Chapter X: Part 10

A new electoral system was introduced, whereby the people voted for programmes and parties rather than directly for individual candidates. This, it was hoped, would render corruption more difficult by enclosing the individual within the framework of the list, and it was also hoped that there would be less violence than usual. As a matter of fact there probably was a diminution with respect to these two practices, but only because of the large number of abstentions--merely 29 per cent. voted in Rome, 38 per cent. in Naples, and in Turin scarcely more. The people were tired of the excessive complexity and dissimulation of Italian politics. There was a good deal of violence--in Milan, Florence, Bologna and Sicily the riots were sometimes fatal--and with such an electorate, more extensive than heretofore, so that symbols had often to be used instead of the printed word, it was to be expected that there would not be an atmosphere of even relatively calm discussion. At Naples 132 candidates struggled for eleven seats--their meetings were indescribable. And it may be thought that in such conditions the victorious parties would not necessarily reflect the wishes of the country. The Nationalists were dispersed, the Giolittians were routed--the Socialists increased from 40 to 156, and the Catholics from 30 to 101. Gabriele d'Annunzio had been the Socialists' chief elector.

THEIR WISH FOR RIEKA, DEAD OR ALIVE

There was now a fair hope that the Government would be in a position to solve the Adriatic problem. The Italian delegates in Paris had suggested that, in the independent buffer State, Rieka should have a separate municipal status, and that a narrow strip of land should join the buffer State to Italy. On December 9, a memorandum was signed by the representatives of Great Britain and America, which was the best compromise which anyone had yet proposed. The strip was dismissed as being "counter to every known consideration of geography, economics and territorial convenience." [Nevertheless this very dangerous expedient of the strip, after having been thus roundly rejected by the Allies, formed a part of the Treaty of Rapallo in November 1920--the Yugoslavs had most generously given way rather than leave this exasperating Adriatic problem still unsolved.] Rieka with her environment was to be a _corpus separatum_--and this was the chief point which made the proposals inacceptable to Italy. That Socialist group which is represented by the _Avanti_ seemed to be the only one whose attitude was not intransigeant. The question of Rieka, it argued, was not isolated, but should be considered as one of the numerous questions of Italian foreign politics. It laughed at those who every moment cry "Our Fiume," because there are in the town many people who speak Italian. Other groups of Socialists had altered very much from the day when the three delegates--Labriola, Raimundo and Cappa--spoke of the Adriatic at the Congress which Kerensky summoned to Petrograd. Labriola was considered the most arrogant and chauvinist of the trio, but not even he demanded Rieka--there was no question of it at the time. Still less did he dream of Zadar or [vS]ibenik; what he pleaded for was Triest, Istria and an island.... In December 1919 some Italian Socialist papers were printing reports on the economic life of Rieka, which was in a disastrous condition. But the great majority of Italians were so bent upon securing Rieka that they did not seem to care if by that time she were dead. And they threw a little dust into their eyes, if not into the eyes of the Entente, by declaring that if they did not annex Rieka that unhappy, faithful town would annex them. The self-appointed Consiglio Nazionale Italiano of Rieka was, however, at this time less preoccupied with the Madre Patria than with her own very troublesome affairs; she had no leisure to organize those patriotic deputations to Rome, which sailed so frequently across the Adriatic and which, as was revealed by Signor Nitti's organ _Il Tempo_,[46] were too often composed of speculators who liked to receive in Italy the sum of 60 centesimi for an unstamped Austrian paper crown that was barely worth ten. The disillusioned C.N.I. would have given a good many lire to be rid of d'Annunzio; the citizens were invited to vote on the following question: "Is it desirable to accept the proposal of the Italian Government, declared acceptable by the C.N.I. at its meeting of December 15, which absolves Gabriele d'Annunzio and his legionaries from their oath to hold Rieka until its annexation has been decreed and effected?" On December 21, in the Chamber, Signor Nitti announced that more than half the citizens had voted and that four-fifths of them were in favour of the suggestion of the C.N.I. But d'Annunzio, whose adherents by no means facilitated the plebiscite, proclaimed it null and void. Yet, after all, Italy had likewise, on every occasion when the Yugoslavs suggested a plebiscite under impartial control, refused to sanction it.

