Except at Kolašin, where a few friends of Nikita tried their brigand tactics, there was perfect calm in Montenegro during the elections. As elsewhere in Yugoslavia, there was a general amnesty and a prohibition, for the three preceding days, to sell wine or rakia. The ten elected candidates, all of them for the Yugoslav union and against Nikita, were equally divided between Radicals and Democrats on the one hand and Communists and Republicans on the other. The authorities took not the slightest step to favour any candidate; various prominent deputies, such as Dr. Yoyić, the Minister of Food Supply, were beaten. And in a letter to the Press we were told by Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., that these elections were certainly both "farcical and fraudulent." He is contradicted by Mr. Roland Bryce, who, after his excellent work on the Allied Plebiscite Commission in Carinthia, was sent by the Foreign Office with Major L. E. Ottley to report on the Montenegrin elections. He says (in Command Paper I., 124) that "in actual practice the method of voting prescribed by the electoral law was found to ensure absolute secrecy (the system adopted being the only feasible one in a country where the proportion of illiterates is great), and the manner in which the ballot was supervised and carried out was unimpeachable and proof against the most exacting criticism." Mr. M'Neill is also contradicted by the Republican candidate, M. Gjonović, who in a manifesto drawn up after the election declares that "none can say that the elections were not free, or that anyone who wished could not make up a list. At the elections only the lists and boxes of the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Radicals and Communists were represented. All of these parties had in their programmes the motto 'The people and State union,' with, of course, different points of view and different opinions as to the organization of our national and State forces, except the Communists, who go further and desire the union of all peoples."

WHICH ONE GENTLEMAN REFUSES TO TAKE

It will thus be seen that the friends of Nikita were altogether wrong in suggesting that those who voted for the Republicans or Communists were opposed to the union with Serbia in Yugoslavia. Both Republicans and (paradoxical though it sounds) the Communists resented this insinuation very bitterly; and considering that the leaders of both parties are pronounced antagonists of the old régime, and were indeed severally condemned to death by Nikita, it would have been strange if they now supported him. Thus every single programme put forward by the different parties included, in some form or other, union with Serbia. The candidates themselves explicitly said so; but Mr. M'Neill knows better, and informs us how very hostile to the Serbs they really were. He is a wonderful man, Mr. M'Neill. Standing up in the House of Commons he directs his penetrating gaze upon the Black Mountain, and with such effect that he can see in the minds of Montenegrin politicians what they themselves had never dreamed of. Since we have such a man as Mr. M'Neill in the country, one would think that the Foreign Office might have saved itself the expense of sending out Mr. Bryce and Major Ottley.

