Chapter 39

Those who were not in the zone at the time of the voting might well be astounded at the result, which was an Austrian victory by 22,025 votes against 15,278 for Yugoslavia. In view of the undoubted Yugoslav majority, it was felt that something more than active propaganda, before and during the election, had been brought to bear. For example, in the commune of Grab[vs]tajn (Grafenstein) the Germans are said to have inscribed on the electoral list 180 persons from Celovec and Styria who had no right to vote; they also asked that seventy strangers should be inscribed. On submitting these claims to the judgment of the district council the German leaders, even as the Yugoslavs, were required to initial each request; it is alleged that these initialled papers, which were attached to the claims, were left overnight in a room the key of which was in the keeping of the German secretary, Schwarz. He is charged with having removed the initialled papers from the Slovene claims and affixed them to the German claims. There was a large amount of more usual corruption. Thus it is known that twenty-eight Slovene servants at an important landowner's were unable to resist the material arguments and voted for the Germans. And if it is true that a number of people voted twice and even three times the Inter-Allied Commission fell short of its duties. It is said that the voting was so lax that if a stranger had been inscribed and did not turn up to vote, his legitimation was used by a native. Thus we are told of one Helena Rozenzoph, aged seventy-five, who was inscribed at Grab[vs]tajn. This woman had never existed; there had been a certain Barbara Rozenzoph who died in 1919, and her vote was used by Marjeta Hanzio, aged twenty-two years. The case was so flagrant that the Commission discovered it and the woman confessed to having acted on a note which she had received from the special Austrian _gendarmerie_ force, the Heimatsdienst. The Commission seems to have been reluctant to take any steps against these frauds and it is not astonishing that the commune of Grab[vs]tajn registered 1290 votes for the Austrian Republic and only 380 for Yugoslavia, although in this commune of 3440 inhabitants there are no more than sixteen German families. A German majority was thus obtained in a province which Dr. Renner, the Austrian Chancellor, had acknowledged to be Slovene. It seems incredible that the Commission should have so completely broken down and the mystery may yet be cleared up, if as the Yugoslavia delegate requested, all the voting papers have been preserved.... But the _Hrvat_, the organ of the Narodny Club in Croatia (the decentralizing but strongly national party) blames Monsignor Koro[vs]ec, the leader of the Slovene clericals, for the disastrous plebiscite result. He would have been better employed, it says, in organizing his people than in gadding about Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia for the purpose of extending his party. He had boasted that the Slovenes were so well organized that they were perfectly confident as to the issue. It would seem, however, says the _Hrvat_, that an unexpectedly large proportion of them are partly or entirely Germanized. And this, more than the above-mentioned irregularities, may be chiefly responsible for Yugoslavia's loss. One must also remember that many a Slovene would shrink from garrison duty in Macedonia, while it would be very natural for the Carinthian farmer to look up at the mountains that separated him from Carniola and then to recollect that Celovec (Klagenfurt), the economic centre of the whole area, would be Austrian. Nevertheless if zone "A" had been smaller--and more completely Slav--it is probable that the population would have risen superior to the various doubts which assailed them. What we have said about the Slovenes who have become Germanized is borne out by the _Koroski Slovenec_, a newspaper which appears in Vienna and which, though since its formation has been essentially hostile to the Austrians, tells us that after the plebiscite the Slovenes have only suffered real oppression from their denationalized compatriots. Difficulties arose with regard to the closing of Slovene schools, but this was largely due to the fact that many of the Slovene schoolmasters fled to Yugoslavia.

(_g_) THE ITALIAN FRONTIER

A Yugoslav barrister from Pola had gone to a neighbouring village--this was in 1920--for the purpose of encouraging the natives, who were all Southern Slavs. He asked them, in the event of their part of Istria being allotted to the Italians, not to lose heart but to wait for the day when justice would come by her own. In the middle of his exhortations a jovial old farmer approached him and slapped him on the back. "Cheer up, young man!" he exclaimed. "What is it that you are afraid of?" ... The Slav population of Istria and Gorica-Gradi[vs]ca, even as that of Dalmatia, has endured a great many things and is prepared to endure a great many more. Kindness would have gone a long way towards disarming them. If the Italians on the eastern Adriatic had been exponents of the Mazzini spirit rather than--which too often has been the case--of the direst Nationalist, then the Yugoslavs would have accepted--mournfully, no doubt, but _faute de mieux_--the frontier from the river Ar[vs]a in Istria which President Wilson suggested. This would have been a compromise frontier, by which 400,000 Slovenes and Croats would fall to Italy and a very much smaller number of Italians would fall to Yugoslavia. It would have satisfied the great sensible mass of the Italian people, but unfortunately was rejected by Baron Sonnino and his myrmidons. Far more was claimed by him, and the succeeding Italian Governments have had to struggle with the passions he so recklessly aroused. They have been unable to persuade the country that with the Ar[vs]a frontier they would be getting by no means a bad bargain. By the Treaty of Rapallo the Italians have obtained much more: the whole of Gorica-Gradi[vs]ca, portions of Carniola, the whole of Istria and contiguity with Rieka (which is made a free town), the islands of Lussin, Cres and Unie, sovereignty over a strip of five miles which includes Zadar (and a few adjacent islands), finally the southern island of Lastovo and Pelagosa which lies in the middle of the Adriatic.

