12. SERBIA'S GOOD INFLUENCE

What, then, is Europe to do with these wild children of hers?... The tribes, Catholic and Moslem, who dwell between the Big Drin and the frontier allotted to Serbia in 1913, asked the aforesaid Pouniša in 1919 to intervene in their quarrels; and the result was that a small number of Serbian soldiers were scattered about that country. They were placed at the disposal of the chief, whom they assisted in maintaining order. (Needless to say, they collected no taxes or recruits, and all their supplies came to them from Serbia.) The people were impressed not only by the uniform but by the men's conduct. Before going to these posts—where they were relieved every two or three months—the men were instructed with regard to Albanian customs, and no case occurred of any transgression. So rigidly did they enforce the precept that anyone who tried to violate or carry off a woman was, if he persisted, to be shot, that last year, at Tropolje in Gashi, when the girl in question was said to be not unwilling, they pursued the abductors, and in the subsequent battle there were fatalities on both sides. The Serbian soldiers, for whose safety the village was responsible, made themselves so popular that when the Tirana Government appointed one Niman Feriz to go to those parts as sub-prefect he was chased away by the people headed by the mayor of the Krasnichi, who is a nephew of Bairam Beg Zur, the illiterate ex-brigand and ex-Minister of War of the Tirana Government.

Let this system of small Serbian posts be extended over the whole of northern Albania, that is to say, in those districts where the natives are willing to receive them. After all, the Serbs understand these neighbours of theirs. Telephones and roads will be built and eventually the railway along the Drin. The northern Albanians will then, for the first time, be on the high-road towards peace and prosperity; and if the rest of Albania has by then attained to anything like this condition everybody would be glad to see a free and independent Albania.

Now what prospect is there of the rest of Albania taking any analogous steps? If the regions which at present submit to Tirana decline to modify their methods, it would seem that warfare between them and their kinsmen to the north and north-east must continue, and that the foundations of a united, free Albania will not yet be laid. One might presume, from their bellicose attitude, that the Tirana Government (extending to and including the town of Scutari) is all against a pacific solution; and if one argues that their attitude would be quite different without the support they receive from Italy, then the Italians would doubtless reply that they have as much right to assist the Tirana Albanians as Yugoslavia has to assist those of the north.

But this is not the case. Between Italy and the Albanians there are no such ancient political and economic ties as between the Albanians and the Serbs. The mediaeval connection with Venice has left with many Albanians a dolorous memory, for apart from the fact that Venice, as in Dalmatia, was pursuing a merely selfish policy, it was directly due to her that the Turkish Sultan, in the fifteenth century, was able to establish himself in Albania. Thrice his troops had been repelled by those of Skanderbeg when the arrangement was made for them to enter the fortress of Rosafat in Venetian uniforms, and then four hundred years elapsed before the Sultan's standard was pulled down. In recent times the Government of Italy has been furnishing the Shqyptart with schools, and these were not its only acts of benevolence towards that wretched people. They have given schools and rifles and munitions and gold. The Albanians were willing to accept this largesse; but that it forged a link between patron and client, that it conferred on the Italians any rights to occupy the country, they denied, and enforced this denial in 1920 at the point of the bayonet. Mr. H. Goad said in the Fortnightly Review that this remark of mine is quite unhistorical, since Italy, says he, "was in course of withdrawal when certain Albanians, stirred up as usual by Jugo-Slavs, attacked her retreating troops." If the Albanians had only known that Italy, despite her having been, says Mr. Goad, "supremely useful to Albania," had resolved to quit, they would perhaps have let them go with dignity. But if Mr. Goad will read some of the contemporary Italian newspapers he will see that my allusion to the bayonet was much too mild. Utterly regardless of the fact that the Italian evacuation was "according to plan," the Shqyptart treated them abominably—it brought up memories of Abyssinia—or does Mr. Goad deny that even a general officer was outraged and blew out his brains? This Albanian onslaught was so far from being stirred up by the Yugoslavs that, as we have seen,[97] the Belgrade Government refused to furnish them with munitions. This is not to say that they did not approve of the Albanian push, for they maintain, in spite of Mr. Goad, the principle of "The Balkans for the Balkan Peoples." If Italy, as our strange publicist asserts, has a mandate—presumably a moral one—to defend Albania against aggression he will find, I think, that the Yugoslavs heartily agree with this thesis and that they are also quite determined to defend Albania from aggression.... When he asserts that various ties existed between Italy and the Albanians—the Albanian language, the feudal architecture, much that is characteristic in Albanian art and so forth—I would refer him to M. Justin Godart, with whom I am glad for once to be in agreement. "There is no traditional or actual link," says he, "between the two countries; if, on account of this geographical position, they propose to have commercial relations, then everything has yet to be established. If there is to be a friendship, we believe that Italy must do her best to wipe out many memories.... She has not profited from the large number of Albanians in her southern provinces in order to have an Albanian policy."

However, the magnanimous Italians came back, declaring that on this occasion they would not occupy the country (except the little island of Saseno); but that they really could not restrain themselves from bestowing the schools, the rifles, munitions and gold. Once more the Albanians agreed to accept them; they also accepted the Turkish officers and officials whom the Italian ships brought to them from Asia Minor, and when their Government became more and more Turkish and more intractable they found that they had excited the hostility of large numbers of their own compatriots. This developed during 1921 into violent conflicts; and the bountiful Italians provided the Tirana Government's army with expert tuition. Nevertheless, in the Albanians' opinion, there are no bonds between the two races, and if the Italians would retire from Albania, permitting the Balkans to be for the Balkan peoples, and if the fanatical Turks went back to Asia Minor, it would soon be seen that the present rage between northern and central Albania would peter out into the isolated murders which the Albanians have hitherto been unable to dispense with. Left to themselves the Albanians of Tirana would eventually ask for some such assistance from Serbia as the northern tribes have received; three months after the departure of the Italians from Scutari a plebiscite would show that this town, which has lately gone so far as to refuse—yes, even her Moslems have refused—to fill the depleted ranks of the Tirana forces, was anxious to come to a friendly settlement with her Albanian neighbours and the Yugoslavs. This would be a victory of Scutari's common sense over all those fanatics and intriguers whose activities involve her death; for she cannot possibly thrive if she persists in cutting herself off from the hinterland and from the benefits that will accrue from the canalization of the Bojana.

However, the Italians—officially or unofficially—will not yet awhile leave Albania. And how will this retard or modify the reasonableness of those parts which acknowledge Tirana? As for the town of Scutari, it is probable that if she found herself permanently cut off by the Mirditi from direct communication with Tirana she would allow her incipient independence to come more to the surface. With Tirana less capable of enforcing her behests the Scutarenes would gradually venture to act in their own interests; they would aim at local autonomy within the sphere of Yugoslav influence and in the same sphere as their markets. It is to be hoped that Yugoslavia will be prepared for this, since she does not possess too many educated citizens who understand the Albanian mentality. A course of conduct which pays no attention to this would alienate even the Turks from Podgorica and Dulcigno, whose acquaintance with the very language of Albania is so limited. There seems, however, to be no reason why the mixed population of Albanian Moslems and Catholics, of Orthodox Serbs and of Moslems who declined to come under the all-too-patriarchal rule of Nicholas of Montenegro should not have the same happy experience as the inhabitants of Djakovica and Prizren. Later on the Scutarenes will be called upon to decide whether they prefer, like those other predominantly Albanian towns, to remain in Yugoslavia or whether they wish to throw in their lot with a free Albania, and in that case their town would become the capital of the country. Failing Scutari, the capital would most probably be Oroshi, which is now the capital of the Mirditi.

And why, we may be asked, why should not Tirana be the capital? In the central parts of Albania, in the country round Tirana, where the natives are derisively called "llape" by the warriors of the north and by the cultured Albanians of the south, we believe that the assistance of Italy will be unable to prevent a collapse. (It must also be remembered that the people of the district of Tirana are, for the most part, in opposition to the present Tirana Government. This became clear when the partisans of Essad Pasha's policy[98] overthrew and imprisoned the Tirana Ministers.) Economically and morally Tirana will decline, until she is compelled to seek a union with the people of northern Albania, those of the south having meanwhile gravitated towards Greece. Then the moment will arrive when the north and the south, in their task of building up a free and united Albania, will admit the centre under various conditions. These will have to be of a rather stern character, or so at any rate they will seem to the folk of Tirana: taxes will have to be paid, military service or service in the gendarmerie will have to be rendered, and schools will have to be established for both sexes.

