Chapter 28

[Footnote 62: Whatever be the limitations of the _Dom_ as a newspaper--it is almost exclusively occupied with the person and programme of Mr. Radi['c]--yet that brings with it the virtue, most exceptional in Yugoslavia, of refusing to engage in polemics. This would otherwise take up a good deal of its space, as Radi['c] has become such a bogey-man that nothing is too ridiculous for his opponents to believe. A Czech newspaper not long ago informed the world that this monstrous personage had told an interviewer that not only had Serbian soldiers in Macedonia been murdering 200 children but that they had roasted and consumed them. Furthermore Radi['c] had said that the British Minister to Yugoslavia had called upon him and had asked his advice with some persistence, not even wishing to leave Radi['c] time to reflect, as to whether the Prince-Regent should rule in Russia, while an English Prince should be invited to occupy the Yugoslav throne. The first of these remarks proved conclusively, said a number of Belgrade papers, that Radi['c] was a knave and by the second he had demonstrated that he was an imbecile. And my friend Mr. Leiper of the _Morning Post_ speculated as to whether he was more likely to end his days in a lunatic asylum or a prison. But Radi['c] was caring about none of these things; his birthday happened at about this time and some 30,000 of his adherents came to do him honour at his birthplace, over 500 of them on decorated horses having met him at Sisak station the previous evening. When I asked him what he had to say about the two afore-mentioned remarks he gave me an amusing account of how the interviewer had appreciated the various samples of wine which he (Radi['c]) had just brought down from his vineyard. The conversation lasted for about four hours, and in the course of it Radi['c] mentioned that a certain Moslem deputy from Novi Bazar, irritated by the fact that Mr. Dra[vs]kovi['c], Minister of the Interior, found no pleasure in his continued presence on a commission of inquiry in the region of Kossovo, had been throwing out very dark hints about a child which he accused the Serbs of killing in the stormy days of 1878, and then relating to the Tsar that this dastardly deed had been committed by the Turks. This was the basis of that part of the interview. As for the other absurdity, it was mentioned that some courtiers had told the Prince-Regent that he alone could establish an orderly Government in Russia, whereupon Radi['c] observed that England and France were not likely to allow one person to reign both there and in Yugoslavia. And when I asked why he had not published this explanation in his paper, he said that he couldn't very well charge a guest with having liked his wine too much.]

[Footnote 63: Cf. _The Quarterly Review_ (October 1921), in which Messrs. Pavle Popovi['c] and Jovan M. Jovanovi['c] published a very able survey of Yugoslav conditions.]

[Footnote 64: Cf. _Nineteenth Century and After_, January 1921.]

[Footnote 65: April 26, 1921.]

[Footnote 66: Unhappily it became apparent that the Italians were not disposed to have the Treaty put in force]

[Footnote 67: March 23, 1922.]

[Footnote 68: Cf. an article in a fascisti newspaper, quoted by the _Zagreber Tagblatt_ of May 14, 1922.]

[Footnote 69: Cf. "The Rise of the Little Entente," by Dorothy Thompson. April 1, 1922.]

[Footnote 70: _Fortnightly Review_, May 1922.]

[Footnote 71: The magnates of Hungary and their friends do not grow weary of lamenting the sad fate of the Magyar minorities. Whatever may be happening in Transylvania, they have a very poor case against the Serbs. In the Voivodina there are, according to Hungarian statistics, about 382,000 Magyars out of 1·4 million inhabitants. These Magyars have their primary and secondary schools, their newspapers and so forth, whereas in the spring of 1922 the schools in various Serbian villages near Budapest were forcibly closed, the lady teachers being told that if they stayed they would have to undergo the physical examination which is applied to prostitutes.]

