But since we have it, let us look at Mr. Bryce's very interesting and detailed report. After explaining that both Republicans and Communists were in favour of union with Serbia, he tells us how it happened that so many people voted for these two lists instead of for the orthodox Radical and Democratic parties. The Communists, according to Mr. Bryce, were benefited by a party organization, a vigorous canvass and a better discipline than that of any of their opponents. Their policy won the support of many ardent and very patriotic Nationalists, who voted in many cases for Communism on the ground that it was the Russian policy—out of gratitude for what the Tzars had done for Montenegro in the past! Major Temperley, assistant military attache, in another report (Command Paper I., 123) observes that some local discontent had arisen in Montenegro because the native does not understand, and has never experienced before, a really efficient system of government, and because the introduction of conscription was not well adapted to the national tradition of lawless and untrained vigour. Major Temperley testifies that the Republican party gained the suffrages of numerous returned emigrants who admired the state of things in America. He shares Mr. Bryce's opinion as to the insignificance of the pro-Nikita party. "Even making large allowances," says he, "there seemed to me to be no doubt that the pro-Nicholas party were the weakest in Montenegro." Certain of his devotees were simply brigands who, like the Neapolitan miscreants after 1860, sought to cast a glamour over their depredations by affecting to be in arms on behalf of their former King. This personage himself was so well aware of his unpopularity that he was prudent enough to tell his supporters to abstain from voting. Those who did abstain were altogether only 32.69 per cent. of the electors, though one would have been justified in expecting a much higher proportion, since the people have not yet fully grasped their rights and duties with respect to the franchise; the distances to the booths were often very great, and the peasants were often indifferent as to whether one candidate or another with a very similar programme should be elected. The tribal or family system is still so prevalent in the villages that one member of a family would be sent to express the considered views of his fellows. The effect of the elections being held on a Sunday was to increase rather than diminish the number of abstainers, for although Sunday is a public holiday the Christian Montenegrin is under no obligation to hear Mass and for that reason travel to the village. The churches are practically deserted, for he is accustomed on that day to remain at home; while the Moslem voters largely declined to vote because there were no Moslem candidates. That is why it would appear that those of the 32.69 per cent. who abstained because they were in favour of Nikita were extremely few. Their simple-mindedness has its limits, while that of good Mr. M'Neill believes that because France, Great Britain and America undertook to restore Montenegrin independence, they were still obliged to do so after they perceived at the conclusion of the War that an overwhelming majority of Montenegrins did not desire it. This majority dethroned its traitor-king; but Mr. M'Neill maintains that France and England have dethroned "a monarch who was a friend and an ally."[64] Because M. Poincare, in the days before the Montenegrins had rejected Nikita, addressed him as "Very Dear and Great Friend"—the ordinary form of words for a reigning monarch—Mr. M'Neill actually seems to think that France was for evermore compelled to clasp Nikita to her bosom. He clearly admires those who, since the end of the War, have risen in the cause of their old King; and I suppose that in consequence he disapproves of the Omladina, the voluntary association of men who banded themselves together to resist the terrorism of the pro-King komitadjis. If he had been in Montenegro during the years after the War he would possibly agree that komitadji is the proper name for the many lawless elements who have found the traditional fighting life more congenial than the thankless task of tilling their very barren land. The moral effect of opposing to these the Montenegrin Omladina instead of Serbian troops was to destroy all pretence of the movement being a national Montenegrin insurrection against the union, and the cessation of assistance from Italy resulted in the complete suppression of the movement. The few outlaws who still remain at large, said Mr. Bryce in December 1920, are in no sense political, but are merely bandits. And as the Omladina has now no raison d'etre they have disbanded themselves. Much now depends on the Constitution. If it gives them equal rights—and naturally it will—with the other inhabitants of Yugoslavia the Montenegrins will be content.

* * * * *

In August 1921 the Secolo of Milan sent a famous correspondent to Montenegro. He came to much the same conclusions as Messrs. Bryce and Temperley. Not a single political prisoner was to be found, and not one of the ex-soldiers who returned from Gaeta had been molested. The correspondent thought that the Serbs had been ill-advised at the beginning to employ forcible methods against the pro-Nikita partisans who were opposed to Yugoslavia; they should, said he, have let the pear ripen spontaneously and fall into their lap. But now their policy had become one of conciliation: during the last two and a half years Montenegro had received from Belgrade for public works, pensions and subsidies, 93 million dinars, and had paid in taxes only 5 millions. Secondary education had been increased, and 700 Montenegrin students (of whom 500 are allotted a monthly grant) frequent Yugoslav universities. The fertile lands of Yugoslavia were open to Montenegrin emigration. In fact an isolated, independent Montenegro was no longer needed. With the disappearance of the Turk from all Serbian territory in 1913 a return to the union of the Serbs, as in the days of Stephen Dušan, was only hindered by historical, sentimental and, above all, by dynastic reasons. It was sad, quoth the correspondent, that the glorious history of Montenegro should have come to such a tame end, but her historic mission was closed in 1913, even as that of Scotland in 1707, to the benefit of both parties. Now the Serbs were leaving them to manage their own affairs; many ex-Nikita officials had been confirmed in their posts, while officers were given their old rank in the Yugoslav army. It is unfortunate for itself that the "Near East" (of London) does not employ so discerning a correspondent. We should then hear no more of such folly as that which—to select one occasion out of many—caused it in November 1921 to speak about "the forcible absorption of Montenegro." And the world may be pardoned if it is more ready to accept the observations made on the spot by an expert Italian correspondent rather than the futile remarks sent by the Hon. Aubrey Herbert from the House of Commons, also in November 1921, to the Morning Post. This gentleman informs us that "it was probably because the Yugoslav Government was allowed to annex the ancient principality of Montenegro, exile its King, and subjugate its people, without any interference from the Great Powers, that M. Pasitch thought that he could do as he liked in Albania." That is the sort of statement which one may treat with Matthew Arnold's "patient, deep disdain."

