FRUITLESS EFFORTS OF ITALY'S ALLIES

Then suddenly a ray of light shone through the clouds. The ever-cheerful Signor Nitti, after a conference with Lloyd George and Clemenceau—no Yugoslav being present, whereas Signor Nitti was both pleader and judge—was authorized to say that the December memorandum had been shelved. Terms more favourable to Italy were substituted and the Yugoslav Government were told they must accept them. One of these terms was to modify the Wilson line in Istria, ostensibly for the protection of Triest and in reality to dominate the railway line Rieka-St. Peter-Ljubljana; another of the terms was to present Italy with that narrow corridor which in December the Allies had so peremptorily disallowed. No wonder the American Ambassador in France gave his warning. "You are going," he said, "much too far and much too quickly. President Wilson cannot keep pace with you." The French Government was passing through a period of change, and these new proposals, as was underlined in the Temps,[47] emanated from London. Mr. Lloyd George, who may have wished for Signor Nitti's aid in his offensive against France in the Russian and Turkish questions, was this time very badly served by his intuition. The Yugoslavs were ordered to accept the new proposals or to submit to the application of the Treaty of London, that secret and abandoned instrument which—to mention only one of the objections against it—provided for complete Yugoslav sovereignty over Rieka, a solution that, in view of Italy's inflamed public opinion, was for the time being impracticable. And while the Yugoslavs were told that Rieka would, under the Treaty of London, fall to them, no details were given as to how d'Annunzio was to be removed. "Nous sommes dans l'incoherence," as Clemenceau used to say of the political condition of France before the war. Seeing that the Italian Government and the C.N.I. had shown themselves so powerless, were France and England going to turn the poet out? But Mr. Lloyd George was more fortunate than Disraeli, whose error in the question of Bosnia and Herzegovina had had such dire results; on February 13, a very firm note was issued by President Wilson, which compelled France and Great Britain to withdraw from the position they had taken up. Wilson would have nothing to do with the notorious corridor, though Clemenceau had said on January 13, to the Yugoslav delegates: "Si nous n'avions pas fait cette concession, nous n'avions pas eu le reste." "The American Government," said Wilson, "feels that it cannot sacrifice the principle for which it entered the war to gratify the improper ambition of one of its associates, Italy, to purchase a temporary appearance of calm in the Adriatic at the price of a future world conflagration." The rejoinder of the French and British Premiers was a trifle lame, and when they ventured to add that they could not believe that it was the purpose of the American people, as the President threatened, to retire from the treaty with Germany and the agreement of June 28, 1919, with France unless his point of view was adopted in this particular case, which, in their opinion, had "the appearance of being so inadequate," they were not caring to remember that while their own countries and Italy were suffering from a lack of food-stuffs and provisions were being imported at a disastrous rate of exchange from the United States, the products of Yugoslavia, such as meat and meal, could not be obtained because Rieka, which ought surely to serve its hinterland, was at that moment not available, owing to d'Annunzio. At the same time the President did not go to the opposite extreme of simply allocating the port to Yugoslavia, which the application of the Treaty of London would involve. He preferred to act on the principle that the differences between Italy and the Yugoslavs were inconsiderable, especially as compared with the magnitude of their common interests. And direct negotiations between the two parties were to be recommended, with the proviso that no use be made of France and Great Britain's immoral suggestion that an agreement be reached on "the basis of compensation elsewhere at the expense of nationals of a third Power." It had indeed been proposed that the Yugoslavs should be bribed by concessions in Albania, but this idea was very explicitly rejected and on more than one occasion by the Yugoslav delegates in Paris.

While, in the following months, the Yugoslavs and the Italians negotiated, the task of their delegates was impeded by the occasional Cabinet crises in Belgrade and in Rome. It was made no easier by those Italians who clamorously objected to the remark of Clemenceau, when he said that both Yugoslavs and Italians had been compelled to fight in Austria's army. The Corriere d'Italia told him that he displayed the zeal of a corporal to defend the Yugoslavs. After alluding to his "historical inexactitudes," it reminded him of the Italians who were slain at Reims and the Chemin des Dames, but as usual omitted to speak of the French soldiers who fell in Italy. And, while the negotiations were being carried on, Gabriele d'Annunzio clung to his town. The compromise of a mixed administration seemed to have small chance of being realized. It had been proposed by that Inter-Allied Commission which was set up to investigate the circumstances of the French massacre; and the Italian delegate, General di Robilant, not only said in his report[48] to the Senate that this compromise was most favourable for Italian aspirations but he is alleged also to have included some very drastic criticism of the actions of the high military authorities, whom he charged with unconstitutional interference. Nevertheless neither the poet nor the Premier were as yet in a tractable mood with regard to the Rieka problem. Signor Nitti, parading his bonhomie, championed the cause in a more statesmanlike fashion; he did not, like d'Annunzio, evoke the world's ridicule by his footlight attitudes and those of his faithful supporters who, when his "Admiral" Rizzo abandoned him, when Giorati his confidant withdrew, when even Millo advised moderation, took certain piratical steps in order to keep the garrison supplied with food,[49] and composed an anthem which on ceremonial occasions was chanted in the poet's honour. But when Signor Nitti observed, with the utmost affability, that Rieka had, after the fall of the Crown of St. Stephen, become mistress of her own fate and as such, regardless of the Treaty of London, asked for inclusion in Italy, he, the Prime Minister, was vying in recklessness with d'Annunzio. The prevailing sentiment both in Triest and Rieka, said the Times,[50] was that both these towns should become free ports in order to serve their hinterlands, which are not Italian. "Italy is neglecting Triest in favour of Venice," says the dispatch. In Rieka, where the situation was even worse, "an honest plebiscite, even if confined to the Italian part of the city, would give a startling result. The Italians of Rieka are convinced that their existence depends on good relations with the Yugoslavs. They wish the town and port to be independent under the sovereignty of the League of Nations. This I have recently been told by a large number of Italians in Rieka who are obliged, in public, to support d'Annunzio." Signor Nitti must have been aware that the voice of the C.N.I. was very far from being the voice of Rieka. The C.N.I. had reasons of their own for wishing to postpone the day when their arbitrary powers would come to an end and a legal Government, whether that of the League of Nations or of the people's will or of Italy or of Yugoslavia, be established.