VIII

YUGOSLAVIA'S FRONTIERS

INTRODUCTION--(_a_) THE ALBANIAN FRONTIER: 1. THE ACTORS--2. THE AUDIENCE RUSH THE STAGE--3. SERBS, ALBANIANS AND THE MISCHIEF-MAKERS--4. THE STATE OF ALBANIAN CULTURE--5. A METHOD WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN TRIED IN ALBANIA--6. THE ATTRACTION OF YUGOSLAVIA--7. RELIGIOUS AND OTHER MATTERS IN THE BORDER REGION--8. A DIGRESSION ON TWO RIVAL ALBANIAN AUTHORITIES--9. WHAT FACES THE YUGOSLAVS--10. DR. TRUMBI['C]'S PROPOSAL--11. THE POSITION IN 1921: THE TIRANA GOVERNMENT AND THE MIRDITI--12. SERBIA'S GOOD INFLUENCE--13. EUROPEAN MEASURES AGAINST THE YUGOSLAVS AND THEIR FRIENDS--14. THE REGION FROM WHICH THE YUGOSLAVS HAVE RETIRED--15. THE PROSPECT--(_b_) THE GREEK FRONTIER--(_c_) THE BULGARIAN FRONTIER--(_d_) THE ROUMANIAN FRONTIER: 1. THE STATE OF THE ROUMANIANS IN EASTERN SERBIA--2. THE BANAT--(_e_) THE HUNGARIAN FRONTIER--(_f_) THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER--(_g_) THE ITALIAN FRONTIER.

INTRODUCTION

Nobody could have expected in the autumn of 1918 that the frontiers of the new State would be rapidly delimitated. Ethnological, economic, historic and strategical arguments--to mention no others--would be brought forward by either side, and the Supreme Council, which had to deliver judgment on these knotty problems, would be often more preoccupied with their own interests and their relation to each other. It would also happen that a member of the Supreme Council would be simultaneously judge and pleader. The mills of justice would therefore grind very slowly, for they would be conscious that the fruit of their efforts, evolved with much foreign material clogging the machinery and with parts of the machinery jerked out of their line of track, would be received with acute criticism. When more than two years had elapsed from the time of the Armistice a considerable part of Yugoslavia's frontiers remained undecided. We will travel along the frontier lines, starting with that between Yugoslavs and Albanians.

(a) THE ALBANIAN FRONTIER

1. THE ACTORS

Those who in old Turkish days lived in that wild border country which is dealt with on these pages would have been surprised to hear that they would be the objects of a great deal of discussion in the west of Europe. But in those days there was no Yugoslavia and no Albania and no League of Nations, and very few were the writers who took up this question. It is, undoubtedly, a question of importance, though some of these writers, remembering that the fate of the world was dependent on the fraction of an inch of Cleopatra's nose, seem almost to have imagined that it was proportionately more dependent on those several hundred kilometres of disputed frontier. It would not so much matter that they have introduced a good deal of passion into their arguments if they had not also exerted some influence on influential men--and this compels one to pay them what would otherwise be excessive attention.

Let us consider the frontier which the Ambassadors' Conference in November 1921 assigned to Yugoslavia and the Albanians. We have already mentioned some of the previous points of contact between those Balkan neighbours who for centuries have been acquiring knowledge of each other and who, therefore, as Berati Bey, the Albanian delegate in Paris, very wisely said, should have been left to manage their own frontier question. A number of Western Europeans will exclaim that this could not be accomplished without the shedding of blood; but it is rather more than probable that the interference of Western Europe--partly philanthropic and partly otherwise--will be responsible for greater loss of life. If it could not be permitted that two of the less powerful peoples should attempt to settle their own affairs, then, at any rate, the most competent of alien judges should have sat on the tribunal. A frontier in that part of Europe should primarily take the peculiarities of the people into account, and I believe that if Sir Charles Eliot and Baron Nopsca with their unrivalled knowledge of the Albanians had been consulted it is probable they would, for some years to come, have thought desirable the frontier which is preferred by General Franchet d'Espérey, by a majority of the local Albanians, and by those who hope for peace in the Balkans.

