Chapter 7

When I went up to see this variegated gentleman--whose personal appearance is that of a bright yellow cat--he purred awhile upon the sofa and then started striding up and down the room. As he sketched the history of the town, which, he said, had always been Italian and would insist on being so, he spoke with horror of the days when Jella[vc]i['c] was in control, and then, remembering another trouble, he raised both his hands above his head and brought them down with such a crash upon the desk where I was writing his remarks that--but nobody burst in; the municipal officials were accustomed to his conversation. He was reviling at that moment certain Allied officers who had not seen fit to visit him. "I care not!" he yelled. "We are Italian! I tell you we are Italianissimi!" (He was glad enough, however, when his brother Hamlet, who had remained a Yugoslav and was on friendly terms with the chief of the carabinieri, managed to obtain for the mayor a passport to Italy, concerning which the carabinieri had said that they must first of all apply to Rome.) The doctor was sure that Yugoslavia would not live, for it had two religions; and another notable defect of the Croats--"I speak their language quite well," he said--was that in the whole of Rieka not one ancient document was in Croatian. I was going to mention that everywhere in Croatia until 1848 they were in Latin--but he saw what I was on the point of saying and--"Look here! look here!" he cried, "now look at this!" It was a type-written sheet in English, whereon was recounted how the mayor had offered to four Admirals, who came to Rieka on behalf of their four nations, how he had, in order to meet them in every way--"They asked me," he said, with blankness and indignation and forgiveness all joined in his expression--it was beautifully done--"they asked me, the Italian mayor of this Italian town, whether it was truly an Italian town!"--well, he had offered to take a real plebiscite, on the basis of the last census, and the Admirals, while appreciating his offer, had not availed themselves of it. (Maybe some one had told them how the census officials, chiefly members of the "Giovani Fiumani," had gone round, asking the people whether they spoke Italian and usually filling in the papers themselves. Presumably the mayor did not propose to allow anyone who had then been described as an Italian now to call himself Croat.) I was just calculating what he was in 1910 when he played a trump card and begged me to go up to the cemetery and take note of the language used for the epitaphs. Then let me return to him on the morrow and say what was the nationality of Rieka. There seemed to be the question if in such a town where Yugoslavs so often use Italian as the business language, many of them possibly might use it as the language of death; as it happened the first Yugoslav to whom I spoke about this point--a lawyer at whose flat I lunched the following day--produced a little book entitled _Regolamento del Cimitero comunale di Fiume_, and from it one could see that in the local cemetery the blessed principle of self-determination was in fetters. Chapter iii. lays down that all inscriptions must have the approval of the civic body. You are warned that they will not approve of sentences or words which are indecent, and that they prohibit all expressions and allusions that might give offence to anyone, to moral corporations, to religions, or which are notoriously false. No doubt, in practice, they waive the last stipulation, so that the survivors may give praise to famous or to infamous men; but I am told that they raised fewer difficulties for Italian wordings, and that the stones which many people used--those which the undertakers had in stock, with spaces left for cutting in the details--were invariably in Italian.... I hope I have not given an unsympathetic portrait of the mayor who has about him something lovable. Whatever Fate may have in store for Rieka, Dr. Vio is so magnificent an emotional actor that his future is assured. I trust it will be many years before a stone, in Croat, Magyar or Italian, is placed above the body of this volatile gentleman.... And then perhaps the deed of his administrative life that will be known more universally than any other will be the omission of an _I_ from certain postage stamps. When the old Hungarian stamps were surcharged with the word FIUME, the sixty-third one in every sheet of half an edition was defective and was stamped FUME.[19]