This, then, is the future country of Albania, which—if one is rash enough to prophesy—may exist in fifty years. But there is no risk whatever in asserting that a free, united Albania is in the immediate future quite impossible.

13. EUROPEAN MEASURES AGAINST THE YUGOSLAVS AND THEIR FRIENDS

Berati Beg, Tirana's delegate in Paris, said in an interview with a representative of the Belgrade Pravda, at the beginning of November 1921, that he regretted that European diplomats should interfere in the Serbo-Albanian question. "Are we not all," said he, "one large Balkan family? And if the Powers intervene they will not act in our interests, but in their own." He said that it used to be Austria which grasped at Albania, now it was Italy. So the delegate showed that he was a clear-sighted man; he also showed that in Tirana they are not unanimous in loving the Italians. But alas! the Great Powers, urged by Italy, made a most disastrous plunge; they actually, at least Great Britain, charged the Serbs, their allies, on November 7, with being guilty of overstepping the frontier, and on November 9 informed them where this frontier was. It is a pity that Mr. Lloyd George should have launched such a thunderbolt, the French Government not being consulted.[99] But the most probable explanation of this lack of courtesy towards the Serbs, and lack of the most elementary justice, is that the Prime Minister, with his numerous preoccupations, allowed some incapable person to act in his name.[100] The world was told, however, that Mr. Lloyd George had sent a peremptory demand for the convocation of the Council of the League of Nations so that a sanction should be applied against the Yugoslavs. Mr. Lloyd George's substitute was so little versed in the business that he did not even know that the League of Nations is not a gendarme to carry out the decisions of the Ambassadors' Conference. He should have been aware of the fact that this was a problem for the Allied States, to be settled by diplomatic or other measures, and he should also have known that the League of Nations does not—except if invited to arbitrate—concern itself with the unliquidated problems left by the War, such as the Turkish question. Perhaps that dangerous confusion in the mind of this unknown official would not have occurred if Albania had not been illogically admitted to the League of Nations. But now, in November 1921, not an instant was to be lost in settling this frontier question, which—as the Temps pointed out—would have been settled months before if Italy had not prevented it. (She wished as a preliminary step to have certain claims of her own in regard to Albania conceded.) So the Council of the League was to be invited to apply Article 16, which could scarcely be invoked unless Article 15, which defines a procedure of conciliation, had been found of no avail.[101] Thus the misguided person who spoke in the name of Mr. Lloyd George was apparently too impetuous to read the texts. And then the Serbs were told that they must withdraw practically to the frontier which Austria, their late enemy, had laid down in 1913. Well might Berati Beg deplore that Italy should take the place of Austria. But such commands achieve so little. Very soon, when the troubles in Albania continue, as they certainly will, Mr. Lloyd George will see that he was misled.... But here it should be stated that while Italy persisted throughout in demanding the 1913 frontier (with the ludicrously inconsistent proviso that she herself should have the island of Saseno, which in 1913 she had demanded for independent Albania), and France raised no finger against her, the actual improvements of the frontier adopted were entirely due to Great Britain. No one is more qualified to speak on this matter than Mr. Harold Temperley of Cambridge, who was one of our experts. In his illuminating little book, The Second Year of the League, he has pointed out that the new Albanian frontiers are an improvement on the old—than which, indeed, they cannot be worse—because they conform more to natural features, they take into account an important tribal boundary (leaving the Gora tribe in Yugoslavia), and restore to both parties freedom of communication—the road between the Serb towns of Struga and Dibra being given to the Serbs, while to Albania is given the road from Elbasan to the Serb town of Lin. The rectifications in the Kastrati and the Prizren area involve the substitution of natural boundaries for unnatural ones in order to protect the cities of Podgorica and Prizren. They confer no offensive advantage on the Serbs, nor do they enable them to menace any Albanian city.

To any impartial observer it is quite unjust that the Yugoslavs should have had to plead against the frontier of 1913. They have not the least desire to plant their flag on those undelectable mountains. If the frontier of 1913 could be held with moderate efforts against these people they would not wish to go an inch beyond it. But those who drew this frontier, namely the Austrians, were not much concerned as to whether it afforded adequate protection to the Serbs; what they had in view was to keep them away from the Adriatic (for which reason an arbitrary line cut through the proposed railway which was to link Peć to Podgorica and the sea) and to compel the Serbs to station in those districts a goodly portion of their army, to which end—so that the frontier should be weak—the towns of Djakovica and Prizren were separated from their hinterland. The Austrian plan likewise prevented the towns of Struga and Prizren from being joined by a road or by a railway along the Drin; to go from one to the other it became necessary to make an enormous detour. With the rectifications to which we have referred, the Ambassadors' Conference decided to insist on them returning to this miserable line, instead of permitting them to take up their position where General Franchet d'Esperey perceived in 1918 that they could be fairly comfortable. Monsieur Albert Mousset, the shrewd Balkan expert of the Journal des Debats, has remarked that on too many parts of the 1913 frontier it is as if one forced an honest man to sleep with his door open among a horde of bandits.... The Albanian Government, admitted to the League of Nations in December 1920, claimed that the international statute of 1913, creating a German prince, the Dutch gendarmerie and the International Financial Commission—which happened to be inconvenient—was no longer in force; but that the international decisions as to the frontiers of Albania—which happened to be convenient—were still valid. However, during the War the country had been plunged in anarchy, and the Great Powers decided that Albania was, in Mr. Temperley's words, a tabula rasa, a piece of white paper on which they could write what they wished. In November 1921 the Ambassadors' Conference finally decided on the frontiers. The gravest violation of the ethnic principle was in the Argyrocastro area, where many thousands of Greeks and Grecophils were handed over to Albania; as for the Serbs, it was only through the efforts of some British experts that they obtained any satisfaction at all.

Why did the Ambassadors' Conference arrive at this peculiar decision? For a long time the European Press had been publishing telegrams which told how the Serbs were ruthlessly invading Albania. Had they advanced about half the number of miles with which they were credited, they would have found themselves near to the offices of those Italian Press agencies. They were held up to vituperation for their conduct towards a feeble neighbour. The Mirditi, we were told, had to fly before them; whereas the truth was that the friendly Mirditi were driving the troops of Tirana helter-skelter towards the Black Drin, where the Serbs—not advancing an inch from the boundary which the Allies had for the time being assigned to them—received their prisoners. Again we were told that the piratical Serbs had seized the town of Alessio. It must have annoyed the Mirditi to have this exploit of theirs ascribed to other people. And if the newspapers contained too many telegrams of this kind they were strangely reticent with regard to what was taking place in the shallow Albanian harbours; but the two Italian vessels which—as I mentioned in a telegram to the Observer—were unloading, without the least concealment, munitions and rifles for the dear Albanians at San Giovanni di Medua in September 1920, were probably not the only ones with such a cargo. Europe and the Ambassadors' Conference were simply told that the truculent Serbs were destroying a poor, defenceless, pastoral nation. Therefore these Serbs must be ordered back, and whatever might be the merits of a hostile Austrian frontier as compared with a well-informed French one, at any rate the first of these was farther back, so let the Serbs be ordered thither.

It was noticeable that when, on November 17, the British Minister of Education, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher (representing Mr. Lloyd George), explained before the Council of the League of Nations why Great Britain had thought it necessary to act in this Serbo-Albanian affair, he founded his case not on Article 16 but on Article 12, which obliges two conflicting nations who are members of the League to have their case examined by the League. Evidently the suggested application of Article 16 was now acknowledged to have been a mistake. The blundering official in Whitehall should have seen the dignified sorrow with which Yugoslavia heard of her great Ally's unjustifiable procedure. So much faith have the Southern Slavs always had in the Entente's sense of justice that from 1914 to 1918 they continued to give their all, without making any agreement or stipulation; more than once the Serbian Government had the offer of terms from the Central Powers, but on each occasion, as for example during the dark days at Niš in 1915, they declined to betray their Allies.