2. THE AUDIENCE RUSH THE STAGE

A battle which took place near Tuzi, not far from Podgorica, in December 1919, may assist the study of the difficult Albanian question. At the first attack about 150 Montenegrins, mostly young recruits, were killed or wounded; but in the counter-attack the Albanian losses were much greater, 167 of them being made prisoners. On all of these were found Italian rifles, ammunition, money and army rations. On the other hand, a few Montenegrins, with three officers, were also captured and were stripped and handed over, naked, to the Italians. But these declined to have them, saying that the conflict had been no concern of theirs, and the unfortunate men--with the exception of one who escaped--remained among the Albanians. The fact that Tuzi would be of no value to the Italians neither weakens nor strengthens the supposition that they were privy to the Albanian attack; but it may very well be that the natives had taken their Italian equipment by force of arms. It would, anyhow, seem that the Italians have little understanding of this people: during the War, when General Franchet d'Espérey was straightening his line, he paid some hundreds of Albanians to maintain his western flank, and they were very satisfactory. (It troubled them very little whether they were holding it against the Austrians or against other Albanians.) When Italy took over that part of the line she employed a whole Division, which--to the amusement, it is said, of Franchet d'Espérey--provided the local population with a great deal of booty, and in particular with mules. There was constant trouble in those regions of Albania which were occupied by the Italians,[72] and in June 1920 things had come to such a pass that the Italian garrisons, after being thrown out of the villages of Bestrovo and Selitza, were actually retiring with all the stores they could rescue to Valona. Their retreat, said Reuter, in a euphemistic message from Rome, was "attended by some loss." As Valona was their last stronghold in Albanian territory, it seemed that very few, if any, of the tribes were in favour of an Italian protectorate. And since it was calculated that during the first six months of 1920 the Italian Government was paying from 400 to 500 million lire a month for corn, and the year's deficit might be enough to lead the State to the very verge of bankruptcy, one was asking whether from an economic, apart from any other, point of view, it would not be advisable for the Italians to cut their losses in central Albania. And this they very wisely determined to do. Would that their subsequent policy in northern Albania had been as well-inspired.

It would also seem as if the affair of Tuzi shows that the Albanians have no wish for a Yugoslav protectorate, and there are a good many Serbs, such as Professor Cviji['c], who view with uneasiness any extension of their sway over the Albanians. Many of the tribes are prepared, after very small provocation or none, to take up arms against anybody; and those who, in the north and north-east of the country, are in favour of a Yugoslav protectorate would undoubtedly have opposed to them a number of the natives, less because they are fired with the prospect of "Albania for the Albanians" than on account of their patriarchal views. We must, however, at the same time, acknowledge that those Albanians who are impelled by patriotic ideals, and who would like to see their countrymen within the 1913 frontiers, resolutely turn away from the various attractions which the Slavs undoubtedly exercise over many of them and combine in a brotherly fashion, under the guidance of a disinterested State, to work for an independent Albania--those idealists have every right to be heard. Their solution is, in fact, the one that would, as we have elsewhere said, be best for everyone concerned. The late Professor Burrows, who believed in the possibility of such an arrangement, thought that it would take generations for this people "to pass from blood feud and tribal jealousy to the good order of a unified State, unless they have tutorage in the art of self-government." There seem to be grave difficulties, both external and internal, in the way of setting up such a tutorage over the whole of the 1913 Albania; and if a majority of the northern and north-eastern tribes prefer to turn to Yugoslavia, rather than to join the frustrated patriots and the wilder brethren in turning away from it, they should not be sweepingly condemned as traitors to the national cause. The frame of mind which looks with deep suspicion on a road that links a tribe to its neighbour is not very promising for those who dream of an Albanian nation; it is a prevalent and fundamental frame of mind. "The Prince of Wied," we are told by his countryman, Dr. Max Müller, "succeeded in conquering the hearts of those Albanians who supported him and of gaining the highest respect of those who were his political opponents." No doubt they were flattered when they noticed that he had so far become an Albanian as to surround his residence at Durazzo with barbed-wire entanglements.

