Chapter 18

For what happened before our arrival I am indebted to the chemist Radimiri, from whose report the following is an extract: "At ten in the morning Major Verdinois had summoned to his office the communal doctor, Moretti, and the secretary, Draguni['c], both of them Yugoslavs. He told them that two Englishmen who were cruising about in the _Porer_ would very likely be coming up that afternoon to Blato and he would permit no sort of demonstration. The doctor, he said, would be held responsible for any disorder; and as Moretti was about to make this known to the people, who were just coming out of church, the Italian adjutant approached him with a paper and ordered him to read it to the Yugoslavs. This document--it has been preserved--is in the Serbo-Croat language and was given to the doctor because the adjutant, who did not know the language, mistook it for another one. It was an exhortation to the people, urging them to have nothing more to do with the Yugoslav _intelligentsia_, which had made a great deal of money during the War. 'And you have given your blood for four and a half years and what has been your benefit?' Dr. Moretti made a personal appeal for the maintenance of order, and the people, having called out 'Long live Wilson!' went their divers ways in peace. Nevertheless three platoons appeared, each with one officer and one N.C.O. The adjutant's platoon distinguished itself, for while the arditi attacked anyone they saw, including women and children, with the butt end of their muskets, Lieut. Giovanoni laid about him with a dog-whip. Several of the soldiers made for a group of four young fellows; three of them escaped and the fourth, Peter Kraljevi['c], was struck with a rifle so severely across the face that he was bathed in blood. As he tried to defend himself he was shot at from a distance of three paces: one bullet went through his nose, another wounded him in the forehead. He fell to the ground, and a teacher, Mrs. Maria Grubisi['c], who had witnessed the whole incident, sank down unconscious at his side and was covered with his blood. Various other people were injured--three little girls received rifle shots in their bodies. All the main streets were shut off and eight machine guns were placed in readiness. But the people were not to be intimidated, and when the Englishmen arrived their national consciousness was displayed. As a result Peter [vC]arap was knocked unconscious with a mighty blow of a musket, the fourteen-year-old Joseph Sule[vz]i['c] had a similar experience, and among many others who were assaulted we will only mention an ex-official, Anthony Pi[vz]tuli['c], a man of sixty, who was struck twice with a rifle on his stomach and then prevented from going home but chased out into the fields.... It seemed as if it would be impossible for our people to have a conversation with the Englishmen, but at last twenty men and twelve girls managed to reach that house...."

THE PROTEST OF AN ITALIAN JOURNALIST

I would also give Signor Buonfiglio's dispatch from this island--it appeared in the _Corriere d'Italia_ of June 16--but more than three-quarters of it is devoted to an account of some Dalmatian delegates who were received, during the War, by Francis Joseph and expressed their loyalty. The deputation was introduced by Dr. Iv[vc]evi['c], a Croat; and if Signor Buonfiglio wants us to deduce from this how ardently the Croats loved the Habsburgs he will have to give some other explanation for the very loyal speeches of his countryman, Dr. Ziliotto of Zadar. But I presume that his editor did not send Signor Buonfiglio on this journey to the end that he should write of what official speakers saw fit to say during the War. As for the incidents we witnessed and the islanders' aspirations, he merely says that their welcome to us was an artificial affair which the Yugoslav committees, with extreme effort, had organized--and I don't think that that is a very illuminating observation.

We learned that on arriving in Blato the Italians dissolved the town council, on account of its incapacity to do the work. However, a military man to whom it was handed over gave his opinion that he had never seen a better administration.... Out of all that we were told, I will relate the following: some Italian soldiers were playing football, and when they kicked the ball into a maize-field and continued to play amid the maize, the farmers asked them to desist. Two officers and forty men were present; they fell upon the three farmers, and when finally the major commanded them to stop, they dragged them to the barracks and thrashed them so that the people in adjacent houses heard them all the night.