THREE PLEASANT PLACES

In the immediate neighbourhood of Rieka, across the bay, lies Abbazia, which Nature and the Austrians have made into a charming spot. By the famous "Strandweg" that winds under rocks and palm and laurel, you go to Volosca in the easterly and to Lovrana in the westerly direction. Just at the back of all these pretty places stands the range of Istria's green mountains. More than twenty years ago a certain Dr. Krsti['c], from the neighbourhood of Zadar, conceived the happy thought of printing, in the peasant dialect, a newspaper which would discourse on Italy in articles no peasant could resist. He was given subsidies, and for some time the newspaper was published at Volosca. But perhaps the peasants did not read it any more than those near Zadar would take in the _Pravi Dalmatinac_ ("The Real Dalmatian"), which attempted a few years previous to the War to preach sectionalism to the Serbo-Croats. The Italians who came to the Abbazia district in November 1918 did not try such methods. In the combined commune of Volosca-Abbazia the population at the 1910 census consisted of 4309 Yugoslavs, 1534 German-Austrians, and 418 Italians. Most of the 418 had never seen Italy; the only true Italians were some officials who had come from other parts of Istria. The official language was Italian, which was regarded as more elegant. The district doctor was Italian, but all the other 29 non-official doctors were either Germans, Czechs or Croats. At Volosca eighteen years ago there was no Croat school; when one was opened the Italian school at once lost half its membership and before the War had been reduced to 25 pupils. Before the War at Abbazia the Croat school had six classes, while the Italian had ceased for lack of patronage. The German school had 160 pupils; this has now been dissolved, the pupils being mostly sent to the re-opened Italian school. Thus it will be seen that efforts were required to Italianize these places. The efforts were continued even during the War, it is said by the ex-Empress Zita. At any rate the people who had altered their Italian names saw that they had been premature and reassumed their former ones. They reassumed the pre-war privileges: at Lovrana, for example, they "ran" the village, not having allowed any communal elections since 1905 and arranging that their Croat colleagues in the council should all be illiterate peasants. Some Italians were interned in 1915, as the Croats had been in 1914, but the council came again into their hands. At the meetings they had been obliged, owing to the council's composition, to talk Croatian; but their own predominance was undisturbed. On their return to power during the War they displayed more generosity, and admitted even educated Croats to the council. And if such out-and-out Italians as the Signori Grossmann, Pegan, etc. of Lovrana were kinder to the Yugoslavs than the Signori Grbac, Koro[vs]a['c] and Codri['c] of Rieka it may be because the gentle spirit of the place affected them. The leading families would even intermarry; Signor Gelletich, Lovrana's Italian potentate, gave his sister to the Croat chieftain. But, as we have said, idylls had to end when in November 1918 the Italian army came upon the scene. Abbazia and Volosca and Lovrana were painted thoroughly in the Italian colours. Public buildings, private houses--irrespective of their inmates--had patches of green, white and red bestowed upon them. Everything was painted--some occupation had to be found for the military, who appeared to be more numerous than the inhabitants. Meanwhile, their commanding officers had other brilliant ideas: an Italian kindergarten was opened at Volosca, and the peasant women of the hills around were promised that if they came with their children to the opening ceremony, every one of them would be rewarded with 1 lb. of sugar. So they came and were photographed--it looked extremely well to have so many women seizing this first opportunity of an Italian education for their babies. Some one at Rieka most unfortunately had forgotten to consign the sugar. The Italian officer who was appointed to discharge the functions of podestà, that is, mayor, of Abbazia was a certain Lieut.-Colonel Stadler. He sent to Rome and Paris various telegrams as to the people's ardent hope of being joined to Italy. The people's own telegrams to Paris went by a more circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people, thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Po[vs]ci['c], a naturalized American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles, cried Stadler; on January 10 he stopped the lessons.

ITALY IS LED ASTRAY BY SONNINO

While the Italians were thus engaged, what was the state of opinion in their own country? Would Bissolati's organ, the _Secolo_, and the _Corriere della Sera_, which had been favourable to the Slavs since Caporetto, have it in their power to moderate the fury of the anti-Slav papers? Malagodi of the _Tribuna_ said on November 24 that the position at Rieka had been remedied. But was the public fully alive to what was happening at Zadar and [vS]ibenik? "While these cities have been nominally occupied by us and are under the protection of our flag, the Italian population has never been so terrorized by Croat brutality as at this moment." The _Mattino_ disclosed to its readers in flaring headlines that "Yugoslav oppression cuts the throats of the Italian population in Dalmatia and terrorizes them." Would the people of Italy rather listen to such thrills or to the _Secolo_, which deprecated the contemptuous writings of Italian journalists with regard to the Slavs--the _Gazzetta del Popolo's_ "little snakes" was one of the milder terms of opprobrium. The _Secolo_ recalled Italy's own illiterate herds and the fact that the Italian Risorgimento was judged, not by the indifferent and servile mass, but by its heroes. It explained that the Treaty of London was inspired by the belief that Austria would survive, and that for strategic reasons only it had given, not Rieka, but most of Dalmatia and the islands to Italy.