MEDIAEVAL DOINGS AT RIEKA

On July 14, 1920, a letter marked "urgent" (No. 2047) was written by Colonel Sani, the Chief of d'Annunzio's Cabinet, in which he confirmed the orders which he had already given verbally, to the effect that all the foreign elements, especially the Serbs and Croats, who "exercise an obnoxious political influence," should be expelled from Rieka at the earliest possible date; he mentions that this is the command of d'Annunzio, who is in full accord with the President of the Consiglio Nazionale. This was the continuation of a practice which the Italian authorities had carried on in a wholesale manner. Father J. N. Macdonald, in his unimpeachable little book, A Political Escapade (London, 1921), gives us numerous examples of persons who in the most wanton fashion were expelled from the town. Thus a merchant called Pliskovac was arrested by the carabinieri, while talking to some English soldiers. After three days, spent under arrest, he was told that he would have to depart "from Italy" (sic). He was given a faglio di via obligatorio by the carabinieri, according to which he was banished on the ground of being "unemployed." Yet this man had had a fixed residence in Rieka for thirty-six years, was employed as a merchant, and furnished with a regular industrial certificate.... His name had been found on one of the lists in favour of annexation to Yugoslavia. When the world in general turned its attention away from Rieka, very much relieved to think that there would be an end to all the turmoil now that an agreement had at last been reached and the poor harassed place was to be neutral, it presumed that those among her citizens who had been openly in arms against the other party would as soon as possible resign. They would have been astonished to be told that the notorious self-elected Consiglio Nazionale Italiano, under the selfsame President, Mr. Grossich, cheerfully remained in office. It is true that they now called themselves the "Provisional Government"; in Paris and London this change of title made a good deal more impression than upon the local Yugoslavs, whose treatment did not vary. A decree was printed on January 21, 1921, in the Vedetta, which laid it down that the expulsions ordered by the previous Government retained their force, but that appeals might be addressed to the Rector of the Interior. A deputation was received by this gentleman, and was told that the procedure would be so complicated and so lengthy that it would not permit any one to return until after the elections. These elections had been fixed for the end of April, and it seemed as if France and England were so blinded by the blessed words "Provisional Government" that they could see nothing else. That over 2000 arditi, clothed in mufti, had either stayed from the d'Annunzian era or been since introduced was surely gossip, and how could anyone believe that those men had been granted citizenship on the simple declaration of a Rieka shopkeeper, or some such person, that the applicant worked under him? These declarations, by the way, must have refrained from going into details, for there was an almost total lack of work—except in the political department of the police. Rieka was to all intents in the possession of Italy, and she was learning what that meant. The town was like a dead place, shops were only open in the morning, and if the shopkeepers had not been compelled by the authorities to remove their shutters they would have strolled down to the quays where the grass was growing—"but, thank Heaven," cried Grossich, "thank Heaven, it is Italian grass!" (If he ever recalls that long-distant day, when, as a student, he fought for his fellow-Croats, and when, as a young doctor, he was an enthusiastic official of the Croat Club at Castua near Rieka, perhaps this gentleman thanks his God for having led him to Rieka and turned him into an Italian.) Cut off from its Yugoslav hinterland the population of Rieka, which consisted more and more of arditi and fascisti, less and less of Yugoslavs, the population had nothing to do save to speculate in the rate of exchange (but not in the local notes which no one wanted) and to prepare for the elections. Thus, with time very heavy on their hands, there was a great deal of corruption; cocaine could be obtained at nearly all the cafes. The elections drew nearer, and one wondered whether the Entente was going to look at the lists of voters and to inquire how it came that many natives of the town were not inscribed. What was likely to happen if the place was delivered altogether to the C.N.I. could be seen when the harbour of Baroš, given by the Rapallo Treaty to Yugoslavia, was demanded, simply demanded, by the Italian Nationalists; those ultra-patriots the fascisti, in Italy and in Rieka, when they saw that in the "holocaust city" everything was going just as well for them as in the brave days of d'Annunzio, persisted loudly in claiming Baroš as an integral part of Rieka. The Yugoslavs must be prevented, wherever possible, from approaching the Adriatic—this being the furious policy of the Italian capitalists who had succeeded in sweeping most of the Italian people off their feet. With Baroš, a port of limited possibilities, in the hands of the Yugoslavs, it would mean that the adjacent Rieka through its Yugoslav commerce would prosper; but anything that savoured of a Yugoslav Rieka was obnoxious to the capitalists and their wild followers, since they feared that in the first place it would raise a grievous obstacle to their penetration of the Balkans, and secondly it would involve the ruin of Triest, where German capital still plays a predominant part. So in their folly they strenuously fought for the Germans, spurred on by the terrible thought that Rieka might become predominantly Yugoslav. They refused to listen to their wiser men, who pointed out that the possession of an odd town or island was to Italy of not so much importance as friendship with their Slav neighbours. When, at the beginning of April 1921 a large sailing boat, the Rad (Captain Vlaho Grubišić) came into Baroš, the first ship to bring the Yugoslav flag to that port, there was intense commotion among the fascisti. Forty of them with weapons ran down to the harbour, but Grubišić told them that he saw no reason why he should not fly the flag of his State. A number of workmen, Italians and Yugoslavs, then appeared and made common cause against the fascisti, so that the latter withdrew. And the captain of the Italian warship Carlo Mirabello sent to ask Grubišić if he had removed the flag. On hearing that he had not done so the captain said that he had acted perfectly correctly. It seems to be too much to hope that such honourable Italians as this captain and these workmen will be able, without certain measures on the part of France and England, to prevail over those elements who have dragged Rieka down to death and to dishonour.

At last, on April 25, the elections were held. There were two parties, that of the C.N.I., swollen with arditi and fascisti, who would have nothing to do with the Treaty of Rapallo—their programme consisted in annexation to Italy—and the other party, whose object was to carry out the provisions of the Treaty. Professor Zanella was its chief. There did not seem to be much hope that it would be successful, although it contained what was left of the Autonomists, who in 1919 were the largest party—desiring that the town should be neither Yugoslav nor Italian—and these Autonomists were now reinforced by the Yugoslavs. But so numerous had been the expulsions that many of the survivors feared that it would be futile to vote, and on the other hand the Annexionist party was quite confident that it would win. During the afternoon of the election day, however, they perceived that the impossible was happening, and that Zanella was marching to victory. Thereupon the enraged fascisti had recourse to violence. "Zanella's victory was intolerable to these patriots," said La Nazione,[65] "because they remembered the two years of tenacity and of splendid Italian spirit and of suffering which the town had lived through." Most of the electors remembered the suffering. The fascisti seized a number of urns and made a bonfire of them; there was presented the spectacle of Signor Gigante, d'Annunzio's obedient mayor, bursting with armed companions into that room of the Palace of Justice where the votes were being scrutinized. "I yield to violence," said the presiding official; and twenty minutes afterwards the contents of the urns were burning merrily. But these measures did not help the cause of the fascisti, no more than did their screams that they had been betrayed. And if Zanella had to fly from Rieka because, as the Nationalist paper put it, he could not stand up against the vehement indignation of so many of the citizens, yet he and his party have triumphed. "Fiume or Death," used to be the device dear to d'Annunzio. He placarded the long-suffering walls with it, and it was on the lapels of the coats of his adherents. "Fiume must belong to Italy or be blown up," cried the poet. But, strange to say, a majority of the inhabitants prefer that their town should continue to exist, and this it can only do if, in accordance with the Treaty of Rapallo, it becomes a neutral State on friendly terms with both its neighbours, Italy and Yugoslavia. The Italian Government desires, of course, to execute its Treaty obligations,[66] and if it finds too painful the task of moderating the ardours of its own super-patriots, it will no doubt be glad to have this done by an International force. That method, which was only prevented by d'Annunzio's arrival in 1919, offers the speediest and most efficacious solution of Rieka's troubles.

