AND HARSHNESS AND BRIBERY
In Asia Minor we have another disastrous example of the Allied policy of allowing a disputed zone to be occupied ad interim solely by the troops of one interested country. The chronic state of war which followed the landing of the Greeks at Smyrna, the atrocities, the charges and the counter-charges, were investigated by an Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry; and their report, which was issued early in 1920 and was signed by an American Admiral and French, Italian and British Generals, laid the responsibility at the door of the Greek Higher Command. The Commission considered that an inter-Allied occupation was necessary, because the Greeks, instead of maintaining order, had given their position all the characteristics of a permanent occupation, the Turkish authorities being powerless. They also considered that order should be maintained by inter-Allied troops other than Greek.... No such Commission visited Dalmatia, chiefly because the Yugoslavs, in spite of endless provocations, displayed greater self-control than the Turks. But an Inter-Allied Inquiry would have reported that the Italian régime had not the marks of a permanent occupation simply because such methods could never be permanent: everywhere in the occupied territory it was forbidden, under severe penalties, to have any Serbo-Croat newspaper. On one island I found about fifteen gentlemen gathered round a table in a sort of dungeon, reading the newspapers which had been smuggled into their possession. This they had been doing for more than six months. Every letter was censored, all telegraphic and telephonic communication between the occupied territory and the outside world was prohibited. All flags, of course, except that of Italy, were vetoed. Admiral Millo told us that this prohibition did not extend to the flags of France, Great Britain and the United States; considering that it is on record when and where the flags of these nations were, if flown by civilians, ordered to be taken down at Rieka, despite the presence of Allied contingents, it seems scarcely worth saying that, as we were often told, the Admiral's permission, which was in accordance with the Armistice, was disregarded by his subordinates. Another thing that was very rigorously forbidden, especially on the islands, was for any Yugoslav to go down to the harbour, if a boat came in, and carry on a conversation with somebody on board. It would be tedious to enter into all the questionable and tyrannical Italian methods, such as the requisitioning of Yugoslav clubs, schools, etc., sometimes leaving them empty because they found they did not want them, the requisitioning of private houses, with no consideration for their owners, the wholesale cutting-down of forests, the closing of law-courts, the demand that other courts should pronounce no judgment before first submitting it to them. But, above all, what the Yugoslav Government at Split complained of were the methods they employed in the gratuitous or semi-gratuitous distribution of food, clothing and money:
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Government of Dalmatia and of the Dalmatian Islands and of the Curzola Islands
Subject: Question of Food Supplies for the Civil Population.
No. 43. March 18, 1919.
To all subject authorities:
I have heard that several commanding officers who have to distribute food to the civilian population have, by virtue of an authorization that they may save part of the entered amounts for the purpose of using that sum for propaganda, saved a conspicuous quantity without having the possibility of using it later. As it has been ascertained that the only effective means of propaganda is the distribution of food supplies ... amounts which are useless [for other purposes] and absolutely necessary for purposes of propaganda.
The Vice-Admiral
The Governor,
E. Millo.
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Royal Government of Dalmatia and of the Dalmatian Islands and of the Curzola Islands