Mr. Fisher announced that the British Government's action was in no way caused by feelings of hostility against the Southern Slavs. All Englishmen, in fact, remembered the heroism and fortitude of the Serbs; they cherished for Yugoslavia the warmest sympathy. In Mr. Fisher's own case it might conceivably have been a little warmer—he was not ashamed to repeat the reasons which had induced Great Britain to summon the Council of the League. Yet he must have known the comment that he would arouse among his audience when they heard him base his arguments exclusively upon reports of the Tirana Government, while those of Belgrade were ignored; and in their place the delegate thought fit to bring up various extracts which had been collected from the Belgrade Press. If every organ of this Press were filled with a permanent sense of high responsibility, and if Mr. Fisher had made inquiries as to the existence in Belgrade of humorous and ironic writers, one is still rather at a loss to understand why these miscellaneous cuttings were placed before the League, which could scarcely be expected to treat them as evidence. The delegate added that he did not think a single nation was animated by unfriendly sentiments towards the Southern Slavs—so that Italy's unflagging efforts to strengthen the Tirana Government's army were prompted purely by the deep love which the Italians—despite their having been flung out of Valona—bear for the Shqyptart. Mr. Fisher proceeded to say that no better proof was needed of the general friendship for the Southern Slavs than the decision of the Ambassadors' Conference which, instead of allotting to Albania the frontiers of 1913, a method that would have been simpler, had resolved on several rectifications in favour of Yugoslavia, in order to prevent disturbances on Albania's northern frontier. After what Mr. Fisher had already had the heart to say we cannot really be astonished that he, or the people on behalf of whom he spoke, should have thought the enemy-drawn frontier of 1913 as worthy of the slightest consideration. We are all, I think, unanimous, said Mr. Fisher in effect, we are unanimous in our esteem for the Yugoslavs and could do nothing which that nation would find hard to bear. But after stating that some rectifications had been made in favour of Yugoslavia he should have referred to the village of Lin on Lake Ochrida whose transference to the Albanians will probably give rise to a great deal of trouble, since it is the most important centre for the fishing industry. A few of the best Belgrade papers, careless of the more than Governmental authority which they enjoyed in the eyes of Mr. Fisher, went so far as to allege that Lin's change of sovereignty was due to the formation on Lake Ochrida of a British fishing company.... We have said that the frontier rectifications were inadequate; but under the circumstances they were the best that could be obtained. They were most bitterly contested by the Italians, who demanded, as we have said above, that Yugoslavia should be given the 1913 frontier. France did nothing to help the Yugoslavs in this hour of need, and had it not been for the absolutely determined support of Great Britain the pernicious frontier of 1913 would have been adopted intact.

Coming to the Mirdite revolt, Mr. Fisher's description is hardly what you would call felicitous. Mark Djoni and the other members of the Mirdite Government were compelled last July to seek refuge at Prizren in Yugoslavia, and since then they have conducted their affairs from that place. These circumstances, in Mr. Fisher's opinion, go to prove the existence of a Yugoslav plot whose aim it is to separate northern Albania from the Tirana Government. Again Mr. Fisher points an accusing finger at the Yugoslav officers who, in August, were helping the Mirditi; but is it not more natural that these officers should give their services to the Christian tribes for whom, as Mr. Bošković, the chief Yugoslav delegate, said, the Southern Slavs do not conceal their sympathy[102] nor the hope that they will gain the necessary autonomy—is not this more natural and more deserving of Mr. Fisher's approbation than the fact (of which he says no word) that the Moslem Government of Tirana has had the active assistance of Italian officers, such, for example, as Captain Guisardi, who, in the sector of Kljesh, has been in command of the artillery? A further proof that the Mirdite movement has been engineered by the Southern Slavs is, in Mr. Fisher's opinion, the damning fact that the Republic's Proclamation was composed in Yugoslavia and dated there—how brazen some people are! And the official Yugoslav Press Bureau has actually circulated the announcements of the Mirdite Republic. The question is whether the Yugoslav Government was more than benevolently neutral in thus assisting their guests at a time when these had not yet got their machinery into working order. When the Mirdite Government had made suitable arrangements it spoke to the world through its representatives at Geneva or through direct communications to the British and French Press. Surely, in considering whether the Yugoslav Government allowed themselves to exceed the limits of neutrality, one must remember that the Mirdite authorities at Prizren were out of all touch with their own army, which was engaged in a guerilla warfare. In conclusion, according to Mr. Fisher, the British Foreign Office was persuaded that the Mirdite Republic was nothing but an instrument of the Yugoslav Government, and that desire for Albanian unity extended also to the Christians of that country. The Foreign Office had, no doubt, been told that the Tirana Government received the support, at last spring's elections, of some north Albanian deputies; and possibly they gave no credence to the rumour that these gentlemen were much indebted to Italian support. It may have been mere harmless curiosity which kept Captain Pericone, the Italian commander, during all that day at the Scutari polling-booths, but what is certain is that, owing to the influx of Italian money, the value of a hundred silver crowns in the morning was 92 lire, and in the afternoon had fallen to 75. It is likewise a fact that numerous Malissori, finding themselves for the first time in possession of bundles of paper and feeling far from confident that this was money, hurried off to the bazaar and spent it all. Thus were the four friends of the Moslem-Italian[103] Government elected, the four deputies who were in favour of Albanian unity under that Government; three of them are Christians (Messrs. Fichta, Andreas Miedia and Luigi Gurakuqi); one, Riza Dani, is a Moslem. How the latter travelled to Tirana I do not know, but the three Christians found that the population was so incensed against them that they could not go by the direct road; they were forced to sail down the Bojana on the Italian ship Mafalda, and then along the coast. This, I presume, will be considered sufficiently strong evidence that these deputies did not represent the people, and that their independence was not exactly of the sort ascribed to Gurakuqi by a writer in the Times;[104] one need not labour the point by mentioning what happened to Father Vincent Prennushi whose candidature was vetoed in Rome, so that he was replaced by Father Fichta.