FRUITLESS EFFORTS OF ITALY'S ALLIES

Then suddenly a ray of light shone through the clouds. The ever-cheerful Signor Nitti, after a conference with Lloyd George and Clemenceau--no Yugoslav being present, whereas Signor Nitti was both pleader and judge--was authorized to say that the December memorandum had been shelved. Terms more favourable to Italy were substituted and the Yugoslav Government were told they must accept them. One of these terms was to modify the Wilson line in Istria, ostensibly for the protection of Triest and in reality to dominate the railway line Rieka-St. Peter-Ljubljana; another of the terms was to present Italy with that narrow corridor which in December the Allies had so peremptorily disallowed. No wonder the American Ambassador in France gave his warning. "You are going," he said, "much too far and much too quickly. President Wilson cannot keep pace with you." The French Government was passing through a period of change, and these new proposals, as was underlined in the _Temps_,[47] emanated from London. Mr. Lloyd George, who may have wished for Signor Nitti's aid in his offensive against France in the Russian and Turkish questions, was this time very badly served by his intuition. The Yugoslavs were ordered to accept the new proposals or to submit to the application of the Treaty of London, that secret and abandoned instrument which--to mention only one of the objections against it--provided for complete Yugoslav sovereignty over Rieka, a solution that, in view of Italy's inflamed public opinion, was for the time being impracticable. And while the Yugoslavs were told that Rieka would, under the Treaty of London, fall to them, no details were given as to how d'Annunzio was to be removed. "Nous sommes dans l'incoherence," as Clemenceau used to say of the political condition of France before the war. Seeing that the Italian Government and the C.N.I. had shown themselves so powerless, were France and England going to turn the poet out? But Mr. Lloyd George was more fortunate than Disraeli, whose error in the question of Bosnia and Herzegovina had had such dire results; on February 13, a very firm note was issued by President Wilson, which compelled France and Great Britain to withdraw from the position they had taken up. Wilson would have nothing to do with the notorious corridor, though Clemenceau had said on January 13, to the Yugoslav delegates: "Si nous n'avions pas fait cette concession, nous n'avions pas eu le reste." "The American Government," said Wilson, "feels that it cannot sacrifice the principle for which it entered the war to gratify the improper ambition of one of its associates, Italy, to purchase a temporary appearance of calm in the Adriatic at the price of a future world conflagration." The rejoinder of the French and British Premiers was a trifle lame, and when they ventured to add that they could not believe that it was the purpose of the American people, as the President threatened, to retire from the treaty with Germany and the agreement of June 28, 1919, with France unless his point of view was adopted in this particular case, which, in their opinion, had "the appearance of being so inadequate," they were not caring to remember that while their own countries and Italy were suffering from a lack of food-stuffs and provisions were being imported at a disastrous rate of exchange from the United States, the products of Yugoslavia, such as meat and meal, could not be obtained because Rieka, which ought surely to serve its hinterland, was at that moment not available, owing to d'Annunzio. At the same time the President did not go to the opposite extreme of simply allocating the port to Yugoslavia, which the application of the Treaty of London would involve. He preferred to act on the principle that the differences between Italy and the Yugoslavs were inconsiderable, especially as compared with the magnitude of their common interests. And direct negotiations between the two parties were to be recommended, with the proviso that no use be made of France and Great Britain's immoral suggestion that an agreement be reached on "the basis of compensation elsewhere at the expense of nationals of a third Power." It had indeed been proposed that the Yugoslavs should be bribed by concessions in Albania, but this idea was very explicitly rejected and on more than one occasion by the Yugoslav delegates in Paris.

While, in the following months, the Yugoslavs and the Italians negotiated, the task of their delegates was impeded by the occasional Cabinet crises in Belgrade and in Rome. It was made no easier by those Italians who clamorously objected to the remark of Clemenceau, when he said that both Yugoslavs and Italians had been compelled to fight in Austria's army. The _Corriere d'Italia_ told him that he displayed the zeal of a corporal to defend the Yugoslavs. After alluding to his "historical inexactitudes," it reminded him of the Italians who were slain at Reims and the Chemin des Dames, but as usual omitted to speak of the French soldiers who fell in Italy. And, while the negotiations were being carried on, Gabriele d'Annunzio clung to his town. The compromise of a mixed administration seemed to have small chance of being realized. It had been proposed by that Inter-Allied Commission which was set up to investigate the circumstances of the French massacre; and the Italian delegate, General di Robilant, not only said in his report[48] to the Senate that this compromise was most favourable for Italian aspirations but he is alleged also to have included some very drastic criticism of the actions of the high military authorities, whom he charged with unconstitutional interference. Nevertheless neither the poet nor the Premier were as yet in a tractable mood with regard to the Rieka problem. Signor Nitti, parading his bonhomie, championed the cause in a more statesmanlike fashion; he did not, like d'Annunzio, evoke the world's ridicule by his footlight attitudes and those of his faithful supporters who, when his "Admiral" Rizzo abandoned him, when Giorati his confidant withdrew, when even Millo advised moderation, took certain piratical steps in order to keep the garrison supplied with food,[49] and composed an anthem which on ceremonial occasions was chanted in the poet's honour. But when Signor Nitti observed, with the utmost affability, that Rieka had, after the fall of the Crown of St. Stephen, become mistress of her own fate and as such, regardless of the Treaty of London, asked for inclusion in Italy, he, the Prime Minister, was vying in recklessness with d'Annunzio. The prevailing sentiment both in Triest and Rieka, said the _Times_,[50] was that both these towns should become free ports in order to serve their hinterlands, which are not Italian. "Italy is neglecting Triest in favour of Venice," says the dispatch. In Rieka, where the situation was even worse, "an honest plebiscite, even if confined to the Italian part of the city, would give a startling result. The Italians of Rieka are convinced that their existence depends on good relations with the Yugoslavs. They wish the town and port to be independent under the sovereignty of the League of Nations. This I have recently been told by a large number of Italians in Rieka who are obliged, in public, to support d'Annunzio." Signor Nitti must have been aware that the voice of the C.N.I. was very far from being the voice of Rieka. The C.N.I. had reasons of their own for wishing to postpone the day when their arbitrary powers would come to an end and a legal Government, whether that of the League of Nations or of the people's will or of Italy or of Yugoslavia, be established.