SOME OF RIEKA'S SCANDALS

Owing to the complaints of innumerable citizens the C.N.I. had nominated a Commission to inquire into the pillage of the former Austrian stores at Rieka—this town, as we have mentioned, had been the base for the Albanian army—and the findings of that Commission displayed the culpability of the most prominent members of the C.N.I. This document was for a long time unknown to the general public, but was afterwards published in Italy by Signor Riccardo Zanella, himself an Italian and an ex-deputy and ex-mayor of Rieka. There was, by the way, an article in the Triest paper, Il Lavoratore, at the beginning of September 1920, wherein one Tercilio Borghese, a former member of d'Annunzio's army, confesses that on June 21, he was ordered by d'Annunzio, as also by Colonel Sani and Captain Baldassari, to get Signor Zanella in some way out of the world. Hinko Camero and Angelo Marzić, his fellow-workers, had likewise to be removed; and for this purpose Borghese says that the Colonel provided him with a revolver. He was also to try to seize any compromising documents. But he was forced by his conscience to reveal everything to Zanella.... Now this confession may be true or false, but the Triest "fascisti" (Nationalists) believed in it, for they issued a placard on which they called Borghese a traitor and threatened him with death. "He who after November 1918 returns to the martyred town," writes Signor Zanella, "is simply stupefied in beholding that those personages who now strut on the political scene, burning with the most ardent Italian patriotism, are the same who until the eve of Vittorio Veneto were the most unbending, the most eloquent and the most devoted partisans and servants of the reactionary Magyar regime." And around them a number of more or less questionable persons were assembled, whose conduct with regard to the disposal of the Austrian stores has now been so severely censured. That organization which, dependent on the C.N.I., was supposed to administer the stores, was known as the Adriatic Commission. "We all knew," said the Commission of inquiry, "that the eyes of the whole world were gazing at our little town." It was, therefore, very desirable that nothing irregular should be done; whereas the judges give a most unfavourable verdict. Nobody, they say, would rejoice more than themselves if their conclusions should be shown to be completely or partly erroneous, for they are all of them penetrated with love for the fatherland Italy. But they relate, with chapter and verse, a large number of peculiar transactions which show that the goods were very improperly and very hastily auctioned, and that those who reaped the benefit were nearly always the same people. To give one instance, some of the wine, said to have been damaged, was sold at 260 crowns the thousand litres, while undamaged wine brought 320 crowns, and the firm of Riboli, the only one which appeared at the so-called auction, was only asked to pay 30 crowns. Thus a considerable number of people in Rieka were anxious that the town should not come under any Government which might punish the culprits or make them disgorge. And Nitti and d'Annunzio agreed with these interested parties in opposing a solution other than the overlordship of Italy. "The Yugoslavs should understand," said the amiable Premier, "that Italy has no intention of acting in a manner distasteful to them, but is struggling for a national ideal." And meantime what of the conditions in the poor distracted town? "D'Annunzio," says an Italian paper, "is no longer the master of Rieka. He has become the prisoner of his own troops.... While he amuses himself and organizes the worst orgies, his troops quarrel in the streets and discharge their weapons.... A great many of them have their mistresses in the hospital, where they make themselves at home. When the doctors, after some time, protested, the arditi, with bombs in their hands, threatened to blow up the hospital if they were not allowed to enter it." On the other hand the pale, weary-looking poet succeeded in impressing on a special correspondent of the Morning Post that he was "master of his job." He told this gentleman—and was apparently believed—that with the consent and approval of the C.N.I. he had had the whole place mined, city and harbour, and was prepared to blow it up at a moment's notice. The means by which d'Annunzio, according to his interviewer, worked on those who were depressed with gazing at the empty shops, the silent warehouses, the grass-grown wharves, so that the overwhelming majority of the town supported him, was by simply making to them an eloquent speech. D'Annunzio would indeed be the master of his job if with some rounded periods in Italian he could cause the very numerous hostile business men to forget so blissfully that they were men of business. Under his dispensation the town is said to have been turned into a place of debauchery. Accusations were brought against his sexual code, and with regard to men of commerce: "those who are not partisans of d'Annunzio are expelled, and their establishments handed over to friends of the ruling power.... Woe to him who dares to condemn the transactions of the poet's adherents. There and then he is pronounced to be a Yugoslav, is placed under surveillance and is persecuted." These Italian critics of the poet do not in the least exaggerate. One instance of his conduct towards a British firm will be sufficient. The "Anglo-Near East Trading Company" shipped sixty-seven cases (5292 pairs) of boots to private traders in Belgrade, and on the way they reached Rieka just before d'Annunzio. In March 1920 they were still detained there, and on the 13th of that month a certain Alcesde di Ambris, who described himself as the Chief of the Cabinet, wrote a letter saying that the boots were requisitioned, and that they would be paid for within thirty days at a price fixed on March 5 by experts of the local Chamber of Commerce. The company was offered forty lire a pair, but they declined to accept so inadequate a sum. Senor Meynia, the Spanish Consul, who was also representing Great Britain, attempted in various ways to help the firm; he was finally told by an officer that the "exceptional situation of Rieka compels the Authority to suspend the exportation or transport of such goods as are thoroughly needed here." And the Consul could do no more than protest. One might presume, from this officer's reply, that d'Annunzio required the boots for his army. As a matter of fact, they were simply sold to a couple of dealers, one Levy of Triest and Mailaender of Rieka. It is alleged that the prices paid by these receivers of stolen property was a good deal higher than forty lire. When Signor di Ambris travelled to Rome in the merry month of June and enjoyed a consultation with the Prime Minister, who by this time was Signor Giolitti, it was not in order to explain any such transactions as that one of the boots, but for the purpose, we are told, of offering the services of d'Annunzio and his legionaries in Albania. The regular Italian army was just then being roughly handled by the natives.... It may be that Signor di Ambris wanted guarantees that if the d'Annunzian troops were to come to the rescue, they would not suffer the fate of the Yugoslavs who in the Great War had managed to desert to Italy, had valiantly fought and won many decorations and—after the War—been ignominiously interned. And they had given no grounds for charges of financial frailty.

PROGRESS OF THE YUGOSLAV IDEA

The months go by and Yugoslavia still survives. At the post-office of a large village in Syrmia, not far from Djakovo, where Bishop Strossmayer laboured during fifty-five years for the union of the Southern Slavs which he was destined not to see, a bulky farmer told me that in his opinion Yugoslavia, created in 1918, was now in 1920 "kaput." He deduced this from the fact that a telegram used to travel much more expeditiously in Austrian days; but he did not remember that the Yugoslavs, in the Serbian and in the Austro-Hungarian armies, had suffered enormous losses in the War, and that while French, Dutch and Swiss doctors have been obtained by the Belgrade Government, one cannot use telegraphists who are ignorant of the language. An excellent province in which Yugoslavia's solidity can be studied is Bosnia. At the outbreak of the War the Moslems and Croats were not imbued with the Yugoslav idea; it seemed to them that the Serbs, one of whom had slain the Archduke, were traitors to Southern Slavdom. During the War the Croats and Moslems were taught by their Slav officers to be good nationalists and were given frequent lessons in the art of going over to the enemy. After the Armistice one did not see every Serb, Croat and Moslem in Bosnia forthwith forgetting all the evil of the past. Among the less enlightened certain private acts of vengeance had to be performed; but these were not as numerous as one might have expected. And very soon the population of Bosnia came to be interested far less in the old religious differences—the two deputies Dr. Džamonia and Professor Stanojević smilingly remembered the day when, as schoolboys at Sarajevo, they had been persuaded by the Austrians to pull out each other's hair for the reason that one was a Croat and one was a Serb—and now it was the engrossing subject of Agrarian Reform which claimed the attention of Catholic, Orthodox and Moslem. This is not a religious question, for while the landlords are mostly Muhammedan begs about half the peasants are of the same religion; and the negotiations have been marked by a notable absence of passion. Most of the begs acknowledge that the old regime was unprofitable, for with the peasant paying one-third to one-fifth of his production to the landlord the land only yielded, as compared with the sandy districts of East Prussia, in the proportion of five to twenty-two. Under the new order of things, with the State in support of the "usurping" peasant—so that there are said to be in Bosnia about a thousand peasants who are millionaires (in crowns)—there is no longer any dispute with regard to the "kmet" land, where the peasants with hereditary rights have become the owners; and with regard to the "begluk," which the beg used to let to anyone he pleased, it is only a question as to the degree of compensation. Thus, it is not among the landowners and the peasants that one must look in searching for an anti-national party. Bosnia contains various iron works and coal mines, where profession is made of Communism. But when the Prince-Regent was about to come to pay his first official visit in 1920 to Sarajevo the Governor received a communication from the Communists of Zenica, which is on the railway line. They asked for permission to salute "our Prince" as he came past; and a deputation of these Communists, who are very like their colleagues in other parts of Yugoslavia, duly appeared and took part in a ceremony at the station.

DESPITE THE NEW PHENOMENON OF COMMUNISM

Just as innocuous—whatever the enemies of Yugoslavia may say—are the Communists in the old kingdom of Serbia. Perhaps in the whole State of Yugoslavia they number 50,000 in a population of about 12,500,000. But they are so well organized that in the municipal elections of 1920 they were victorious in most of the towns. In Belgrade they secured 3600 votes, as compared with 3200 for the Radicals, 2800 for the Democrats—both of whom were not only badly organized but very slack—and 605 for the Republicans. However, the Communists refused to swear the requisite oath, and in consequence were not permitted to take office, the Radicals and Democrats forming a union to carry on. It was agreed to have a new election and the other parties, being now awakened, determined that the Communists should not again top the poll. But in the provincial towns they have not by any means shown themselves a disintegrating influence. At Niš, for example, they conducted the municipal affairs quite satisfactorily, while at Čuprija they perceived that it would be impossible to put into effect their entire programme, and so, after fourteen days, they resigned.

THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMUNISM IN YUGOSLAVIA

... As for the Communists in the Skupština, it may be argued that though this party of over fifty members has ceased to exist we should have said not simply that they are innocuous but that they have been rendered so. They were in principle against any State which violated their somewhat hazy ideas on the subject of Capital: while professing to aim at the holding of wealth in common they secured a great deal of their success at the polls through the bait of more land for the individual, which they dangled before the eyes of the most ignorant classes. Some of the electors who supported them were prosperous farmers unable to resist the idea of a still larger farm; but the majority of their adherents were as ignorant as they were gullible. Yet one should remember that for most of them this was practically their first experience of an election: the constituencies which had formerly been in Austria-Hungary had always seen the booths under the supervision of the police, while the Macedonian voter (three Communists were returned for Skoplje) had only known the institutions of the Turkish Empire. Being told by the Communists that their box at the polling-station was really the box for the poor, the Fukara, all the gypsies and so forth of Skoplje, who had never voted in their lives, hastened to claim the privilege, under the impression that a Communist Government would liberate them from taxes and military service. Other reasons for the success of the Communists in Yugoslavia, an essentially non-industrial State, were the general discontent with post-war conditions, and the virus which so many of the voters had acquired in Russia or on the Dobrudja front during the War. The activity in the Skupština of this very indigestible party—largely composed of Turks, Magyars, Albanians, Germans and others—their activity in and out of Parliament was not confined to words. In June 1920 they only refrained from throwing bombs in the Skupština because one of their own members would have been in peril, and in December a plot against the Prince-Regent and some of the Ministers was foiled. Thereupon the Emergency Act of December 27, the so-called Obznana, came into existence. It suspended all Communist associations. This Act was issued for the good of the country, but was not previously presented to the Constituent Assembly or provided with the royal signature. How justified were the authorities in thus putting a stop to this party could be seen when some of the Communist deputies were interrogated, for either they were dangerous fanatics or else very ignorant individuals, who knew no more about any other question than about Communism, and had only been elected because they professed dissatisfaction with things in general. A few months later Mr. Drašković, the very able Minister of the Interior, who had drawn up the Obznana, but who by that time had laid down the seals of office, was murdered by Communists at a seaside resort in the presence of his wife and little children. The object of this particular outrage was to persuade the authorities in panic to withdraw the hated Obznana, whereas the previous attempts on various personages seem to have been greatly due to the desire to show some positive result in return for the cash which came to them from Moscow. (One of the leaders of the party, the ex-professor of mathematics, was arrested last summer in Vienna on his return from Moscow, with a large and very miscellaneous collection of English, French, American, Russian and other money.) After the murder of Mr. Drašković the mandates of the Communist deputies were suppressed; seven or eight of them were detained, for speedy trial, and the rest were told to go to their homes. The Communist parliamentary party was at an end—it was established that their Committee room in the Skupština had been used for highly improper purposes—but there was nothing to prevent these ex-deputies from being elected as members of any other party, and it was rather beside the mark for an English review, the Labour Monthly,[51] to talk of the "White Terror in Jugo-Slavia," as if there prevailed in that country anything comparable with Admiral Horthy's regime in Hungary.

OTHER LIONS IN THE PATH

The behaviour of the Communists was far from being the only clog in Yugoslavia's parliamentary machine. After the first General Election of November 1920—delayed until then on account of Italy's attitude, which made it impossible to demobilize the army—no single party nor even one of the large groups was possessed of a real working majority. Fierce and determined was the Opposition;[52] to carry on the business of government it became necessary to secure the coalition of several parties. The Radical and Democrat bloc had to attract to its side one or two other parties, and it was truly difficult to make concessions to anyone of these without rousing the righteous or the envious wrath of another group. In principle it was proper that the Bosnian Moslems should receive compensation for their estates; the question is whether the very large sum was less in the nature of a fair price than of a bribe. The Radical party was no longer under its happy triumvirate of Pašić, the old diplomat, Protić, the executor of his ideas, and Patchou, a medical man from Novi Sad, the real brain of the party. We shall give an example of Patchou's prudence; the long views which he possessed may be illustrated by what occurred at a meeting of Radical deputies two days before the outbreak of the second Balkan War. The Tzar's proposed arbitration was being discussed and certain deputies, such as the late Dr. Pavlović, who was the first speaker of the Yugoslav Parliament after the Great War, raised their voices in opposition; they were supported by the army. "Can we have Bitolje (Monastir)?" they asked. "It is not known what the Tzar will decide," said Pašić. "Then we can't accept arbitration," said Pavlović. And Patchou spoke. "I would be very glad to know," said he, "what Mr. Pavlović would say if we could get, by possibly now sacrificing Bitolje, not only Bosnia, but Dalmatia and other Slav countries." "All that," said Pavlović, "is music of the future." "For you perhaps," said Patchou, "but not for us." And the vote in favour of arbitration was carried. Patchou died in 1915 at Niš. Besides being an expert in finance and foreign affairs he was less arbitrary in his methods than Protić. That very erudite man—no sooner does an important book appear in Western or Central Europe than a copy of it goes to his library—has not been much endowed with patience. This brought him into conflict with his Democratic colleague Mr. Pribičević, the most prominent man in that party. It would have been well if Dr. Davidović, the gentle, tactful leader of the party, could have taken into his own composition one-half of his lieutenant's excessive combativeness. Pribičević and Protić find it impossible to work together, and we can sympathize with both of them. One day at a more than usually disagreeable Cabinet meeting Pribičević reminded the then Prime Minister that he was the first among equals, a point of view which did not square with the methods of Protić, who gives his support to those Ministers who bend before him. And as Pribičević has hitherto insisted on being in every Cabinet, Protić has withdrawn and has started a newspaper, the Radical, in which he attacks him with great violence and ability. One charge which he brings against this Serb from Croatia is perfectly true, for he has succeeded in alienating the Croats. Only two or three Democrat deputies come from Croatia, and they are elected by the Serbs who live in that province. It would seem that the Croats will remain in more or less active opposition so long as Pribičević, the arch-centralizer who scorns to wear the velvet glove, stays in the Government. There is also much doubt as to whether Protić can break down their particularism, which, of course, is not an anti-national movement. But luckily, through other men, it will be stayed. For other reasons one regrets that Mr. Protić is not now in power; as the Finance Minister he knew how to introduce order, preferring the interests of the State to those of his party. Both Radicals and Democrats have been reluctant, for electoral purposes, to tax the farmer; and Mr. Protić would probably have the courage to impose a direct tax, as the Radicals did, without losing popular favour, in the old days. In this respect and concerning the numerous posts that have been created for party reasons it is thought that Mr. Pašić has not displayed sufficient energy.

There was in Yugoslavia a heavy war deficit, both economic and financial. Communications were out of order and the State, owing to the adverse exchange (which was not justified by the economic potentialities of the country, but was probably caused by the unsettled conditions both internal and external), the State could not obtain the necessary raw products for industrial undertakings such as iron-works, tanneries, cloth factories, etc. The Yugoslavs did not borrow from abroad, as they might have done, in the form of raw materials. The agricultural products which were exported should have been sold for the needful manufacturers' material and not for articles of luxury and not for depreciated foreign, especially Austrian, currency.[53] The Yugoslav public is slow to learn economy, that it should restrict the importation of luxuries. What makes it particularly unhappy, in which frame of mind it listens to the voices prophesying woe for Yugoslavia, is the knowledge that for increased production and for many other necessary aims more capital is wanted, whereas under present conditions it has been difficult to borrow. But happily in this respect the corner has been turned, and in the spring of 1922 a considerable loan was negotiated with an American syndicate.

THE NADIR OF DEVINE AND NIKITA

However, the principal disintegrating force in Yugoslavia, we were often told in England, was Montenegro, where, it seems, the natives were yearning to cast off their yoke. The British devotees of the former king told us of the ghastly state of Montenegro, and our Foreign Office was bombarded with reports which ascribed these evils to the wretched Government of Yugoslavia. "There is nothing anywhere," says a memorandum from the ineffable Devine. "The shops are empty, the town markets are deserted. The peasants, who may not travel from one village to another without a Serbian 'permit' ... etc. etc." Well, I visited Cetinje market on a non-market day, and passing through the crowd of people I admired the produce of various parts of the country—melons, tomatoes, dried fish, onions, peaches, nuts and cheese, lemons from Antivari and so forth. I happened to ask a comely woman called Petriečević from near Podgorica whether she had a permit; she looked surprised at such a question. It is very true that the more mountainous parts of Montenegro are far from prosperous, but to insinuate that this is the fault of the Government is childish. Hampered by the lack of transport—practically everything has to be brought on ox-carts up by the tremendous road from Kotor—they have recently given away 38,000 kilos of wheat and many mountain horses at Cetinje. I suppose it was all in the game for Devine and his assistants to throw mud at the Yugoslav Government if they believed that they would—for the happiness of the Montenegrins and themselves—help to restore Nikita. But what was the use of saying that "the poor people have no money and have nothing to eat; they are said to be living on a herb of some sort that grows wild in the mountains"?... A very satisfactory feature of the past year has been the migration of 7000 Montenegrins to more fertile parts of Yugoslavia. And as for Nikita's partisans, they were such small beer that when they wished to hold a meeting at Cetinje the Government had not the least objection; it also allowed them to sing the songs that Nikita wrote, but that was more than the population of Cetinje would stand. It is only at Cetinje, where he reigned for sixty years, and at Njeguš, where he was born, that Nikita has any adherents at all. As for his adherents at Gaeta, the Cetinje authorities were perfectly willing to give a passport to any woman who desired to spend some time in Italy with her husband or brother or son. She might stay there or come back, just as she pleased. And very likely when she got to Gaeta she would relate how in the cathedral, at the rock-bound monastery of Ostrog, and in other sacred places, one could see the Montenegrin women cursing their ex-king.

