Thereupon the man returned to Grahovo and soon afterwards the French General Thaon, who happened to go there, spoke with him for two hours and invited him to his headquarters at Kotor.
The disturbances in Montenegro did not cease; a country through which you could formerly drive with less risk than in Paris, was now infested by outlaws and those who pursued them. And Count de Salis, who had served as H.B.M.'s Minister at Cetinje, was sent back to Montenegro on a mission of inquiry. His report was not published, for the reason that he did not beat about the bush in his references to the Italians and for the further reason that he gave the names of those persons from whom he culled his information. This was a fine opportunity for the foreign busybodies who were thrusting their silly little knives into Yugoslavia. "Count de Salis reports clearly and unmistakably," said Mr. Ronald M'Neill in the House of Commons, "that in his judgment the wish of the Montenegrin people is to retain their own sovereign and their own independence." When Sir Hamar Greenwood subsequently, speaking for the Government, threw out a hint that this was not the case, it was amusing to see how the pro-Nikita party lost their interest in the report. A certain Mr. Herbert Vivian sent from Italy in April 1920 a most ferocious indictment against the Serbs in Montenegro to a London paper called the British Citizen. He said that the Countess de Salis, while at Cetinje, was in danger of her life. But the lady has been dead for many years. I presume this is the same Mr. Vivian who in a book, Servia, the Poor Man's Paradise, trembles with rage whenever a Serb speaks admiringly of Gladstone.
VARIOUS BRITISH COMMENTATORS
Count de Salis's impartial methods did not always please the population, which was by a large majority against the former king's return and—as he clearly stated—heart and soul for Yugoslavia. Balkan people do not yet, to any great extent, appreciate your desire for truth or even your honesty if you should give a hearing to their antagonists. The Cetinje public, therefore, organized a demonstration or two against the Count. They would have preferred that he should reach the afore-mentioned conclusions without such an exhaustive study of the case. He noted that there had been certain irregularities in the Yugoslav administration, but it was inevitable that in those unsettled times the inexperienced officials would not prove equal to every emergency. These officials, by the way, in 1919 were not Serbs from Serbia, but for the most part native Montenegrins. "The country is occupied and administered by foreigners," said[43] Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P. "Montenegro," said he, "is full of Serb officials." I suppose one must receive it more with sorrow than with anger if a man like Mr. Massingham of The Nation says that the Serbs "have deposed the Montenegrin judges, schoolmasters, doctors, chemists and local officials, and set up their own puppets." While he might have assumed that the long years of War had left the Serbs with a very inadequate supply of officials for the old kingdom, he would have ascertained, if his sources had been more trustworthy, that Glomažić, the very human prefect of Cetinje, is a native of Nikšić, that Miloš Ivanović, the mayor, is from the Kuči, near Podgorica—and he was a magistrate under Nikita; that Bojović, the prefect of Podgorica, is a barrister of the Piperi, while Radonić, the mayor, was an artillery officer, then a political prisoner and then the food administrator under Nikita; that Jaouković, the prefect of Nikšić, was a magistrate under the old régime—he comes, I believe, from the Morača; Zerović, the mayor and an ex-magistrate, is a native of Nikšić; that the prefect of Antivari, Dr. Goinić, is a doctor of law whose home is between Antivari and Virpazar; that Boško Bošković, the prefect of Kolačin, won great fame as an officer under Nikita, while Minić, the mayor, was Nikita's chief of the Custom-house. As for the doctors who left the country, these consisted of Matanović and Vulanović, who have gone to Novi Sad and Subotica respectively, as it is easier to make a living in those towns than in Montenegro. There are now three Yugoslav doctors at Cetinje (Odgerović, Radović—both of whom were doctors in the time of Nikita—and Matanović, a young man); they are all Montenegrins. So, too, with the chemists and the schoolmasters and the post and telegraph officials—I am sure that Mr. Massingham will excuse me if I do not mention all their names.