In November 1920 all the outside world was congratulating the Italians and the Yugoslavs on having, after many fruitless efforts of their statesmen, come to this agreement. The opinion was expressed that both of the contracting parties would henceforth be satisfied, since each of them was conscious that the other had accepted something less than his desires. It was noted that the Yugoslavs exhibited more generosity, as they gave up some half a million of their countrymen, while the Italians yielded in Dalmatia that to which they had no right. The Yugoslavs had, in the past two years, shown so much more forbearance than was usually expected of a vigorous young nation that the commentators for the most part fancied they would not waste any time in grieving over these inevitable sacrifices. It is freely said that if a liberal spirit is displayed by the Italians at the various points where they and Yugoslavia are in contact, both people will settle down, with no afterthoughts, to friendly and neighbourly relations. But it would be foolish to close our eyes to the fact that the position at Rieka and Zadar, not to speak of any other places, bristles with difficulties. At Rieka one hopes that the largest and wisest party, the Autonomists, will now come into their rights; no doubt a good many of those opportunist citizens who, at the time of the Italian occupation, developed into Italianissimi, after having previously been known as more or less platonic lovers of Italy, Hungary, or Croatia with ambitions chiefly centred on their native town, will presently assure you that in the Free State they are convinced Free Staters; but the local politicians have been living for so long in such a thoroughly oppressive atmosphere that most of those who have been prominent should for a season now retire. It will be difficult enough for this harassed port to settle down to business. As for the Zadar enclave, it is not easy to understand why an Italian majority in this little town should bring it under the Italian flag while the overwhelming Slav majorities of central and eastern Istria have been ignored. And with all the goodwill in the world the existence of this minute colony encircled by Yugoslav lands will scarcely make more easy the conduct of relations between Yugoslavia and Italy. It is naturally to the interest of both countries that misunderstandings and suspicions should be swept away. And from this point of view it is very doubtful whether the Italians were well advised in taking Zadar into their possession. Presumably the Government was forced to do so by the state of public feeling. They withstood this feeling with regard to the magnificent harbour of Vis, which even President Wilson suggested they should have, and contented themselves with the smaller Yugoslav island of Lastovo (Lagosta). The pity is that the Nationalists should have forced into their hands anything which may turn and sting them.

It may be thought that we are excessively pessimistic in pointing rather to the dangers which the Treaty places on the tapis than to the good sense of those who will deal with them. We do not say that the Italians would have permitted their Government to solve the Adriatic question in a safer and more philosophic manner; but we cannot look forward with that confidence we should have had if more sagacious counsels had prevailed.