SOME OF RIEKA'S SCANDALS

Owing to the complaints of innumerable citizens the C.N.I. had nominated a Commission to inquire into the pillage of the former Austrian stores at Rieka--this town, as we have mentioned, had been the base for the Albanian army--and the findings of that Commission displayed the culpability of the most prominent members of the C.N.I. This document was for a long time unknown to the general public, but was afterwards published in Italy by Signor Riccardo Zanella, himself an Italian and an ex-deputy and ex-mayor of Rieka. There was, by the way, an article in the Triest paper, _Il Lavoratore_, at the beginning of September 1920, wherein one Tercilio Borghese, a former member of d'Annunzio's army, confesses that on June 21, he was ordered by d'Annunzio, as also by Colonel Sani and Captain Baldassari, to get Signor Zanella in some way out of the world. Hinko Camero and Angelo Marzi['c], his fellow-workers, had likewise to be removed; and for this purpose Borghese says that the Colonel provided him with a revolver. He was also to try to seize any compromising documents. But he was forced by his conscience to reveal everything to Zanella.... Now this confession may be true or false, but the Triest "fascisti" (Nationalists) believed in it, for they issued a placard on which they called Borghese a traitor and threatened him with death. "He who after November 1918 returns to the martyred town," writes Signor Zanella, "is simply stupefied in beholding that those personages who now strut on the political scene, burning with the most ardent Italian patriotism, are the same who until the eve of Vittorio Veneto were the most unbending, the most eloquent and the most devoted partisans and servants of the reactionary Magyar regime." And around them a number of more or less questionable persons were assembled, whose conduct with regard to the disposal of the Austrian stores has now been so severely censured. That organization which, dependent on the C.N.I., was supposed to administer the stores, was known as the Adriatic Commission. "We all knew," said the Commission of inquiry, "that the eyes of the whole world were gazing at our little town." It was, therefore, very desirable that nothing irregular should be done; whereas the judges give a most unfavourable verdict. Nobody, they say, would rejoice more than themselves if their conclusions should be shown to be completely or partly erroneous, for they are all of them penetrated with love for the fatherland Italy. But they relate, with chapter and verse, a large number of peculiar transactions which show that the goods were very improperly and very hastily auctioned, and that those who reaped the benefit were nearly always the same people. To give one instance, some of the wine, said to have been damaged, was sold at 260 crowns the thousand litres, while undamaged wine brought 320 crowns, and the firm of Riboli, the only one which appeared at the so-called auction, was only asked to pay 30 crowns. Thus a considerable number of people in Rieka were anxious that the town should not come under any Government which might punish the culprits or make them disgorge. And Nitti and d'Annunzio agreed with these interested parties in opposing a solution other than the overlordship of Italy. "The Yugoslavs should understand," said the amiable Premier, "that Italy has no intention of acting in a manner distasteful to them, but is struggling for a national ideal." And meantime what of the conditions in the poor distracted town? "D'Annunzio," says an Italian paper, "is no longer the master of Rieka. He has become the prisoner of his own troops.... While he amuses himself and organizes the worst orgies, his troops quarrel in the streets and discharge their weapons.... A great many of them have their mistresses in the hospital, where they make themselves at home. When the doctors, after some time, protested, the arditi, with bombs in their hands, threatened to blow up the hospital if they were not allowed to enter it." On the other hand the pale, weary-looking poet succeeded in impressing on a special correspondent of the _Morning Post_ that he was "master of his job." He told this gentleman--and was apparently believed--that with the consent and approval of the C.N.I. he had had the whole place mined, city and harbour, and was prepared to blow it up at a moment's notice. The means by which d'Annunzio, according to his interviewer, worked on those who were depressed with gazing at the empty shops, the silent warehouses, the grass-grown wharves, so that the overwhelming majority of the town supported him, was by simply making to them an eloquent speech. D'Annunzio would indeed be the master of his job if with some rounded periods in Italian he could cause the very numerous hostile business men to forget so blissfully that they were men of business. Under his dispensation the town is said to have been turned into a place of debauchery. Accusations were brought against his sexual code, and with regard to men of commerce: "those who are not partisans of d'Annunzio are expelled, and their establishments handed over to friends of the ruling power.... Woe to him who dares to condemn the transactions of the poet's adherents. There and then he is pronounced to be a Yugoslav, is placed under surveillance and is persecuted." These Italian critics of the poet do not in the least exaggerate. One instance of his conduct towards a British firm will be sufficient. The "Anglo-Near East Trading Company" shipped sixty-seven cases (5292 pairs) of boots to private traders in Belgrade, and on the way they reached Rieka just before d'Annunzio. In March 1920 they were still detained there, and on the 13th of that month a certain Alcesde di Ambris, who described himself as the Chief of the Cabinet, wrote a letter saying that the boots were requisitioned, and that they would be paid for within thirty days at a price fixed on March 5 by experts of the local Chamber of Commerce. The company was offered forty lire a pair, but they declined to accept so inadequate a sum. Senor Meynia, the Spanish Consul, who was also representing Great Britain, attempted in various ways to help the firm; he was finally told by an officer that the "exceptional situation of Rieka compels the Authority to suspend the exportation or transport of such goods as are thoroughly needed here." And the Consul could do no more than protest. One might presume, from this officer's reply, that d'Annunzio required the boots for his army. As a matter of fact, they were simply sold to a couple of dealers, one Levy of Triest and Mailaender of Rieka. It is alleged that the prices paid by these receivers of stolen property was a good deal higher than forty lire. When Signor di Ambris travelled to Rome in the merry month of June and enjoyed a consultation with the Prime Minister, who by this time was Signor Giolitti, it was not in order to explain any such transactions as that one of the boots, but for the purpose, we are told, of offering the services of d'Annunzio and his legionaries in Albania. The regular Italian army was just then being roughly handled by the natives.... It may be that Signor di Ambris wanted guarantees that if the d'Annunzian troops were to come to the rescue, they would not suffer the fate of the Yugoslavs who in the Great War had managed to desert to Italy, had valiantly fought and won many decorations and--after the War--been ignominiously interned. And they had given no grounds for charges of financial frailty.

