The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2

by Henry Baerlein

THE BIRTH OF YUGOSLAVIA

VI

YUGOSLAVIA'S FIRST YEAR OF LIBERTY

New foes for old—Roumanian activities—The Italian frame of mind—Sensitiveness with respect to their army—An unfortunate naval affair—What was happening at Pola—The story of the "Viribus Unitis"—How the Italians landed at Pola—The sea-faring Yugoslavs—Who set a standard that was too high—An electrical atmosphere and no precautions—Italians' mildness on the Isle of Vis—Their truculence at Korčula—And on Hvar—How they were received at Zadar—What they did there—Pretty doings at Krk—Unhappy Pola—What Istria endured—The famous town of Rieka—The drama begins—The I.N.C.—The Croats' blunder—Melodrama—Farce—Parole d'honneur—The population of the town—The tale continues on the northern isles—Rab is completely captured—Avanti Savoia!—The Entente at Rieka—A candid Frenchman—Economic considerations—The turncoat Mayor—His fervour—Three pleasant places—Italy is led astray by Sonnino—The state of the Chamber—The state of the country—A fountain in the sand—Those who held back from the Pact of Rome—Gathering winds—Why the Italians claimed Dalmatia—Consequences of the Treaty of London—Italian hopes in Montenegro—What had lately been the fate of the Austrians there—And of the natives—Now Nikita is deposed—The Assembly which deposed him—Nikita's sorrow for the good old days—The state of Bosnia—Radić and his peasants—Those who will not move with the times—The Yugoslav political parties—The Slovene question—The sentiments of Triest—Magnanimity in the Banat—Temešvar in transition—A sort of war in Carinthia—Yugoslavia begins to put her house in order—The problem of Agrarian Reform—Frenzy at Rieka—Admiral Millo explains the situation—His misguided subordinates at Šibenik—The Italians want to take no risks—Yet they are incredibly nonchalant—One of their victims—Seven hundred others—A glimpse of the official robberies—And harshness and bribery—The Italians in Dalmatia before and during the War—Consequent suspicion of this minority—Allied censure of the Italian navy—Nevertheless the tyranny continues—A visit to some of the islands—Which the Italians tried to obtain before, but not during, the War—Our welcome to Jelša—Proceedings at Starigrad—The affairs of Hvar—Four men of Komiža—The women of Biševo—On the way to Blato—What the Major said—The protest of an Italian journalist—Interesting delegates—A digression on Sir Arthur Evans—The dupes of Nikita in Montenegro—Italian endeavours—Various British commentators—The murder of Miletić—D'Annunzio comes to Rieka—The great invasion of Trogir—The Succession States and their minorities—Obligations imposed on them because of Roumanian Antisemitism.

NEW FOES FOR OLD

With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian army, the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes saw that one other obstacle to their long-hoped-for union had vanished. The dream of centuries was now a little nearer towards fulfilment. But many obstacles remained. There would presumably be opposition on the part of the Italian and Roumanian Governments, for it was too much to hope that these would waive the treaties they had wrung from the Entente, and would consent to have their boundaries regulated by the wishes of the people living in disputed lands. Some individual Italians and Roumanians might even be less reasonable than their Governments. If Austria and Hungary were in too great a chaos to have any attitude as nations, there would be doubtless local opposition to the Yugoslavs. And as soon as the Magyars had found their feet they would be sure to bombard the Entente with protestations, setting forth that subject nationalities were intended by the Creator to be subject nationalities. A large pamphlet, The Hungarian Nation, was issued at Buda-Pest in February 1920. It displayed a very touching solicitude for the Croats, whom the Serbs would be sure to tyrannize most horribly. If only Croatia would remain in the Hungarian State, says Mr. A. Kovács, Ministerial Councillor in the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, then the Magyars would instantly bestow on her both Bosnia (which belonged to the Empire as a whole) and Dalmatia (which belonged to Austria). That is the worst of being a Ministerial Statistical Councillor. Another gentleman, Professor Dr. Fodor, has the bright idea that "the race is the multitude of individuals who inhabit one uniform region." ... Passing to Yugoslavia's domestic obstacles, it was impossible to think that all the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes would forthwith subscribe to the Declaration of Corfu and become excellent Yugoslavs. Some would be honestly unable to throw off what centuries had done to them, and realize that if they had been made so different from their brothers, they were brothers still. For ten days there was a partly domestic, partly foreign obstacle, but as the King of Montenegro did not take his courage in both hands and descend on the shores of that country with an Italian army, he lost his chance for ever.