An arrangement most agreeable to the bulk of the interested population would have been effected if two Free States, instead of one, had been created: the small one of Rieka, and a larger one embracing Triest and the western part of Istria. There would be in each of these two States a mixed population, who would think with a shudder of the time when the grass was growing on their quays. Italians and Slavs, prosperous as of old, would very cordially agree that the experiment of being included in Italy had been at any rate a commercial disaster. [D'Annunzio's administration was, of course, a mere camouflage. Without the support of the Italian Government, which paid his troops though calling them rebels, the poet-adventurer could scarcely have lasted for a day; and the swarm of officers, many of them worse adventurers than himself, would have deserted him. Nor would the population of Rieka have listened to his glowing periods if the Italian Government had not, under cover of the Red Cross, sent an adequate supply of food into the town.] Both Rieka and Triest were, therefore, living under practically the same conditions, separated from their natural hinterland, and knowing very well that as Italian towns their prospects were lamentable. It was significant that the Italian Government should after a time have studied the scheme of constructing a canal from Triest to the Save. Before the War one-third of the urban population (and all the surrounding country) was Yugoslav; and now, when so many Yugoslavs have departed and so many Italians have arrived, even now it is certain that in a plebiscite not 10 per cent. would vote for Italy--and this minority would be largely made up of those _leccapiatini_ (the "plate-lickers") who were the humbler servants of Austria during the War and are now begging for Italian plates. When the offices of the Socialist newspaper _Il Lavoratore_--the Socialists are by far the most important party in Triest--were taken by storm and gutted, the American Consul, Mr. Joseph Haven, and the Paris correspondent of the _New York Herald_, Mr. Eyre, happened to be in the building. They afterwards said that the attack by those ultra-nationalist bands, the fascisti--very young men, demobilized junior officers and so forth--was entirely unprovoked. The carabinieri gazed indifferently at the scene. Such is life in Triest, where the labour movement is gaining in strength every day. Its old prosperity has departed--there is hardly any trade or water or gas, since most of the coal was consumed, by order of the Italian authorities, in making electric light for illuminations. These were intended to show the city's irrepressible enthusiasm at being incorporated in the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants know very well that being one of Italy's many ports is worse than being the only port of Austria; they know that the most direct railways to Austria pass through Yugoslav territory, that henceforward the Danube will be much more largely used by Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary (none of whom had a seaboard) and that Rieka will now be a more formidable rival than of old.... So, too, at Pola we find that a majority of the population do not wish their town to be retained in Italy; a number of Italian workmen fled from the idle shipbuilding yards and actually came in 1919 and 1920 with the Slovene refugees, their fellow-townsmen, to Ljubljana in search of employment. There are not sufficient orders to go round among such yards in Italy where, owing to the absence of coal and iron, this particular industry labours under great disadvantages. But if Rome considers that the retention of Pola is strategically essential, then in order to meet her wishes this town might be taken out of the Triest-Istrian Free State--maybe the Italians will be able to do something that will cause the citizens to cease regretting those good days of old when, as Austria's chief naval base, she flourished on the largesse of officers and men. But what can she do, and what could anybody do? Hundreds of houses are deserted; and for the year 1920 the owners of the theatre--which did not engage expensive actors but relied mainly on cinema--were faced with a deficit of 12,000 lire.

The Triest-Istrian Free State would approximately contain, without Pola, some 300,000 inhabitants, half Italian and half Yugoslav. The formation of this State would be less advantageous to the Yugoslavs, for most of the big landowners and the shop-keepers are Italians who live on the Yugoslav peasants; but Yugoslavia, for the sake of peace, would be glad to see the State come into existence. Eastern and central Istria, forming a part of Yugoslavia and lying between the two Free States, should extend to Porto di Bado, which would cause it to possess about 3,000 Italians and 280,000 Yugoslavs. If it were to be bounded by the Ar[vs]a it would make the Italians in the Triest-Istrian State become a minority.

With respect to the indisputable Slav districts east of the Isonzo, _i.e._ the territory of Gorica-Gradi[vs]ca and an appreciable part of Carniola, which have been adjudged to Italy and which long to be joined to the Yugoslav State, there are two possible solutions. (In passing we may observe that there is no country where the national frontier is more clearly indicated. The linguistic frontier is so strictly defined that the peasant on one side of it does not speak Italian and his neighbour on the other side does not understand the Slovene tongue. Nevertheless, Signor Colajanni, the venerable leader of the Italian Republicans, took up an undemocratic point of view and declined to admit the argument of the superiority of numbers, when he alluded to this frontier in a speech to the Republican Congress at Naples. Waving numbers aside, he preferred to appeal to history and culture, though he should have known that the mass of the Slovene people is much better educated than the Italian peasant.) The true ethnographical boundary would be the Isonzo--not many Yugoslavs live to the west and not many Italians to the east of that river. Only in the town of Gorica do we find Italians. In 1910 at the census the Italian municipal authorities attempted to show that their town was almost entirely Italian; at a subsequent census the Austrians found that the returns had been largely falsified, and that in reality Gorica contained 14,000 Italians and 12,000 Slovenes, while it is common knowledge that if you go 500 yards from the town you meet nothing but Slovenes. The prosperity of Gorica was mostly based on the export of fruit and vegetables from the Slovene countryside. In 1898 the Slovenes awakened, formed societies, started in business on a large scale and boycotted the Italian merchants, who found themselves obliged to learn the Slovene language. Suppose that, for the sake of meeting the wishes of the Italian Nationalists, one half of the town were given to Italy, then that portion would be faced with ruin. It would, therefore, be advisable that the whole town should remain with its hinterland, and that Italy and Yugoslavia should be divided from each other by the Isonzo. But if this solution is impossible, then a large district east of the Isonzo should be entirely and permanently neutralized, which would not endanger the security of either State. Very different in character is the line Triglav-Idria-Sneznik, which the Italians hold ostensibly as a means of defence, but which is an offensive line against Yugoslavia, and primarily against Ljubljana and Karlovac.