On our way to the minute harbour of Pregorica, where the _Porer_ was waiting for us, we had a repetition of the scenes enacted between Velaluka and Blato; and a number of young men, heedless of the risks they ran, rushed down the mountain-side to Pregorica by the shortcuts. In the harbour were some carabinieri, as well as our escorting destroyer. We therefore had to leave without delay, lest the young patriots should come into contact with the carabinieri. So very hastily and in a very illegible scrawl I copied the original letter given on November 4, 1918, by Lieut. Poggi to the people of Velaluka: "We Italians," it said, "have come to Velaluka as the friends of Yugoslavia and of the Entente. We have come as friends and not as foes, and as such I ask you to accept us. We are hoisting our flag together with that of Yugoslavia, and with your friendly consent we will keep it there until the question of the general peace is definitely arranged, according to your and our ... according to the principles of ..." The two missing words are illegible.

INTERESTING DELEGATES

Lying off Kor[vc]ula, that evening, we received the usual delegates. One of the Italians, Dr. Benussi, said in a trembling, tearful voice that the Italians were far too good. And while we were hearing from one of his colleagues what were his views on the subject of a plebiscite, Dr. Benussi moaned unceasingly, "I wish I had not come! I wish I had not come!" He considered that it was outrageous of us to allude to plebiscites. The Yugoslavs did not tell us anything very thrilling; the Italian authorities persisted in writing to the peasants in Italian, of which they scarcely understand a word. What a pity that this is not their most serious fault! A barrister called Dr. Pero Cvili[vc]evi['c] came, with a companion, to see us the next day, before breakfast. He said that they, like most people on the island, were Croats; and he and his friend belonged to the Serbo-Croat party, which was, he said, a righteous, though rather a small party, as the island had been gravely handicapped by the support which Austria gave the Serbs. "And now," he added--it seemed a trifle illogical--"the people are all very contented. Believe me," he said. Furthermore, he volunteered the information that the law was being administered in the name of the Entente and the United States. It may show a distinct bias on our part, but I fear we asked him whether the blows from the butt end of muskets were being applied under the same sanction.... When we paid our formal visit to the Commandant at his office on the quay he did not ask if we would care to go to one of the Italian schools. An American journalist had made a speech in Rome, describing how he had been taken to a school at Kor[vc]ula, how the mistress had allowed him to ask the children if they knew Italian, how they had raised their hands, and how this had convinced him that Dalmatia should become Italian. Apparently that journalist had not been told that prior to the War this town of some 2000 inhabitants was provided with five schools in which not a single child spoke Italian, and with one school subsidized by the Liga Nazionale which--as in Albania--lured its pupils by gifts of clothing, books, etc. The teachers, from the Trentino, knew not a word of Serbo-Croat and the children not a word of Italian. But not very much harm was done, as the population considered it shameful to attend this school, and the bribes never succeeded in attracting more than thirty pupils, even when money was paid to the parents. This institution was reopened by the Italian army after the War, and presumably it is the one which the American visited. I do not know whether the schoolmistress, forewarned of his visit, had told the children in Serbo-Croat that a gentleman would come and say something in Italian, whereupon they would hold up their hands.