THE STRICKEN TOWN

If anyone imagined that they would be ended with the installation of Zanella he was wrong. At the municipal elections 90 per cent. voted for the Autonomist party, the Yugoslavs having had the good sense to join them. But the Italian Nationalists were not going to yield to moderation, and immediately after the elections Zanella was obliged to flee for his life, so that he was not installed in office until October 5. He struggled manfully to clear away the chaos and to make such economic arrangements as would eventually convert Rieka into a prosperous port. This the fascisti of Triest and Venice could by no means tolerate, and on January 31 an unsuccessful attempt was made by them on his life as he was leaving the Constituent Assembly. On February 16 the Anai (Assoziazione Nazionale fra gli Arditi d'Italia) sent out a very urgent message from their headquarters in the Via Macchiavelli in Triest. They informed the subsections that not only was Zanella preparing to deliver Rieka to the Croats, but that the army of the "globe-trotter" Wrangel was waiting in Sušak to seize the wretched town. Therefore Gabriele d'Annunzio had commanded that every loyal servant of the cause was to be mobilized. And after a few rhetorical sentences it continued, "I will give the marching orders by telegram as follows: 'Send the documents. Farina.' If only a small number of people are needed I will telegraph, 'Send ... Quintal. Farina.'" The men were to assemble at the Italian Labour Bureau, 9 Via Pozza Bianca in Triest. They were to be clad in mufti, to be armed so far as it was possible and to have with them three days' provender.... The subsections are asked to telegraph the approximate number of those on whom they can rely. And this memorandum should be acknowledged. It is signed, "With brotherly greetings. Farina Salvatore." About ten days later—between February 26 and 28—there was a meeting at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, under the presidency of Vilim Stipetić, formerly a major of the Austrian General Staff. Some dissident Croats—among them Dr. Emanuel Gagliardi, Captains Cankl and Petričević, Gjuro Klišurić, Josip Boldin and Major-General Ištvanović—two dissident Montenegrins, Jovo Plamenac and Marko Petrović, together with two Italian officers, adherents of d'Annunzio, Colonel Finzi of Triest and Major Ventura of Rome, ... assembled for the purpose of stirring up trouble for the Yugoslavs in the spring. They referred with pleasure to the presence of sundry Bulgarian komitadjis in Albania, Finzi declared that the Italian Government would satisfy the Croats and give them Rieka as soon as Croatia had achieved her independence and a less visionary promise was made of disturbances in Rieka. On March 1 the two Italian officers left for Triest and on March 3 Rieka was confronted with another coup d'etat. The fascisti of Triest and of Gulia Venetia descended on the town in two special trains of the Italian State Railway. They had not the slightest confidence in Zanella, who was an honest man, working on the basis of the Treaty of Rapallo, whereby Italy and Yugoslavia recognized the Free State of Rieka. In their eyes it was a monstrous thing that Italy should be expected to observe this instrument. So let the town be freed, let Zanella be expelled. And as he only had at his disposal a force of about three hundred local gendarmes, with rifles but without munition, it was not particularly difficult for the fascisti heroes to accomplish their task. Zanella had to fly once more.

"If Italy were to offend against the freedom and independence of the State of Rieka she would deprive herself," said Signor Schanzer, the Italian Foreign Secretary "she would deprive herself of the name of a Great Power and in the Society of Nations she would retain no authority." Thus did the successor of the relentless but unavailing della Torretta try, with eloquent and noble words, to wipe the blot from Italy's scutcheon. She could scarcely have the nations coming to the Congress of Genoa, there to debate with regard to the economic re-establishment of Europe, while her own conduct was so very much under suspicion. It would have been rather curious, so the Zagreber Tagblatt[67] pointed out, for a robber to invite you to his house with a view to taking steps against robbery. Something drastic had to be done, so that Europe would not look askance at the Italian Government. Zanella, it was true, had been thrown out—but why should not the world be told that this had been effected by the people of the town? A very excellent idea! And so a certain Lieut. Cabruna of the gendarmerie made a plan to get together the Constituent Assembly and then—well, there are always methods by which resolutions can be passed. Perhaps it would not even be necessary for a single rifle to be fired at the deputies from the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery. But most of the deputies succeeded in escaping from the town, although frantic efforts were made to prevent them. Out of the threescore only thirteen poor devils were held fast and came to the futile meeting. The others, with Zanella, assembled on Yugoslav territory at a place called Saint Anna.

And Signor Schanzer went on talking. Officers and men of the Italian army and navy, said he, had shown perfect discipline. Signor Schanzer may not be an expert on discipline, but as a humorist he wins applause. One's ordinary notions of discipline do not include the seizure of a warship by a handful of bandits, the cannons of the vessel being afterwards directed against the Government palace of a neutral State. The fascisti, with the help of Italian troops and accompanied by several Italian deputies, eject the legal Government of Rieka. One of these deputies, Giuratti, is chosen by his friends to be President of the Free State—Giuratti of the fascisti, Giuratti who most barbarically had ill-treated the Istrian Slavs, but—for we will be just—this was when he believed they were barbarians, savages, quite common, brutal men; well, he had learned, he wrote,[68] that this was not the case, they had adopted Western culture, they had raised the revolutionary flag against the dynasty of Karageorgević and if Yugoslavia's dismemberment should ever come to pass, "then, as I confidently hope," said he, "the Croats with their righteous national aspirations will unite with their great neighbour Italy. We salute the Croat Revolution with sincerest sympathy..." and so on and so on. That was the kind of calm, impartial personage to have as Governor of the distracted Free State, where in one point anyhow most of the population think the same, and that is that their union with Italy would be an absolute disaster. Behold this Giuratti posing his candidature, Giuratti whose patriotism and idealism are, says the Italian Government, fully appreciated by them; nevertheless it has advised him to refuse the suggested honour. That he should be punished did not occur to them; but what would they have said if a Yugoslav—surely with more right than an Italian and certainly with a larger following of townsfolk—had been selected as President? "The proceedings of the Italian Government," said Schanzer, "are clear, speedy and determined." But did anything unpleasant happen to Commandant Castelli, an officer sent to make order, when he quite openly placed himself on the side of the fascisti? Would degradation be the lot of any officer or soldier who "mutinied" and joined the fascisti?... Apparently it was due to the unhappy political condition of Europe that the whole civilized world did not launch an indignant protest against the baseness and cynicism of the Italians. But how utterly they failed to persuade others that the wishes of Rieka were as they represented them! Rieka desires to remain independent and this desire the Italians will have to respect. And the later they make up their mind to keep their promises, so much the worse for them. The Yugoslavs can wait, for theirs is the future. A cartoonist in the Belgrade Vreme depicted a rough old Serbian warrior holding on his open hand a very neat little Italian soldier. "Now listen to me," he was saying, "and I will tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a country called Austria...."

