"Italy's reward," says Mr. Beaumont, "must be commensurate with her sacrifices, and this is the attitude assumed here. It is quite apart from the mere question as to whether the Jugo-Slavs are in a majority in certain districts or not. Those districts form a part of old Italian territory, of Italian lands once peopled and occupied by the Italian race and into which, with Austria's encouragement, Slav populations have filtered." [I should love to know what are Mr. Beaumont's sources.] "The question must not be left to local ambition and antipathies. It must be decided authoritatively and quickly in strong counsel to the Jugo-Slav leaders." ... Let us leave Rieka and see how the Italians decided authoritatively and quickly on the island of Cres (Cherso). It is a large but not thickly populated island; having 8162 inhabitants for 336 square kilometres. The Yugoslavs, according to the census of 1910, number 5714 or 71·3 per cent., while the Italian-speaking population amounts to 2296 or 28 per cent. About the middle of November the Italian authorities placed in the village of Martinšćica, which is in the south-western part of the island, 17 soldiers, 3 carabinieri and a lieutenant. Let me say at once that I have never been to Cres, all my knowledge of this case comes from a Franciscan monk who lives there, the Rev. Ambrose Vlahov, Professor of Theology. At Martinšćica, he says, there is not a single Italianist; the entire village is Yugoslav. When the Italian military arrived the lieutenant insisted that the priest, Karlo Hlaća, should cease to sing the Mass in Old Slav, and that for the whole service he should use Italian, the only language, said the lieutenant, which he (the lieutenant) understood. It was futile for the priest to demonstrate what a ridiculous and unreasonable demand this was; the lieutenant always came back to the subject, being sometimes merely importunate and sometimes using menaces. As Hlaća was a model ecclesiastic, highly esteemed by his parishioners, the lieutenant comprehended that as long as this priest remained, he would be foiled in his endeavours; he therefore sought an opportunity to turn him out. On January 5, 1919, the priest had, by order of his bishop, to read during the service a pastoral letter on the duties of the faithful towards the Church and towards their fellow-men; he had also to add a simple and concise commentary. In this letter there was a passage dealing with schools, and the priest on that topic remarked that "by divine and human law every nation may ask that its children should be instructed in their mother tongue." When Mass was finished, the mayor of the village assembled the parishioners and notified them that henceforward, by order of the lieutenant, there would no longer be in the village a Croatian but an Italian school. And in order to mollify the people he added that the lieutenant proposed to give subsidies to such as stood in need; they had only to present themselves before that officer. But, though the people often found it hard to satisfy their simple wants and were at that period in very great distress, they walked away from this assembly without making one step in the lieutenant's direction. This incited him to such fury that he ran, accompanied by soldiers and carabinieri, to the priest, and publicly, in a loud voice, insulted him, calling him an intriguer, a rebel, an agitator. On the following day the lieutenant had him conducted to the village of Cres by two soldiers and a carabiniere, who were all armed.... At Cres the priest was brought before the commanding officer of the Quarnero Islands—our old acquaintance, the naval captain of Krk—who happened to be in this village. He started at once to bellow at the priest and, striking the table with his hand, exclaimed: "This is an Italian island, all Italian, nothing but Italian and evermore it will remain Italian." About a score of parishioners had come to Cres behind their priest and his escort; they begged the commandant to set him free. As an answer he harangued them with respect to the Italian character of the islands, told them that they would have to send their children to the Italian school and that the whole village would be Italianized and that only in their homes would they be permitted to speak Croatian.... On January 8 the priest was taken from Cres to the island of Krk, where he was informed that he would have to leave his parish, but that he might go back there for a day or two to fetch a few necessities. It was raining in torrents when Father Hlaća, wet to the skin, arrived at his village on the 11th at seven o'clock in the evening. As he suffers from several chronic ailments—which was known to the lieutenant—this bad weather had a grave effect upon him. When he reached his house he went to bed at once with a very high temperature. After about a quarter of an hour the lieutenant appeared with two carabinieri and shouted at him that he must get up. This draconian injunction had to be obeyed, the more so as the lieutenant was labouring under great excitement. He looked at the priest's permit which allowed him to come back to the village, and said, "If I were in your shoes I wouldn't venture to come back here." These words gave Father Hlaća an impression that his life was in danger. The lieutenant then ordered him not to go out among the people, but to stop where he was until he was taken away. Five days after this the priest was taken to Rieka, so that the villagers were left with nobody to guard them against the violence and the temptations offered them by the Italians. The Croat inscription outside the school was replaced by one in Italian and, with the lieutenant acting as teacher, the doors were thrown open. But the only children who went there were those of the lieutenant himself and those of the mayor, who was a renegade in the pay of the Italians. It was announced that heavy fines would be inflicted if the other children did not come. The villagers were in great trouble and in fear, with nobody to give them advice or consolation.... There may be some who will be curious to know concerning the "Italian" population of this island, which, according to the 1910 census, reached the large figure of 28 per cent. At a place called Nerežine it was stated, in the census of 1880, that the commissioner had found 706 Italians and 340 Yugoslavs. Consequently an Italian primary school was opened; but when it was discovered that the children of Nerežine knew not one traitor word of that language, the school was transformed into a Yugoslav establishment. This is one case out of many; the 28 per cent. would not bear much scrutiny.... But the Italian Government, at any rate the "Liga Nazionale" to whose endowment it contributes, had been taking in hand this question of elementary schools in Istria and Dalmatia among the Slav population. The "Liga" made gratuitous distribution of clothing, of boots, of school-books and so forth. Some indigent Slavs allowed themselves in this way to become denationalized.