But since we have it, let us look at Mr. Bryce's very interesting and detailed report. After explaining that both Republicans and Communists were in favour of union with Serbia, he tells us how it happened that so many people voted for these two lists instead of for the orthodox Radical and Democratic parties. The Communists, according to Mr. Bryce, were benefited by a party organization, a vigorous canvass and a better discipline than that of any of their opponents. Their policy won the support of many ardent and very patriotic Nationalists, who voted in many cases for Communism on the ground that it was the Russian policy—out of gratitude for what the Tzars had done for Montenegro in the past! Major Temperley, assistant military attaché, in another report (Command Paper I., 123) observes that some local discontent had arisen in Montenegro because the native does not understand, and has never experienced before, a really efficient system of government, and because the introduction of conscription was not well adapted to the national tradition of lawless and untrained vigour. Major Temperley testifies that the Republican party gained the suffrages of numerous returned emigrants who admired the state of things in America. He shares Mr. Bryce's opinion as to the insignificance of the pro-Nikita party. "Even making large allowances," says he, "there seemed to me to be no doubt that the pro-Nicholas party were the weakest in Montenegro." Certain of his devotees were simply brigands who, like the Neapolitan miscreants after 1860, sought to cast a glamour over their depredations by affecting to be in arms on behalf of their former King. This personage himself was so well aware of his unpopularity that he was prudent enough to tell his supporters to abstain from voting. Those who did abstain were altogether only 32·69 per cent. of the electors, though one would have been justified in expecting a much higher proportion, since the people have not yet fully grasped their rights and duties with respect to the franchise; the distances to the booths were often very great, and the peasants were often indifferent as to whether one candidate or another with a very similar programme should be elected. The tribal or family system is still so prevalent in the villages that one member of a family would be sent to express the considered views of his fellows. The effect of the elections being held on a Sunday was to increase rather than diminish the number of abstainers, for although Sunday is a public holiday the Christian Montenegrin is under no obligation to hear Mass and for that reason travel to the village. The churches are practically deserted, for he is accustomed on that day to remain at home; while the Moslem voters largely declined to vote because there were no Moslem candidates. That is why it would appear that those of the 32·69 per cent. who abstained because they were in favour of Nikita were extremely few. Their simple-mindedness has its limits, while that of good Mr. M'Neill believes that because France, Great Britain and America undertook to restore Montenegrin independence, they were still obliged to do so after they perceived at the conclusion of the War that an overwhelming majority of Montenegrins did not desire it. This majority dethroned its traitor-king; but Mr. M'Neill maintains that France and England have dethroned "a monarch who was a friend and an ally."[64] Because M. Poincaré, in the days before the Montenegrins had rejected Nikita, addressed him as "Very Dear and Great Friend"—the ordinary form of words for a reigning monarch—Mr. M'Neill actually seems to think that France was for evermore compelled to clasp Nikita to her bosom. He clearly admires those who, since the end of the War, have risen in the cause of their old King; and I suppose that in consequence he disapproves of the Omladina, the voluntary association of men who banded themselves together to resist the terrorism of the pro-King komitadjis. If he had been in Montenegro during the years after the War he would possibly agree that komitadji is the proper name for the many lawless elements who have found the traditional fighting life more congenial than the thankless task of tilling their very barren land. The moral effect of opposing to these the Montenegrin Omladina instead of Serbian troops was to destroy all pretence of the movement being a national Montenegrin insurrection against the union, and the cessation of assistance from Italy resulted in the complete suppression of the movement. The few outlaws who still remain at large, said Mr. Bryce in December 1920, are in no sense political, but are merely bandits. And as the Omladina has now no raison d'être they have disbanded themselves. Much now depends on the Constitution. If it gives them equal rights—and naturally it will—with the other inhabitants of Yugoslavia the Montenegrins will be content.

In August 1921 the Secolo of Milan sent a famous correspondent to Montenegro. He came to much the same conclusions as Messrs. Bryce and Temperley. Not a single political prisoner was to be found, and not one of the ex-soldiers who returned from Gaeta had been molested. The correspondent thought that the Serbs had been ill-advised at the beginning to employ forcible methods against the pro-Nikita partisans who were opposed to Yugoslavia; they should, said he, have let the pear ripen spontaneously and fall into their lap. But now their policy had become one of conciliation: during the last two and a half years Montenegro had received from Belgrade for public works, pensions and subsidies, 93 million dinars, and had paid in taxes only 5 millions. Secondary education had been increased, and 700 Montenegrin students (of whom 500 are allotted a monthly grant) frequent Yugoslav universities. The fertile lands of Yugoslavia were open to Montenegrin emigration. In fact an isolated, independent Montenegro was no longer needed. With the disappearance of the Turk from all Serbian territory in 1913 a return to the union of the Serbs, as in the days of Stephen Dušan, was only hindered by historical, sentimental and, above all, by dynastic reasons. It was sad, quoth the correspondent, that the glorious history of Montenegro should have come to such a tame end, but her historic mission was closed in 1913, even as that of Scotland in 1707, to the benefit of both parties. Now the Serbs were leaving them to manage their own affairs; many ex-Nikita officials had been confirmed in their posts, while officers were given their old rank in the Yugoslav army. It is unfortunate for itself that the "Near East" (of London) does not employ so discerning a correspondent. We should then hear no more of such folly as that which—to select one occasion out of many—caused it in November 1921 to speak about "the forcible absorption of Montenegro." And the world may be pardoned if it is more ready to accept the observations made on the spot by an expert Italian correspondent rather than the futile remarks sent by the Hon. Aubrey Herbert from the House of Commons, also in November 1921, to the Morning Post. This gentleman informs us that "it was probably because the Yugoslav Government was allowed to annex the ancient principality of Montenegro, exile its King, and subjugate its people, without any interference from the Great Powers, that M. Pasitch thought that he could do as he liked in Albania." That is the sort of statement which one may treat with Matthew Arnold's "patient, deep disdain."