This being the state of things one can scarcely argue that the people of the north are in favour of a united Albania, as it seemeth good to the Ambassadors' Conference, the League of Nations, etc. "We Germans, knowing Germany and France," said Treitschke in 1871, "know what is good for the Alsatians better than these unfortunates themselves.... Against their will we wish to restore them to themselves." The north Albanian deputies may join with those of the south and call themselves the group of "sacred union"; but they themselves are well aware that it is only in the south-central districts that the Government has a majority. That is one of the reasons why the seat of Government is Tirana in the central part of the country, for the Cabinet lives in apprehension of the followers of the late Essad Pasha, and by residing in that country they hope to be able to keep it quiet. How long will they be able to do so? Have they statesmanship enough to turn aside the animosity of their own countrymen? Does their Premier and Foreign Minister, Mr. Pandeli Evangheli, possess intellectual resources of a higher order than those which one commonly associates with the ownership of a small wine-shop?—that was his occupation till he came, some two years ago, from Bucharest. When this gentleman had a, perhaps temporary, fall from power, the Times of December 16, 1921, wrote of him that "there is no Albanian public man with a better record for long disinterested service in his country's cause." Alas, poor Albania! We may surmise that Mr. Evangheli and his companions do not rely very greatly on their Western European patrons who, when it comes to the pinch, will do very little for them. I should be surprised to hear that they have caused the provisions of the Ambassadors' Conference to be traced in golden letters on a wall of their council chamber. And I doubt whether they take very great stock of a resolution signed in November 1921, by some twenty Members of Parliament and a few outside persons. These expressed their approval of Mr. Lloyd George's step in convoking the League of Nations for the settlement of the Serbo-Albanian question. If this resolution served no other purpose it showed, at any rate, that the signatories are such thoroughgoing friends of the Tirana Government that they rushed enthusiastically to their assistance, though their deep knowledge of affairs—without which, of course, they would never have signed—must have caused them to regard the Prime Minister's impulsive action with something more than misgiving. It is a minor point that the signatories sought to enlist the world's sympathy on the ground that a small "neutral State" had been wantonly attacked by the Serbs, because if this accusation were true it would not be worth objecting that the Albanians were scarcely a State (though some of them were trying to make one) and that their neutrality during the War consisted in the fact that they were to be found both in the armies of the Entente and—rather more of them, I believe—in those of Austria. But the accusation is untrue; there are, undoubtedly, a number of fire-eaters in Serbia, as everywhere else, yet the Government is not so childish as to wish to squander its resources in a region where there is so little to be gained. (The Tirana correspondent of The Near East said on November 3, 1921, that the Serbian Government was reported to be committing unwarrantable acts, giving as an example that Commandant Martinović had had six million dinars placed at his disposal in order to recruit komitadjis and that he had himself promised 2500 dinars to each of his men if they succeeded in entering Scutari. But this gentleman, a retired officer, lives almost exclusively at Novi Sad, where his very beautiful daughter is married to M. Dunjarski, one of the wealthiest men in Yugoslavia. Yet neither his son-in-law nor the Serbian Government has ever given General Martinović the afore-mentioned sum or any sum at all for the afore-mentioned purpose. He goes at rare intervals to his old home in Montenegro, of which country he was once Prime Minister. It is natural that the numerous refugees from Albania should flock round him—in view of his own past prominence and of M. Dunjarski—begging for money and food.) The protesting British Members of Parliament registered their sorrow that the Serbs should have employed on their anti-Albanian enterprise "the strength and riches which they largely owed to the Allied and Associated Powers." I was under the impression that the Serbs had expended a far greater proportion of their strength and riches than any of the Allies,[105] that the Allies had, in 1915, left them in the lurch, and that the final success on the Macedonian front was due quite considerably to the genius of Marshal Mišić and the valour of his veterans. As for the strength and riches which the Southern Slavs possessed in 1921, it surely would not need an expert to perceive what the Southern Slav children knew very well, namely, that they could be more profitably employed in many other directions. May better luck attend the future labours of these Members of Parliament.... A week or so before the publication of this foolish manifesto there had been issued an equally deplorable Memorandum by the Balkan Committee (of London), which, I am glad to say, caused Dr. Seton-Watson to resign from that body. This jejune and impudent Memorandum attempted to dictate the terms of the Constitution of the Triune Kingdom—an attempt very rightly reprobated by The Near East.[106] If the Yugoslav Government were to adopt the recommendations of the Balkan Committee they would, it seems, be in a fair way to solve the Albanian question. Likewise that of Macedonia—when will the Committee cease to trouble Macedonia? Their object, in the words of Mr. Noel Buxton, is to aim at allaying the unrest in the Balkans; it would—I say it in all kindliness—be a move in that direction if the other members were to follow Dr. Seton-Watson's example.

14. THE REGION FROM WHICH THE YUGOSLAVS HAVE RETIRED

What of the population which inhabits the zone between the two frontier lines? We have alluded to them as a horde of bandits, we have also spoken of the six battalions which they placed at the disposal of the Yugoslavs. If it is true that a poet has died in the bosom of most of us, it is equally true that in most of the Albanians a brigand survives. And if not a brigand, then a mediaeval person with characteristics which are more pleasant to read about than to encounter. Yet the Shqyptar, as he calls himself (which means the eagle's son) is not without his aspirations. Reference has been made to those northern tribes, such as the Merturi and the Gashi, who benefited from the small Serbian detachments which came in answer to their urgent wish. And on the Black Drin the six battalions have shown their fidelity. There would be no need to guard oneself against such people. But unfortunately the Albanian is so constituted that if, in a hamlet of ten houses, five of them are amicably disposed towards you, there is a strong tendency among the others to be hostile. When these torch-bearers of an ancient tradition come under the rule of an organized State, then they gradually feel inclined to discard some of their customs which the State frowns upon. This can be seen in the changes among the people of Kossovo since it came into Serbian hands. Were the country between the two frontier lines to remain under the Serbs it would not be long before some of the time-honoured sensitiveness of the Albanians towards each other and towards each others' friends would vanish—though it has been found that it takes a number of years before they cease observing or from desiring to observe the very deeply-rooted custom of blood-vengeance.

A good many of the border Albanians have made it clear that they wish for some sort of association with their more cultured neighbours. But on this point they are by no means unanimous. The unregenerate part of the people will not be able to resist an occasional foray into Yugoslavia. And although the reputation which the Serbs have left behind them may induce the tribes to be, for the most part, good neighbours, yet they have not been long enough under the civilizing process, and the more advanced among them would agree with the Yugoslavs that it would have been better for that regime to have continued over them. You may object that the finest patriots of the Albanians would have preferred to remain outside Yugoslavia. But they know that there are many thousands of their contented countryfolk in the neighbouring Kossovo and, what is more, they know that the towns of Kossovo are their markets.

The Yugoslavs have bowed to the decision of their Allies. And the official champions of the too-ambitious League of Nations—overjoyed, after various failures and after the Silesian award, to have really accomplished something, and something with whose merits the public was far less familiar than with the Silesian fiasco—performed a war-dance on the Yugoslavs. If that people had been as obstinate, say, as the Magyars in the case of Burgenland, no doubt it would have come to another Conference of Venice; and Yugoslavia would, like Hungary, have returned from there with something gained. But, of course, when it is an affair between Allies one scarcely likes to behave in that stubborn and unyielding manner which is apparently the right—at all events, the successful—conduct for a whilom foe. If the Yugoslavs, in simply accepting the judgment of their Allies, acted against their own ultimate advantage, they can, at any rate, believe that their complaisance, their extraordinary lack of chauvinism, will be recognized. It is true that when, on former occasions, such as during the prolonged d'Annunzio farce at Rieka, they displayed a similar and wonderful forbearance, they did not manage to free themselves from this foolish charge. There happen to be a good many people abroad who insist that the new States are, every one of them, chauvinist; they think it is the natural thing for a young country to be, and especially if part of it lies in the Balkans. But if Yugoslavia repeatedly acts in the most correct fashion the day may come when she will be able to put a lasting polish on to the reputation which her Allies have tarnished.

15. THE PROSPECT

We may look forward to seeing the majority of this frontier population resolved that the links between themselves and the Yugoslavs shall not be broken. Very little will they care for the edicts of European Ambassadors. It would not have been surprising to hear that on the withdrawal of the Yugoslavs to the prescribed frontier their resourceful friends beyond it had procured from Serbia a few volunteers to take the place of the official Serbs. And failing this, that rough-and-ready people might simply declare themselves to be in Yugoslavia. This time they will be unable to persuade the Yugoslav Government to move its excise posts more to the west. But if these tenacious men have made up their minds to join their brethren on the right bank of the Drin and enter Yugoslavia, the Ambassadors' Conference would preserve more of their dignity in accepting with a good grace that which they are powerless to hinder.... The minority of the border population will go raiding in Yugoslavia. If they had been consulted they would have drawn the frontier very much as it is. With large areas lying at their mercy they will keep the border villages in constant dread. And that is the other reason which should induce the Ambassadors' Conference to cancel their unwise decision.

It is better when the politicians do not come with advice to the battlefield; and in those primitive regions, where part of the people cannot, as yet, be restrained from perpetual warfare, it would have been better if the politicians had done nothing but confirm the General's frontier. Franchet d'Esperey gave it to the Serbs "for the time being," and that period should last until there is no longer any military need to hold it. "No General, however distinguished, could possibly have any authority whatever to give to any nation the territories of another, such as can only be transferred and delineated by treaties and international recognition." So says Mr. H. E. Goad, or Captain Goad as he has the right to call himself. But it is a pity that he does not appreciate the difference between that which is temporary and that which is not.