When, however, you examine the embroideries of these islands—particularly beautiful on Rab and on the island of wild olive trees, the neighbouring Pag—you will be sure that such an ancient national spirit as they show will not be easily seduced. The Magyars, by the way, whose culture is more modern, borrowed certain features that you find on these embroideries—the sun, for instance, and the cock, which have from immemorial times been thought appropriate by these people for the cloth a woman wears upon her head when she is bringing a new son into the world, whose dawn the cock announces. Older than the workers in wood, much older than those who carved in stone, are these island embroiderers. In this work the people reproduced their tears and laughter.

RAB IS COMPLETELY CAPTURED

What will it avail to put up "Liga" schools in these islands, where the population is 99·67 per cent. Yugoslav and 0·31 per cent. Italianist—that is, if we are content to accept the Austrian statistics? What ultimate advantage will accrue to Italy from the doings of her emissaries, in November 1918, on the isle of Rab? It was Tuesday, November 26, when the Guglielmo Pepe of the Italian navy put in at the venerable town which is the capital of that island. The commander, with an Italianist deputy from Istria, climbed up to the town-hall with the old marble balcony and informed the mayor and the members of the local committee of the Yugoslav National Council that he had come in the name of the Entente and in virtue of the arrangements of the Armistice; he said that in the afternoon Italian troops would land, for the purpose of maintaining order. It was pointed out to him that no disturbance had arisen, and that, according to the terms of the Armistice, he had no right to occupy this island. The commander announced that he must disarm the national guard, but that the Yugoslav flags would not be interfered with; the Italian flag would only be hoisted on the harbour-master's office and the military headquarters. On the next day, after he had been unable to induce the town authorities to lower their national flag from the clock-tower, he sent a hundred men with a machine gun to carry out his wishes. Filled with confidence by this heroic deed, he marched into the mayor's office and dissolved the municipal council. Armed forces occupied the town-hall, over which an Italian flag was flown. An Italian officer was entrusted with the mayoral functions and with the municipal finances, while the post office was also captured and all private telegrams forbidden, not only those which one would have liked to dispatch, but those which came in from elsewhere—they were not delivered. All meetings and manifestations were made illegal. The commander, whose name was Captain Denti di —— (the other part being illegible), sent a memorandum to the municipal council which explained that he dissolved it on account of their having grievously troubled the public order; he did this by virtue of the powers conferred upon him and in the name of the Allied Powers and the United States of America. The islanders did not pretend to be experts in international law, but they did not believe that he was in the right.

"I have every confidence," said the Serbian Regent, when he was receiving a deputation of the Yugoslav National Council a few days after this—"I have every confidence that the operations for the freedom of the world will be accomplished, that large numbers of our brethren will be liberated from a foreign yoke. And I feel sure that this point of view will be adopted by the Government of the Kingdom of Italy, which was founded on these very principles. They were cherished in the hearts and executed in the deeds of great Italians in the nineteenth century. We can say frankly that in choosing to have us as their friends and good neighbours the Italian nation will find more benefit and a greater security than in the enforcement of the Treaty of London, which we never signed nor recognized, and which was made at a time when nobody foresaw the crumbling of Austria-Hungary."

AVANTI SAVOIA!

It would be tedious to chronicle a thousandth part of the outrages, crimes and stupidities committed on Yugoslav territory by the Italians. Where they were threatened with an armed resistance they yielded. Thus on November 14, when they had reached Vrhnica (Ober-Laibach) on their way to Ljubljana (Laibach), they were met by Colonel Svibić with sixteen other officers who had just come out of an internment camp in Austria. Svibić requested the Italians to leave Vrhnica. He said that he and the Serbian commander at Ljubljana would prevent the advance of the Italians into Yugoslav territory. They would be most reluctant to be obliged to resort to armed force should the Italians continue their advance, and they declined responsibility for any bloodshed which might ensue.... The colonel of the Italian regiment which had been stationed for some days at Vrhnica informed the mayor of that commune that he had received orders to depart; he retired to the line of demarcation fixed by the Armistice conditions.