PROGRESS OF THE YUGOSLAV IDEA

The months go by and Yugoslavia still survives. At the post-office of a large village in Syrmia, not far from Djakovo, where Bishop Strossmayer laboured during fifty-five years for the union of the Southern Slavs which he was destined not to see, a bulky farmer told me that in his opinion Yugoslavia, created in 1918, was now in 1920 "kaput." He deduced this from the fact that a telegram used to travel much more expeditiously in Austrian days; but he did not remember that the Yugoslavs, in the Serbian and in the Austro-Hungarian armies, had suffered enormous losses in the War, and that while French, Dutch and Swiss doctors have been obtained by the Belgrade Government, one cannot use telegraphists who are ignorant of the language. An excellent province in which Yugoslavia's solidity can be studied is Bosnia. At the outbreak of the War the Moslems and Croats were not imbued with the Yugoslav idea; it seemed to them that the Serbs, one of whom had slain the Archduke, were traitors to Southern Slavdom. During the War the Croats and Moslems were taught by their Slav officers to be good nationalists and were given frequent lessons in the art of going over to the enemy. After the Armistice one did not see every Serb, Croat and Moslem in Bosnia forthwith forgetting all the evil of the past. Among the less enlightened certain private acts of vengeance had to be performed; but these were not as numerous as one might have expected. And very soon the population of Bosnia came to be interested far less in the old religious differences--the two deputies Dr. D[vz]amonia and Professor Stanojevi['c] smilingly remembered the day when, as schoolboys at Sarajevo, they had been persuaded by the Austrians to pull out each other's hair for the reason that one was a Croat and one was a Serb--and now it was the engrossing subject of Agrarian Reform which claimed the attention of Catholic, Orthodox and Moslem. This is not a religious question, for while the landlords are mostly Muhammedan begs about half the peasants are of the same religion; and the negotiations have been marked by a notable absence of passion. Most of the begs acknowledge that the old regime was unprofitable, for with the peasant paying one-third to one-fifth of his production to the landlord the land only yielded, as compared with the sandy districts of East Prussia, in the proportion of five to twenty-two. Under the new order of things, with the State in support of the "usurping" peasant--so that there are said to be in Bosnia about a thousand peasants who are millionaires (in crowns)--there is no longer any dispute with regard to the "kmet" land, where the peasants with hereditary rights have become the owners; and with regard to the "begluk," which the beg used to let to anyone he pleased, it is only a question as to the degree of compensation. Thus, it is not among the landowners and the peasants that one must look in searching for an anti-national party. Bosnia contains various iron works and coal mines, where profession is made of Communism. But when the Prince-Regent was about to come to pay his first official visit in 1920 to Sarajevo the Governor received a communication from the Communists of Zenica, which is on the railway line. They asked for permission to salute "our Prince" as he came past; and a deputation of these Communists, who are very like their colleagues in other parts of Yugoslavia, duly appeared and took part in a ceremony at the station.

DESPITE THE NEW PHENOMENON OF COMMUNISM

Just as innocuous--whatever the enemies of Yugoslavia may say--are the Communists in the old kingdom of Serbia. Perhaps in the whole State of Yugoslavia they number 50,000 in a population of about 12,500,000. But they are so well organized that in the municipal elections of 1920 they were victorious in most of the towns. In Belgrade they secured 3600 votes, as compared with 3200 for the Radicals, 2800 for the Democrats--both of whom were not only badly organized but very slack--and 605 for the Republicans. However, the Communists refused to swear the requisite oath, and in consequence were not permitted to take office, the Radicals and Democrats forming a union to carry on. It was agreed to have a new election and the other parties, being now awakened, determined that the Communists should not again top the poll. But in the provincial towns they have not by any means shown themselves a disintegrating influence. At Ni[vs], for example, they conducted the municipal affairs quite satisfactorily, while at [vC]uprija they perceived that it would be impossible to put into effect their entire programme, and so, after fourteen days, they resigned.

THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMUNISM IN YUGOSLAVIA

... As for the Communists in the Skup[vs]tina, it may be argued that though this party of over fifty members has ceased to exist we should have said not simply that they are innocuous but that they have been rendered so. They were in principle against any State which violated their somewhat hazy ideas on the subject of Capital: while professing to aim at the holding of wealth in common they secured a great deal of their success at the polls through the bait of more land for the individual, which they dangled before the eyes of the most ignorant classes. Some of the electors who supported them were prosperous farmers unable to resist the idea of a still larger farm; but the majority of their adherents were as ignorant as they were gullible. Yet one should remember that for most of them this was practically their first experience of an election: the constituencies which had formerly been in Austria-Hungary had always seen the booths under the supervision of the police, while the Macedonian voter (three Communists were returned for Skoplje) had only known the institutions of the Turkish Empire. Being told by the Communists that their box at the polling-station was really the box for the poor, the Fukara, all the gypsies and so forth of Skoplje, who had never voted in their lives, hastened to claim the privilege, under the impression that a Communist Government would liberate them from taxes and military service. Other reasons for the success of the Communists in Yugoslavia, an essentially non-industrial State, were the general discontent with post-war conditions, and the virus which so many of the voters had acquired in Russia or on the Dobrudja front during the War. The activity in the Skup[vs]tina of this very indigestible party--largely composed of Turks, Magyars, Albanians, Germans and others--their activity in and out of Parliament was not confined to words. In June 1920 they only refrained from throwing bombs in the Skup[vs]tina because one of their own members would have been in peril, and in December a plot against the Prince-Regent and some of the Ministers was foiled. Thereupon the Emergency Act of December 27, the so-called Obznana, came into existence. It suspended all Communist associations. This Act was issued for the good of the country, but was not previously presented to the Constituent Assembly or provided with the royal signature. How justified were the authorities in thus putting a stop to this party could be seen when some of the Communist deputies were interrogated, for either they were dangerous fanatics or else very ignorant individuals, who knew no more about any other question than about Communism, and had only been elected because they professed dissatisfaction with things in general. A few months later Mr. Dra[vs]kovi['c], the very able Minister of the Interior, who had drawn up the Obznana, but who by that time had laid down the seals of office, was murdered by Communists at a seaside resort in the presence of his wife and little children. The object of this particular outrage was to persuade the authorities in panic to withdraw the hated Obznana, whereas the previous attempts on various personages seem to have been greatly due to the desire to show some positive result in return for the cash which came to them from Moscow. (One of the leaders of the party, the ex-professor of mathematics, was arrested last summer in Vienna on his return from Moscow, with a large and very miscellaneous collection of English, French, American, Russian and other money.) After the murder of Mr. Dra[vs]kovi['c] the mandates of the Communist deputies were suppressed; seven or eight of them were detained, for speedy trial, and the rest were told to go to their homes. The Communist parliamentary party was at an end--it was established that their Committee room in the Skup[vs]tina had been used for highly improper purposes--but there was nothing to prevent these ex-deputies from being elected as members of any other party, and it was rather beside the mark for an English review, the _Labour Monthly_,[51] to talk of the "White Terror in Jugo-Slavia," as if there prevailed in that country anything comparable with Admiral Horthy's regime in Hungary.

OTHER LIONS IN THE PATH

The behaviour of the Communists was far from being the only clog in Yugoslavia's parliamentary machine. After the first General Election of November 1920--delayed until then on account of Italy's attitude, which made it impossible to demobilize the army--no single party nor even one of the large groups was possessed of a real working majority. Fierce and determined was the Opposition;[52] to carry on the business of government it became necessary to secure the coalition of several parties. The Radical and Democrat _bloc_ had to attract to its side one or two other parties, and it was truly difficult to make concessions to anyone of these without rousing the righteous or the envious wrath of another group. In principle it was proper that the Bosnian Moslems should receive compensation for their estates; the question is whether the very large sum was less in the nature of a fair price than of a bribe. The Radical party was no longer under its happy triumvirate of Pa[vs]i['c], the old diplomat, Proti['c], the executor of his ideas, and Patchou, a medical man from Novi Sad, the real brain of the party. We shall give an example of Patchou's prudence; the long views which he possessed may be illustrated by what occurred at a meeting of Radical deputies two days before the outbreak of the second Balkan War. The Tzar's proposed arbitration was being discussed and certain deputies, such as the late Dr. Pavlovi['c], who was the first speaker of the Yugoslav Parliament after the Great War, raised their voices in opposition; they were supported by the army. "Can we have Bitolje (Monastir)?" they asked. "It is not known what the Tzar will decide," said Pa[vs]i['c]. "Then we can't accept arbitration," said Pavlovi['c]. And Patchou spoke. "I would be very glad to know," said he, "what Mr. Pavlovi['c] would say if we could get, by possibly now sacrificing Bitolje, not only Bosnia, but Dalmatia and other Slav countries." "All that," said Pavlovi['c], "is music of the future." "For you perhaps," said Patchou, "but not for us." And the vote in favour of arbitration was carried. Patchou died in 1915 at Ni[vs]. Besides being an expert in finance and foreign affairs he was less arbitrary in his methods than Proti['c]. That very erudite man--no sooner does an important book appear in Western or Central Europe than a copy of it goes to his library--has not been much endowed with patience. This brought him into conflict with his Democratic colleague Mr. Pribi[vc]evi['c], the most prominent man in that party. It would have been well if Dr. Davidovi['c], the gentle, tactful leader of the party, could have taken into his own composition one-half of his lieutenant's excessive combativeness. Pribi[vc]evi['c] and Proti['c] find it impossible to work together, and we can sympathize with both of them. One day at a more than usually disagreeable Cabinet meeting Pribi[vc]evi['c] reminded the then Prime Minister that he was the first among equals, a point of view which did not square with the methods of Proti['c], who gives his support to those Ministers who bend before him. And as Pribi[vc]evi['c] has hitherto insisted on being in every Cabinet, Proti['c] has withdrawn and has started a newspaper, the _Radical_, in which he attacks him with great violence and ability. One charge which he brings against this Serb from Croatia is perfectly true, for he has succeeded in alienating the Croats. Only two or three Democrat deputies come from Croatia, and they are elected by the Serbs who live in that province. It would seem that the Croats will remain in more or less active opposition so long as Pribi[vc]evi['c], the arch-centralizer who scorns to wear the velvet glove, stays in the Government. There is also much doubt as to whether Proti['c] can break down their particularism, which, of course, is not an anti-national movement. But luckily, through other men, it will be stayed. For other reasons one regrets that Mr. Proti['c] is not now in power; as the Finance Minister he knew how to introduce order, preferring the interests of the State to those of his party. Both Radicals and Democrats have been reluctant, for electoral purposes, to tax the farmer; and Mr. Proti['c] would probably have the courage to impose a direct tax, as the Radicals did, without losing popular favour, in the old days. In this respect and concerning the numerous posts that have been created for party reasons it is thought that Mr. Pa[vs]i['c] has not displayed sufficient energy.

