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.]
Further on in this book there are similar good-conduct testimonials from Split, where the chief Italian used to wander down with an Austrian official to the harbour and there witness the embarkation, in chains, of the Yugoslav intelligentsia who were being taken as hostages. Hundreds and hundreds of Yugoslavs were shot, hanged, imprisoned; we know the numbers (not difficult to count) of the Italians in Dalmatia who suffered in any way. We know the equally minute numbers who escaped to Italy and enrolled themselves in the Italian army. As for the population of the Italian irredentist provinces, one may read in the Secolo of August 11, 1916 how it became generally known that "with the exception of Cervignano and Monfalcone, our soldiers have been received, on the other side of the old frontier, with demonstrations quite the reverse of enthusiastic on the part of the agrarian population. The surprise and disillusion of our troops were very great, for they expected from our unredeemed brothers, who all speak our language, a joyous reception." This frigidity may, however, have been due to the influence of Austrian priests and gendarmes. What are we to say, though, when we come to the more enlightened classes? The Italians in Austria were represented by twelve deputies who were devoted to the Austrian Government and hostile to Italy, and by six national-liberals and one socialist who were animated with pro-Italian sentiments. In electing such deputies, however, the peasants may not have simply allowed the priests and the gendarmes to command them; it is also possible that they were moved by the fear that the Trentino would economically be ruined if it were to become Italian and had to compete with the agricultural products of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact it was the Trentino intelligentsia which looked forward to annexation, and not, as a class, the peasants. And, during the War, Italian deputies of various parties overflowed with loyal Austrian sentiments; unlike the Yugoslav deputies, who refused in a body to vote the budget and the war credits, the Italian deputies never even ventured on a national pronouncement. Pittoni, chief of the Italian socialists at Triest, Faidutti (who was born in Italy) and Bugatto, the chiefs of the Italian Catholic party of Gradišca, uttered not a few words of hate against the Madre Patria. The Italians praise always, and with excellent reason, their three heroes: Battisti, Rismondo and Sauro. But the Yugoslavs, in the course of the late War, lost in the unredeemed provinces so many hundreds of thousands who were hanged in Bosnia, who were dragged away—centenarians and infants—to the prison camps, were spat upon and stoned and treated in the most barbaric fashion, that they look upon those Yugoslavs who, like Battisti, fled from Austria and afterwards were slain by Austrians, as rather to be envied, since at any rate they struck a blow. But anyhow the names of all these volunteers could not be celebrated, on account of their great number. "There is nothing in fact," wired Mr. Beaumont on December 31, 1919, from Milan for the blameless readers of the Daily Telegraph, "there is nothing that creates such terrible exasperation in Italy as the persistent repetition of this patent falsehood that the Yugoslavs—meaning thereby the Croats—fought for the common cause."
Poor Battisti—when his regiment was captured he feigned to be dead. His men, however, told the Austrians that it was he, and this they did because they said that he and his Irredentist party were to blame for the War. These facts are now fairly well known, thanks to the Czech doctor who was on the spot and tried to save him by assuring the Austrians that it was not Battisti. The soldiers insisted, and in the end the Austrians executed him.
SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE AUSTRIAN NAVY
The several transactions or attempted transactions which took place at various periods of the War between the Yugoslav members of the Austro-Hungarian navy, associated with other Yugoslavs, on the one hand and the Italian authorities on the other, were frustrated time and again by the astounding conduct of the Italians. Had they made anything like a proper use of the invaluable information that was showered upon them or if they had requested the other Allied navies in the Mediterranean to act on their behalf many Allied ships in the Mediterranean would not have been torpedoed—since the submarine activity centred at Kotor, one of the stations which could have been seized—the Austrian front in Albania must have collapsed and the entire war would have ended sooner.
In October 1917 the Austrian torpedo boat No. 11 was seized by the Slav members of her crew and brought into Ancona, but their offers of service were refused. The ringleaders showed, by refusing to accept large sums of money, that their purpose was purely patriotic. The Italians, however, simply interned them.