No doubt as the Italians in the eastern Adriatic have obtained a regular position by the Treaty of Rapallo they will henceforth do their best to win the love of their new subjects. They will disavow such officers as that one on the sandy isle of Unie who accused the Slav priest of propaganda, and in fact, as we have mentioned elsewhere, expelled him for the reason that inside his church, where they had been for many years, stood monuments of the two Slav apostles, SS. Cyril and Methodus. St. Methodus was the wise administrator of these two--but even if he takes the rulers of the eastern Adriatic under his particular protection one must be prepared for them to fail in smothering, by their enlightened rule, the discontent which in the last three years has grown among the Yugoslavs to such acute proportions. It began, as we have noted, under the ægis of Baron Sonnino; the old neighbour, Austria-Hungary, had been Italy's hereditary foe, and the Baron's school could not bring itself to regard the new neighbours in a friendly light, although their house was so much less populated than that of their predecessors, not to mention that of the Italians themselves.

There have been times during the last three years when a war between Italy and Yugoslavia seemed scarcely avoidable--the natives of the districts most concerned were looking forward to it with eagerness. At a Yugoslav assembly held in Triest in the summer of 1919 the other delegates were electrified by two priests from Istria who declared that their people were straining at the leash, anxious for the word to snatch up their weapons. (Many of these weapons, by the way, were of Italian origin, as there had been no great difficulty in purchasing them from the more pacific or the more Socialistic Italian soldiers; the usual price was ten lire for a rifle and a hundred rounds.) If there should come about a war between Italy and Yugoslavia, then it is to be supposed that the Yugoslavs will afterwards take as their western frontier the old frontier of Austria (except for the Friuli district, south of Cormons, which they do not covet, since they look upon this ancient race as Italian.)

By signing the Treaty of Rapallo the Yugoslav Government has shown that it is ready to go to very great lengths in order to establish, as securely as may be, an era of peace. It would be just as creditable on the part of the Italians if they will consent to Istria being partitioned in the way we have suggested, for they have been wrongly taught to think themselves entitled to this country, and to believe that the inhabitants, as a whole, are glad to be Italian subjects. "You may suppose we are unpatriotic," the Austrian railway officials of Italian nationality used to say, "but as Austria gives much better pay than we should receive from Italy, we prefer that this part of the world should be Austrian."

The relations between Italy and Yugoslavia have been treated at some length, for it would require but little to bring a gathering of storm-clouds to the sky. One even hears of Roman Catholics in Istria and elsewhere abjuring their Church and--for the national cause--adopting the Serbian Orthodox faith. Twenty years ago it happened that two Istrian villages, Ricmanje and Log, went over to the Uniate and thence to the Orthodox Church. This was on account of a quarrel with the Bishop of Triest, who wanted, against the wishes of the people, to remove their priest, Dr. Pojar. But now we have priests in the provinces given to Italy who are openly calling on their flock to go over with them to their Orthodox brothers; and this is a movement which, it is thought, will merely be postponed by the introduction of the Slav liturgy. To take a single sermon out of many, we may mention one which in the summer of 1920 was preached in a church of the Vipava valley. The clergyman, after lamenting that the chief dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church are Italians, gave it as his opinion that there was nothing to choose in point of goodness between that particular Church and the Orthodox Church. "And," said an old peasant who came to Triest with the story of what had happened, "never in my life did I hear so fine a sermon and one that did me so much good."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 72: The Italians had originally landed a "hygienic mission" at Valona early in the European War, and this of course developed into something else. That ingenuous propagandist, Mr. H. E. Goad, tells us (in the _Fortnightly Review_ of May 1922) that while Nature had made the innumerable deep-water harbours on the eastern coast of the Adriatic practically immune from Italy's attack, a landing or raid from one of them at Ancona, Bari or Barletta would be a vital blow at Italy, severing vital communications. He therefore justifies Italy's landing at Valona in that it was a purely defensive step, made to ensure that its harbour should not be used against her. He may hold that the seizure of one town is better than the seizure of none, but from the strategic and political point of view it would seem that Mr. Goad is an injudicious advocate.]

[Footnote 73: _Albaniens Zukunft._ Munich, 1916.]

[Footnote 74: _La Sera_, August 6, 1920.]

[Footnote 75: _Giornale delle Puglie_, September 6-7, 1920.]

[Footnote 76: The delegates of the League of Nations were told, at the beginning of 1922, by the authorities in southern Albania that it was iniquitous to believe that they would employ this kind of punishment for political refugees. Did they not advertise an amnesty to all those who returned within forty-five days? And in what newspaper, they indignantly asked--in what newspaper had they published the slightest threat of arson?]

[Footnote 77: In the winter of 1921 this gentleman was expelled from his country.]

[Footnote 78: _Albanesische Studien._ Jena, 1854.]

[Footnote 79: _Albanien und die Albanesen._]