MEDIÆVAL DOINGS AT RIEKA

On July 14, 1920, a letter marked "urgent" (No. 2047) was written by Colonel Sani, the Chief of d'Annunzio's Cabinet, in which he confirmed the orders which he had already given verbally, to the effect that all the foreign elements, especially the Serbs and Croats, who "exercise an obnoxious political influence," should be expelled from Rieka at the earliest possible date; he mentions that this is the command of d'Annunzio, who is in full accord with the President of the Consiglio Nazionale. This was the continuation of a practice which the Italian authorities had carried on in a wholesale manner. Father J. N. Macdonald, in his unimpeachable little book, A Political Escapade (London, 1921), gives us numerous examples of persons who in the most wanton fashion were expelled from the town. Thus a merchant called Pliskovac was arrested by the carabinieri, while talking to some English soldiers. After three days, spent under arrest, he was told that he would have to depart "from Italy" (sic). He was given a faglio di via obligatorio by the carabinieri, according to which he was banished on the ground of being "unemployed." Yet this man had had a fixed residence in Rieka for thirty-six years, was employed as a merchant, and furnished with a regular industrial certificate.... His name had been found on one of the lists in favour of annexation to Yugoslavia. When the world in general turned its attention away from Rieka, very much relieved to think that there would be an end to all the turmoil now that an agreement had at last been reached and the poor harassed place was to be neutral, it presumed that those among her citizens who had been openly in arms against the other party would as soon as possible resign. They would have been astonished to be told that the notorious self-elected Consiglio Nazionale Italiano, under the selfsame President, Mr. Grossich, cheerfully remained in office. It is true that they now called themselves the "Provisional Government"; in Paris and London this change of title made a good deal more impression than upon the local Yugoslavs, whose treatment did not vary. A decree was printed on January 21, 1921, in the Vedetta, which laid it down that the expulsions ordered by the previous Government retained their force, but that appeals might be addressed to the Rector of the Interior. A deputation was received by this gentleman, and was told that the procedure would be so complicated and so lengthy that it would not permit any one to return until after the elections. These elections had been fixed for the end of April, and it seemed as if France and England were so blinded by the blessed words "Provisional Government" that they could see nothing else. That over 2000 arditi, clothed in mufti, had either stayed from the d'Annunzian era or been since introduced was surely gossip, and how could anyone believe that those men had been granted citizenship on the simple declaration of a Rieka shopkeeper, or some such person, that the applicant worked under him? These declarations, by the way, must have refrained from going into details, for there was an almost total lack of work—except in the political department of the police. Rieka was to all intents in the possession of Italy, and she was learning what that meant. The town was like a dead place, shops were only open in the morning, and if the shopkeepers had not been compelled by the authorities to remove their shutters they would have strolled down to the quays where the grass was growing—"but, thank Heaven," cried Grossich, "thank Heaven, it is Italian grass!" (If he ever recalls that long-distant day, when, as a student, he fought for his fellow-Croats, and when, as a young doctor, he was an enthusiastic official of the Croat Club at Castua near Rieka, perhaps this gentleman thanks his God for having led him to Rieka and turned him into an Italian.) Cut off from its Yugoslav hinterland the population of Rieka, which consisted more and more of arditi and fascisti, less and less of Yugoslavs, the population had nothing to do save to speculate in the rate of exchange (but not in the local notes which no one wanted) and to prepare for the elections. Thus, with time very heavy on their hands, there was a great deal of corruption; cocaine could be obtained at nearly all the cafés. The elections drew nearer, and one wondered whether the Entente was going to look at the lists of voters and to inquire how it came that many natives of the town were not inscribed. What was likely to happen if the place was delivered altogether to the C.N.I. could be seen when the harbour of Baroš, given by the Rapallo Treaty to Yugoslavia, was demanded, simply demanded, by the Italian Nationalists; those ultra-patriots the fascisti, in Italy and in Rieka, when they saw that in the "holocaust city" everything was going just as well for them as in the brave days of d'Annunzio, persisted loudly in claiming Baroš as an integral part of Rieka. The Yugoslavs must be prevented, wherever possible, from approaching the Adriatic—this being the furious policy of the Italian capitalists who had succeeded in sweeping most of the Italian people off their feet. With Baroš, a port of limited possibilities, in the hands of the Yugoslavs, it would mean that the adjacent Rieka through its Yugoslav commerce would prosper; but anything that savoured of a Yugoslav Rieka was obnoxious to the capitalists and their wild followers, since they feared that in the first place it would raise a grievous obstacle to their penetration of the Balkans, and secondly it would involve the ruin of Triest, where German capital still plays a predominant part. So in their folly they strenuously fought for the Germans, spurred on by the terrible thought that Rieka might become predominantly Yugoslav. They refused to listen to their wiser men, who pointed out that the possession of an odd town or island was to Italy of not so much importance as friendship with their Slav neighbours. When, at the beginning of April 1921 a large sailing boat, the Rad (Captain Vlaho Grubišić) came into Baroš, the first ship to bring the Yugoslav flag to that port, there was intense commotion among the fascisti. Forty of them with weapons ran down to the harbour, but Grubišić told them that he saw no reason why he should not fly the flag of his State. A number of workmen, Italians and Yugoslavs, then appeared and made common cause against the fascisti, so that the latter withdrew. And the captain of the Italian warship Carlo Mirabello sent to ask Grubišić if he had removed the flag. On hearing that he had not done so the captain said that he had acted perfectly correctly. It seems to be too much to hope that such honourable Italians as this captain and these workmen will be able, without certain measures on the part of France and England, to prevail over those elements who have dragged Rieka down to death and to dishonour.