THE ENTENTE AT RIEKA

It was ironical that a young State, struggling into life, should be hindered, not by former enemies but by friends of its friends. The Italians complained that the French, British and Americans were not fraternizing with them. In the first place, it was repugnant to the sense of justice of these nations when they saw that General di San Marzano, after having fraudulently seized the town of Rieka and turning its absolutely legal Governor into the street, did not ask the citizens to organize a temporary local government, in which all parties would be represented, but delivered, if you please, the town to fifteen gentlemen, the I.N.C., who—at the very utmost—represented half the population. On November 24, the local newspaper Il Popolo announced in a non-official manner that the I.N.C., in full accord with the military command, had taken over the administration—i poteri pubblici. This, by the way, was never confirmed by the representatives of the other Allies. The I.N.C. furthermore declared null and of no effect any intervention of the Yugoslav National Council in the affairs of the authorities of the State of Rieka. When the Yugoslavs appealed to the French, British or Americans they were naturally met with sympathy and urged to have patience. Case after case of high-handed dealing was reported to these officers. They sometimes intervened with good effect; far more injustice would have happened; far more Croats and Autonomists, for instance, would have been deported if the Allies had not interceded. It was now, of course, impossible for Yugoslavs to wear their colours; nor could they prevent the C.N.I. from hanging vast Italian flags on Croat houses. One of the largest flags, I should imagine, in the world swayed to and fro between Rieka's chief hotel and the tall building on the opposite side of the square—and both these houses, mark you, were Croat property. But the Allied officers knew very well (and the C.N.I. knew that they knew) that more than thirty of the large buildings on the front belonged to Croats, whereas under half a dozen were the property of Italians or Italianists. The ineffable Mr. Edoardo Susmel, in one of his pro-Italian books, entreats certain French and British friends of the Yugoslavs to come for one hour to Rieka and judge for themselves. But twenty minutes would be ample for a man of average intelligence. In many ways the presence of the Allies grieved the C.N.I. The Allies looked without approval at the "Giovani Fiumani," an association of young rowdies of whose valuable services the C.N.I. availed itself. But if these hired bands could not be dispersed they could have limits placed upon their zeal. One of their ordinary methods was to sit in groups in cafés or in restaurants or other places where an orchestra was playing, then to shout for the Italian National Anthem and to make themselves as nasty as they dared to anyone who did not rise. If everybody rose, then they would wait a quarter of an hour and have the music played again. The Allied officers persuaded General Grazioli to prohibit any National Anthem in a public place. It was distasteful to the Allied officers when a local newspaper in French—l'Echo de l'Adriatique—which had been established to present the Yugoslav point of view, was continually being suppressed. For example, on December 14, it printed a short greeting from the Croat National Council to President Wilson. The most anti-Italian phrase in this that I could find was: "Their fondest hope is to justify to the world, to history and to you the great trust you have placed in them." This was refused publication. It is unnecessary to say that Yugoslav newspapers were confiscated and their sale forbidden—after all, one didn't buy German or Austrian newspapers in England during the War, and the Italians now regarded the Croats as very pernicious enemies. La Rassegna Italiana of December 15 called its first article—printed throughout in italics—"I Prussiani dell' Adriatico," and took to its bosom an "upright American citizen" returning from a visit to "Fiume nostra," who defined the Yugoslavs "on account of their greed and their brutality and their spirit of intrigue and their lack of candour as the Prussians of the Adriatic." Personally I should submit that the Prussian spirit was not wholly lacking in those two Italian officers who penetrated on November 25 into the dining-room at the quarters of the Custom-house officials and informed them that they wanted their piano. No discussion was permitted; the piano "transferred itself," as they say in some languages, to the Italian officers' mess. The Prussian spirit was not undeveloped in a certain Mr. Štiglić—his name might cause his enemies to say he is a renegade, but as my knowledge of him is confined to other matters, we will say he is the noblest Roman of them all. He likewise had a dig at the Custom-house officials; I know not whether he was wiping off old scores. Appointed by the I.N.C. as director of the Excise office, he communicated with the resident officials—Franjo Jakovčić, Ivan Mikuličić and Grga Mažuran—on December 5, and told them to clear out by the following Saturday, they and their families, so that in the heart of winter forty-one persons were suddenly left homeless.

A CANDID FRENCHMAN