ROUMANIAN ACTIVITIES

There was indeed far less trouble from the Roumanian than from the Italian side. On October 29, 1918, one could say that all military power in the Banat was at an end. The Hungarian army took what food it wanted and made off, leaving everywhere, in barracks and in villages, guns, rifles, ammunition. Vainly did the officers attempt to keep their men together. And scenes like this were witnessed all over the Banat. Then suddenly, on Sunday, November 3, the Roumanians, that is the Roumanians living in the country, made attacks on many villages, and the Roumanians of Transylvania acted in a similar fashion. With the Hungarian equipment and with weapons of their own they started out to terrorize. Among their targets were the village notaries, in whom was vested the administrative authority. At Old Moldava, on the Danube, they decapitated the notary, a man called Kungel, and threw his head into the river. At a village near Anina they buried the notary except for his head, which they proceeded to kick until he died. Nor did they spare the notaries of Roumanian origin, which made it seem as if this outbreak of lawlessness—directed from who knows where—had the high political end of making the country appear to the Entente in such a desperate condition that an army must be introduced, and as the Serbs were thought to be a long way off, with the railways and the roads before them ruined by the Austrians, it looked as if Roumania's army was the only one available. On the Monday and the Tuesday these Roumanian freebooters, who had all risen on the same day in regions extending over hundreds of square kilometres, started plundering the large estates. Near Bela Crkva, on the property of Count Bissingen-Nippenburg, a German, they did damage to the sum of eight and a half million crowns. At the monastery of Mešica, near Veršac, the Roumanians of a neighbouring village devastated the archimandrate's large library, sacked the chapel and smashed his bee-hives, so that they were not impelled by poverty and hunger. In the meantime there had been formed at Veršac a National Roumanian Military Council. The placard, printed of course in Roumanian, is dated Veršac, November 4, and is addressed to "The Roumanian Officers and Soldiers born in the Banat," and announces that they have formed the National Council. It is a Council, we are told, in which one can have every confidence; moreover, it is prepared to co-operate in every way with a view to maintaining order în lăuntra și în afară (both internal and external). The subjoined names of the committee are numerous; they range from Lieut.-Colonel Gavriil Mihailov and Major Petru Jucu downwards to a dozen privates. The archimandrate, who fortunately happened to be at his house in Veršac, begged his friend Captain Singler of the gendarmerie to take some steps. About twenty Hungarian officers undertook to go, with a machine gun, to the monastery on November 7; at eleven on the previous night Mihailov ordered the captain to come to see him; he wanted to know by whom this expedition had been authorized. The captain answered that Mešica was in his district, and that he had no animus against Roumanians but only against plunderers. After his arrival at Mešica the trouble was brought to an end. Nor was it long before the Serbian troops, riding up through their own country at a rate which no one had foreseen, crossed the Danube and occupied the Banat, in conjunction with the French. The rapidity of this advance astounded the Roumanians; they gaped like Lavengro when he wondered how the stones ever came to Stonehenge.... When the Serbian commandant at Veršac invited these enterprising Roumanian officers to an interview he was asked by one of them, Major Iricu, whether or not they were to be interned. "What made you print that placard?" asked the commandant; and they replied that their object had been to preserve order. They had not imagined, so they said, that the Serbs would come so quickly. "I will be glad," said the commandant, "if you will not do this kind of thing any more."

THE ITALIAN FRAME OF MIND

Italy was not in a good humour. She was well aware that in the countries of her Allies there was a marked tendency to underestimate her overwhelming triumphs of the last days of the War. Perhaps those exploits would have been more difficult if Austria's army had not suffered a deterioration, but still one does not take 300,000 prisoners every day. Some faithful foreigners were praising Italy—and she deserved it—for having persevered at all after Caporetto. That disaster had been greatly due to filling certain regiments with several thousand munition workers who had taken part in a revolt at Turin, and then concentrating these regiments in the Caporetto salient, which was the most vulnerable sector in the eastern Italian front. How much of the disaster was due to the Vatican will perhaps never be known. But as for the uneducated, easily impressed peasants of the army, it was wonderful that all, except the second army and a small part of the third, retreated with such discipline in view of what they had been brooding on before the day of Caporetto. They had such vague ideas what they were fighting for, and if the Socialists kept saying that the English paid their masters to continue with the War—how were they to know what was the truth? The British regiments, who were received not merely with cigars and cigarettes and flowers and with little palm crosses which their trustful little weavers had blessed, but also with showers of stones as they passed through Italian villages in 1917, must have sometimes understood and pardoned. Then the troops were in distress about their relatives, for things were more and more expensive, and where would it end? In face of these discouragements it was most admirable that the army and the nation rallied and reconstituted their morale.