A GENERAL

The sinister shadow of d'Annunzio had fallen across Dalmatia and beyond it: for instance, on November 20, 1919, the King of Italy's name-day, a general holiday was proclaimed in the occupied districts. The director of the school at Zlosela, a Slav who had never been an Italian subject, gave—perhaps injudiciously—the usual lessons. He and his wife were arrested and for months they were in prison, their six-months-old child being left to the mercy of neighbours; and the local commandant, Major Gracco Golini, told Dr. Smolčić, the President of the National Council, that the slightest action on the part of the Yugoslavs would provoke terrible measures on the part of d'Annunzio's arditi, who would spare neither women nor children.... The reader may remember the Montenegrin General Vešović, who took to the mountains and defied the Austrians. On the accession of the Emperor Karl he surrendered and, much to the surprise of his people, he travelled round the country recommending every one to offer no more opposition, to be quiet and obedient to the Austrians. When the war was over the authorities at Belgrade gave him, as they did to other Montenegrin generals, the same rank in the Yugoslav army; but the numerous Montenegrins who resented his unpatriotic behaviour persuaded the War Office, after two or three months, to remove him from the active list. This exasperated the ambitious man to such an extent that he withdrew to his own district and began to work against Yugoslavia. A major with a force of 200 gendarmes was sent to fetch him back and, after conversations that lasted ten days, induced him to return to Belgrade. There he was not molested; he used to sit for hours in the large cafe of the Hotel Moscow in civilian clothes. But one day a policeman at the harbour happened to observe him talking for a long time to a fisherman; he wondered what the two might have in common. When the fisherman was interrogated he refused at first to give any information, but he finally divulged that he had agreed, for 1500 francs, to take the General down the Danube either to Bulgaria or Roumania. That evening at nine o'clock the General appeared, with his son and a servant; he was captured,[54] and among his documents were some which proved, it was alleged, that he was in communication with d'Annunzio.

TWO COMIC PRO-ITALIANS IN OUR MIDST

Month follows month. The reading public and some of the statesmen of the world begin to recognize that, whatever may be the case on other portions of the new map, there is nothing unreal or impossible or artificial about Yugoslavia. This State is the result of a national movement, having its origins within and not without the peoples whose destiny it affects. The various Yugoslavs, after being kept apart for all these centuries, have now—roughly speaking—come to that stage which the Germans reached in 1866. They cannot rest until they reach the unity which came to the Germans after 1870. And here also, it seems, the unity will not be gained without the sacrifice of thousands of young men. "Go, my son," said Oxenstiern the Swedish Chancellor, "and observe by what imbeciles the world is governed." It is pitiable that the leaders of the nations, in declining month after month to give to Yugoslavia an equitable frontier, should apparently have been more impressed by the arguments of Mrs. Lucy Re-Bartlett[55] than by those of an anonymous philosopher in the Edinburgh Review.[56] "Nationality?" says the lady, speaking of the country people of Dalmatia, "nationality? These people of the country districts—the great mass of the population—are far too primitive to have any sense of nationality as yet, but if some day they call themselves Italian...." That is what she says of a people which through centuries of persecution and neglect have preserved their language, their traditions, their hopes; a people which, more than forty years ago, won their great victory against the Habsburg regime of Italian and Italianist officials, so that with one exception every mayor in Dalmatia and all the Imperial deputies and hundreds of societies of all kinds, such as 375 rural savings-banks, were exclusively Yugoslav. Out of nearly 150,000 votes at the last general election, which was held in 1911 on the basis of universal suffrage, the Yugoslav candidates received about 145,000 against 5000 to 6000 for the Italians. It is indisputable that the Dalmatian peasants are backward in many things, but one is really sorry for the person who declares in print that they possess no sense of nationality. Let her visit any house of theirs on Christmas Eve and watch them celebrate the "badnjak"; let her listen any evening to their songs. Let her think whether there is no sense of nationality among the priests, who almost to a man are the sons of Yugoslav peasants. And let her recollect that these are the days when the other Yugoslavs are at last uniting in their own free State. She has the hardihood to tell us of the poor Dalmatians who were being bribed with waterworks and bridges and gratuitous doctoring. I daresay that the little ragged Slav children of Kievo whom she saw clustering round the kindly Italian officer were glad enough to eat his chocolates,[57] but I think that we others should pay more attention to those secret societies, the četasis (which is Slav for komitadjis), who have sworn to liberate all Istria from the Italians. We may also consider the proposals made by the Southern Slavs whom Signor Salvemini, the distinguished Professor of Modern History at Pisa, called "extreme Nationalists" (see his letter of September 11, 1916, to the editor of La Serbie, which was being published in Switzerland). Well, it appears that the "extreme Southern Slav Nationalists," as the utmost of their aspirations, claim the Southern Slav section of the province of Gorica with the town Triest and the whole of Istria, that is to say, a territory which, with a population the majority of whom are Slav, contains also 284,325 Italians, whereas the smallest programme ever proposed by moderate Italians, including Professor Salvemini, covets some 364,000 Southern Slavs. Thus the extreme Southern Slav elements, in their widest demands, are more moderate than the moderate Italians in their most limited programme. "Without distinction of tribe or creed," says that Edinburgh reviewer, "all the Yugoslavs are waiting for their 1870. This will fix and perpetuate their unity.... The preparation is going forward silently—almost sullenly—and without demur or qualification the Yugoslavs are accepting the Serb military chiefs' guidance and domination." He was much impressed by the silence and controlled power of the Serbian General Staff. There was in Europe a general war-weariness; but not in Yugoslavia. There was a hush in this part of Europe, broken only by the shrill screams of Italian propagandists and outbursts of suppressed passion on the other side.

THE BELATED TREATY OF RAPALLO

And the Rapallo Treaty of November 1920, when at last the statesmen of Italy and Yugoslavia came to terms regarding all their frontiers! This Treaty was received with much applause by the great majority of the French and British Press; in this country of compromise it was pointed out by many that as each party knew that the other had abated something of his desires the Treaty would probably remain in operation for a long time to come. And column after column of smug comment was written in various newspapers by the "Diplomatic Correspondent," whose knowledge of diplomacy may have been greater than his acquaintance with the Adriatic, since they followed one another, like a procession of sheep, in copying the mistake in a telegram which spoke of Eritto, the curious suburb of Zadar, instead of Borgo Erizzo. They noted that each side had yielded something, though it was true that the Yugoslavs had been the more generous in surrendering half a million of their compatriots, whereas the Italians had given up Dalmatia, to which they never had any right.[58] "The claim for Dalmatia was entirely unjustified," said Signor Colajanni in the Italian Chamber on November 23—yet it was not our business to weigh the profit and loss to the two interested parties. After all, it was they who had between themselves made this Agreement, and one might argue that it surely would be an impertinence if anybody else was more royalist than the king. These commentators held that it was inexpedient for anyone to ask why the Yugoslavs should now have accepted conditions that were, on the whole, considerably worse than those which President Wilson, with the approval of Great Britain and France, had laid down as a minimum, if they were to realize their national unity. And, of course, these writers deprecated any reference to the pressure which France and Great Britain brought to bear upon the Yugoslavs when the negotiations at Rapallo were in danger of falling through. If we take two Scottish newspapers, the Scotsman[59] was typical of this very bland attitude; it congratulated everyone on the harmonious close to a long, intricate and frequently dangerous controversy. The Glasgow Herald,[60] on the other hand, was one of the few newspapers which took a more than superficial view. "Monstrous," it said, "as such intervention seems, no student of the Adriatic White Paper—as lamentable a collection of documents as British diplomacy has to show—can deny its possibility, nay its probability. It is precisely the same game as was nearly successful in January 1920 and again in April 1920, but both times was frustrated by Wilson. We are entitled to ask, for the honour of our nation, if it has been played again; indeed if the whole mask of direct negotiation—a British suggestion—was not devised at San Remo with the express purpose of making the game succeed. If it be so—and if it is not so it is imperative that we are given frankly the full story of British policy in the Adriatic, for instance the dispatches so carefully omitted from the White Paper—then our forebodings for the future are more than justified.... It is emphatically a bad settlement."