At last, on April 25, the elections were held. There were two parties, that of the C.N.I., swollen with arditi and fascisti, who would have nothing to do with the Treaty of Rapallo—their programme consisted in annexation to Italy—and the other party, whose object was to carry out the provisions of the Treaty. Professor Zanella was its chief. There did not seem to be much hope that it would be successful, although it contained what was left of the Autonomists, who in 1919 were the largest party—desiring that the town should be neither Yugoslav nor Italian—and these Autonomists were now reinforced by the Yugoslavs. But so numerous had been the expulsions that many of the survivors feared that it would be futile to vote, and on the other hand the Annexionist party was quite confident that it would win. During the afternoon of the election day, however, they perceived that the impossible was happening, and that Zanella was marching to victory. Thereupon the enraged fascisti had recourse to violence. "Zanella's victory was intolerable to these patriots," said La Nazione,[65] "because they remembered the two years of tenacity and of splendid Italian spirit and of suffering which the town had lived through." Most of the electors remembered the suffering. The fascisti seized a number of urns and made a bonfire of them; there was presented the spectacle of Signor Gigante, d'Annunzio's obedient mayor, bursting with armed companions into that room of the Palace of Justice where the votes were being scrutinized. "I yield to violence," said the presiding official; and twenty minutes afterwards the contents of the urns were burning merrily. But these measures did not help the cause of the fascisti, no more than did their screams that they had been betrayed. And if Zanella had to fly from Rieka because, as the Nationalist paper put it, he could not stand up against the vehement indignation of so many of the citizens, yet he and his party have triumphed. "Fiume or Death," used to be the device dear to d'Annunzio. He placarded the long-suffering walls with it, and it was on the lapels of the coats of his adherents. "Fiume must belong to Italy or be blown up," cried the poet. But, strange to say, a majority of the inhabitants prefer that their town should continue to exist, and this it can only do if, in accordance with the Treaty of Rapallo, it becomes a neutral State on friendly terms with both its neighbours, Italy and Yugoslavia. The Italian Government desires, of course, to execute its Treaty obligations,[66] and if it finds too painful the task of moderating the ardours of its own super-patriots, it will no doubt be glad to have this done by an International force. That method, which was only prevented by d'Annunzio's arrival in 1919, offers the speediest and most efficacious solution of Rieka's troubles.