There was a characteristic little affair at Saint Anna on March 23. A few minutes after Zanella had left the Lubić Inn a suspicious-looking person appeared. He began observing the customers and their surroundings, when the Police-Commissary Peršić came up to him and asked for his passport. "Take yourself off!" shouted the intruder, as he pulled a bomb out of his trouser pocket. Peršić grappled with him and soon overpowered him. And outside the house four other fascisti, Armano Viola, Carpinelli, Bellia and Murolo, were captured. They claimed to be journalists, and it is quite true that Viola is on the staff of the notorious Vedetta Italiana; but when he comes into a foreign country as a special correspondent and is teaching others how to go about that business—for until then they had been otherwise engaged, Murolo being charged with numerous thefts and attempted murders, while Bellia and Carpinelli were accused of breaking into the Abbazia Casino—if Viola was teaching them how to be journalists he would on this occasion have been better advised if he had restricted them to the conventional tools of the profession instead of bombs, revolvers and daggers. Little use did they get out of them, for a trio of these armed individuals were seized and disarmed by one Yugoslav gendarme, who was himself very meagrely equipped. With tears in their eyes they begged for mercy. "Pieta, Pieta!" they exclaimed. So long as their own lives were spared they were very willing to forgo the 60,000 lire which had been put on Zanella's head.

Unfortunately it seems obvious that this exploit, if not ordered by the Italian Government was, at any rate, permitted by them. How otherwise could the automobile containing these men have got past the sentries at the Sušak bridge and two other Italian sentry posts? Moreover, these men were in possession of documents which proved that official Italian circles at Rieka were privy to their undertaking, and that they proposed to investigate the Yugoslav military positions on the frontier.... These five fascisti brigands—who were also lieutenants of the Italian army—would therefore have to be tried not only for attempted murder but for attempted espionage. They were put into a train and transported to the prison at Zagreb. "If once we begin to march," so the Italian soldiers at Rieka had over and over again been telling the Croats, "then we shall not halt before we come to Zagreb, your capital." Those five will perhaps some day explain to their comrades how quickly Zagreb can be reached.... As yet those whom they left behind them had not lost their bombast: a manifesto was issued by them which declared that five true patriots had sallied forth to Saint Anna, for the purpose of parleying with the Constituent Assembly, and that in a barbarous fashion they had been arrested, maltreated and possibly killed. Let the people avenge the shedding of such noble blood. Everything, everything must be done in order to liberate the captured brethren. And so, towards eleven at night, about sixty fascisti and legionaries came together. Armed to the teeth, they designed to cross over into Yugoslav territory, but when they noticed that the sentry posts had been strengthened they went home to bed.

A number of American and European journalists rushed out to Belgrade, under the impression that the Yugoslav-Italian War could now no longer be avoided. But they did not realize how great a self-control the Yugoslavs possess. It may be, as a commentator put it in the Nation,[69] that Italy "is practically at war with Yugoslavia," for she is obsessed by the "Pan-Slav menace"; but if they insist on the arbitrament of arms they will have to wait until the Yugoslavs have time to deal with them.... The Free State of Rieka owes its existence to a Treaty between Italy and Yugoslavia; both of them should therefore guarantee its freedom. Italian and Yugoslav gendarmerie and troops should resist together the incursions of fascisti; and if the two races cannot work in harmony, then let the administration of the town be entrusted to neutral troops; and as High Commissioner one would suggest Mr. Blakeney, the British Consul at Belgrade. If this imperturbable and most kindly man were to fail in the attempt at repeating in Rieka what has been accomplished in Danzig, then, indeed, one might despair; but he would brilliantly and placidly succeed. All the other qualifications are his; an intimate knowledge of every Near Eastern language—and, of course, Italian; a perfect acquaintance with the mentality of all those peoples; common sense of an uncommon order, and the whole-hearted confidence of those with whom he comes into contact. Great Britain and France compelled the Yugoslavs, at enormous sacrifices, to sign the Treaty of Rapallo; they are, therefore, morally obliged to see that it is executed. For too many months the Italians were saying that they would carry out their part of it and leave the third zone in Dalmatia if the Yugoslavs would agree to a few more concessions, commercial and territorial, that were not in the Treaty. During the Genoa Conference in the spring of 1922 the Italian authorities confessed to the Yugoslav delegates that their hands were bound by the fascisti. These elements would certainly object to the execution of that part of the Treaty of Rapallo which refers to the port of Baroš. Accurately speaking, the arrangements with regard to Baroš are embodied in a letter from Count Sforza, the then Foreign Secretary, and are added to the Treaty as an appendix. Both were signed on the same day, and apparently this plan of an appendix was adopted on account of the fascisti. Yet if Count Sforza had not signed that letter it is safe to say that the Yugoslavs would not have signed the main body of a Treaty which to them was the reverse of favourable. And at Genoa the Italians started haggling about a strip of land near Baroš, in the hope that some success would stay the zeal of the fascisti. Furthermore they pleaded that Zadar could not live if Yugoslavia did not, in addition to supplying it with water, give it railway communication with the interior. The Yugoslavs were thus invited to construct at great expense a railway to a foreign town which their own Šibenik and other Adriatic towns did not possess. This, naturally, they refused to undertake, as also to agree to the Italian suggestion that a free zone of some twenty kilometres should be instituted at the back of Zadar. One might safely say that the Italian agents in this region would not have confined themselves to salutary measures for the welfare of the town. It is stated in the Treaty of Rapallo that in case of disagreement either party could invoke an arbitrator, and the Yugoslavs, who happen now to be the weaker party, have been contemplating application to the League of Nations. Well, in Genoa it was proposed by Italy that Yugoslavia should renounce the clause which deals with an eventual arbitration. If you make a large number of demands—never mind that they should be in opposition to a Treaty you have signed—then you may gain a few of them—and Italy was hoping that the Free State would repay the costs which she incurred there on account of her unruly son d'Annunzio, and, likewise, that the good Italianists who at the end of the Great War committed wholesale thefts from the State warehouses should not be made to pay for it. With all their guile and strength the Italians were endeavouring to avoid the execution of her Treaty of Rapallo. "Italy is the one Power in Europe," says Mr. Harold Goad[70] who thrusts himself upon our notice, "Italy is the one Power in Europe that is most obviously and most consistently working for peace and conciliation in every field."

