A much more serious affair was that of February 1, 1918, on which day it had been arranged that the Slav sailors at Pola and Kotor should mutiny. At the former place it did not succeed, at Kotor it was so far successful that the mutineers, after imprisoning Admiral Njegovan and many other officers whom they suspected of not being in sympathy with them, took command of the ships and left unanswered an ultimatum addressed to them by the High Naval Command. There was a prospect of the whole fleet shaking off the Austro-Hungarian authority. The chief revolutionary leader was Ante Sesan, a Croat ensign, twenty-six years of age, from near Dubrovnik and the son of a well-known sea captain on the coast. "We drew up," he says, "a proclamation representing our case to the Yugoslavs, Czechs and Poles from the national point of view, and to the Germans and Magyars from the socialist point of view. The Germans threw in their lot with us, but the Magyars went against us. From our ship we continually sent wireless messages asking for help from the Entente fleet, and at first from Italy which was nearest and could help most quickly. The messages were continually jammed by sailors at the Ercegnovo station loyal to Austria-Hungary, but nevertheless it was known in Italy that something was happening at Kotor. We told the High Command at Bok Kotor (Bocche di Cattaro) that we no longer recognized their authority and asked that we might get into touch with our deputies, whom alone we recognized. The High Command consented. We wired for the following deputies to come to us: Trešić (Yugoslav), Stanjek (Czech), Karolyi (Magyar), Adler (German) and one Polish deputy, but our wires did not, for the most part, get through. Our object was to get help, but meanwhile our situation became more and more desperate. We knew that the Third Division was coming from Pola against us, and also the army in Herzegovina. We were prepared to take the battery of the Punta d'Ostro, the most important battery and the key to Bok Kotor, which was in the hands of sailors inimical to us. The news came from Gaa that the Magyars there had got the upper hand. We tried to bring them over to us, but in vain. They said, 'If you don't stop this, we shall join the Third Division and take action against you.' The Magyars from other boats sent the same message. The Council of Sailors then debated what was to be done, and it was suggested that Rasha (who was shot later) should go in a hydroplane to Italy to give information on the situation and ask for help, and that we in the meantime should lie low, and in the event of help coming, again raise a revolt. Rasha objected that he did not know Italian, and proposed that I should go. The Third Division meanwhile was already in the port Bok Kotor.
"At half-past eight in the morning we flew away in the hydroplane to Italy, I and two Poles. At ten we reached Mattinato, and I explained at the Carabineers' station why I had come and asked to be brought as soon as possible before the Commander of the District. Later I saw Captain Odo (of the Territorials) and told him all, and asked him to put me into communication with Brindisi, Taranto or Rome. He had us put under arrest. I was interviewed by two flying officers two days later, but they went off to Brindisi in my hydroplane without me.
"On February 17 I was taken under armed escort to Brindisi, where I was imprisoned in a cabin of the man-of-war Varese.... I told the commander of the ship that I was at his disposal with all my knowledge of the Austrian fleet. I asked him to put questions, because I did not know how much he knew. It was all to no purpose. On February 21 the Admiral in command at Brindisi saw me. From what he said I understood that nothing had been done about Bok Kotor and, what was more, that not one hydroplane had been sent to investigate the situation there. I learned that I was to go to Rome. They clapped me into barracks.... I again asked the Italians to allow me to speak to the Serbian Minister, whom I considered the representative of the Yugoslav people, but the request was refused on the plea that it was a question of high politics. Meanwhile the Polish representative Zamorski was allowed to visit the Poles, but from February 3 to May 25 I was unable to get into communication with any of our people."
In May there was another outbreak at Kotor, but it was overpowered, and many Yugoslav sailors were shot or imprisoned. Sesan was also kept in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out, questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor launches he undertook to organize communication between Italy and the Slavs of Dalmatia, in this way to follow events in Austria and help the revolutionary movement. It would be possible to procure the secret wireless codes which the Austrian and German submarines used—but the Italians would do nothing, because they were not willing to recognize that the Yugoslavs were fighting against Austria.... Seeing that he would never move the Italians to take serious action against the Austrian fleet, Sesan asked to be sent to the Serbian army in Macedonia, so that at Salonica he could get into touch with the French and British fleet. In this also he failed, for he was interned from June till December with Yugoslav officers at Nocera Umbra. While there he was visited by Bissolati, from whom he learned that the Chief of the Admiralty was hostile to the Yugoslavs. And at Nocera Umbra he remained until December 6, when he was liberated, owing to the efforts of Trumbić and other members of the Yugoslav Committee.