"We shall not establish friendly and normal relations with our neighbour Italy unless we reduce all causes of friction to a minimum," said M. Vesnić, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, who during his long tenure of the Paris Legation was an active member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and other learned societies; he excelled in getting at the root of the worst difficulties in international law, and he was particularly admired for his ability to combine legal and historic knowledge. Because he studied history minutely—with a special fondness for Gambetta who, racially an Italian, had something of the generous and sacred fervour that distinguished the leaders of the Risorgimento—M. Vesnić could not bring himself to hate Italy, despite all that d'Annunzio and other Imperialists had made his countrymen suffer. "Neither the Government nor the elected representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes," said he courageously in his first speech as Prime Minister, "ought to look upon Italy as an enemy country. We have to settle important and difficult questions with Italy.... We must reduce all causes of friction to a minimum."

The Treaty of Rapallo gives Zadar to Italy, because in that little town there is an Italian majority; but central and eastern Istria, with their overwhelming Slav majority, are not given to the Yugoslavs—a fact which Professor Salvemini deplored in the Roman Chamber. By the Treaty of Rapallo Rieka is given independence,[61] but with Italy in possession of Istria and the isle of Cres, she can at any moment choke the unprotected port, having very much the same grip of that place as Holland has for so long had of Antwerp; and the sole concession on Italy's part seems to be that in the south she gives up the large Slav islands of Hvar, Korčula and Vis, and only appropriates the small one of Lastovo.... "It has cost Italy a pang," says Mr. George Trevelyan, "to consent, after victory, to leave the devoted and enthusiastic Italians of the Dalmatian coast towns (other than Zara) in foreign territory." The truth is that henceforward Yugoslavia will contain some 5000 Italians (many of whom are Italianized Slavs), as against not less than 600,000 Slavs in Italy. And while the former are but tiny groups in towns which even under Venetian rule were predominantly Slav and are surrounded on all sides by purely Slav populations, the latter live for the most part in compact masses and include roughly one-third of the whole Slovene race, whose national sense is not only very acute, but who are also much less illiterate than their Italian neighbours. One cannot be astonished if the Slovenes think of this more than of Giotto, Leonardo, Galileo and Dante. But one may be a little surprised that such a man as Mr. Edmund Gardner should allow his reverence for the imperishable glories of Italy to becloud his view of the modern world. It is certainly a fact that the Slovenes are to-day less illiterate than the Italians, but because Dr. Seton-Watson alludes to this, Mr. Gardner (in the Manchester Guardian, of February 13, 1921) deplores the "Balkanic mentality that seems to afflict some Englishmen when dealing with these problems."

ITS PROBABLE FRUITS

Now it is obvious that the Treaty of Rapallo has placed between the Yugoslavs and the Italians all too many causes of friction. Zadar, like other such enclaves, will be dear to the heart of the smuggler. She cannot live without her Yugoslav hinterland—five miles away in Yugoslavia are the waterworks, and if these were not included, by a special arrangement, in her dominion, she would have no other liquid but her maraschino. She cannot die without her Yugoslav hinterland—but so that her inhabitants need not be carried out into a foreign land, the cemetery has also, by stretching a point, been included in the city boundaries. It remains to be seen how Zadar and the hinterland will serve two masters. We have alluded to the questionable arrangements at Rieka, in which town there had for those years been such an orgy of limelight and recrimination that even the most statesmanlike solution must have left a good deal of potential friction. In Istria the dangers of an outbreak are evident. Italy has now become the absolute mistress of the Adriatic and has gained a strategical frontier which could hardly be improved upon, while Yugoslavia has been placed in an economic position of much difficulty. Sooner or later, if matters are left in situ, trouble will arise. Perhaps an economic treaty between Italy and Yugoslavia, as favourable as possible to the weaker State, would introduce some sort of stability; but no good cause would be served by crying "Peace" where there is no peace, and while Yugoslavia has a grievance there will be trouble in the Balkans.

The most serious phase of the Adriatic crisis is now ushered in, for a new Alsace has been created; and those who point this out cannot be charged with an excessive leaning towards the Yugoslavs. It also seems to me that one can scarcely say they are alarmists. If Yugoslavia, in defiance of that most immoral pressure, had declared for war, Vesnić at the general election would have swept the country with the cry of "War for Istria!" To his eternal honour he chose the harder path of loyalty to the new ideas which Serbian blood has shed so freely to make victorious. A momentary victory has now been gained by the Italians, but not one that makes for peace. It poisons by annexations fundamentally unjustifiable, however consecrated by treaty, the whole source of tranquillity in the Near East. "Paciencia!" [Have patience] you say, in refusing to give alms to a Portuguese beggar, and he follows your advice. But when the Yugoslavs ask for a revision of the Treaty—if the Italians do not wisely offer it themselves—it would be rash if in attempting to foretell the future we should base ourselves upon the premise that their patience will be everlasting. A new Alsace has been created, an Alsace to which, in the opinion of competent observers, all the Yugoslavs will turn until the day comes when it is honourable to set the standards forth on a campaign of liberation.

NEW FORCES IN THE FIRST YUGOSLAV PARLIAMENT

When the Yugoslavs were at last in a position, late in 1920, to hold the elections for the Constituent Assembly the Radicals and the Democrats were the most successful, but even if they made a Coalition they would still have no majority. [Now and then the Democrats asserted themselves against the Radicals, but when the Opposition thought they could perceive a rift the Democratic Press would write that the two parties were most intimately joined to one another, and especially the Democrats.] The small parties were very numerous, the smallest being that of M. Ribarac, the old Liberal leader, who found himself in the Skupština with nobody to lead; the clericals of Slovenia came to grief, a fact which appeared to give general satisfaction, and a similar mishap befell the decentralizing parties of Croatia. On the other hand the Croat Peasants' party, whose decentralization ideas were more extreme, had a very considerable success, and the Communist party, whose fall we have already described, had come to the Skupština with some fifty members.

(a) MARKOVIĆ THE COMMUNIST

The temporary triumph of the Communists was admittedly due to the exceptional position in which the country found itself. They had in Sima Marković an enthusiastic leader who has abandoned the teaching of mathematics in order to expound the gospel of Moscow, and in the Skupština the shrill, voice of this kindly, bald-headed little man had to be raised to its uttermost capacity, for most of his fellow-members were unwilling to be taught. It so happens that he is Pašić's godson, and on one occasion when the little Communist was talking with great vehemence the old gentleman, who was turning over the pages of some document, was heard by an appreciative House to murmur: "Oh, be still, my child, be still!" But the most unfortunate episode in Marković's oratory was when he expressed the hope that Communism would rage through the country like an epidemic, forgetting for the moment that those municipalities which had gone over to Communism had won general praise for their improvements in the sanitary sphere. Largely on account of this infelicitous simile he was replaced in the leadership by another, a less vigorous and less entertaining person. And this party stood in particular need of attractive champions.

The Croat Peasants' party, or the Radić party, as it came to be called, gave to its beloved chief more than half the seats in Croatia, forty-nine out of ninety-three; and the whole party refused to go to Belgrade.

"Would it not have been better," I asked him, "if you had gone? The Constitution will be settled without you."

(b) RADIĆ, THE MUCH-DISCUSSED

"We had various reasons," said he, "for not going. One of them was that the Assembly which laid down the Constitution was not sovereign. For example, it was not permitted to discuss whether Yugoslavia should be a monarchy or a republic. I admit that three-quarters of the members would very likely have voted for a monarchy, and in that case we should have accepted the situation very much as do the royalist deputies in the French Parliament."

"What are your own views on this subject?"

"Well," said he, "for this period of transition I believe—mark you, this only applies to myself—that a monarchy is not merely acceptable but preferable. On the other hand the Croat peasant was so badly treated by the Habsburgs that he will now hear of nothing but a republic."