HOPES IN THE LITTLE ENTENTE

The complicated troubles, avoidable and unavoidable, that have been raging in Central Europe after the War are being met to some extent by the Little Entente, an association in the first place between Yugoslavia and the kindred Czecho-Slovakia, and afterwards between them and Roumania. The world was assured that this union had for its object the establishment of peace, security and normal economic activities in Central and Eastern Europe; no acquisitive purposes were in the background, and since these three States now recognized that if they try to swallow more of the late Austro-Hungarian monarchy they will suffer from chronic indigestion, we need not be suspicious of their altruism. It is perfectly true that the first impulse which moved the creators of the Little Entente was not constructive but defensive; their great Allies did not appear, in the opinion of the three Succession States, to be taking the necessary precautions against the elements of reaction. Otherwise they, especially France (which was naturally more determined that Austria should not join herself to Germany), would not have favoured the idea of a Danubian Federation, in which Austria and Hungary would play leading parts. The Great Powers would also, if they had been less exclusively concerned with their own interests, have handled with more resolution the attempts of Charles of Habsburg to place himself at the head of the present reactionary regime at Buda-Pest; and if it had not been for certain energetic measures taken by the members of the Little Entente it may well be doubted whether the Government of Admiral Horthy, which does not conceal the fact that it is royalist—the king being temporarily absent—would have required Charles to leave the country. The Little Entente pointed out to their great Allies what these had apparently overlooked, namely, that the return of the Habsburgs was not opposed by the Succession States out of pure malice but for the reason that it would inevitably strengthen the magnates and the high ecclesiastics in their desire to bring about the restoration of Hungary's old frontiers. As the frontiers are now drawn there dwell—and this could not be prevented—a number of Magyars in each of the three neighbouring States (the fewest being in Yugoslavia), just as the present Hungary includes a Czech-Slovak, Roumanian and Yugoslav population.[71] But the Great Powers agree that if this frontier is to be changed at all, every precaution should be taken against having it changed by force. It is no exaggeration to say that there can be no real peace in Central Europe until normal intercourse with Russia is re-established, but let it in the meantime be the task of the Little Entente to guard the temporary peace from being shattered.

Apart from this defensive object the countries of the Little Entente have the positive aim of a resumption of normal economic conditions and the institution of a new order of things in accordance with the new political construction of Central and Eastern Europe. It is obvious that these three States have numerous interests in common which make their co-operation very natural, if not indeed indispensable.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: April 16, 1920.]

[Footnote 47: January 22, 1920.]

[Footnote 48: According to the Rome correspondent of the Petit Journal.]

[Footnote 49: But the wind was considerably tempered for him: vessels laden with his precise requirements sailed over from Italy and said they had been captured by d'Annunzio's arditi. General Badoglio, in command of the royal troops outside the town, ascertained in November 1919 that Rieka's coal-supply was nearly exhausted and 7000 tons per month were required for the public services alone. He accordingly informed a syndicate of coal merchants in Triest that he would be personally responsible for the first consignment of coal to d'Annunzio. A month earlier, when the town was supposed to be blockaded, it was announced that a limited supply of food-stuffs would, nevertheless, be introduced, through the Red Cross, for very young children. This amounted, as a matter of fact, to 21 truckloads a week. It is significant that there was no rise in the prices charged in the public restaurants of Rieka, and that persons living outside the line of Armistice found it cheaper to do their shopping in the besieged city.]

[Footnote 50: February 20, 1920.]

[Footnote 51: September 1921.]

[Footnote 52: However, in the Yugoslav Parliament, although some of the deputies have spent their lives in far-off, primitive places—by no means all of those who represent the Albanians can read and write—one does not hear such deplorable language as that which, according to the Grazer Volksblatt of January 19, 1922, disgraced the Austrian Assembly. A certain Dr. Waneck, of the Pan-German party, wished to criticize the Minister of Finance, Professor Dr. Guertler of the Christian Socialists. He remarked that one could not expect this Minister to be sober at four o'clock in the afternoon, and went on to say that no less than five banks, whose names he would give, had received early information from the Minister, which enabled them to speculate successfully. He repeated this accusation several times and with great violence, but when he was invited to reveal the names of these banks—"No, sir!" he cried. "I will not do so, because I don't want to."]

[Footnote 53: Cf. "The Tri-Une Kingdom," by Pavle Popović and Jovan M. Jovanović, in the Quarterly Review, October 1921.]

[Footnote 54: He was kept for some time in confinement at Mitrovica, in Syrmia, and in November 1920 he was liberated in consequence of the great amnesty.]

[Footnote 55: Cf. Spectator, July 17, 1920.]

[Footnote 56: Cf. Edinburgh Review, July 1920.]

[Footnote 57: A few months after this, in the course of a little controversy in the Saturday Review (which arose from an unsigned and, I hoped, rather reasonable article of mine on the Adriatic Settlement) I quoted from memory this passage of Mrs. Re-Bartlett's and said that the Italian captain was giving chocolates to the children at Kievo. Thereupon Mr. Harold W. E. Goad of the British-Italian League wrote a highly indignant letter to the editor, and in the course of it he denounced me for having egregiously invented the chocolates "for the sole purpose of throwing her testimony into ridicule.... What do you, Sir, think of such methods as that?" And he concluded by declaring that I wallowed in a "truly Balkan slough of distortion and calumny." Well, on referring to Mrs. Re-Bartlett's article I find that there is no mention of chocolates, and I apologize; presumably the children were crowding round their adored Capitano in order to thank him for the bridges and waterworks which were being built in Dalmatia.]

[Footnote 58: During the Italian occupation, said Professor Salvemini, teachers, doctors and priests were deported or expelled from the country, while the Italian Government had to dissolve 30 municipal councils out of 33, so that at the head of the communes were Italian officials and not properly elected mayors. Moreover, all liberties were suppressed. No Slav newspapers, no Slav societies were permitted, and 32 out of 57 magistrates were dismissed—these methods being due not to cruelty or folly, said the Professor, but to the necessity of keeping order by forcible means in a country which was wholly hostile.]

[Footnote 59: November 13, 1920.]

[Footnote 60: November 15, 1920.]