A DIGRESSION ON SIR ARTHUR EVANS

Seeing that the Adriatic problem, after all these months, had not been solved but on the contrary had been allowed to spread its poison more and more, one naturally wonders what was being done in Paris. The Conference was fortunate enough to have at its disposal, after the Armistice, the famous ethnologist and archæologist Sir Arthur Evans. This gentleman, whose distinctions are too numerous to mention (Fellow of Brasenose; twice President of the British Association; Keeper during twenty-four years of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; D.Litt.; LL.D.; F.R.S.; P.S.A., and so forth), has for many years devoted himself to the eastern Adriatic--the second edition of his _Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina on Foot_ appeared in 1877, his _Illyrian Letters_ in 1878, his _Slavs and European Civilization_ in the same year. He never ceased from that time onward to study these matters. "I think," he says in a letter to me from Youlbury, near Oxford, of which he kindly permits me to make any use I like, "that in some ways I have more title to speak on the Adriatic Question than any other Englishman, as Dalmatia was my headquarters for some years. Neither did I approach the question with any anti-Italian prejudices. I was so far recognized as a competent and moderate authority that I was asked by the Royal Geographical Society to give them a paper on the subject.... Anxious, with others friendly to both sides, to secure an equitable agreement between the Italians and Yugoslavs, I took part in a series of private conferences in London which led to a preliminary Agreement forming the basis on which the Congress at Rome approached the question. There the Agreement was ratified and publicly approved by Orlando. How Sonnino proceeded to try to wreck it, you will know. Finally (just before the Armistice, as it happened) there was to have been a new Congress of Nationalities at Paris, which I was asked to attend. It was stopped by the big Allies, as matters were thought too critical, owing to the submission of Bulgaria. But I thought it would be useful if I went to Paris all the same, and I obtained from the Foreign Office, War Office, etc., a passport viséd 'British War Mission.' Shortly after I arrived in Paris the Armistice was declared. Soon afterwards, owing to the departure of Mr. Steed and Dr. Seton-Watson, there was left literally no one among our countrymen at Paris who knew the intricacies of the Adriatic Question and the relations of Italy with the Yugoslavs, and the Yugoslav-Roumanian difficulties, etc. That being the case, Lord Derby asked me to be his go-between, and I had an immense lot of work thrown on my shoulders. I had gone to the expense of taking a large salon at the Hotel Continental, where I had private Conferences--the Yugoslav and Roumanian leaders there, for instance, discussed the Banat frontier question, and the conciliatory proposals made no doubt furthered the final solution, with which they harmonized. When there was a serious danger of a clash between the Italian army and the Serbian forces at Ljubljana, knowing the imminence of the danger I made such strong representations to Lord D., which he forwarded to Balfour, that immediate pressure was exercised at Rome, and the Italians just drew back in time. I also was able to convey strong monitions to the other side. I used to let our Ambassador have a short précis almost daily of affairs connected with those regions.... With great trouble I prevailed on the Yugoslav representatives to agree to a scheme, which I drew up, for the neutralization of the East Adriatic coastal waters, and this was taken up by the Americans--Colonel House inviting me to an interview on the subject, in which he expressed his approval. A copy was also sent to the F.O., and for this and for several other bits of work useful to the F.O. I received Balfour's official thanks. I had also many friendly conversations with prominent Italians in Paris, and in every way ingeminated agreement between them and the Southern Slavs. But, meanwhile, I exposed the Nationalist Italian campaign, to which Sonnino was privy, in the _Manchester Guardian_. Finally I went, at the end of 1918, for a short holiday to England, Lord Derby (with whom I always had the friendliest relations) giving me a diplomatic pass. When, however, early in January 1919 I prepared to return to Paris, where I had kept on my expensive rooms, I found difficulties in my way. Italian intrigue had apparently been on foot. I was advised to write to Lord Hardinge, and I told him briefly the circumstances. This great man never answered or acknowledged my letter, and it was only by making urgent personal representations at the F.O. that I finally got the answer that they refused me a passport.... I gather that it was not only Italian intrigue but the feeling that they did not want 'damned experts.' And so they blundered on, and to this day"--the letter is dated July 17, 1920--"nothing is settled on the Adriatic but unsettlement."

THE DUPES OF NIKITA IN MONTENEGRO

Meanwhile at intervals during this year there had been troubles in Montenegro. On three occasions the Italians at Antivari had endeavoured to extend their sphere of influence, but the armed civilian population had been equal to these emergencies and had each time thrust them back to the coast. At Gaeta, between Rome and Naples, a very well-paid corps was stationed--almost every man was either a commissioned or a non-commissioned officer. The Italian Government was asked by Signor Lazari, the Socialist deputy, for what purpose it allocated 300,000 lire a month to support these peculiar troops. They were mostly Montenegrins--relatives of Nikita, members of the five favoured families, persons who were stranded and so forth; likewise at Gaeta were a number of other Yugoslavs who had been liberated from their Italian internment camps, but many of them, when they discovered what was expected of them, revolted. Thirty or forty of them managed to escape to France, and others to Montenegro, as for example the man who for twelve years had been Nikita's porter. He and three others reached Cetinje one day in August 1920 when I was there. They had with them a picture-card of the sixty-nine officers of the Gaeta army. Every one knows every one else in Montenegro and only two of these officers had held a previous commission. According to Nikita's Premier, Jovan Plamenac, the Italian Government considered this as the Montenegrin army and regarded (rather optimistically) as a loan the money it contributed to keep it up. In driblets the non-revolting part of this Gaeta army was taken to the eastern shores of the Adriatic, for the purpose of making "incidents" in Montenegro. There was a regular scale--so much in cash for the murder of a prefect, so much for a deputy. One day the father of Andrija Radovi['c], a man of over seventy, was cut down; they waited until everyone had left the village to go to some fête in a neighbouring village, and the old man defended himself to the last.