In the month of September a memorandum was drawn up by Trumbić, in which he proposed to English and American political and military circles the landing at Šibenik of a force of 50,000 men. This would have been assisted by the mutinous crews of the Austro-Hungarian Fleet, whose preparations had been completed in July (at this port 90 per cent. of the sailors of the fleet were Yugoslavs, and among them there was a strong national feeling; in fact, if their political leaders had not held them back, they would have endeavoured in July to blow up the naval fortifications and sail with the ships to Corfu). The expeditionary army, once at Šibenik, could have penetrated inland and, acting in consort with the many Yugoslav deserters and the insurgent population of Dalmatia and Bosnia, have accelerated the Austrian débâcle. In this memorandum Trumbić asked that the combined Anglo-American-French fleet should support the action, but that the Italians, whom the Yugoslavs distrusted, should take no part. He sneered at the cowardice of the Italians who, with a huge army, did not dare to start an offensive on a grand scale.
[In well-informed circles in Italy this memorandum was already known, but when it was read in the Italian Chamber in the spring of 1919 it made a considerable sensation.]
On October 3, Messrs. Frederick Štepanek, Rudolph Giunio, Valentine Zić (of Šibenik) and other authorized Czecho-Slovak and Yugoslav emissaries went in a sailing-boat from Vis to Italy, with a view to getting into connection with Dr. Beneš (afterwards the Czecho-Slovak Foreign Minister) and Dr. Trumbić, to inform them as to the situation in the Monarchy and to obtain instructions regarding the moment of the revolution in which their soldiers and sailors were to participate. On arrival in Rome on October 7, the delegates were interrogated by Major Trojani of the Bureau of Information and on the same day for three hours by the Inspector-General of Public Safety. From then till October 20, they were interned in the Macoa barracks at the Castro Pretoris, and although they made repeated attempts to see a member of the Yugoslav Committee or Dr. Beneš, who was in Rome, they were told that this "delicate" question could only be solved by the Premier himself; and when brought before him Dr. Beneš had departed. The delegates had entreated that he and Trumbić should be informed of their arrival, but in spite of various assurances nothing whatever was done. It is suggested that the fleet would have been in Slav hands two or three weeks earlier, which would very probably have precipitated events on the Western front, if the Italians had not acted in this inexcusable fashion.
ADVANCE OF THE ALLIES IN MACEDONIA
The collapse of Austria-Hungary was being hastened by the fine work of the Allies' Macedonian army. France and Great Britain had provided for the re-equipment of the Serbs. And of the variegated forces that were based on Salonica none did more magnificently than this resurrected army. A weather-beaten sergeant of the French Infanterie Coloniale told me that he had never seen an exploit such as that of Kaimatčalan, where the Serbs set themselves the task of climbing to the summit, which towers 8000 feet high, and from there dislodging the Bulgarian artillery. Over and over again the Serbs were thrown back, and with terrific losses, for the mountain-side was strewn with rocks not large enough to shelter more than a man or two. But as the Infanterie Coloniale is habitually chosen for the roughest work, so the Serbs asked for nothing better than to climb the wall that shut them out from their own country. The labyrinth of trenches on the mountain-top was taken and retaken many times, until the Bulgars—inadequately supported by their Allies—had to retreat; and this, after further ferocious fighting, enabled the Serbs and the French to liberate Monastir. The complicated story of Greek manœuvres need not detain us, nor need we ask whether Mr. Leland Buxton[103] is justified in saying that the majority of that people were pro-German, "but were subsequently compelled by the Allied blockade ... to declare themselves supporters of Venizelos, on whose behalf, indeed, the British Admiralty and War Office had to carry on a sort of election campaign (by Eastern European methods) until the numerous waverers wisely decided that it was better to be a well-fed Venizelist than a hungry Royalist." Sufficient that after months of delaying, in the course of which the Russian troops had to be turned into labour battalions, Marshal Mišić—whose plan of campaign had fortunately been adopted—had the satisfaction of seeing his own countrymen and their Allies racing up at last through Macedonia and Serbia to the Danube and beyond it.... What did they find? Bridges hastily blown up, tunnels rendered impassable by two locomotives laden with dynamite being made to collide in the middle of them—but the Serbs went rushing on. The supply columns could not keep pace with the troops—during the first eight days of the offensive the men of the 2nd Army received but two days' rations—they continued their advance across the Vardar, though but little bread and practically no other food was obtainable. In three days they had covered sixty miles. There was only time for them to greet the women and old men—and even if they had then been told of the 130,000 horses, the 6,000,000 sheep and goats, the 2,000,000 pigs, 1,300,000 cattle and over 8,000,000 poultry which the enemy had taken; if they had learned that the losses sustained by Serbia—exclusive of her own expenses and of the war loans from her Allies—amounted to some 10,000,000,000 frs. on a pre-war valuation, what did all this matter in that joyous time?
HOW THE MAGYARS TREATED THEIR SERBIAN SUBJECTS