Italy has been given against the Yugoslavs a purely strategic frontier, which places under her dominion over 500,000 unwilling Slovenes, whose culture is admittedly on a higher level than that of their Italian neighbours. And yet the Ambassadors' Conference (in which Italy plays a prominent part) has refused to give Yugoslavia a strategic frontier against a much more turbulent neighbour, which frontier, moreover, would include of alien subjects only a small fraction of the number which Italy has obtained. The Albanian frontier now imposed on Yugoslavia is very much like that which the treaties of 1815 gave to France, when the passage (trouee) of Couvin, often called erroneously the trouee of the Oise, at a short distance from Paris, was purposely opened. "Formerly," says Professor Jean Brunhes,[107] "the sources of the Oise belonged to France, protected, far back, by the two enclaves of Philippeville and Marienbourg, both fortified by Vauban." And M. Gabriel Hanotaux[108] remarks that this opening of the trouee of Couvin was the reason why in 1914 France lost the battle of Charleroi.

The Ambassadors' Conference has committed a grave injustice. "Let us hope," says M. Justin Godart,[109] a French ex-Under Secretary of Hygiene, concerning whose very misguided mission to Albania we have written elsewhere,[110] "let us hope," says he—in my opinion one of the unjustest men towards Yugoslavia and Greece—"let us hope that Yugoslavia will understand that it is unworthy of her to contest the decision of the Ambassadors' Conference." It has given to the Yugoslavs a frontier that necessitates the presence of a considerable army, and this is precisely what suits the Italians. Seeing that in Italy there are men alive who can recall their struggles against the Austrian oppressor, it is sad that their own country should now be playing this very same role. The Ambassadors appear to have taken no notice of Italy's support of the Tirana Government, but to have been very drastic with respect to Yugoslavia's support of the Mirditi. They have punished the Yugoslavs by binding their hands in a district part of whose population long for the help of those hands in gaining some tranquillity, whereas the other part consists of persons against whom one must defend oneself.

The politicians have acted as if all the border folk were as peaceful as they doubtless are themselves. In consequence, there will be panic and assassination till the politicians—unable to oppose the wishes of the majority of those who dwell in the frontier zone—proclaim that until further notice General Franchet d'Esperey's wise and prudent dispositions shall be honoured.

* * * * *

That is the only method by which an Albania can be brought slowly into existence. At this moment the cartographers are printing the map of the Albanians' country in accordance with the Ambassadors' decision. They might spare themselves the trouble. The decision to recognize an Albania was as premature a project as, in Mr. Wells' opinion, is the League of Nations. A free, united Albania has been recognized, and in a little time the Ambassadors' Conference, perceiving that such a thing does not exist, will be relieved to see the North and the South taking the steps to which we have referred. It is wonderful that the Ambassadors' Conference and the League of Nations should imagine that a country, most of which is in the social state of the Gallic clans in the days of Vercingetorix, can suddenly become a modern nation by the simple contrivance of a parliament, which, as a matter of fact, has been the caricature of one. In the words of Lord Halsbury, when reversing a judgment of the Court of Appeal, I am bewildered by the absurdity of such a suggestion. Albania is in need of organizers, not of orators. A very competent French traveller,[111] one who believes that a future is reserved for this unquenchable people, warns the world against undue haste. After describing the deplorable state or the non-existence of Albanian schools, roads, ports, the monetary system and the organization of credit, he says that it is scarcely an exaggeration to assert that from the point of view of economic arrangement everything has to be created. This necessitates a Government which knows how to administer and which has funds at its command. But there is not the least likelihood of regular taxes being paid to a central Government until you have security of communication. And even then the native—except if force is used—will not pay before he sees the benefit which taxes produce. He who for the most part has never given obedience save to his village chief will require to see the local benefit. Therefore his whole outlook must be changed; slowly from being parochial it must become national.... There can be no greater folly than at this stage to aim at applying modern usages, equality of taxation, uniformity of judicial organization, and so forth. It must be a very slow advance, says M. Jaray, taking local traditions and the feudalism, both domestic and collective, into account. Even if a central Government had all the necessary qualifications, yet that would not cause the people to regard it with gratitude and loyalty. It is too remote. The clans have been accustomed to look no farther than their own chiefs. Only in serious circumstances and against an invasion have they united and chosen a common leader. To expect the Albanians rapidly to throw aside their clannishness is to prepare for oneself a disappointment. It is in the clan that they must be made fit for something more extensive. Let the country be recognized not as a nation, but as a collection of clans, and let these clans, with any outside assistance they themselves may choose, come gradually to understand the word "Albania." ... And what are the chances that this will come to pass? No country is more feudal; yet only the most thoroughgoing peasant reforms will lay a sure foundation for the State.

(b) THE GREEK FRONTIER

The frontier with Greece has undergone no alteration as a result of the War. It is inconvenient in certain details; it runs, for example, at such a very short distance to the south of the town of Ghevgeli that the prefect has little chance of frustrating those who actively object to the payment of import duties. Rather a large number of Slavs, some say 300,000, live on the Greek side of the frontier, while a far smaller number of Greeks live in Monastir. Both the Slavs and the Greeks have made sundry complaints, which are more or less justified, against the alien authority which governs them. However, during 1919 and 1920, the two Governments resolved, in the furtherance of their good understanding, to raise none of these questions, neither the claims of the derelict Slavs, who are mostly Exarchists, nor of the Monastir Greeks, who are mostly hellenized Vlachs. The two countries, while Venizelos was in power, were acting on the principles of the Serbo-Greek friendship that used to be advocated by L'Hellenisme, the newspaper which Sir Anastasius Adossides, under Venizelos the enlightened Governor-General of Salonica, published for several years before the first Balkan War in Paris. Yugoslavia was to have every facility given her in Salonica, which course would naturally be the most beneficial to that place. And among the minor advantages of really amicable relations would be the impossibility of such a state of things as once prevailed at Doiran, where the masters of the Greek and Bulgarian schools were neither of them in a position to chastise their peccant pupils, who could always have the last word by threatening to transfer themselves to the rival establishment. It was, I believe, the custom of these young scoundrels to remain at one or other of the two schools on the understanding that the teacher gave them a retaining fee of so many chocolates.... One rather felt, during 1919 and 1920, that the Yugoslavs, in their willingness to take the hand of Greece, which had so shamefully refused to act upon its obligations in the first half of the War, were behaving as if Venizelos would henceforward be retained in power by his countrymen. Should the Serbs find themselves hampered in their use of the "Free Zone" at Salonica, a moment might arrive when they and the Bulgars would, to their mutual advantage, make an arrangement with regard to Salonica and her hinterland.

(c) THE BULGARIAN FRONTIER

There have been various modifications in the frontier line between Serbia and Bulgaria. The Bulgars acknowledge that in the case of the Struma salient, of the part near Vranja and of the villages on the bank of the Timok, it was clearly for the purpose of safeguarding the railways; and few people would be found to say that Serbia has been other than modest in her demands. Compare the Italian position on the Brenner with the Yugoslav frontier against Bulgaria and in the Baranja: against Bulgars and Magyars the Yugoslavs only secure a sound defensive frontier, whereas Italy obtains a capacity for the offensive against Austria.[112] It is rather different with regard to Tsaribrod, on the main line between Niš and Sofia. So good a friend of the Yugoslavs as Dr. Seton-Watson has deplored the cession of this small place, since it appears likely to imperil a future friendship between Serbia and Bulgaria. As a matter of fact the Yugoslav Peace Delegates requested, for strategic purposes, a still more southerly frontier on the Dragoman Pass, which was denied to them. But Tsaribrod, which is dominated by the heights of Dragoman, is anyhow a place of minor importance. It is much to be hoped that the inhabitants will not imitate those of the Pirot intelligentsia who in 1878 shook off the dust of their town when it became Serbian and migrated to Sofia, where they never wearied of anti-Serbian agitation. One must do one's best not to retard the arrival of that day when it will be almost a matter of indifference as to whether a village is situated in Serbia or in Bulgaria. Mr. Stanojević, the deputy for Zaječa, which is not far from the frontier, proposed in the Skupština that Tsaribrod should be left to the Bulgars in exchange for a sum of money. This suggestion was opposed by the Radicals, and the far-seeing Yugoslav statesmen who would gladly have adopted it were left hoping that the Skupština would some day decide in its favour.... This moderation on the part of the Serbs has been less in evidence at Bucharest and still less at Athens. The Peace Conference which felt itself unable to deprive its Ally of southern Dobrudja, and unable to resist the persuasive eloquence of M. Venizelos, does not seem to have contributed towards a lasting Balkan peace. A reviewer in the Observer, while approving of Mr. Leland Buxton's hope of a Serb-Bulgar reconciliation, asks why this should be effected to the exclusion and obvious detriment of Greece. "Why not a Balkan Federation?" he asks. In view of the very different races which inhabit the Balkans, he might just as well ask, "Why not a European Federation?" And the statesmen of the non-Slav Balkan countries do not seem to have made serious efforts to prevent the coming of a purely Slav Federation. It remains to be seen whether, when that comes to pass, the Greek and Roumanian people will have achieved such statesmanship as to make an equally small effort to keep under their control their large Slav territories.... "We should no longer think of Thrace," said M. Venizelos in the Greek Chamber in 1913, "for it is impossible to include in the Greek State all those parts where Greeks have lived; we ought to be modest and contented with what is most righteous and attainable; we ought not to let ourselves be carried away by our imagination."

