FARCE

On November 4 an Italian destroyer, the Stocco, shortly followed by the Emanuele Filiberto, a cruiser, came on their errand of humanity. The I.N.C. at once organized a plebiscite—by which is meant not a dull giving and counting of votes in the usual election booths. A plebiscite, at all events a plebiscite at Rieka, signifies for the Italianists a mob assembled in a public thoroughfare; photographs of such assemblies illustrate their pamphlets and are entitled "plebiscito." At the harbour the Italian Admiral, whose name was Raineri, told the joyous I.N.C.—who now had flung aside their anonymity—that he had come to bring them a salute from Italy, and that he had been sent to shield Italians and to protect Italian interests. The plebiscite threw up its hats and waved its flags, and shouted its applause and sang its songs. Flowers fell upon the Admiral, and on his men and on the guns; the ships, as we are told, were changed to floating gardens. But the sailors did not disembark. Some ladies, members of the plebiscite, besought the Admiral to come ashore, and hoping to persuade the men, they climbed on board and playfully seized many sailors' caps, which in the town, they said, could be redeemed. Then shortly afterwards, the Yugoslav officials came to greet the Admiral, as did the commandant of the Yugoslav troops which had been for several days guarding the town. Meanwhile some unknown persons had been up in the old clock-tower and, for reasons known perhaps to themselves, had taken in both the Croatian and Italian flags; the Admiral drove up to see the Governor, Dr. Lenac, and requested that his country's flag should be rehoisted, which of course was done. And until November 17 the Admiral was nearly every day up at the Governor's palace, as a multitude of details had to be discussed. A French warship arrived on the 10th, followed by a British vessel on the 12th or 13th. Perfect calm prevailed. Croatian and Italian flags flew everywhere, as well as French ones, British and American. The name of the Hotel Deak was altered to Hotel Wilson.... But the men of the Emanuele Filiberto and the Stocco did not land. Colonel Teslić assured the Admiral that if anyone started to set fire to an Italianist child or to indulge in any other crime he would prevent it.

PAROLE D'HONNEUR

All this was very disconcerting to the I.N.C. They knew that on the hills outside Rieka were large numbers of Italian troops, which had come overland from Istria. But how to get them in? Rieka had not been ascribed to the Italians by the London Treaty.[16] ... On November 15 a detachment of Serbian troops arrived, under Colonel Maximović, and were given a magnificent reception. Thousands of people accompanied them, and in front of the French destroyer there was a manifestation. Some of the Serbs, old warriors who had been under arms since the first Balkan War, were moved to tears. The Italianists were furious; Admiral Raineri called on the Governor for an explanation of the Serbs' arrival. A conference was held between the Admiral, the Colonel and two Yugoslav officers. If the Serbs remained at Rieka, said the Admiral, he would land his marines. Maximović said he had come in obedience to his orders, and that he would have to prevent by force the disembarkation of the Italians. At this moment a Serbian officer entered to announce that Italian armoured cars were approaching from Abbazia. Maximović immediately ordered his troops to mobilize, but the Admiral said a mistake had been made and that the cars would be sent back. (The Government Secretary, Dr. Ružić, had been told at three o'clock by a telephone operator that the Admiral had himself telephoned to Abbazia for the cars.) It was decided at this conference that on Sunday, November 17, the Yugoslav troops would evacuate the town, that it would be occupied by Serbian and American troops, and that, to mark the alliance, a small Italian detachment would be landed. As Admiral Cagni, of Pola, ordered that Italian troops should be disembarked at Rieka, another conference was held between Admiral Raineri, Colonel Maximović, Colonel Teslić and Captain Dvorski (of the Yugoslav navy), as well as French and British officers. It was arranged sous parole d'honneur d'officier that at 4 p.m. the Serbian troops should leave Rieka and go to Porto Ré, an hour's sea journey, that the Yugoslav troops should remain, and that the Italians should not land. No other steps would be taken till November 20 at noon, and the Supreme Command would be asked to settle the difficulty. As soon as the Serbian troops were out at sea, the Italian army, under General di San Marzano (attended by a kinematograph), marched in from the hills, entering the town simultaneously from four directions, in accordance with a strategic plan. The General was told what Raineri had agreed to do; he replied that he was Raineri's senior, that the final decision rested with him, and that he intended to proceed into the town. (One of the British officers is said to have addressed him rather bluntly.) At 4.30 Raineri landed his marines, and afterwards he was dismissed from his post—not, indeed, for having broken his word given at the inter-Allied conference, but for having delayed so long before disembarking troops in the town. He said he had received a written order from the Entente; if only Maximović had not left he might have shown it him. With twenty carabinieri the General went to the Governor's palace and asked Dr. Lenac to vacate it. He was so excited that he almost pushed the doctor out. "There is no room for the two of us," he said. And that is how the Italian occupation began. The French and British brought some troops in at a later date, but when they had six hundred each the Italians had 22,000. With the Italians came fifty Americans, so that the force might have an international appearance. These Americans were given broad-sheets, printed by the town Italianists in English; they welcomed the Americans as liberators, and informed them that the population had by plebiscite declared for annexation to the Motherland. On the same night the Yugoslav troops were turned out of their barracks into the street by the Italian army.... These are, I believe, the main facts as to the occupation which has been the subject of much heated argument. I had the facts from eye-witnesses and documents: I exposed the evidence of each side to the criticism of the other.