[Footnote 61: This, of course, did not meet with the approval of Signor d'Annunzio. He made numerous pronouncements with regard to his inflexible desires, saying that, if necessary, he would offer up his bleeding corpse. And his resistance to the Italian Government did not confine itself to rhetoric. During his usurpation of Rieka this man had done his country grievous harm. It was not only that he held her up to the smiles of the malicious who said that she could not keep order in her own house, but he was guiding the people back to barbarism. When sailors of the royal navy deserted to his standard, he knelt before them in the streets of Rieka at a time when from Russia Lenin was inciting the Italian Communists to revolution and to the conquest of the State. He refused to deal with Giolitti, even as he had rejected the advances of Nitti. But the aged Giolitti grasped the problem with more firmness, which was what one might expect from the statesman who, after his return to power, had leaned neither on the industrial magnates of Milan nor on their Bolševik antagonists. Giolitti was resolved to put an end to the nuisance of d'Annunzio; in no constitutional State is there room for a Prime Minister and such a swashbuckler. The Nationalists of Italy were furious when they perceived that the Premier was in earnest and that force would be employed against their idol. And it had to come to that, for the utterly misguided man continued to resist—hoping doubtless for wholesale desertions in the army and navy—with the deplorable result that a good many Italians were slain by Italians. Orders were issued by the Government that all possible care should be taken of d'Annunzio's person; and eventually when Rieka was taken by the royalist troops the poet broke his oath that he would surely die; he announced that Italy was not worth dying for and it was said that he had sailed away on an aeroplane. He had accomplished none of his desires; the town had not become Italian, though he had bathed it in Italian blood. His overweening personal ambitions had been shipwrecked on the rock of ridicule, for as he made his inglorious exit he shouted at the world that he was "still alive and inexorable." But yet he may have unconsciously achieved something, for his seizure of what he loved to call the "holocaust city" provided the extreme Nationalists with a private stage where—in uniforms of their own design, in cloaks and feathers and flowing black ties and with eccentric arrangements of the hair—they could strut and caper and fling bombastic insults at the authorities in Rome, until the Government found it opportune to take them in hand. The greatest Italian poet and one of the greatest imaginative writers in Europe will now be able to devote himself—if his rather morbid Muse has suffered no injury—to his predestined task. Those—the comparatively few that read—whose acquaintance with this writer's work usually caused them to regret his methods, could not help admiring his personal activities, his genius for leadership and his vital fire during the War. But, once this was over, he relapsed; and expressing himself very clearly in action, so that he became known to the many instead of the few, he lived what he previously wrote, and now it is generally recognized that Gabriel of the Annunciation, as he calls himself, who produced a row of obscene and histrionic novels, is a mountebank, a self-deceiver and a most affected bore. When he came to Rieka he thought fit to appeal to the England of Milton. And, like him, Milton lived as he wrote. Milton, Dante and Sophocles—to mention no others of the supreme writers—were as serious and responsible in their public actions as in the pursuit of their art.]

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

[Footnote 63: Cf. The Quarterly Review (October 1921), in which Messrs. Pavle Popović and Jovan M. Jovanović published a very able survey of Yugoslav conditions.]

[Footnote 64: Cf. Nineteenth Century and After, January 1921.]

[Footnote 65: April 26, 1921.]

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

[Footnote 67: March 23, 1922.]

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

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

[Footnote 70: Fortnightly Review, May 1922.]

[Footnote 71: The magnates of Hungary and their friends do not grow weary of lamenting the sad fate of the Magyar minorities. Whatever may be happening in Transylvania, they have a very poor case against the Serbs. In the Voivodina there are, according to Hungarian statistics, about 382,000 Magyars out of 1.4 million inhabitants. These Magyars have their primary and secondary schools, their newspapers and so forth, whereas in the spring of 1922 the schools in various Serbian villages near Budapest were forcibly closed, the lady teachers being told that if they stayed they would have to undergo the physical examination which is applied to prostitutes.]



VIII

YUGOSLAVIA'S FRONTIERS

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

INTRODUCTION

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

(a) THE ALBANIAN FRONTIER

1. THE ACTORS

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

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

2. THE AUDIENCE RUSH THE STAGE

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

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

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

3. SERBS, ALBANIANS AND THE MISCHIEF-MAKERS

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

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

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

For a considerable time the more intelligent Italians had noticed that these two Balkan peoples were disposed to live in amicable terms with one another. Traditions that are so powerful with an illiterate people—under five per thousand of the Albanians who have stayed in their own country can read and write—numerous traditions speak of friendship with the Serbs: Lek, the great legislator, was related to Serbian princes; Skanderbeg was an ally of the Serbs; "Most of the celebrated leaders of northern Albania and Montenegro," says Miss Durham, "seem to have been of mixed Serbian-Albanian blood"; Mustapha Vezir Bushatli strove together with Prince Miloš against the Turks, and the same cause united the Serbian authorities to the famous Vezir Mahmud Begović of Peć. A primitive people like the Albanians admire the warlike attributes beyond all others, and the exploits of the Serbian army in the European War inclined the hearts of the Albanians towards their neighbours. Some of them remembered at this juncture that their great-grandfathers or grandfathers had only become Albanian after having accepted the Muhammedan religion; now the old ikons were taken from their hiding-places. And there was, in fact, between the two Balkan people a spirit of cordiality which gave terrible umbrage to the Italians. So they took the necessary steps: many of the Catholic priests had been in Austria's pay, and these now became the pensioners of Italy. Monsignor Sereggi, the Metropolitan, used to be anti-Turk but, as was evident when in 1911 he negotiated with Montenegro, he is not personally anti-Slav. Yet he must have money for his clergy, for his seminary, and so forth. His friendship would be easily, one fancies, transferred from Rome to Belgrade if the Serbs are willing to provide the cash—and nobody can blame him. Leo Freund, who had been Vienna's secret agent and a great friend of Monsignor Bumci, the Albanian bishop, was succeeded by an Italian. But, of course, the new almoner did not confine his gifts to those of his own faith. Many of the leading Moslems were in receipt of a monthly salary, and this was not so serious a burden for the Italians as one might suppose, since Albania is a poor country, and with no Austrian competition you found quite prominent personages deigning to accept a rather miserable wage. "And do you think," I asked of Musa Yuka, the courteous mayor of Scutari, "that those mountain tribes are being paid?" "Well," he said, "I think that it is not improbable." ... At the time of the Bosnian annexation crisis the Serbs had as their Minister of Finance the sagacious Patchou. The War Minister, a General, was strongly in favour of an instant declaration of war, and the Premier suggested that the matter should be discussed. He turned to the Minister of Finance and asked him whether he had sufficient money for such an undertaking. Patchou shook his head. "But our men are patriots! They will go without bread, they will go without everything!" exclaimed the General. "The horses and mules are not patriots," said Patchou, "and if you want them to march you'll have to feed them." The Albanians were so little inclined to go to war with Yugoslavia that the Italians had, in various ways, to feed them nearly all. And what did the Albanians think of these intrigues? At any rate, what did they say? "Italy," quoth Professor Chimigo,[75] a prominent Albanian who teaches at Bologna, "Italy is always respected and esteemed as a great nation.... The Albanian Government," said he, "has charged me to declare in public that Albania does not regard herself as victorious against Italy, but is convinced that the Italians, in withdrawing their troops from Valona, were obeying a sentiment of goodness and generosity." Such words would be likely to bring more plentiful supplies from Rome. And fortunately the Italians did not seem to suffer, like the Serbs, from any scruples as to the propriety of taking active steps against another "Allied and Associated Power." When Zena Beg Riza Beg of Djakovica came in the year 1919 to his brother-in-law Ahmed Beg Mati, one of the Albanian leaders, he told him that the Belgrade Government, in pursuance of their policy "The Balkans for the Balkan peoples," would be glad if the Italians could be ousted from Albania. Zena Beg returned with a request for money, guns and so forth; but they were not sent.