(d) THE ROUMANIAN FRONTIER

THE STATE OF THE ROUMANIANS IN EASTERN SERBIA

A new frontier between Yugoslavia and Roumania has been drawn by the Allied Powers in the Banat. But before we consider its merits and absurdities we must examine the Serbo-Roumanian question in the several departments of eastern Serbia. During 1919 one heard a good deal, in Bucharest and in Paris, of the pitiful Roumanians whom the Serbs had always deprived of their own national schools and churches. It was claimed, chiefly by a certain Dr. Athanasius Popovitch, that the Roumanians in Serbia were longing for the day of their redemption. On March 8, 1919, two deputations of Roumanians from the Timok and from Macedonia, who had lately arrived in Paris in order to plead before the Conference, presented themselves to the Roumanian colony at 114 Avenue des Champs-Elysees. We are told that in consequence of their moving narrative, and on account of the loud appeal made by them to all their free brothers, the Roumanian colony founded, with great enthusiasm, a national league for their delivery. The Vice-President of the league was announced to be Dr. Athanasius Popovici. In a pamphlet called Les Roumains de Serbie (Paris, 1919), Dr. Draghicesco, a Roumanian Senator, denounces the Serb authorities for having obliged Dr. Athanasius, while he was a schoolboy, to change his surname into the purely Serbian one of Popovitch. "Not being able to endure this regime of violence," we are informed, "he expatriated himself and established himself in Roumania." But if Dr. Athanasius felt so strongly with regard to his name when he was a mere schoolboy, one is puzzled to understand why, being an adult and a pamphleteer in 1919, he should be hesitating between Popovitch, which is Serbian, and Popovici, which is Roumanian. The Senator does not seem to be well informed as to the early years of Dr. Athanasius, who so far from expatriating himself as an indignant schoolboy, remained in Serbia, where he went through five classes of the gymnasium in Belgrade, after which he studied theology in the same town, with a view to succeeding his father, who was a priest at Dušanovac in eastern Serbia. Later on Athanasius performed his military service at Zaječa, where he married—so one of his sisters told me—one Mileva, the daughter of Yovan Stančević, a merchant. After his marriage he went to Jena, in order to continue his studies, and there he became a Doctor of Letters. It may be that while he was at Jena he became conscious of the regime of violence to which the Roumanians in Serbia are subjected; at any rate he decided not to return to that country, where his wife and three sisters are well satisfied to live. He launched himself into a furious anti-Serbian propaganda in favour of those who, in the words of Dr. Draghicesco, are profoundly sad and full of grief at being neither Serbian nor Roumanian, who when they meet a Roumanian brother listen to him with pleasure and, with their eyes full of tears, murmur: "How happy we should be to be with you." ... When I travelled through those parts with a view to verifying Dr. Athanasius's assertions, I was invariably told by persons of Roumanian origin that they had no complaint whatever against the Serbs, and that the last thing they desired was to be politically united to the Roumanians of the kingdom. Dr. Athanasius might reply that his wretched compatriots were impelled by fear to give such answers. But what do they fear?—one finds that among these people are deputies, priests, army officers and so forth. "To-day," says Dr. Athanasius, "all the peoples who are reduced to slavery by other people secure the right to return to their fatherland." The Roumanians of Serbia would have to be a good deal more miserable before wishing to have anything to do with Roumania. Milan Soldatović, ex-mayor of the great mining village of Bor and himself of Roumanian origin, said that he had never heard of any one who went to work in Roumania. No doubt the present generation of Roumanian landowners deeply deplore the misdeeds of their ancestors, who drove the ancestors of these peasants away from Roumania. "The peasant hovels were merely dark burrows, called bordei, holes dug in the ground and roofed with poles covered with earth, rising scarcely above the level of the plain.... The interior was indescribable. Neither furniture nor utensils, with the exception of the boards which served as beds or seats and the pot for cooking the mamaliga"[113]—his sole food, a paste consisting of maize meal cooked in water. And one cannot be astonished if the Roumanians in Serbia are chary of believing that their native land has changed for the better. "If," said a Roumanian peasant before an Agricultural Commission in 1848, "if the boyar could have laid hands upon the sun, he would have seized it and sold God's light and warmth to the peasant for money." Even in 1919 the peasant still had much reason to be dissatisfied, for where the owner parted with his land it was usually—no doubt as a stage in the transaction—made over to the village as a whole. And if the boyar no longer has the monopoly of the sale of alcohol, if he has so far improved that Vallachia is not now losing its inhabitants as it was after the Regulations of 1831, when we read that "in vain the rivers are assiduously watched, as if in a state of siege; the emigrants cross at the places which are clear of troops. Emigration is especially rife in winter, when the frozen Danube presents an ever-open bridge," yet among the Roumanians of Serbia it has been handed down from father to son what happened in the reign of Prince Miloš. To take one case out of many such that are preserved in the National Archives at Belgrade, a dispatch was sent on February 11, 1831, by Vule Gligoriević, his representative in those parts, to Prince Miloš, who was at Kragujevac, enclosing a supplication from the priests and other inhabitants of the large Roumanian island called Veliko Ostrvo, in the middle of the Danube, praying that they might be allowed to cross to Serbia. "We are in great misery," they wrote, "and have boyars who are very bad, and we cannot bear the misery in which we find ourselves, and in the greatest grief we beg your Highness to let us come to Serbia with our wives and children." The Prince had a special sympathy for Roumania and was therefore most reluctant to intervene in her internal affairs. He adopted a very cautious attitude in this matter, but when Gligoriević sent him petition after petition he was finally so touched by the recital of their woes that he permitted them to cross the river; and one night, with the help of the Serbian authorities, the whole island crossed over, to wit 57 families, with 186 oxen, 70 horses, 694 sheep and 87 pigs. Miloš made them a free grant of land for the building of a village, together with a vast stretch of territory for pasture and stock-raising; at his own expense he built them a church and extended to them all the liberties and advantages enjoyed in Serbia by the Serbs themselves. As a token of their gratitude these Roumanian emigrants called their village Mihailovac, after the name of Michael, the Prince's son. This village is the birthplace of our friend Dr. Athanasius, whose sentiments appear to have placed him in a minority of one. When his pamphlet came into the hands of Jorge Kornić, the mayor of Mihailovac and a Roumanian by origin, he brought it to the prefect at Negotin saying that he wished to have nothing to do "with any devil's work."