There was in Yugoslavia a heavy war deficit, both economic and financial. Communications were out of order and the State, owing to the adverse exchange (which was not justified by the economic potentialities of the country, but was probably caused by the unsettled conditions both internal and external), the State could not obtain the necessary raw products for industrial undertakings such as iron-works, tanneries, cloth factories, etc. The Yugoslavs did not borrow from abroad, as they might have done, in the form of raw materials. The agricultural products which were exported should have been sold for the needful manufacturers' material and not for articles of luxury and not for depreciated foreign, especially Austrian, currency.[53] The Yugoslav public is slow to learn economy, that it should restrict the importation of luxuries. What makes it particularly unhappy, in which frame of mind it listens to the voices prophesying woe for Yugoslavia, is the knowledge that for increased production and for many other necessary aims more capital is wanted, whereas under present conditions it has been difficult to borrow. But happily in this respect the corner has been turned, and in the spring of 1922 a considerable loan was negotiated with an American syndicate.

THE NADIR OF DEVINE AND NIKITA

However, the principal disintegrating force in Yugoslavia, we were often told in England, was Montenegro, where, it seems, the natives were yearning to cast off their yoke. The British devotees of the former king told us of the ghastly state of Montenegro, and our Foreign Office was bombarded with reports which ascribed these evils to the wretched Government of Yugoslavia. "There is nothing anywhere," says a memorandum from the ineffable Devine. "The shops are empty, the town markets are deserted. The peasants, who may not travel from one village to another without a Serbian 'permit' ... etc. etc." Well, I visited Cetinje market on a non-market day, and passing through the crowd of people I admired the produce of various parts of the country--melons, tomatoes, dried fish, onions, peaches, nuts and cheese, lemons from Antivari and so forth. I happened to ask a comely woman called Petrie[vc]evi['c] from near Podgorica whether she had a permit; she looked surprised at such a question. It is very true that the more mountainous parts of Montenegro are far from prosperous, but to insinuate that this is the fault of the Government is childish. Hampered by the lack of transport--practically everything has to be brought on ox-carts up by the tremendous road from Kotor--they have recently given away 38,000 kilos of wheat and many mountain horses at Cetinje. I suppose it was all in the game for Devine and his assistants to throw mud at the Yugoslav Government if they believed that they would--for the happiness of the Montenegrins and themselves--help to restore Nikita. But what was the use of saying that "the poor people have no money and have nothing to eat; they are said to be living on a herb of some sort that grows wild in the mountains"?... A very satisfactory feature of the past year has been the migration of 7000 Montenegrins to more fertile parts of Yugoslavia. And as for Nikita's partisans, they were such small beer that when they wished to hold a meeting at Cetinje the Government had not the least objection; it also allowed them to sing the songs that Nikita wrote, but that was more than the population of Cetinje would stand. It is only at Cetinje, where he reigned for sixty years, and at Njegu[vs], where he was born, that Nikita has any adherents at all. As for his adherents at Gaeta, the Cetinje authorities were perfectly willing to give a passport to any woman who desired to spend some time in Italy with her husband or brother or son. She might stay there or come back, just as she pleased. And very likely when she got to Gaeta she would relate how in the cathedral, at the rock-bound monastery of Ostrog, and in other sacred places, one could see the Montenegrin women cursing their ex-king.

A GENERAL

The sinister shadow of d'Annunzio had fallen across Dalmatia and beyond it: for instance, on November 20, 1919, the King of Italy's name-day, a general holiday was proclaimed in the occupied districts. The director of the school at Zlosela, a Slav who had never been an Italian subject, gave--perhaps injudiciously--the usual lessons. He and his wife were arrested and for months they were in prison, their six-months-old child being left to the mercy of neighbours; and the local commandant, Major Gracco Golini, told Dr. Smol[vc]i['c], the President of the National Council, that the slightest action on the part of the Yugoslavs would provoke terrible measures on the part of d'Annunzio's arditi, who would spare neither women nor children.... The reader may remember the Montenegrin General Ve[vs]ovi['c], who took to the mountains and defied the Austrians. On the accession of the Emperor Karl he surrendered and, much to the surprise of his people, he travelled round the country recommending every one to offer no more opposition, to be quiet and obedient to the Austrians. When the war was over the authorities at Belgrade gave him, as they did to other Montenegrin generals, the same rank in the Yugoslav army; but the numerous Montenegrins who resented his unpatriotic behaviour persuaded the War Office, after two or three months, to remove him from the active list. This exasperated the ambitious man to such an extent that he withdrew to his own district and began to work against Yugoslavia. A major with a force of 200 gendarmes was sent to fetch him back and, after conversations that lasted ten days, induced him to return to Belgrade. There he was not molested; he used to sit for hours in the large cafe of the Hotel Moscow in civilian clothes. But one day a policeman at the harbour happened to observe him talking for a long time to a fisherman; he wondered what the two might have in common. When the fisherman was interrogated he refused at first to give any information, but he finally divulged that he had agreed, for 1500 francs, to take the General down the Danube either to Bulgaria or Roumania. That evening at nine o'clock the General appeared, with his son and a servant; he was captured,[54] and among his documents were some which proved, it was alleged, that he was in communication with d'Annunzio.