Very soon the disorders began. On the evening of the occupation Italian troops ran through the town, accompanied by some of the plebiscite, and compelled the people to remove the Yugoslav colours from their button-holes. In cases they surrounded their victim and used force. When this was used against women, after the arrival of the French and British, it produced some serious international affrays. The Italians, who invariably outnumbered the others, did not scruple to employ their knives; thus in the middle of December two French soldiers were stabbed in the back and their murderers were never found.

THE POPULATION OF THE TOWN

But there had been at Rieka an Englishman for whom I have an almost inexpressible admiration. This was Mr. A. Beaumont who, a couple of days after the Italians occupied the town in the above-mentioned curious fashion, sent from Triest a long message to the Daily Telegraph. How can anyone not marvel at a gentleman who travels to a foreign town which is in the throes of unrest and who, undeterred by his infirmity, sits down to grasp the rather complicated features of the situation? I am not acquainted with Mr. Beaumont, but he must be blind, poor fellow, for he says that the Yugoslavs occupied with ill-concealed glee a town entirely inhabited by some 45,000 Italians. Perhaps somebody will read to him the following statistics made after the year 1868, when Rieka came under Magyar dominion. The statistics were made by the Magyars and Italianists combined, so that they do not err in favour of the Yugoslavs. He might also be told that the Magyar-Italian alliance closed the existing Yugoslav national schools for the 13,478 Yugoslavs in 1890, while they opened Italo-Magyar schools for the 13,012 "Italians" and Magyars. They would not even allow the Yugoslavs to have at Rieka an elementary school at their own expense. Everything possible was done during these decades to inculcate hatred and contempt for whatsoever was Slav, hoping thus to denationalize the citizens. In view of all this it speaks well for Yugoslav steadfastness that they were able to maintain themselves. Here are the figures:

Yugoslavs.Italians.Magyars.
188010,227 (49%)9,237 (44%)379 (2%)
189013,478 (46%)13,012 (44%)1,062 (4%)
190016,197 (42%)17,354 (45%)2,842 (7%)
191015,692 (32%)24,212 (49%)6,493 (13%)

Assuming for the moment that these figures are correct—and it is an enormous assumption[17]—are not the Autonomists to be found chiefly among the Italians and Magyars? It is claimed that the Autonomist, Socialist and Slav vote exceeds that of those who desire annexation to Italy. One need not treat au sérieux the great procession organized by the Italianists, when they could not scrape together more than about 4000 persons, including many schoolboys and girls, the municipal clerks, visitors from Italy, Triest and Zadar. One need not gibe the Italianists with the numbers who followed Dr. Vio on that famous day when, weary of palavering, he summoned round him his supporters and strode off to the Governor's palace, where General Grazioli, who had succeeded General di San Marzano, was installed.[18] Arrived there, Dr. Vio with a superb gesture begged the General to accept the town in the name of Italy. It is not often in the lifetime of a man that he has the opportunity of giving a whole town away. Dr. Vio made the most of that occasion; if the crowd which followed him was disappointing, there may be good explanations. The allegiance of a town, one may submit, should be settled in another fashion. The house-to-house inquiry, conducted in the spring of 1919 by the Autonomists—resulting in an anti-annexionist majority—was much impeded by the police; and it is of course the business of the authorities and not of any one party to hold elections in a town. Had the Italian National Council, bereaving themselves of Italian bayonets, held a real plebiscite—secret or otherwise—the result would doubtless have given them pain, but no surprise.... And this will happen even if the Magyar system of separating Rieka from the suburb of Sušak is perpetrated. Sušak contains about 12,500 Yugoslavs and extremely few Italianists; and, by the way, to show how the Magyars and the Italianists worked together, it is worth mentioning that the Magyar railway officials who lived at Sušak were allowed a vote at Rieka, while if a Croat lived at Sušak and carried on his avocation at Rieka he could vote in Sušak only. One must not imagine that Sušak is a poor relation; most people would prefer to live there. Dr. Vio was intensely wrathful because the British General resided in a beautifully situated house there by the sea. Not only is Sušak about twenty yards, across a stream, from Rieka, but from a commercial point of view their separation seems absurd, since half the port, including the great wood depots, is in Sušak. One of these timber merchants presented an example of Italianization. His original name was E. R. Sarinich and this was painted on his business premises at Sušak, while in Rieka he called himself Sarini. It must have caused him many sleepless nights.... Counting Sušak with Rieka as one town, the total population in the autumn of 1918 was about 51 per cent. Yugoslav, 39 per cent. Italian and 10 per cent. Magyar. These Magyars, by the way, seem not to have been noticed by Mr. Beaumont. There were still a good number of them in the town. "Whilst Italy might have consented," says Mr. Beaumont, "to a compromise with Hungary, had that State continued to exist as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she certainly never contemplated handing over"—["handing over" is rather humorous]—"Fiume and its exclusively Italian population to the Jugo-Slavs." Underneath Mr. Beaumont's dispatch there is printed a semi-official statement, sent by Reuter, from Rome. "Yesterday afternoon," it says, "our troops occupied Fiume. The occupation, which was made for reasons of public order, was decided upon in view not only of the urgent and legitimate demands of the Italian citizens of Fiume, but also of the insistent appeals of eminent foreigners...."

THE TALE CONTINUES ON THE NORTHERN ISLES