Since there are quite a number of Montenegrins in the Serbian administration and army, all the officers and men, for example, of the 2nd—the so-called "iron"—Regiment being of Montenegrin origin, one fails to see for what reason a Serb should be debarred from posts in Montenegro. It is unfortunate when people use the word "Montenegrin" without knowing that there is no separate Montenegrin nation, in the sense that there is a French or Italian nation. The Montenegrins are a small section of the Serbian nation, which sought a refuge among the bare, precipitous mountains and, unlike the other Serbs, maintained its independence. One should, therefore, to avoid confusion, speak of Serbs of Serbia and Serbs of Montenegro rather than of Serbs and Montenegrins. The purest Serbian is spoken in western Montenegro, on the borders of Herzegovina; those districts are ethnically different from the southern region, centring round Cetinje, which is the real old Montenegro, and the north and north-eastern parts, called the Brda, which in speech and customs are akin to the south. In western Montenegro, as in Herzegovina, the people, who live among their mountains on milk and its products, are very prolific, having families of eight or ten children. They are a very healthy, moral race.
Another pro-Nikita, anti-Serbian writer, excusable only on account of his insignificance, is Mr. Devine, who teaches, I am told, at a school near Winchester and seems very unwilling to be taught. If he wishes, by producing a book on the subject, to show other people that he knows painfully little about Montenegro, that is his own affair. But he is just as ignorant with regard to his hero. He says that he "is in a position to state that there is not one single word of truth in the insinuations and charges impugning the absolute integrity and loyalty of King Nicholas towards his Allies." The King was, according to Mr. Devine, a defenceless old man whom it was very bad form to attack. But the King had been defending himself at considerable length not only in a harangue to his adherents in a Paris suburb, but also on various occasions in a newspaper, the Journal Officiel—and both the speech and long extracts from the newspaper are quoted, with approval, in Mr. Devine's book. This quaint person is so frantically keen to pour whitewash over Nikita that he has no time to listen to the main treacheries of Nikita's career. "Malicious falsehoods!" he splutters—and they can be traced to horrible pan-Serbians. He has reason to believe that they wish to make Serbia the Prussia of the new Federation; well, the Croats and the Slovenes and the Bosniaks and all the others cannot say that Mr. Devine has not warned them. My Montenegrin friend Mr. Burić stated in the columns of the Saturday Review that this odd gentleman had nourished the ambition of becoming Montenegrin Minister to the Court of St. James, but that the plan did not succeed. I never saw Mr. Devine's denial—perhaps it fell into the clutches of a ruthless pan-Serbian printer. Naturally, Mr. Devine would not care to be the diplomatic representative of a villain; therefore, when he is brought face to face with certain definite charges he persists in replying "not in detail, but from the broad point of view." He is so exceedingly broad that when an accusation is levelled against the King he sees in this an accusation against the entire country—a country which unfortunately, as he says, "alone of all the Allies has no diplomatic representative in this country." Mr. Devine continues unabashed to repeat and repeat his pro-Nikita stuff in various newspapers. "Il y debvroit avoir," says Montaigne, "quelque corection des loix contre les escrivains ineptes et inutiles, comme il y a contre les vagabonds et fainéants...." Not long ago I happened to see that this egregious person described himself as "Hon. Minister Plenipotentiary for Montenegro," but another gentleman, Sir Roper Parkington, a pompous wine-merchant, announced in the Press that he had become "Minister (Hon.) of Montenegro." Perhaps one of them has resigned, and our poor overworked Foreign Office will not be invited to decide between a Minister (Hon.) and an Hon. Minister.
THE MURDER OF MILETIĆ
The Italians' stay at Kotor was drawing to an end. "We have no aggressive intentions," said Signor Scialoja, the Foreign Minister, "and we shall be glad if we are able to establish with our neighbours on the other side of the Adriatic those amicable relations"—and so forth and so forth. This he said on December 21, but if the Government was imbued with the same principles in August it is unfortunate that it omitted to instruct the responsible officers in Dalmatia. The Yugoslav commander, Lieut.-Colonel Ristić, heard one night that the Italian General at Dobrota was harbouring at his residence no less than twenty-one Montenegrin pro-Nikita komitadjis. They were clad in Italian uniforms, and, as a torpedo-boat and a motor-launch were always kept with steam up, could be shipped off at a moment's notice to Italy. Colonel Ristić sent his adjutant to make inquiries, and the Italians gave their word of honour that no Montenegrins were in the house. In order to avoid a conflict Colonel Ristić then requested the French General to send an officer; but this gentleman was not received by the Italians. Four or five Montenegrins, with an Italian lieutenant, came out of the house and fired at the twenty gendarmes who now encircled it. The fire was returned—all the Montenegrins and the Italian were killed. After this the French police disarmed the remaining Montenegrins and imprisoned them; and on the following day, much to his chagrin, the Italian General was told to take up other quarters at Mula, so that he was separated by the French and the Yugoslavs from Montenegrin territory.... Not long after this a certain Captain Miletić was cycling late one afternoon on the road to Mula. Five or six Italian soldiers lay concealed, and so expertly did they murder him that his friends who were cycling a hundred paces ahead and other friends who were fishing very near the spot in a boat heard nothing whatsoever. It was eight days after this when the Italians had to go from Kotor and the neighbourhood.