I ventured to say that this sudden conversion to republican ideas in one who for centuries had lived in a monarchy was peculiar, and Radić acknowledged that when the first republican cries were raised at a meeting of the Peasants' party on July 25, 1918 they came to him as a revelation, one which he accepted.

"You don't accept everything that your peasants shout for?"

"I do not," said he. "There was a gentleman who asked them at a meeting whether they would kill him if he, elected as their representative, were to go to Belgrade. They shouted back that they would do so. And when the prospective candidate came to tell me this story, thinking that I would be delighted, I told him that a ship's captain cannot have his hands bound before undertaking a voyage and he must therefore withdraw his candidature.... When the time comes we will go to Belgrade."

"And those who say that you are longing for the return of the Habsburgs?"

He gripped my arm. "They are fools," said he. "We are looking forward as eagerly as the great Bishop Strossmayer to the union of the Southern Slavs. According to the spirit of his time he began at the top, with academies, picture galleries and so forth. We prefer to begin with elementary schools." And bubbling with enthusiasm he told me of the efforts his party was making. It was plain to see that what lies nearest to his heart is to improve their social and economic status. And those observers are probably in the right, who believe that he merely uses this republican cry as a weapon which he will conveniently drop when it has served its purpose.

"If only Yugoslavia had a great statesman," said I, "who would weld the new State together, so that the Croats remain with the Serbs not alone for the reasons that they are both Southern Slavs and that they are surrounded by not over-friendly neighbours. The great statesman—perhaps it will be Pašić—will make you all happy to come together."

"From the bottom of my heart I hope he will succeed," said Radić, "and he will be remembered as our second and more fortunate Strossmayer."

We generally imagine that the statesmen of South-Eastern Europe are a collection of rather swarthy, frock-coated personages who, when not engaged in decrying each other, are very busily occupied in feathering their own nests. If any one of them, at the outset of his career, had a sense of humour we suppose that in this heated atmosphere it must have long ago evaporated. But strangely enough, the two most prominent politicians in Yugoslavia, the venerable Pašić, the Prime Minister of this new State of Serbs and Croats and Slovenes, even as he used for years to be the autocrat of Serbia, and his opponent Stephen Radić are, both of them, by the grace of God, of a humorous disposition. Outwardly, there is not much resemblance between them: Pašić, the picture of a benevolent patriarch, letting fall in his deep voice a few casual words which bring down his critics' case, hopelessly down like a wounded aeroplane, and Radić the fervid little orator, the learned man, whose life has been devoted to the Croat peasants and who is said to find it difficult to make a speech that is under eight hours in length. Last year when the vigorous Pribičević, then Minister of the Interior, who is determined to compel the Serbs and the Croats straightway to live in the closest companionship, whereas Radić, supported by most of the Croat intelligentsia, argues that in view of their very different culture, the Serbs having enjoyed a Byzantine and the Croats an Austrian education, it would be advisable for these two branches of the South Slav nation to come gradually and not violently together,—last year when Radić was lying in prison on account of his subversive ideas Pribičević sent a message to say that he was prepared to adopt half his programme. And Radić sent back word regretting that the Minister could not adopt the whole of it and thus obtain for himself the Peasants' party. It is wrong to assert that this party is unpatriotic; the enemies of Yugoslavia, who welcome in Radić a disruptive element, are totally in error. Years ago he was working for the eventual union of Serbs and Croats—the Austrians imprisoned him because in 1903 he went to Belgrade at the accession of King Peter and made an admirable speech to this effect—and his present attitude is due to the impatient manner in which Mr. Pribičević and his friends are endeavouring to bring the union about. His peasants are a conservative people; they cannot instantly dispel the anti-Serb ideas which the Austrians for ever inculcated, nor the negative anti-Serb frame of mind which they learned from their own intelligentsia. It will take a little time before the Catholic peasant realizes that the Orthodox Serb is his brother and that now his military service will not be in an alien army, but in his own. "Let us go slowly," says Radić, "with our peasants"; and he knows them very well.... One is told that he changes his opinions from hour to hour; he is certainly very impetuous, very much under the influence of his emotions; but in one thing he has never varied—he has always struggled for the Croat peasant, and he has been rewarded by the unbounded devotion of that faithful, rather incoherent, creature.

Now the Serbs are a democratic people; they are by their nature in opposition to any force, civil or military, which might attempt to make the monarchy more absolute. The wisest Serbs do not forget that in the peasant lies their principal wealth, and although as yet the Serbian Peasants' party does not hold many constituencies in the old kingdom, nevertheless it appears to have a brighter prospect than any other Serbian party, for in that country the revolt against the lawyer-politician is likely to be more efficacious than in France or England. One may look forward to an understanding between Radić and this Serbian party, which is only two or three years old, although its founder, the excellent Avramović—an elderly gentleman who sits behind vast barricades of books in various languages—has devoted himself for many years to agrarian co-operative societies, of which in Serbia there are more than 1500.

The most uncertain factors seem to be the moderating hold of Radić over his peasants and over himself. No one doubts but that he has the interests of the peasant very much at heart, and if he succeeds in improving the peasant's lot then that grateful giant will presumably not sink again into the sleep which he enjoyed when he was under the Habsburgs. The circulation of Radić's weekly paper Dom[62] ("The Home") has risen from 2000 before the elections and 9000 during the elections to 30,000. One enterprising vendor, a Serb from the Banat, takes 500 copies a week and tramps over the countryside, disposing of his wares either for cash or for eggs, the latter of which he sells at the end of the week to a Zagreb hotel. The peasant is making great efforts to raise himself—a case has recently been brought to light of a farmer in Zagorija who, as a hobby, has taught more than 700 persons to read and write. The peasant perceives that he has been assisted far less by the Catholic Church than by the work of Radić. It is not unfair to say that the Church desired, above all things, to keep the peasant under her control. If a parish priest was disliked by his flock, so a prominent Croatian priest tells me, that was all the more reason why the Bishop refused to remove him. And the clergy, except for an enlightened minority, have been very much opposed to Radić's policy of democratizing the Church.... In return for his unceasing labours he has now secured the peasant's love and confidence. He will retain them if he satisfies his client, and it seems to be within his power—gaining for him a better position and dissuading him from fantastic demands. He can be of immense assistance in the task of building up the State. But will the brilliant flame within him burn with steadiness? Has he got sufficient strength of will? With all his qualities of heart and brain he has not managed to discard his zig-zag impetuosity. The peasants, who recognize his talents, ask him to captain the ship; but he runs down too often into his cabin and leaves the unskilled sailors on the bridge. Down in the cabin he is feverishly and with great skill writing a contradiction of a pronouncement he made yesterday.

Those who are openly sailing in Radić's boat are for the most part the hard-headed peasants. Yet a number of the intelligentsia are coming on board—some of them, no doubt, with a view to their own advancement, but others on account of their convictions. And a still greater number of the Croat intelligentsia look on him with sympathy—municipal officials, barristers, doctors, merchants, schoolmasters and military officers. It is most foolish to pretend that all these people are thinking regretfully of the old Habsburg days—they are, in the vast majority, sincere and loyal Yugoslavs who have certain grievances. They do not believe that Croatia has fared very well since the institution of the new State and it would seem wise to give them as much autonomy as is consonant with the interests of the whole country, for then they will only have themselves to blame if there is no improvement. Maybe they are unduly sensitive, but they were for many years in political warfare with the Magyars and this should be taken into consideration. Even if all the grievances are based on misconceptions, on the difficulties of the moment, on the circumstances of the fading past—the new generation of Croats, say their teachers, are growing up to be excellent Yugoslavs—yet an effort should be made to sweep them away.

When Belgrade makes a statesmanlike gesture then Radić will probably be able to persuade the peasants to abandon their republican slogan—both they and the intelligentsia will abandon their reserved attitude towards the Government which they were far from entertaining when the State was first established. It seems as if the role of conciliator may well be filled by that wise old man, Nicholas Pašić, who is now no longer a mere Balkan Premier. When he was that he very properly used Balkan methods, despite the stern remarks of a few Western critics.

THE SERBS AND THE CROATS

We have alluded to the relations between Serbs and Croats. This is a subject of such importance that it will be well to consider it more fully. When Yugoslavia sprang into existence at the end of the War—70 per cent. of this State having previously been under the rule of the House of Habsburg—it was met in various quarters with a grudging welcome. Soon, we were told, it would dissolve again, and every symptom of internal discontent was treated as a proof of this. On the other hand there were those who told us that the Southern Slavs, having come together after all these hundreds of years, were tightly clasped in each others' arms and that all reports to the contrary came from very interested parties.