It was calamitous for Italy that she was being governed at this moment not by prudent statesmen such as she more frequently produces in the north, but by southerners of the Orlando and Sonnino type. The _Giornale d'Italia_ would at a word from the Foreign Minister have damped the ardour of those journalists and other agitators who were fanning such a dangerous fire. Sonnino once himself told Radovi['c], the Montenegrin, that he could not acquiesce in any union of the Yugoslavs, for such a combination would be fraught with peril for Italians. And now that Southern Slavs were forming what he dreaded, their United States, it would have been sagacious--it was not too late--if he had set himself to win their friendship. Incidents of an untoward nature had occurred, such as those connected with the Austrian fleet; nine hundred Yugoslavs, after fighting side by side with the Italians, had actually been interned, many of them wearing Italian medals for bravery;[20] the Yugoslavs, in fact, by these and other monstrous methods had been provoked. But it was not too late. A Foreign Minister not blind to what was happening in foreign countries would have seen that if he valued the goodwill of France and England and America--and this goodwill was a necessity for the Italians--it was incumbent on him to modify his politics. The British Press was not unanimous--all the prominent publicists did not, like a gentleman a few months afterwards in the _Spectator_, say that "if the Yugoslavs contemplated a possible war against the Italians, by whose efforts and those of France and Great Britain they had so recently been liberated, then would the Southern Slavs be guilty of monstrous folly and ingratitude." Baron Sonnino might have apprehended that more knowledge of the Yugoslav-Italian situation would produce among the Allies more hostility; he should have known that average Frenchmen do not buy their favourite newspaper for what it says on foreign politics, and that the _Journal des Débats_ and the _Humanité_ have many followers who rarely read them. And, above all else, he should have seen that the Americans, who had not signed the Treaty of London, would decline to lend themselves to the enforcement of an antiquated pact which was so grievously incongruous with Justice, to say nothing of the Fourteen Points of Mr. Wilson. But Sonnino threw all these considerations to the winds. He should have reconciled himself to the fact that his London Treaty, if for no other reason than that it was a secret one, belonged to a different age and was really dead; his refusal to bury it was making him unpopular with the neighbours. One does not expect a politician to be quite consistent, and Baron Sonnino is, after all, not the same man who in 1881 declared that to claim Triest as a right would be an exaggeration of the principle of nationalities; but he should not in 1918 have been deaf to the words which he considered of such weight when he wrote them in 1915 that he caused them to be printed in a Green Book. "The monarchy of Savoy," he said in a telegram to the Duke of Avarna on February 15 of that year, "has its staunchest root in the fact that it personifies the national ideals." Baron Sonnino was rallying to the House of Karageorgevi['c] most of those among the Croats and Slovenes who, for some reason or other, had been hesitating; for King Peter personified the national ideals which the Baron was endeavouring to throttle. As Mr. Wickham Steed pointed out in a letter to the _Corriere della Sera_, the complete accord between Italians and Yugoslavs is not only possible and necessary, but constitutes a European interest of the first order; if it be not realized, the Adriatic would become not Italian nor Slav, but German; if, on the other hand, it were brought about, then the language and the culture, the commerce and the political influence of Italy would not merely be maintained but would spread along the eastern Adriatic coast and in the Balkans in a manner hitherto unhoped for; if no accord be reached, then the Italians would see their whole influence vanish from every place not occupied by overwhelming forces. But Sonnino, a descendant of rancorous Levantines and obstinate Scots, went recklessly ahead; it made you think that he was one of those unhappy people whom the gods have settled to destroy. He neglected the most elementary precautions; he ought to have requested, for example, that the French and British and Americans would everywhere be represented where Yugoslav territory was occupied. But, alas, he did not show that he disagreed with the _Tribuna's_ lack of wisdom when it said that "the Italian people could never tolerate that beside our flag should fly other flags, even if friendly, for this would imply a confession of weakness and incapacity."

THE STATE OF THE CHAMBER

The Government was in no very strong position, for the Chamber was now moribund and the many groups which had been formed, in the effort to create a war Chamber out of one that was elected in the days of peace, were now dissolving. An incident towards the end of November exhibited not only the contrivances by which these groups hoped to preserve themselves, but the eagerness with which the Government rushed to placate the powerful. A young deputy called Centurione, a member of the National Defence group (the Fascio), made a furious attack on Giolitti, under cover of a personal explanation. He had been accused of being a police spy. Well, after Caporetto, convinced that the defeat was partly due to the work of Socialists and Giolittians, he had disguised himself as a workman and taken part in Socialist meetings. He was proud to have played the spy for the good of his country, and he finished by accusing Giolitti and six others of treason. The whole Chamber--his own party not being strongly represented--seems to have made for Centurione who, amidst an indescribable uproar, continued to shout "Traitor!" to anyone who approached him. Sciorati, one of the accused, was at last able to make himself heard. He related how, at Turin, Centurione had made a fool of himself. (But if Lewis Carroll had been with us still he might have made himself immortal.) "I have seen him disguised," said Sciorati, "as an out-porter at the door of my own house." Giolitti appeared and demanded an immediate inquiry, with what was described as cold and menacing emphasis. And Orlando, the Prime Minister, flew up to the Chamber and parleyed with Giolitti in the most cordial fashion. Centurione's documents were at once investigated and no proofs of treason were found, no witnesses proposed by him being examined. He was expelled from the National Defence group for "indiscipline," his colleagues frustrating his attempts to sit next to them by repeatedly changing their seats. The attitude of the Fascio was humble and apologetic, and the other significant feature of the incident was the haste with which Orlando reacted to Giolitti's demand for an inquiry.

THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY

Baron Sonnino had to take into account not only the unsteadiness of the ground on which the Government stood, owing to these parliamentary regroupings, but the general effects that would ensue from the country's financial position. When, in spite of the victory and the approach of peace, the exchange price of the lira dropped 2 to 3 points towards the end of November, this may have had, contrary to what was thought by many, no connection with a revolutionary movement. The fact that in Triest the authorities had been obliged to isolate Italian ex-prisoners on their return from Russia, since they were imbued with revolutionary principles, at any rate were uttering loud revolutionary cries, may have been the mere temporary infection caught from their environment. But that of which there was no doubt was the entire truth of Caroti's statement when that deputy declared at Milan that while Italy had been triumphant in the military sphere, she had been economically overthrown. Bankruptcy had not been announced, though it existed. Sonnino may therefore have been impelled not only by imperialism, by his inability to adjust himself to the new international situation, but by the hope that through his policy the new internal situation might be tided over. If the thoughts of his fellow-countrymen could be directed elsewhere than to bankruptcy and possible revolution, it might be that in the meantime adroit measures and good luck would brush away these disagreeable phenomena. And he would then be rightly looked upon as one who had deserved well of his country. So he set about the task with such a thoroughness that he turned not alone the thoughts of men, but their heads. Professor Italo Giglioli addressed a letter to _The New Europe_ in which he said that he was claiming now not the territories given by the Treaty of London, but considerably more. He wanted all Dalmatia, down to Kotor. In foreign hands, he said, Dalmatia would be an eternal danger, and besides: "What in Dalmatia is not Italian is barbaric!" It was a melancholy spectacle to see a man of Giglioli's reputation saying that Dubrovnik, the refuge of Slav culture in the age of darkness and the place in which Slav literature so gloriously arose, was, forsooth, throughout its history always Italian in culture and in literature. "Among thinking people in Italy," proclaims the Professor, "there are indeed but few who will abandon to the Balkan processes a region and a people which have always been possessed by Italian culture and which constitute the necessary wall of Italy and Western Europe against the inroads of the half-barbaric East." He protests that it is ridiculous of _The New Europe_ to assert that the secret Treaty of London is supported by a tiny, discredited band of Italians; and indeed that Review has regretfully to acknowledge that many of his countrymen have been swept off their feet and carried onward in the gale of popular enthusiasm. Giglioli ends by asking that his name be removed from the list of _The New Europe's_ collaborators. In vain does the _The New Europe_ say that the Professor's programme must involve a war between Italians and Yugoslavs. "We must be prepared for a new war," said the _Secolo_ on January 12. "The Italians who absolutely demand the conquest of Dalmatia must have the courage to demand that the demobilization of our Army should be suspended, and to say so very clearly." And the _Corriere della Sera_ warned Orlando of the consequences if he took no steps to silence the mad voices. "No one knows better," it wrote, "than the Minister of the Interior, who is also Premier, that on the other coast Italy claims that part of Dalmatia which was assigned to her by the Treaty of London, but not more.... If the Government definitely claims and demands the whole of Dalmatia, then the agitation is justified; but if the Government does not demand it, then we repeat that to favour and not to curb the movement is the worst kind of Defeatism, for it creates among Italians a state of mind tending to transform the sense of a great victory into the sense of a great defeat ... quite apart from the intransigeance which this provokes in the Yugoslav camp." It was in vain. And when Bissolati, having resigned from office on the issue of Italo-Yugoslav relations, attempted to explain his attitude at the Scala in Milan on January 11, his meeting was wrecked, for though the body of the hall and the galleries were relatively quiet, if not very sympathetic--it was a ticket meeting--the large number of subscription boxes, which could not be closed to their ordinary tenants, had been packed by Bissolati's adversaries, who succeeded in preventing him from speaking. After a long delay he managed to read the opening passage, but when he came to the first "renunciation"--the Brenner for the Teutons--disturbance set in finally and he left the theatre. Afterwards the rioters adjourned to the _Corriere_ and _Secolo_ offices, where they broke the windows. And thus the first full statement of the war aims of any Italian statesman could not be uttered. It was spread abroad by the Press. Bissolati claimed to speak in the name of a multitude which had hitherto been silent.... The masses, he said, demanded, that their rulers should devote all their strength to "the divine blessing of freeing mankind from the slavery of war." ... "To those," he said, "who speak of the Society of Nations as an 'ideology' or 'Utopia' which has no hold over our people, we would reply: Have you been in the trenches among the soldiers waiting for the attack?" [Signor Bissolati had the unique record, among Allied or enemy statesmen, of having volunteered for active service, though past the fighting age, and of having served in the trenches for many months before entering the Orlando Cabinet.]

A FOUNTAIN IN THE SAND