D'ANNUNZIO COMES TO RIEKA
The question of Rieka had not yet been settled. The more suave Tittoni, who had succeeded Sonnino, was hoping with the help of France to hold his own against Wilson. Monsieur Tardieu thought that the town with a large strip of hinterland should become a separate independent State under the League of Nations. An arrangement was also proposed by which the city was to be administered by Italy, while the Yugoslavs should have a guarantee of access to the sea. These negotiations were still in a nebulous state, but certain proposals were going to be put into force which were suggested by the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry. With French, American, Italian and British representatives this commission had visited Rieka. One of the recommendations was to the effect that public order should be maintained by British and American police; on the very day (September 12) that the British military police were to inaugurate their service, Gabriele d'Annunzio took matters into his own hands. He rose, he tells us, from a bed of fever and, refusing to recognize the Nitti Government, he marched with the appropriate theatrical ceremonies, into his "pearl of the Adriatic." What he called the 15th Italian victory, or, alternatively, the Santa Entrata—the Holy Entry—was accomplished without the shedding of a drop of blood. Rieka, the stage of many fantastic scenes, witnessed one of the quaintest in the simultaneous arrival at the Governor's palace of a General to whom the Allies had entrusted the command of the town and a rebel Lieut.-Colonel who refused to recognize his authority. They seemed to be on the best of terms. The General (Pittaluga) informed the Allies that he was still in supreme command. Being invited on the following morning to explain the situation at a conference on board the U.S.S. Pittsburg, at which were present the Allied naval and military commanders, General Pittaluga informed them that he would be responsible for the maintenance of order and that nothing was to be considered altered in the government of the town. Forty minutes later, without consulting the Allies, he had handed over the town to a rebel and he himself, in his private car, had vanished. In a subsequent message to the Turkish Minister in Berne, sympathizing for the Allied occupation of Constantinople, d'Annunzio's Foreign Department informed him that "the Legionaries of the Commandant d'Annunzio put to flight the English police-bullies who were biding their time to snatch the tortured city." Opinions vary as to whether the poet-pirate was at that time acting in collusion with Rome—his defiance and their thunders being included in the stage directions—or whether he was a real rebel. We may assume that Signor Nitti did not countenance the buccaneer and that if officers and civil servants diverted Government cargoes into his hands they were not acting as Government agents. As for large numbers of these officials, their secret understanding with d'Annunzio received many proofs. On September 29 the Era Nuova reported that, two days before, Major Reina, d'Annunzio's Chief of Staff, was invited to Abbazia, where he had an interview with the Chief of Staff of the 26th Corps. Illuminating also is the report, in the Era Nuova of October 27, of a test case at Genoa, when a sergeant was tried for leaving his regiment and going to Rieka. The prosecutor demanded four months' detention and degradation. The court accepted the plea of the defence, which was that the court could not condemn or dishonour a soldier who was only guilty of patriotic sentiment. Moreover, it transpired that those who returned from Rieka, after receiving there a salary from both parties, were granted three weeks' leave and a reward of 100 lire. One observed that when the s.s. Danubio left Šibenik for Rieka with sixty waggon-loads of coal, the captain received his sailing orders from the Royal Italian port-officer. When d'Annunzio seized Rieka there was on that same night a solemn demonstration at Zadar, led by Vice-Admiral Millo, who was supposed to be governing Dalmatia in the name of the Entente.