These emissaries from Gaeta, misguided Montenegrins, other Southern Slavs and Italians, made considerable use of the mischievous speeches that were sometimes heard in the British Parliament. They would explain to some poor, ignorant mountain-dweller that such great people in England were still discussing Nikita's return, and if he did return and they had listened to the voice of Radovi['c], woe be to them. Some of these wretched dupes would follow their seducers, who--I have no doubt--would not only have declined his decorations if they had been better informed, but would have placed the matter in the hands of their solicitor, as Gabriel Rossetti threatened to do if he were ever elected to the Royal Academy. And yet, after the character of the scoundrel King was fully exposed, his advocates, so far as I know, had not the grace to own their error. Of course there was in Montenegro a certain amount of uninstigated unrest; the wine of politics, which they were now for the first time freely quaffing, had gone to their heads--it was youth against age, the students were enthusiastic Democrats, the peasants were sturdy Radicals and they did not always restrict themselves to dialectical arguments. A certain number of people had gone to live "u shumi"--"in the woods." But the reasons that impelled them were not so much their devotion to the ex-King, as their own criminal past or their poverty. Others again had taken to this life for what may be called reasons of "honour."[42] Among the brigands was a man who was captured on the borders of Herzegovina, and before his execution--he had murdered seven people--he declared that he was a patriot and had done all this for the sake of King Nicholas, his victims being members of the domineering party. But when reminded that one of them was a baby, he hung his head and said no more.... There was discontent produced by the high cost of living--as the Italians not only held Antivari but even fired on French boats that were taking supplies up the river Bojana, it was necessary to revictual all except the new parts of Montenegro from Kotor. The lack of petrol, from which even the American Red Cross units were suffering, compelled the authorities to fall back on ox-waggons, which at any rate are not expeditious. By the way, it was the staff of another mission, calling itself the International Red Cross, which was to blame for adding to the country's troubles; after they had been installed for a month or two at Cetinje the people themselves, and not the authorities, turned them out, on the ground that they had used the Red Cross to conceal their machinations in Nikita's interest. The Yugoslav Government was held up to reprobation in the British Parliament and press for having hampered more than one British mission in the work of relieving the Montenegrins. The resources of these missions appeared to be moderate--the head of one of them had a meeting with Colonels Fairclough and Anderson of the American Red Cross and suggested that they should provide him with the wherewithal for carrying on. But even if their resources had been scantier their co-operation would have been very welcome if they had satisfied the authorities that they were as non-political as the Americans. It was curious that those who in the British press ventilated the grievances of these missions were the same people who championed Nikita.

The Italians persevered in their manoeuvres--Nikola Kova[vc]evi['c], the police commissary of Grahovo, sent in the month of May a confidential man of his to the Italian General at Dobrota, near Kotor. This man, who speaks perfect Italian, told the General that ever since 1916 he had haunted the forests as the leader of a band. Fifty persons, he said, had attached themselves to him; and he had now come in for a supply of arms and money, also for instructions. It would be impossible, said he, to endure the Serbian troops much longer in the country.

ITALIAN ENDEAVOURS

"You must hold out for a couple of months longer," said the General. "I can give you no money at present, but I can take you on a steamer to San Giovanni, where we have a camp of the King's friends; and from there you can easily go to Italy."

"I have given my word of honour," said the man, "that I will not go without my people. So I must first of all go back to ask them."

"In a military way," said the General, "the Serbs can now do nothing. They had tremendous losses in the war; and in two months the King of Montenegro will return or else there will be an Italian occupation. Work hard, my friend. I want you, in the first place, to set houses on fire; then to shoot officers and officials who are for Yugoslavia. You should also rob the transports."

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