Little was said of the Slovenes; their language, as we have mentioned, is not the same as that spoken by Serbs and Croats, and—what is of still greater importance—they have Slovenia to themselves. If Croatia were equally immune from Serbs, then by this time the Southern Slavs would be a more united nation. Those people were wrong who fancied that the presence of the Serbs in Croatia—they form between one-fourth and one-third of the population—would be of service in welding together the new State. They forgot that for many years the Austro-Hungarian Government had in Croatia played off the Roman Catholic Croats against the Orthodox Serbs. The two Slav brothers were incited to mutual hatred, and though such a propaganda would naturally have more effect among the uneducated classes, yet all too often the intelligentsia responded to these machinations. More favour, of course, was shown to the Croats, whose obedience could largely be secured by means of the Church, whereas no similar pressure could be brought to bear upon the Orthodox Serbs. Even if the Government approached the Orthodox clergy, these latter had only a very moderate control over their flock. A Serb is always ready to subscribe towards the erection of a new church, which he regards as most other nations regard their flag; but when it is built he rarely enters it. This being so, the Austro-Hungarian Government tyrannized over the Serbs in Croatia by measures taken against their schools, the Cyrillic alphabet and so forth. It was natural that the suffering Serbs were apt to compare these restrictions with those that were imposed upon the Croats. However, among the intelligentsia an effort—a fairly successful effort—was made to nullify this dividing policy; the Serbo-Croat Coalition was formed, one of the protagonists being Svetozar Pribičević, that very energetic Serb of Croatia, and in 1906 this party obtained no less than sixty-eight seats, while the power of the older Croat parties was correspondingly diminished and Radić had his very small following in the Zagreb Lantag. [Those who represented Croatia in the central Parliament at Buda-Pest were chosen by the Ban, Khuen-Hedervary. Those forty members had practically no acquaintance with the Magyar language, so that some of them drew their 8000 annual crowns and only went to Pest if an important division was expected, others who spent more time in the capital wasted their lives amid surroundings just as riotous as and more expensive than the Parliament, while only those did useful work who managed to confer, behind the scenes, with the authorities. To some extent this was done by Pribičević and to a greater extent by another Serb, Dr. Dušan Popović, who surpassed him in capacity and geniality. It was he, by the way, who demonstrated in the Buda-Pest Parliament that if the average Croat deputy was ignorant of the Magyar language, there was a greater ignorance of Serbo-Croatian on the part of the Magyars. One day when he had started on a speech in his native tongue he was howled down after he had explained that he was talking Serbian. He promised to continue in Croatian, and did so without being interrupted.]

At Zagreb the fusion of the Croat and Serb intelligentsia was still very incomplete at the outbreak of the War—the Croat Starčevist party and others going their own way. During the War the Austro-Hungarian Government ruled by means of the Coalition party; but the latter had no choice, and throughout Croatia they were never charged with infidelity to the Slav cause. They did whatever their delicate situation permitted; and in October 1918, when the Slavs of Croatia and Slovenia threw off the yoke of centuries and joined with the Serbs of Serbia and Montenegro, one hoped that the simultaneous arrival in Belgrade of the Coalition and the Starčevist leaders heralded in Croatia a cessation of the ancient hostility. Pribičević became Minister of the Interior in the new State, and very soon it was obvious that he meant to govern in a centralizing fashion, despite his earlier assurance that no such steps would be taken without the sanction of the Constituent Assembly. No doubt his motives were unimpeachable; he feared lest the negative, anti-Serb mentality, which for so long had flourished among the Croats, would not, except by drastic methods, be removed. He was met with opposition. Now you see, he cried, there are still in Croatia a number of disloyal Slavs, great landowners, Catholic clergy and others whom the Habsburgs used to favour. And he continued, with hundreds of edicts, to try to weld the State together. Consumed with patriotism, his great black eyes on flame amid the pallor of his face—his luminous and martyred face, to use the expression of his friends—he never for a moment relaxed his efforts; if those who opposed him were numerous it was all the more reason why he must be resolute. The role fitted him very well, for he is the dourest politician in Yugoslavia—a perfectly honest, upright, injudicious patriot. His Democratic party had now taken the place of the Serbo-Croat Coalition and it saw the other parties in Croatia gradually drifting back again from it or rather from the dominating man; if his place had been occupied by his afore-mentioned colleague, the burly and beloved Dušan Popović, there would have been in Zagreb a very much suaver atmosphere. But unfortunately Popović is a wealthy man, a highly successful lawyer who cares little for the tumult of politics.... It was a thorny problem, whether the State should be constituted on a federal or a centralized basis.[63] The federation of the United States depends on the centralization of political parties, whereas in Yugoslavia the parties have only just begun to combine. Feudalism in the German Empire rested on the predominance of Prussia, a position which the Serbs are, under present conditions, loth to occupy in Yugoslavia. In Germany, moreover, many of the States used to be independent, while in Yugoslavia this was only the case with Serbia and Montenegro. Centralism would tend to obliterate the tribal divisions, but on the other hand it brings in its train bureaucracy, which is slow, cumbrous and often corrupt; it demands unusually good central institutions and first-rate communications, neither of which are as yet in a satisfactory state. The constitution has arrived at a compromise between the federal and the centralized systems. A writer in the Contemporary Review (November 1921) said that the division of the whole of Yugoslavia into some twenty administrative areas [he should have said thirty-three] to replace the racial areas, was a very drastic proposal to put forward; and he added that when the historic provincial divisions of France were broken up into departments, the nation had been prepared by nearly 200 years of centralization under the monarchy. It is a flaw in his argument to say that the previously existing areas were racial, whereas populations of identical race were divided from one another by the course of events. And in the proposed obliteration of these divisions—to be effected in a less arbitrary fashion than in France, where no account was taken of the former provinces—it can scarcely be maintained that, of itself, this part of the centralizing programme in Yugoslavia is so very drastic.

Whatever one may think about the Balkan peoples it is a fact that the essential Serb, the Serb from Šumadia, is a pacific person, rather lazy perhaps, but certainly more devoted to dancing than to battle. And some of the wiser Serbs were dubious in 1919 and 1920 as to whether the most sagacious methods were being employed in Croatia. Radić was in prison, but they were told that this impetuous demagogue was insisting on a republic, and the Croat intelligentsia were far from happy. It is true that in the elections of November 1920 the National party, as the Starčevists now called themselves, had no great success; but the Radić party had more than half the seats. Surely this had not been brought about merely by the chief's imprisonment? There seemed to be in that province some wider, some growing dissatisfaction. And in the spring of 1921 most of the Catholic Croats, those within and those without the Radić party, were nourishing a score of grievances. No doubt a large proportion of these were unavoidable (in view of the state of Central Europe) or were rather trivial (the mayor of an important town told me that he, who was under the Minister of the Interior, had received an order from the Belgrade Minister of War, with respect to the detention of deserters—conditions, said he, were not so primitive in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) and sometimes the grievances were against the Habsburgs (for not having made them more fit to assume these new responsibilities), and sometimes they were against the Serbs for being less civilized—though they might be more moral—than themselves, and sometimes the grievances were personal: now and then after the Austrian collapse a Serbian officer or his men, uncertain of the feelings of the population, had acted with unwise, or rather with inexpedient, vigour—instead of shooting those who in the general anarchy were laying waste and plundering, they merely flogged them, and this was for a long time remembered against them, although the Croat intelligentsia who had taken service in the police flogged in a far more wholesale fashion. But down at the bottom of all the grievances there is the fundamental fact that the Southern Slavs yearn to be comrades, to shake off the differences which in the course of ages have grown up between them. These fraternal sentiments may be crudely expressed—it has happened that a Slav from Bosnia (whose ancestors adopted Islam some centuries ago) finds himself in a Serbian village. He strikes up acquaintance with some native. "What is your name?" asks the latter. "Muhammed." The Serb has never heard of such a name; he is puzzled. "Well, never mind," says he, and takes his new friend back to dinner. They sit down to the sucking pig. Muhammed refuses to partake of it, and informs the Serb that Allah would be angry. "Don't be afraid," says the Serb; "I'll tell him that it's my fault," and after a time he overcomes the Bosniak's scruples.... In more cultured circles the wonderful union of the Southern Slavs is manifested after a different fashion, and those neighbours who imagine that the afore-mentioned grievances are going to dissolve the new State will one day see how much they are mistaken. The Southern Slavs intend to quarrel with each other, to quarrel like brothers.