THE STRICKEN TOWN

If anyone imagined that they would be ended with the installation of Zanella he was wrong. At the municipal elections 90 per cent. voted for the Autonomist party, the Yugoslavs having had the good sense to join them. But the Italian Nationalists were not going to yield to moderation, and immediately after the elections Zanella was obliged to flee for his life, so that he was not installed in office until October 5. He struggled manfully to clear away the chaos and to make such economic arrangements as would eventually convert Rieka into a prosperous port. This the fascisti of Triest and Venice could by no means tolerate, and on January 31 an unsuccessful attempt was made by them on his life as he was leaving the Constituent Assembly. On February 16 the Anai (Assoziazione Nazionale fra gli Arditi d'Italia) sent out a very urgent message from their headquarters in the Via Macchiavelli in Triest. They informed the subsections that not only was Zanella preparing to deliver Rieka to the Croats, but that the army of the "globe-trotter" Wrangel was waiting in Sušak to seize the wretched town. Therefore Gabriele d'Annunzio had commanded that every loyal servant of the cause was to be mobilized. And after a few rhetorical sentences it continued, "I will give the marching orders by telegram as follows: 'Send the documents. Farina.' If only a small number of people are needed I will telegraph, 'Send ... Quintal. Farina.'" The men were to assemble at the Italian Labour Bureau, 9 Via Pozza Bianca in Triest. They were to be clad in mufti, to be armed so far as it was possible and to have with them three days' provender.... The subsections are asked to telegraph the approximate number of those on whom they can rely. And this memorandum should be acknowledged. It is signed, "With brotherly greetings. Farina Salvatore." About ten days later—between February 26 and 28—there was a meeting at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, under the presidency of Vilim Stipetić, formerly a major of the Austrian General Staff. Some dissident Croats—among them Dr. Emanuel Gagliardi, Captains Cankl and Petričević, Gjuro Klišurić, Josip Boldin and Major-General Ištvanović—two dissident Montenegrins, Jovo Plamenac and Marko Petrović, together with two Italian officers, adherents of d'Annunzio, Colonel Finzi of Triest and Major Ventura of Rome, ... assembled for the purpose of stirring up trouble for the Yugoslavs in the spring. They referred with pleasure to the presence of sundry Bulgarian komitadjis in Albania, Finzi declared that the Italian Government would satisfy the Croats and give them Rieka as soon as Croatia had achieved her independence and a less visionary promise was made of disturbances in Rieka. On March 1 the two Italian officers left for Triest and on March 3 Rieka was confronted with another coup d'état. The fascisti of Triest and of Gulia Venetia descended on the town in two special trains of the Italian State Railway. They had not the slightest confidence in Zanella, who was an honest man, working on the basis of the Treaty of Rapallo, whereby Italy and Yugoslavia recognized the Free State of Rieka. In their eyes it was a monstrous thing that Italy should be expected to observe this instrument. So let the town be freed, let Zanella be expelled. And as he only had at his disposal a force of about three hundred local gendarmes, with rifles but without munition, it was not particularly difficult for the fascisti heroes to accomplish their task. Zanella had to fly once more.