Ahmed Beg and Zena Beg are patriotic young Albanian noblemen of ancient family and great possessions. But Zena Beg has the advantage of living in Yugoslavia, outside the atmosphere of corruption which is darkening his native land. Ahmed Beg, who in 1920 was Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Governor of Scutari and Director (in mufti) of the military operations against the Yugoslavs, did not accept Italian bribes, but he was surrounded by those who did, and thus the gentle and industrious young man was being led to work against his own country's interests. With him at Scutari was another of the six Ministers of the Tirana Government, in the person of the venerable Moslem priest Kadri, Minister of Justice, and one of the four Regents, Monsignor Bumci. There was about it all an Oriental odour of the less desirable kind, which caused some observers to say that when Albania obtains her independence she will be a bad imitation of the old Turkey—a little Turkey without the external graces. When the thoughtful greybeard Kadri went limping down the main street, a protecting gendarme dawdled behind him, smoking a cigarette; but this endearing nonchalance was absent from the methods of government: any Albanian whose opinions did not coincide with those of the authorities could only express them at his peril. [Blood-vengeance is, to some extent, being deposed by party-vengeance—this having originated in the time of Wied, when the politicians were divided into Nationalists and Essadists, after which they became Italophils and Austrophils, who now have been succeeded by Italophils (who ask for an Italian mandate) and Serbophils and Grecophils (who desire that these countries should have no mandate, but should act in a friendly spirit towards an independent Albania). Meanwhile the Italophils, nearly all of them on Italy's pay-roll, were, till a few months ago, in the ascendant, and their attitude towards the other party was relentless.] One Alush Ljocha, for example, said that he thought it would be well if Yugoslavia and Albania lived on friendly terms with one another. Because of this—the Government having adopted other ideas—his house at Scutari was burned,[76] and when we were discussing the matter at the palace of the Metropolitan, Monsignor Sereggi, I found that His Grace was emphatically in accord with a fiery Franciscan poet, Father Fichta, with the more placid Monsignor Bumci, and with two other ecclesiastics who were present. "We did well to burn his house, very well, I say!" exclaimed Father Fichta, "because Alush is only a private person and he has no business to concern himself with foreign countries." Of course, when Father Fichta made his comments on foreign countries it was not as a private person but as a responsible editor. Thus in the Posta e Shqypnis during the War he denounced Clemenceau and Lloyd George as such foes of humanity that their proper destination was a cage of wild beasts, and, after having visited France during 1919 as secretary to the sincere and credulous Bumci, he contributed anti-French and, I believe, anti-English poems to the Epopea Shqyptare.

"I have been told," I said, "by an intelligent Albanian who was educated at Robert College at Constantinople that the greatest hope for the country lies, in his opinion, in the increase of American schools, such as that one at Elbasan and the admirable institution at Samakoff in Bulgaria, where the Americans—in order not to be accused of proselytism—teach everything except religion."

"If I had my own way," cried Fichta, "I would shut up these irreligious American schools. Religion is the base of the social life of this country."

"And you and the Muhammedans," I asked, "do you think that your co-operation has a good prospect of enduring? With a country of no more than one and a half million inhabitants it is essential that you should be united."

"God in Heaven! Who can tolerate such things?" exclaimed the Metropolitan. That very corpulent old gentleman was bouncing with rage on his sofa. "Is it not horrible," he cried in Italian, "that this man should dare to come to my house and make propaganda against us?"

"Really, sir, I am astonished," said Monsignor Bumci, reproachfully, in French, "that you should ask such a question." [It was answered a few weeks later, when Halim Beg Derala and Zena Beg—who, being outside Albania, were free to utter non-Governmental opinions—said that they had not the slightest doubt but that the friendship between the fanatic Moslem and the fanatic Catholic would come to an end and each of them would again in the first place think of his religion, so that, as heretofore, they would regard themselves as Turkish and Latin people rather than as Albanian. This foible does not apply to the Orthodox Albanians of the South, who are more patriotic.] "I am astonished," said the Monsignor, "that you should question our friendship with the Moslem. They have been the domineering party, but all that is finished, and we are the best of friends. See, they have chosen me to be one of the Regents![77] Our Government of all the three religions is very good, and," said he, as he thumped the arm of his chair, "it insists on the Albanians obtaining justice in spite of our enemies."

It chanced that I had met Father Achikou, Doctor of Theology and Philosophy, in the Franciscan church. Because his brother had had occasion to kill an editor in self-defence, this, perhaps the most enlightened, member of the Albanian Catholic clergy, had been compelled to remain for eight months in the church and its precincts, seeing that the Government was powerless to guarantee that he would not be overtaken by that national curse, the blood-vengeance.

"Well, one cannot praise the custom of blood-vengeance," said the Monsignor.

"You spoke," I said, "of your Government insisting on justice for the Albanians."

And some time after this Professor Achikou and another prominent young priest were deported to Italy and, I believe, interned in that country.... With their fate we may compare that of Dom Ndoc Nikai, a priest whose anti-Slav paper, the Bessa Shqyptare, is alleged to exist on its Italian subsidy, and Father Paul Doday, whom Italy insisted on installing as Provincial of all the Franciscans (after vetoing at Rome the appointment of Father Vincent Prennushi, whom nearly all the Franciscans in Albania had voted for). Father Doday, it is interesting to note, is of Slav nationality, for he comes from Janjevo in Kossovo, but he studied in Italy, and has abandoned the ways of his ancestors. This town of some 500 houses, inhabited by Slavs from Dalmatia and a few Saxons who are now entirely Slavicized, still retains a costume that resembles the Dalmatian, as also a rather defective Dalmatian dialect. The Austrians for thirty years endeavoured to Albanize them, but the people resisted this and boycotted the church and school. The priest Lazar, who defended their Slav national conscience, was persecuted and forced to flee to Serbia—he is now Mayor of Janjevo. It usually happened, by the way, that the priests of this Catholic town came from Dalmatia; but the Slav idea could bridge over the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, so that if no Catholic priest was available his place would be taken by an Orthodox priest from a neighbouring village. Only a few of the natives are anti-nationalists, having been brought up, like Father Doday, in some Italian or Austrian seminary. There are in Albania to-day about ten such priests who come from Janjevo.... How well this Father Doday has served his masters may be seen in the case of the Franciscan priest in Shala, who, with the whole population of armed Catholics, resisted the Italian advance of 1920. Together with Lieut. Lek Marashi he organized komitadjis in Shala and elsewhere, his purpose being to liberate his country from the Italians. Since these latter could do nothing else against him they compelled the Bishop of Pulati to punish him; however, all that the Bishop did was to tell the patriot priest to go away. But Father Doday was more willing to work for the Italians; he excommunicated his fellow-countryman, on the ground that he would not come to Scutari, where his life would have been in danger.