THE SAD CASE OF PRIBIČEVIĆ

As between the Catholic and the Orthodox in Croatia the sole uncertainty is whether this fusion will shortly take place or after an interval. It is agreed by the most malcontent schoolmasters that their pupils are growing up to be excellent Yugoslavs who will have no more fear of what they call "Serb hegemony" than have the Scots of that of England. As for the present generation of Croats and Serbs, if they were Occidentals they would be old enough to laugh at each others' peculiarities and each others' statesmen. But South-Eastern Europe is still under the morning clouds, and they are inclined to take seriously what we in the West make fun of. However, there is one man whose presence in the Cabinet the Croats cannot be expected to regard with good-humour or with nonchalance. The reconciliation of Croatia will be much more easily effected if Mr. Pribičević resigns. His merits as a demagogue and political writer are undeniable. He would make an excellent Whip. But he prefers to be a Minister, and most unfortunately he is not a statesman. A zealous patriot, he is as yet unable to conceive that the business of the State could be more successfully managed without him. The sweets of office appear, if anything, to have made him more bitter; and even among the Serbs of the old kingdom his withdrawal is considered advisable. A friend of his has told me that in the middle of a laughing conversation he threw out a hint of this, and like a cloud blown suddenly across a summer sky, Pribičević's face grew black. Unhappily he is not even Fortinbras and yet imagines he is Hamlet. A good many people in Yugoslavia call him un homme fatal, most of the others l'homme fatal. It is said that in the Democratic party he is actively supported by not more than ten deputies, but that the others, to preserve the party, take no steps. He himself, however, would probably have not the least hesitation in choosing another party, if he could otherwise not stay in the Cabinet; for his permanence in office is the one idea that crushes every other from his mind. If he cannot be Minister of the Interior—a post from which he has been more than once, and happily for Yugoslavia, ejected—then he insists on being Minister of Education. What are his qualifications? Years ago he gave instruction at a school for elementary teachers, and so faint a conception has he of the educational needs of his country that one day when a Professor of Belgrade University asked him if no steps could be taken to diminish the prohibitive cost of books, especially foreign books, the Minister simply stared at him as if he had been talking Chinese. And yet in a recent book of national verses, published by his brother Adam, we are told that:

"At the table also sat the sage Pribičević, Who can converse with Emperors...."

There are some who, curiously, have compared Radić's party with the Sinn Feiners; Radić may have announced that he would approach the Serbs as the representative of an independent country, but he never proposed, even when his views were most extreme, to realize them with physical force. At a great open-air meeting of his adherents the speeches were so mild that only twice did the Chief of Police, who was next to me, raise a warning finger, and on each occasion to keep the orator from very innocent digressions. Nevertheless, there is no concealing the fact that even in these unsatisfactory times—"It seems to me," said a philosophic peasant recently at Valjevo, in the heart of Serbia, "it seems to me that if we had a plebiscite then Valjevo might not wish to remain with Serbia!"—even in a world that is so awry the Croats are more reserved towards the union than is good for the State. Perhaps they would cherish fewer grievances if they had gained their freedom with greater difficulty; and surely they need have no more uneasiness than have the Scots that their name and nationality will be swamped, for what the Magyars were unable to do, that the Serbs do not wish to do. There are among the Serbs a few extremists, such as a pernicious editor or two, but their anti-Croat tirades find extremely little favour anywhere. Last autumn when the Prince-Regent (now King Alexander) visited the Croat capital his reception was most enthusiastic. "Let us keep him here!" cried the people, "and let King Peter stay in Belgrade!" The Prince by his tact brought the Croat out of his tent; he must not be allowed to go back again—let the Southern Slavs observe what each of their provinces can bring towards the common good. The Croats acknowledge that the military system of Serbia is more endurable—only one son is taken out of each family—and that whereas in Slovenia a lawsuit can be settled in fourteen days it has been wont in Croatia to take as many years. Unfortunately human nature, in Serbia, Croatia and everywhere else, finds that the bad points of other people are more worthy of comment than the good. When two brothers have been brought up in very different circumstances there will be so many points on which they differ; and when a Serb taking part in a technical discussion of scientists wishes to say that he differs from the previous speaker he will commonly observe that that person has made a fool of himself. When an editor alludes to a political opponent he may call him an assassin and be much astonished if this is resented. "Je suis un ours," said a Serbian savant of European repute; occasionally he behaves like one and is rather proud of it. The Serbs of Croatia have been imitating, nay exaggerating, the emphatic manners of their countrymen in the old kingdom. And Pribičević, as Minister of Education, has not attempted to give the Croats a tactful course in courage, patriotism and morality, where they have much to learn from the less civilized Serbs, but scowling at them he has made up his mind that, in and out of school, they must straightway be the closest of companions.

However, the Serbs and Croats have a man whose counsel is more worthy of attention. Dr. Trumbić, formerly the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had been elected at the head of four different lists in his native Dalmatia but had entered the Constituent Assembly without giving his allegiance to any party. And in April 1921 he made a speech as memorable as it was long, for it occupied the whole of one sitting and was continued the next day. Careless of the applause and the antagonism which he excited, the serene orator pointed out that the conflict between Serbs and Croats was based on their different psychology. Croatia had had her independent life and must be considered as a factor in Yugoslavia; but having come in, like Montenegro, of her own accord, she had not wished to be a separate factor. Traditions should not be so lightly set aside; and while there was perhaps no people more homogeneous than the Yugoslavs it should be remembered that none was more ready to resist the application of force.

LESSONS OF THE MONTENEGRIN ELECTIONS

Except at Kolašin, where a few friends of Nikita tried their brigand tactics, there was perfect calm in Montenegro during the elections. As elsewhere in Yugoslavia, there was a general amnesty and a prohibition, for the three preceding days, to sell wine or rakia. The ten elected candidates, all of them for the Yugoslav union and against Nikita, were equally divided between Radicals and Democrats on the one hand and Communists and Republicans on the other. The authorities took not the slightest step to favour any candidate; various prominent deputies, such as Dr. Yoyić, the Minister of Food Supply, were beaten. And in a letter to the Press we were told by Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., that these elections were certainly both "farcical and fraudulent." He is contradicted by Mr. Roland Bryce, who, after his excellent work on the Allied Plebiscite Commission in Carinthia, was sent by the Foreign Office with Major L. E. Ottley to report on the Montenegrin elections. He says (in Command Paper I., 124) that "in actual practice the method of voting prescribed by the electoral law was found to ensure absolute secrecy (the system adopted being the only feasible one in a country where the proportion of illiterates is great), and the manner in which the ballot was supervised and carried out was unimpeachable and proof against the most exacting criticism." Mr. M'Neill is also contradicted by the Republican candidate, M. Gjonović, who in a manifesto drawn up after the election declares that "none can say that the elections were not free, or that anyone who wished could not make up a list. At the elections only the lists and boxes of the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Radicals and Communists were represented. All of these parties had in their programmes the motto 'The people and State union,' with, of course, different points of view and different opinions as to the organization of our national and State forces, except the Communists, who go further and desire the union of all peoples."

WHICH ONE GENTLEMAN REFUSES TO TAKE

It will thus be seen that the friends of Nikita were altogether wrong in suggesting that those who voted for the Republicans or Communists were opposed to the union with Serbia in Yugoslavia. Both Republicans and (paradoxical though it sounds) the Communists resented this insinuation very bitterly; and considering that the leaders of both parties are pronounced antagonists of the old regime, and were indeed severally condemned to death by Nikita, it would have been strange if they now supported him. Thus every single programme put forward by the different parties included, in some form or other, union with Serbia. The candidates themselves explicitly said so; but Mr. M'Neill knows better, and informs us how very hostile to the Serbs they really were. He is a wonderful man, Mr. M'Neill. Standing up in the House of Commons he directs his penetrating gaze upon the Black Mountain, and with such effect that he can see in the minds of Montenegrin politicians what they themselves had never dreamed of. Since we have such a man as Mr. M'Neill in the country, one would think that the Foreign Office might have saved itself the expense of sending out Mr. Bryce and Major Ottley.