Among the solutions of the Albanian problem was that which Dr. Müller very seriously, not to say ponderously, put forward in 1916.[73] This gentleman, with a first-hand knowledge of the country, which he gained during the War, did not minimize the task which would face the Prince of Wied on his return. Of that wooden potentate one may say that his work in Albania did not collapse for the reason that it was never started; a few miles from Durazzo, his capital, from which, I believe, he made only that one excursion whose end was undignified, a few miles away he excited the derision of his "subjects," and a few miles farther off they had not heard of him. Dr. Müller, after reproving us sternly for smiling at the national decoration, in several classes, with which his Highness on landing at the rickety pier was graciously pleased to gladden the meritorious natives, admits that at his second coming he will have to take various other steps. Austrians and Germans should be brought to colonize the country, and not peasants, forsooth, like those who have laboriously made good in the Banat, but merchants, manufacturers, engineers, doctors, officials and large landowners--not by any means without close inquiry, so as to admit only such as are in possession of a blameless repute and a certain amount of cash. Dr. Müller was resolved that, so far as lay with him, none but the very best Teutons should embark upon this splendid mission. He desired that, after landing, they should first of all remain at the harbour, there to undergo a course of tuition in the customs and peculiarities of the tribe among which they proposed to settle. His compatriots would be so tactful--apparently not criticizing any of the customs--that the hearts of the Albanians would incline towards them and by their beautiful example they would make these primitive, wild hearts beat not so much for local interests but very fervently for the Albanian fatherland. One cannot help a feeling of regret that circumstances have prevented us from seeing Dr. Müller's scheme put into action.

3. SERBS, ALBANIANS AND THE MISCHIEF-MAKERS

In 1913, after the Balkan War, the flags of the Powers were hoisted at Scutari, and a frontier dividing the Albanians from the Yugoslavs (Montenegrins and Serbs) was indicated by Austria and traced at the London Conference. This boundary was still awaiting its final demarcation by commissioners on the spot when the European War broke out. Then in the second year of the War disturbances were organized by the Austrians in Albania--their friend the miscreant ruler of Montenegro caused money to be sent for this purpose to the Austro-Hungarian Consul at Scutari--and in April and May of that year the Serbs were authorized by their Allies to protect themselves by occupying certain portions of the country. Various battles took place between those Albanians who were partisans of Austria and those who were disinclined to attack the Serbs in the rear. The Serbian Government opposed the Austrian propaganda by dispatching to that region the Montenegrin Pouni[vs]a Ra[vc]i['c], of whom we have much to say. He was accompanied by Smajo Ferovi['c], a Moslem sergeant of komitadjis. They explained to the Albanians that the Serbs had been offered a separate peace with numerous concessions, but that Mr. Pa[vs]i['c] had refused to treat. When the two Albanian parties discussed the situation by shooting at each other, the Austro-Hungarian officers made tracks for Kotor, and that particular intrigue came to an end.

