[9] The most bitter of Russian reactionaries were jealous of the unity of Russia. General Yudenitch, for instance, could never be induced to recognize the independence of Esthonia, even though he needed its military aid when he was using Esthonian territory as a base for operations against Petrograd. General Denikin sacrificed a chance to overthrow the Moscow Soviet in order to fight separatism in the Caucasus and the Ukraine. Admiral Kolchak could not be persuaded to use the bait of Siberian independence to help along his cause. In 1919 the Entente Powers and the United States felt they could not risk dampening the ardor of the Russian reactionaries by revealing their eventual policy. This is the explanation for the delay in answering Rumania’s pleas concerning Bessarabia.
[10] De facto recognition was eventually given to the Baltic republics, and their unofficial missions at Washington were changed to legations. But only Finland is as yet regarded by our State Department as on a footing with sovereign states.
[11] In fairness to the Polish Government it must be stated that the Diet, in anticipation of the Ambassadors’ action, passed a law in September, 1922, granting autonomy to Eastern Galicia. According to Count Skrzynski, the Polish Foreign Minister, interviewed in London on April 13, 1923, by a correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” there are to be three local parliaments in Eastern Galicia, with two chambers, one of which must be composed of members of the Ukrainian community. Permanent officials will be appointed by the governor in a way corresponding “with the actual requirements of the two nationalities.” Governmental and judicial affairs are to be conducted in the Polish language, but the county parliaments may determine their own official language. These measures seem to me (I am familiar with local conditions) calculated to prevent the Ukrainians from voicing their national aspirations, and for this reason to be the granting of autonomy in name only. The law contains two good provisions, however, the promise of the establishment and maintenance of a Ukrainian university out of state funds, and the prohibition of colonization in Eastern Galicia.
[12] “Perhaps the severest blow to the prospects of peace in Europe and its economic recovery,” is how a number of British economists characterized the Upper Silesian decision in an open letter to the press. They pointed out that the loss of Königshütte, Kattowitz, Rybnik, and Pless made inevitable the day of German default in reparation payments.
[13] The assassin was disclaimed by his party, the National Democrats, as an irresponsible neurotic, and was executed on January 31. But ever since his death the Nationalists have regarded him as a martyr. Contributions to “place a wreath on the grave of Niewiadomski” were solicited in the press; and all over Poland mass was said, in the presence of distinguished congregations, “for the pure soul of Eligius Niewiadomski, who by the sacrifice of his own life has awakened the spirit of the nation.” According to the Warsaw correspondent of “The Manchester Guardian” (April 6, 1923), in many places shops were forced to close when these services were held; and the movement gained such volume in the churches that the Roman Catholic episcopate of Poland saw itself forced to intervene and declare that “although it is laudable to pray for the souls of the dead, the Holy Mass should not be made to serve purposes of political propaganda and demonstration.”
[14] The United States, however, owing to the skilful diplomacy of Dr. Slavko Grouitch, aided powerfully by his American wife, had recognized the union of the Jugoslavic portions of the defunct Hapsburg Empire with Serbia in January, 1919, and received Dr. Grouitch at Washington as “minister of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.” Throughout the Peace Conference Jugoslavia had American support, and President Wilson did not hesitate to risk wrecking the Conference to protect the Jugoslavs against the territorial greed of Italy.
[15] My Rumanian friends have sent me lengthy criticisms of the new constitution. Their objections seem to me not well taken; for their complaints are rather against the methods used in framing and securing the adoption of the constitution rather than on the contents of the document. The truth of the matter is that in Rumania as in Jugoslavia the new provinces are unwilling to lose their identity by being incorporated, without safeguards of local autonomy, in Greater Rumania and Greater Serbia. This same tendency I found last year among the Greeks of Asia Minor and Constantinople, and the Athens Government would have had troubles similar to those that are confronting the Belgrade and Bucharest Governments, had their military efforts against Turks ended in the liberation of Ottoman Greeks.
[16] The most striking example of Mussolini’s unhesitating determination to use the iron fist rather than tolerate lack of discipline in the ranks of Fascismo occurred on May 23, 1923, when he ordered the expulsion from the Fascist party of Captain Padovani, Commander of the Neapolitan district. Padovani was not only a dear friend of Mussolini, but also the acknowledged leader of the movement in southern Italy. In the expulsion decree the names of a dozen other leading followers of Mussolini in Naples appeared along with that of Padovani.
[17] Mussolini felt very sure of the loyalty of the younger members of the Catholic Party. Father Don Sturzo, leader of the Catholics, found that he could not count upon the willingness of the bulk of his followers to put Catholic interests above Fascist principles. Fascismo has so strong a hold upon even the most devout, who are in sympathy with the objects for which Don Sturzo has been fighting in a country that is still politically anti-Clerical, that there is a movement on foot to form a Fascist Catholic Party, which will give whole-hearted support to Mussolini.
[18] The members of the Raed van Vlaenderen, who were charged with making the independence of Flanders the real object of their demand for equality of language and higher education, and certain Activists, convicted of assisting the enemy by their work for this movement during the war, were sentenced to death for high treason. But they had already escaped to Holland, where they were well received by both the Government and the public. Dutch newspapers declared that these men had in what they considered a patriotic duty to their own country not aided Germany, wittingly or unwittingly, but were engaged of composite race.