TWO COMIC PRO-ITALIANS IN OUR MIDST

Month follows month. The reading public and some of the statesmen of the world begin to recognize that, whatever may be the case on other portions of the new map, there is nothing unreal or impossible or artificial about Yugoslavia. This State is the result of a national movement, having its origins within and not without the peoples whose destiny it affects. The various Yugoslavs, after being kept apart for all these centuries, have now--roughly speaking--come to that stage which the Germans reached in 1866. They cannot rest until they reach the unity which came to the Germans after 1870. And here also, it seems, the unity will not be gained without the sacrifice of thousands of young men. "Go, my son," said Oxenstiern the Swedish Chancellor, "and observe by what imbeciles the world is governed." It is pitiable that the leaders of the nations, in declining month after month to give to Yugoslavia an equitable frontier, should apparently have been more impressed by the arguments of Mrs. Lucy Re-Bartlett[55] than by those of an anonymous philosopher in the _Edinburgh Review_.[56] "Nationality?" says the lady, speaking of the country people of Dalmatia, "nationality? These people of the country districts--the great mass of the population--are far too primitive to have any sense of nationality as yet, but if some day they call themselves Italian...." That is what she says of a people which through centuries of persecution and neglect have preserved their language, their traditions, their hopes; a people which, more than forty years ago, won their great victory against the Habsburg regime of Italian and Italianist officials, so that with one exception every mayor in Dalmatia and all the Imperial deputies and hundreds of societies of all kinds, such as 375 rural savings-banks, were exclusively Yugoslav. Out of nearly 150,000 votes at the last general election, which was held in 1911 on the basis of universal suffrage, the Yugoslav candidates received about 145,000 against 5000 to 6000 for the Italians. It is indisputable that the Dalmatian peasants are backward in many things, but one is really sorry for the person who declares in print that they possess no sense of nationality. Let her visit any house of theirs on Christmas Eve and watch them celebrate the "badnjak"; let her listen any evening to their songs. Let her think whether there is no sense of nationality among the priests, who almost to a man are the sons of Yugoslav peasants. And let her recollect that these are the days when the other Yugoslavs are at last uniting in their own free State. She has the hardihood to tell us of the poor Dalmatians who were being bribed with waterworks and bridges and gratuitous doctoring. I daresay that the little ragged Slav children of Kievo whom she saw clustering round the kindly Italian officer were glad enough to eat his chocolates,[57] but I think that we others should pay more attention to those secret societies, the _[vc]etasis_ (which is Slav for komitadjis), who have sworn to liberate all Istria from the Italians. We may also consider the proposals made by the Southern Slavs whom Signor Salvemini, the distinguished Professor of Modern History at Pisa, called "extreme Nationalists" (see his letter of September 11, 1916, to the editor of _La Serbie_, which was being published in Switzerland). Well, it appears that the "extreme Southern Slav Nationalists," as the utmost of their aspirations, claim the Southern Slav section of the province of Gorica with the town Triest and the whole of Istria, that is to say, a territory which, with a population the majority of whom are Slav, contains also 284,325 Italians, whereas the smallest programme ever proposed by moderate Italians, including Professor Salvemini, covets some 364,000 Southern Slavs. Thus the extreme Southern Slav elements, in their widest demands, are more moderate than the moderate Italians in their most limited programme. "Without distinction of tribe or creed," says that Edinburgh reviewer, "all the Yugoslavs are waiting for their 1870. This will fix and perpetuate their unity.... The preparation is going forward silently--almost sullenly--and without demur or qualification the Yugoslavs are accepting the Serb military chiefs' guidance and domination." He was much impressed by the silence and controlled power of the Serbian General Staff. There was in Europe a general war-weariness; but not in Yugoslavia. There was a hush in this part of Europe, broken only by the shrill screams of Italian propagandists and outbursts of suppressed passion on the other side.