When the War was over, the Serbs, sweeping up from Macedonia, were requested by General Franchet d'Espérey to undertake a task which the Italians refused, and push the demoralized Austrian troops out of Albania. Some weeks after this had been accomplished, the Italians, mindful of the Treaty of London, demanded that a large part of Albania should be given up to their administration. The Serbs agreed and withdrew; they even took away their representative from Scutari, where the Allies had again installed themselves. The Treaty of London bestowed upon the Serbs a sphere of influence in northern Albania, but--save for a few misguided politicians--they were logical enough to reject the whole of the pernicious Treaty, both the clauses which robbed them in Dalmatia and those which in Albania gave them stolen goods. Over and over again did the Yugoslav delegates declare in Paris that it was their wish to see established an independent Albania with the frontiers of 1913. These, the first frontiers which the Albanians had ever possessed, were laid down by Austria with the express purpose of thwarting the Serbs and facilitating Albanian raids. It is true that several towns with large Albanian majorities were made over to the Serbs--very much, as it turned out, to their subsequent advantage--yet, being separated from their hinterland, this was a doubtful gift. Nevertheless, if a free and united Albania could be constituted the Serbs were ready to accept this frontier, and even Monsieur Justin Godart, the strenuous French Albanophile of whom we speak elsewhere, cannot deny that this attitude of the Yugoslavs redounds very much to their honour. But before relative tranquillity reigns among the Albanians it is, as General Franchet d'Espérey perceived in 1918, an untenable line. He, therefore, drew a temporary frontier which permitted the Serbs to advance for some miles into Albania, so that on the river Drin or on the mountain summits they might ward off attacks. These, by the way, had their origin far more in the border population's empty stomachs than in their animus against the Slavs. And nobody with knowledge of this people could regard the 1918 frontier as unnecessary. The Albanians were themselves so much inclined to acquiesce that one must ask why, in the months which followed, there was a considerable amount of border fighting. What was it that caused the Albanians in the region of Scutari to make their violent onslaughts of December 1919 and January 1920, the renewed offensive of July 1920 at the same places--after which the Albanian Government forwarded to that of Belgrade an assurance of goodwill--and the organized thrust of August 13 against Dibra, which was preceded on August 10 by a manifesto to the chancelleries of Europe falsely accusing the Serbs of having begun these operations, and which was followed by the Tirana Government promising to try to find the guilty persons? The 19th of the same month saw the Albanians delivering a further attack in the neighbourhood of Scutari, and then the Yugoslav Government decided that their army must occupy such defensive positions as would put a stop to these everlasting incidents. But a voice was whispering to the Albanians that they must not allow themselves to be so easily coerced. "You have thrown us out of all the land behind Valona," said the voice, "and out of Valona itself. You must, therefore, be the greatest warriors in the world, and we will be charmed to provide you with rifles and machine guns and munitions and uniforms and cash. We will gladly publish to the world that your Delegation at Rome has sent us an official Note demanding that the Yugoslav troops should retire to the 1913 line, pure and simple. Of course we, like the other Allies, agreed that they should occupy the more advanced positions which General Franchet d'Espérey assigned to them--and to show you how truly sorry we are for having done so, we propose to send you all the help you need. In dealing with us you will find that you have to do with honourable men, whereas the Yugoslavs--what are they but Yugoslavs?"

Anyone who travelled about this time along the road from Scutari down to the port of San Giovanni di Medua would inevitably meet with processions of ancient cabs, ox-wagons and what not, laden with all kinds of military equipment. Some of these supplies had come direct from Italy, while others had been seized from the Italians near Valona. The detachment of Italian soldiers at San Giovanni, and the much larger detachment at Scutari, may have looked with mixed feelings at some of these commodities, but on the other hand they may have thought, with General Bencivenga,[74] that it was good business--"_un buon affare_"--in exchange for Valona to obtain a solid and secure friendship with the Albanians. Roads, as he pointed out, lead from Albania to the heart of Serbia, and for that reason a true brotherhood of arms between Italians and Albanians was, in case of hostilities, enormously to be desired. And so the Italians stationed at Scutari, under Captain Pericone of the Navy, may have felt that it was well that all those cannon captured from their countrymen were in such a good condition. They would now be turned by the Albanians against the hateful Yugoslavs. ["Italy is the one Power in Europe," says her advocate, Mr. H. E. Goad, in the _Fortnightly Review_ (May 1922), "that is most obviously and most consistently working for peace and conciliation in every field."] ... A further supply of military material is said to have reached the Albanians from Gabriele d'Annunzio in the S.S. _Knin_. To the Irish, the Egyptians and the Turks the poet-filibuster had merely sent greetings. Some one may have told him that even the most lyrical greeting would not be valued by the Albanians half as much as a shipload of munitions.