way in which this army, of which he considered himself an ally, manned its front-line trenches.

The Yugoslavs who managed to escape to Russia volunteered for service and, after being organized by General Zivkovi['c] at Odessa, formed the two Divisions which, as is well known, did remarkable work in the Dobrudja. One only has to hear what the Bulgars say about them. In the battles round Constanza, during the campaign of 1916, one of these Divisions was so frequently engaged in the most arduous positions and had such enormous losses that it was regarded as having been wiped out. When the Roumanian troops retreated these Yugoslavs found themselves encircled by the Bulgarian and German armies; they hacked a way out with their bayonets. The higher officers had come from Serbia, the rest of them had previously been enrolled in Austria's army. Thirty-two officers out of 500 were killed, while 300 were wounded; and of the 42,000 men 1939 were killed and more than 8000 were wounded. Nevertheless the _morale_ remained excellent and there was no lack of new volunteers. "Verily," as the Serbian proverb says, "it does not snow to kill the beasts, but in order that they may leave their traces."

THE FAITHFUL ITALIANS

Now let us see what Austria's Italian subjects achieved in the War, basing ourselves less upon the post-war declarations of some Istrian, Trentino and Dalmatian Italians than upon the official Austrian reports that were sent about these gentlemen to the Government during the War. For example:

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ARMY: SUPREME COMMAND.

Pr. z. 3903.

_Dalmatia: Treatment of the Croatian
and Italian Factors._

TO THE IMPERIAL AND ROYAL MINISTER OF
THE INTERIOR, VIENNA.

KNIN, _June_ 25, 1915.

_I permit myself to notify:_

[Herein the Statthalter, Graf Attems, praises his Government for not having favoured one party more than another at Zadar. He proceeds to testify to the admirable conduct of Dr. Ziliotto, the well-known mayor (who subsequently toiled with such zeal for Italy). He says that under this gentleman Zadar was a very model of a place, never allowing an occasion to pass by when it was possible to show that, in grief and in gladness, the sentiments of the glorious House of Habsburg were its own. Thus on the "all-highest" birthday of the Emperor did the doctor and his townsfolk revel in loyalty, while at the outbreak of the Great War they accompanied the departing troops to the quay and provided patriotic music and refreshments. _This worthy conduct was not in the least modified_, says the Statthalter, _when Italy entered the War_.]