As Dr. Athanasius and his chauvinist friends give a pretty lurid picture of the Roumanian villager who lives in Serbia, I visited a few places where the population is wholly Roumanian or Serbo-Roumanian. The 766 inhabitants of Ostralje are all of Roumanian descent, the mayor being one Velimir Mišković, a sergeant of reserves who has been transferred from the army in order to carry on his municipal duties. All the inhabitants speak Serbian and Vlach. "We were always Serbs," they said. "Nobody told us that we had migrated to this place." And amongst those who assembled to talk with us at the schoolmaster's house there was only one who, in the Roumanian fashion, had drawn his socks over his white trousers. The 2221 inhabitants of the village of Grljan are about two-thirds of Roumanian and one-third of Serbian origin. Formerly they each had their own part of the village, but now they are intermingled both in the village and in the cemetery. They intermarry freely; thus Jon Jonović, the most notable person, who used to represent this district in the Skupština at Belgrade, has three Serbian daughters-in-law. He was a member of the Opposition Liberal group of Ribarac. "And did you ever request that your fellow-countrymen should have their own Roumanian schools and churches?" we asked. This is one of the chief demands of Dr. Athanasius. "I was not the only Roumanian who was a deputy," said the old man of the furrowed face. "There was Novak Dobromirović of Zlot; there was Jorge Stanković, for instance; but we never thought of asking for such a thing, since we had no need for it." The son of the wealthy Sima Yovanović at Bor observed with a smile that the first business of Roumanian schools would have to be the teaching of Roumanian. "My father sent me to be educated at Vienna," he said, "and when I met some boys from Bucharest we found that our language was so different that we had to talk to one another in German. And now when a commercial traveller comes here from Roumania I have to talk German to him, as I would otherwise have to converse with my hands and feet." The French mining officials, by the way, at Bor testified that they had never heard of any tension between men of Serbian and those of Roumanian origin; the Roumanians, who prefer agricultural work, are more attracted to the mines in winter, when over 40 per cent. of the 1500 employes are Roumanians.

Dr. Athanasius and his friends are agitated, as one would imagine, when they discuss with you the numbers of their countrymen. In Le Temps of April 22, 1919, they declared that they could produce 500,000, for they realized that their previous claim of between 250,000 and 350,000 was not large enough to give the Roumanians in Serbia the benefit of the principle of nationality. But even this more modest figure will be found, on examination, to be exaggerated. In the four north-eastern counties of Serbia there were 159,510 Roumanians in 1895; 120,628 in 1900, and in 1910 a little over 90,000. This diminution, say the chauvinists, is due to a falsifying of statistics, for those, they say, who have attended a Serbian school are inscribed as Serbs. The truth is that everyone is entered according to his mother-tongue. And history knows countless instances of a gradual decrease in the case of people placed in foreign surroundings and exposed to foreign influences. Like the Illyrians who people Dalmatia, the Thracians of ancient Dacia and the Serbs who emigrated to Russia in the seventeenth century, the Roumanians of Serbia are undergoing this process and are inevitably becoming Serbicized. Frequently we noticed that men possessing no Serbian blood did not care to admit their Roumanian origin, which, however, is no secret to their neighbours in spite of the Serbian termination "ić" that, in the course of years, has been affixed to their names. An allusion to their origin is clearly regarded as lacking in delicacy. "Well, my ancestors were Roumanian," is often as much as they will admit. And when some enterprising agitators came over from Roumania to the department of Požarevac in 1919, the Roumanians of those parts gave up to the authorities all those who did not manage to escape. For ten years Lieut.-Colonel Gjorge Marković commanded the 9th Regiment, which is chiefly formed of Roumanians from that region. They used to tell him that they wanted to have nothing to do with the Roumanian boyars. "Here we are boyars ourselves," they said. All of them speak Serbian, many of them write it; and on winter evenings they have for years received instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic and singing, which compares favourably with Roumania's army, in which, as I was told at Bucharest, the plan of starting any education had to be postponed in consequence of the outbreak of the Great War. Together with the unwillingness of these people to acknowledge their origin, one observes a general vagueness as to the home of their forefathers. Apparently these came over from southern Hungary, whence the name Ungureani,[114] or from Tara Rumaneasca, i.e. the Roumanian land, whence the name Tarani. Others again are descended from Roumanized Serbs who came from Kossovo and other Serb regions of the south, lived in the Banat and Transylvania among the Roumanian villages, acquired the Roumanian language and then crossed over to Serbia. These three classes have all come to Serbia in recent times. Any attempt on the part of Dr. Athanasius and his friends to drag in the Romans can be answered by the undoubted fact that the ancient Roman colonists had completely disappeared from Serbia as far back as the fifteenth century, leaving no trace at all, and there is no connection between them and the present Roumanian population of Serbia. No memories remain of the old Roman colonists, save certain place-names which, as Professor Georgević remarks, strike one as surprising in the midst of a purely Serbian population. It is interesting to note that these ancient Roman place-names are very rare in the regions inhabited to-day by men of Roumanian origin.

It would not have been worth whole devoting so much space to the activities of Dr. Athanasius and his adherents but for the fact that European public opinion, which has concerned itself extremely little with the Roumanians of Serbia, might possibly imagine that their advocate deserves to be taken seriously.

2. THE BANAT

Anyone who looks at an ethnological map of the Banat will recognize how difficult it is to partition that province among two or three claimants. No matter by whom the map is painted, it must have the appearance of mosaic, with few solid masses of colour. This fact was quickly used by the Roumanians, who argued that as the Banat had never been divided, neither politically nor economically, it should still remain one whole—of course under the Roumanian flag. The Magyars haughtily pointed out that as the Banat had never been divided, but had for a thousand years lived under the crown of St. Stephen, it should still remain one whole—of course under the Hungarian flag. The Roumanians contended that the indivisibility of the Banat was designed by Nature, since the mountainous eastern part could not exist if separated from the fertile west. The Magyars asserted that it was altogether wrong to think of the radical remodelling and complete dismemberment of a territory which Nature had predestined to be one. The Yugoslavs agreed with both parties that it was not easy to draw a satisfactory frontier, but they asked that, as far as possible, the predominantly Roumanian parts should be joined to Roumania, the Slav populations to them and the Magyars to Hungary. As a matter of fact the Paris Conference did attempt to make an ethnical division, between these three States, of the Banat. Roumania tried to demonstrate the impossibility of this by turning off the water in the Bega Canal when the Serbs evacuated Temešvar and were taking their heavily-laden barges from that town. There will have to be a central, international organization to control the network of waterways. As soon as the Paris Conference had decided on this division it was told by the Magyars, the Roumanians and the Yugoslavs that all the numerous Germans of the Banat wished to belong to Hungary, to Roumania and to Yugoslavia. A great many of the Germans were indifferent, so long as they could peaceably carry on their prosperous agricultural operations. Not much political solidarity is apparent among the Germans of the Banat, and seeing that both Yugoslavia and Roumania, now the principal possessors of this land, have elsewhere within their boundaries large German populations, their respective Banat Germans will be able to ally themselves with these in the Parliaments of Belgrade and Bucharest. The Banat Germans who are discontented with the Paris decisions are firstly those, among the aristocratic and commercial classes, who were accustomed to enjoy under the Magyars a favoured position, and secondly those who, with more or less justification, say that Roumania has yet to show that she will treat her subject minorities in a truly liberal fashion. It is for this reason that the Germans of Veršac and Bela Crkva—in which towns they are about as numerous as the total of Yugoslavs, Roumanians and Magyars—would give a majority in favour of Yugoslavia if they were asked to vote as to Yugoslav or Roumanian citizenship. Adeverul, which is one of the least chauvinist of Bucharest newspapers, claimed for Roumania at least the railway line: Temešvar, Veršac, Bela Crkva, Bazias—an argument thought to be conclusive being that the two central towns are neither Roumanian nor Serbian but German. This railway line was, as a matter of fact, bestowed by the Peace Conference on Roumania, and it required some strenuous work before this decision was modified. The French were suspected in Yugoslavia of leaning unduly towards the Roumanians, through sympathy with the Latin strain in their blood; yet it was the French who were for giving to Yugoslavia not only Bazias but the villages on the Danube down to Old Moldava, seeing that in those districts the Slavs are certainly in a majority. The Roumanian case was not assisted by Professor Candrea's ethnographical map, for in the debated country around Bela Crkva that gentleman, who told me that he had omitted every place whose population was less than a hundred, has unfortunately forgotten to include Zlatica, a village of 1346 inhabitants, which was founded at the gate of a monastery six hundred and sixty years ago. The population is according to the Hungarian census of 1910, at which time all the 1346 were Serbs, with the exception of 220 Czechs and a few gipsies. Professor Candrea has forgotten Sokolavac, a nourishing place about two hundred and fifty years old with 1800 inhabitants and practically all of them Serbs, as the Transylvanian Minister of Education admitted. Palanka with 1400 inhabitants, most Serbs; Fabian with about 1000, mostly Czechs; Duplaja with 1204, all Serbs but for 10 Slovenes; Crvena Crkva with 1108 (1048 Serbs, 34 Slovaks, 17 Germans and 9 Magyars), are every one omitted. Lescovac, with 977 inhabitants, the Professor marks as Roumanian. When I was at this picturesquely situated place I was received in the mayor's office by half a dozen burly peasants in the Serbian national costume who asserted that, with the exception of the tailor (a Roumanian emigrant) and one or two other persons, the village was wholly Serb. But Lescovac was then within the Serbian sphere of occupation, and possibly if I were to go there now I would be told an appropriate story by other, or the same, peasants in Roumanian attire. One must try to find some surer indication of nationality, and Professor Candrea told me that twenty-five years ago he took down a pure Roumanian text at that place, where the Roumanian language is the most antique in the Banat. On the other hand, the village must have contained many Serbs, for when the late notary, a powerful Magyar with Roumanian sympathies, prevented the school being conducted, as it always had been, in the Serbian language, and installed a teacher—he stayed for eight years—who could only speak Magyar and Roumanian, the villagers at their own expense procured a Serbian school-mistress. She was expelled by the notary.... This illustrates the difficulties which the Peace Conference, in its desire to trace an ethnical frontier, was confronted with. And there was no map which did not make it obvious that Serbian villages would have to remain to the east and Roumanian villages to the west of any possible line. They did right, I think, to revise their decision as to the towns of Veršac and Bela Crkva, for there the Yugoslavs and their German friends have a large and unquestioned preponderance. Bazias, with about three miles of the railway, was given to Roumania so that she should have, for the exportation of her wood and iron-ore, the only harbour in that region of the Danube which is capable of development. However, with no railway over Roumanian soil from Bazias to the mines, this port is perfectly useless, and it is to be hoped that Roumania will give it up, for compensation elsewhere, to the Yugoslavs. The latter would otherwise be compelled to build three or four miles of railway, from Bela Crkva to Palanka, which, unless a great deal of money be spent on it, will always be one of the worst ports on the river. With a little more difficulty than to Bazias the Roumanians could construct a railway to Moldava, which also is a very good port; and in return for this accommodation, whereby the wines of Bela Crkva could be shipped from Bazias, their natural port, the Yugoslavs would be ready to make over to Roumania one or two villages whose population far exceeds that of little Bazias. We may also hope that facilities will be given by the two Governments for the emigration of those who wish to cross the new frontier line. Formerly the people of the Banat had no strenuous objections to being moved, lock, stock and barrel, from one district to another and without the inducement of coming under the rule of their own race. Thus the village of Zsam, to the north of Veršac, was, like many others, very sparsely inhabited when the Turks withdrew in 1716; some villages had only three or four occupied houses. So the Government in 1722 collected into one village the people of several others, and in this way Zsam, which had hitherto been Slav, became Roumanian, the Serbs being established in the neighbouring Središte. In 1809 the Roumanians were transplanted from Zsam to Petrovasela, between Veršac and Pančevo, where they entered the Pančevo Frontier Regiment; their place at Zsam was taken by Germans, who, being more industrious, were preferred by the landowners.