THE BELATED TREATY OF RAPALLO

And the Rapallo Treaty of November 1920, when at last the statesmen of Italy and Yugoslavia came to terms regarding all their frontiers! This Treaty was received with much applause by the great majority of the French and British Press; in this country of compromise it was pointed out by many that as each party knew that the other had abated something of his desires the Treaty would probably remain in operation for a long time to come. And column after column of smug comment was written in various newspapers by the "Diplomatic Correspondent," whose knowledge of diplomacy may have been greater than his acquaintance with the Adriatic, since they followed one another, like a procession of sheep, in copying the mistake in a telegram which spoke of Eritto, the curious suburb of Zadar, instead of Borgo Erizzo. They noted that each side had yielded something, though it was true that the Yugoslavs had been the more generous in surrendering half a million of their compatriots, whereas the Italians had given up Dalmatia, to which they never had any right.[58] "The claim for Dalmatia was entirely unjustified," said Signor Colajanni in the Italian Chamber on November 23--yet it was not our business to weigh the profit and loss to the two interested parties. After all, it was they who had between themselves made this Agreement, and one might argue that it surely would be an impertinence if anybody else was more royalist than the king. These commentators held that it was inexpedient for anyone to ask why the Yugoslavs should now have accepted conditions that were, on the whole, considerably worse than those which President Wilson, with the approval of Great Britain and France, had laid down as a minimum, if they were to realize their national unity. And, of course, these writers deprecated any reference to the pressure which France and Great Britain brought to bear upon the Yugoslavs when the negotiations at Rapallo were in danger of falling through. If we take two Scottish newspapers, the _Scotsman_[59] was typical of this very bland attitude; it congratulated everyone on the harmonious close to a long, intricate and frequently dangerous controversy. The _Glasgow Herald_,[60] on the other hand, was one of the few newspapers which took a more than superficial view. "Monstrous," it said, "as such intervention seems, no student of the Adriatic White Paper--as lamentable a collection of documents as British diplomacy has to show--can deny its possibility, nay its probability. It is precisely the same game as was nearly successful in January 1920 and again in April 1920, but both times was frustrated by Wilson. We are entitled to ask, for the honour of our nation, if it has been played again; indeed if the whole mask of direct negotiation--a British suggestion--was not devised at San Remo with the express purpose of making the game succeed. If it be so--and if it is not so it is imperative that we are given frankly the full story of British policy in the Adriatic, for instance the dispatches so carefully omitted from the White Paper--then our forebodings for the future are more than justified.... It is emphatically a bad settlement."

"We shall not establish friendly and normal relations with our neighbour Italy unless we reduce all causes of friction to a minimum," said M. Vesni['c], the Yugoslav Prime Minister, who during his long tenure of the Paris Legation was an active member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and other learned societies; he excelled in getting at the root of the worst difficulties in international law, and he was particularly admired for his ability to combine legal and historic knowledge. Because he studied history minutely--with a special fondness for Gambetta who, racially an Italian, had something of the generous and sacred fervour that distinguished the leaders of the Risorgimento--M. Vesni['c] could not bring himself to hate Italy, despite all that d'Annunzio and other Imperialists had made his countrymen suffer. "Neither the Government nor the elected representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes," said he courageously in his first speech as Prime Minister, "ought to look upon Italy as an enemy country. We have to settle important and difficult questions with Italy.... We must reduce all causes of friction to a minimum."

The Treaty of Rapallo gives Zadar to Italy, because in that little town there is an Italian majority; but central and eastern Istria, with their overwhelming Slav majority, are not given to the Yugoslavs--a fact which Professor Salvemini deplored in the Roman Chamber. By the Treaty of Rapallo Rieka is given independence,[61] but with Italy in possession of Istria and the isle of Cres, she can at any moment choke the unprotected port, having very much the same grip of that place as Holland has for so long had of Antwerp; and the sole concession on Italy's part seems to be that in the south she gives up the large Slav islands of Hvar, Kor[vc]ula and Vis, and only appropriates the small one of Lastovo.... "It has cost Italy a pang," says Mr. George Trevelyan, "to consent, after victory, to leave the devoted and enthusiastic Italians of the Dalmatian coast towns (other than Zara) in foreign territory." The truth is that henceforward Yugoslavia will contain some 5000 Italians (many of whom are Italianized Slavs), as against not less than 600,000 Slavs in Italy. And while the former are but tiny groups in towns which even under Venetian rule were predominantly Slav and are surrounded on all sides by purely Slav populations, the latter live for the most part in compact masses and include roughly one-third of the whole Slovene race, whose national sense is not only very acute, but who are also much less illiterate than their Italian neighbours. One cannot be astonished if the Slovenes think of this more than of Giotto, Leonardo, Galileo and Dante. But one may be a little surprised that such a man as Mr. Edmund Gardner should allow his reverence for the imperishable glories of Italy to becloud his view of the modern world. It is certainly a fact that the Slovenes are to-day less illiterate than the Italians, but because Dr. Seton-Watson alludes to this, Mr. Gardner (in the _Manchester Guardian_, of February 13, 1921) deplores the "Balkanic mentality that seems to afflict some Englishmen when dealing with these problems."

ITS PROBABLE FRUITS

Now it is obvious that the Treaty of Rapallo has placed between the Yugoslavs and the Italians all too many causes of friction. Zadar, like other such enclaves, will be dear to the heart of the smuggler. She cannot live without her Yugoslav hinterland--five miles away in Yugoslavia are the waterworks, and if these were not included, by a special arrangement, in her dominion, she would have no other liquid but her maraschino. She cannot die without her Yugoslav hinterland--but so that her inhabitants need not be carried out into a foreign land, the cemetery has also, by stretching a point, been included in the city boundaries. It remains to be seen how Zadar and the hinterland will serve two masters. We have alluded to the questionable arrangements at Rieka, in which town there had for those years been such an orgy of limelight and recrimination that even the most statesmanlike solution must have left a good deal of potential friction. In Istria the dangers of an outbreak are evident. Italy has now become the absolute mistress of the Adriatic and has gained a strategical frontier which could hardly be improved upon, while Yugoslavia has been placed in an economic position of much difficulty. Sooner or later, if matters are left _in situ_, trouble will arise. Perhaps an economic treaty between Italy and Yugoslavia, as favourable as possible to the weaker State, would introduce some sort of stability; but no good cause would be served by crying "Peace" where there is no peace, and while Yugoslavia has a grievance there will be trouble in the Balkans.