4. THE STATE OF ALBANIAN CULTURE

But, you may say, one cannot in fairness expect the new Albanian Government to achieve in so short a time what the Serbian Government has effected among the Albanians of Kossovo, who are being persuaded to relinquish their devastating custom of blood-vengeance. Prior to March 1921, over 400 of its devotees and of brigands had given themselves up in Kossovo—turning away from the old days when, as one of them expressed it, "a shot from my rifle was heard at a distance of three hours' travel"; one of the most eminent among them disdained to surrender to a local authority and made his way to Belgrade, where he presented himself one afternoon to the astonished officials at the Ministry of the Interior. "After all," as Miss Durham has written, "the most important fact in northern Albania is blood-vengeance." What we must set out to probe is whether the Albanians, if they are left to themselves, will be able after a time to administer their country in a reasonably satisfactory manner.... Their culture is admittedly a very low one. In the realm of art a few love-songs and several proverbs were all that Consul Hahn could collect for his monumental work,[78] though his researches, which lasted for years, took him all over the country. One of these love-songs, a piece of six lines, will give some idea of their aesthetic value; a lover, standing outside the house of his lady, invites her to come out to him immediately; he threatens that if she disobeys him he will have his hair cut in the Western style, nay more, he will have it washed and then he will return, howling like a dog. Consul Hahn's summing up of the Albanians, by the way, stated that the social life of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum was applicable to the tribes which now inhabit southern Albania, those of the north not being equal to so high a standard. Yastrebow, the well-known Russian Consul-General, tells us of the villages of Retsch and Tschidna, where in winter men and women clothe themselves with rags, in summer with no rags—so that in the warmer months a visitor, presumably, in order not to shock the natives, would take the precaution of depositing his clothes in some convenient cavern. On the other hand, when the ladies in waiting on the Princess of Wied drove out in low-cut dresses, it being warm weather, the people of Durazzo were scandalized at what they called the terrible behaviour of their Prince's harem. These mountain people live on maize and milk and cheese—salt is unknown to them. Baron Nopsca is regarded by the few educated Albanians as the most competent foreign observer. He knew the language well and travelled everywhere. One custom he relates of the Merturi is the sprinkling of ashes on a spot where they suspect that treasure is buried; on the next morning they look to see what animal has left on the ashes the print of its feet, and this tells them what sacrifice the guardian of the treasure demands—sheep or hen or human being. Miss Durham says that human excrement and water is the sole emetic known to the Albanians; it is used in all cases of poisoning. But the Albanian's death is most frequently brought about by gun-shot. "In Toplana," as they say, "people are killed like pigs"—42 per cent. of the adults, according to Nopsca, dying a violent death. "It was her good government and her orderliness that obtained for her her admission to the League of Nations," said the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in the Morning Post of November 29, 1921. And the enthusiastic President of the Anglo-Albanian Society is modest enough to refrain from telling us how much she was indebted to his own championship. The evil eye is feared in Albania more than syphilis or typhus. Siebertz[79] mentions a favourite remedy, which is to spit at the patient. A ceremonial spitting is also used by anyone who sees two people engaged in close conversation; very likely they are plotting against the third party, and by his timely expectoration their wicked plans will be upset.

Absurd as it may sound, there are not a few Albanian apologists who lay the entire blame upon the Turks. They assert—and it is true—that Constantinople left this distant province so completely almost to its own devices that the suzerain might just as well not have existed. A few Turkish officials lived in the towns, in the country they showed themselves when they were furtively travelling through it; and the chief officials, such as the Vali of Scutari, were wont to be Albanians. And, being left by the Turks to evolve their own salvation, they turned Albania into a region of utter darkness—at any rate, they did practically nothing to shake off the barbarism which they had inherited. They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediaeval ideas on the sanctity of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their honour,[80] their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are very abstemious, their morals are pure, they have certain mental qualities, as yet undeveloped, and they are thrifty. But "they are so devoid of both originality and unity," says Sir Charles Eliot,[81] that acutest of observers, "that it is vain to seek for anything in politics, art, religion, literature or customs to which the name Albanian can be properly applied as denoting something common to the Albanian race."

The apologists, such as Miss Durham, argue that the other Balkan peoples suffered from a good deal of internal tumult after they had set themselves up as independent countries. And it is submitted that the Albanians would gradually develop the same national spirit as their neighbours. But there are as yet, Miss Durham must acknowledge, very few signs that this will ever come to pass.

"We are Albanians," said Monsignor Bumci, "we ask for Albania! We demand it! Surely you can see that we are all marching together, men from all parts of Albania, marching against the Yugoslavs. I say we are united."

And some miles from Scutari a part of the Albanian army was returning from a foray into Yugoslavia. When they came into the territory of a certain tribe they were compelled, by way of toll, to surrender their booty. Such incidents occurred in several places, so that obviously the conditions still prevail that were described in 1905 by Karl Steinmetz,[82] an Austrian engineer who learned the language and travelled through the country in the disguise of a Franciscan monk. "The tribes cannot conceive the idea of a higher unity," says he in one of his valuable books. [So that in attempting to build up the new State these tribal institutions should be used as much as possible. Except in the towns, which play a relatively small part in the country's life, the voting should be by tribes.] "How could a Nikaj and a Shala meet," says he, "except for mutual destruction? Will a Mirdite for a nice word give up his bandit expeditions to the plain? The local antagonisms are as yet far too great." More often than not you would find that the Albanians regard each other as at the time of the Balkan War, when, for example, a Serbian cavalry officer took the village of Puka and asked the mayor to lead him to the neighbouring village of Duci. His worship consented, but after walking on ahead for half an hour he stopped. "We are now midway between the two villages," he said, "and I can go no farther." "Unless you continue," said the captain, "I shall be obliged to have you shot." "Nukahaile [I don't care]," said the Albanian. "It is all the same to me whether I am killed by you or by the men of Duci, and I certainly shall be killed if I show myself there."