Some of the delineators of this frontier—French and British—have told me that they were guided throughout by the ethnical principle. But various unfortunate exceptions seem to have been made: for instance, at Koča it runs through a certain house in such a way that the lavatory alone is in Roumania; and in another village there lives a man who, since his stables are situated in Roumania, would have had his horses requisitioned if he had not been able to bring them into the other part of the house. Another village has its cemetery in Roumania, so that the Yugoslavs carry their dead friends over during the night. Perhaps the Entente officials, perceiving that their ambitious resolution to divide the country on ethnic principles was not feasible—there would always be alien islands to the right and to the left of any line—perhaps they in despair drew an arbitrary line upon a map and hoped the poor inhabitants would make the best of it. But this was rendered more difficult by the Yugoslav and Roumanian authorities, for the people who desire to cross the line are put to endless trouble. Apart from the expense, it usually involves a delay of three weeks before permission can be obtained, so that the frontier is rarely traversed save by smugglers and by those who, like the afore-mentioned man of Koča, have been driven into chronic lawlessness.

The first line agreed upon after the War, which temporarily bestowed the eastern county on Roumania, the western on Yugoslavia and the chief parts of the central (or Temešvar) county also on Yugoslavia—with French co-operation—did not find favour in Paris; whether or not this decision was influenced by the frequent journeys of the Queen of Roumania and her fascinating daughters to that town I do not know. At all events another boundary was made which included the large town of Temešvar and all the northern part of that county in Roumania. It is true that there are Roumanian villages in the neighbourhood of this German-Magyar-Jewish town, which is by far the largest place in the Banat. And the Roumanians, who have already annexed enormous Magyar and German populations in Transylvania, do not boggle at another 80,000 foreigners. One could, however, find very few Yugoslavs who want Temešvar to be restored to them; they know that they and the Roumanians, whatever (as regards themselves) may have been the case in other days, form, each of them, only about one-thirtieth of the total population. But they are sorry that the Allies asked them to share in occupying the town, because the local Serbs, who are interested in politics, were so enthusiastic, that on the arrival of the Roumanians they were forced to leave their businesses and go to live in Yugoslavia. Since neither Serbs nor Roumanians have any ethnical claim to the town one would suppose that, as the spoil had fallen to Roumania, the Entente would have endeavoured to give the Yugoslavs some compensation: what they did was to take away from them a good deal of that which they had—a considerable slice of their western county—which also was presented to the Roumanians. Again, the delineators excused themselves by invoking their ethnical motives, but as a matter of fact in that part of Torontal the people are predominantly German and they should have been allotted to Yugoslavia, not merely because the Temešvar Germans were given to Roumania but on account of their economic existence, which certainly in the case of the departments of Nagyszentmiklos, Perjamos and Csene (to retain the Magyar spelling) is bound up with Zsombolya, their market-town, and Kikinda. According to the census that was taken in 1919, the population of these three departments now allotted to Roumania consisted of 41,109 Germans, 13,638 Yugoslavs and 19,270 Roumanians. Further, to the south-east of Torontal, in the departments of Pardany, Modos and Banlak, there is not so intimate a connection with the market-town; here the population consists of 12,209 Germans, 11,102 Yugoslavs and 8808 Roumanians. But there seems to be little reason why the whole of Torontal, following the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants, should not be given to Yugoslavia; and this would also reduce to a minimum the inconveniences produced by any frontier. For many long years there has been a county frontier between Torontal and Temešvar, each of which was under an official who looked direct to Buda-Pest. The adoption of this ancient county frontier as that of the two countries would put an end to the present absurd and unjust, not to say dangerous, situation. It should, therefore, be brought about as soon as possible.

A similar rectification is needed in the country to the north and north-west. The three German villages of Komloš, Mariafeld and St. Mikloš have their fields near Velika Kikinda, in Yugoslavia, whereas they are themselves in Roumania. To bring home his maize from the land a farmer was obliged to pay, at the most favourable rate, up to 200 crowns a pound. Considering that this part of the country is an absolute plain with no river flowing through it, one would suppose that a rectification could easily be made. If these Germans had been consulted they would naturally have opted for Yugoslavia. The Peace Conference officials might, also have studied Velika Kikinda, a place with a very creditable past, which—as I was told by a Serb professional man of that town—will be completely ruined if she loses the custom of these German villages and has to depend upon the Serb peasants who make one embroidered suit and one pair of sandals last them for ten years.... It will be necessary for the Yugoslav authorities in the Banat not only to endeavour to raise their countrymen's standard of living but also in the southerly districts, where the standard is higher, to persuade them not to persist in limiting their families. The Serbs in the old kingdom have been one of the most prolific of European races—they would otherwise have been incapable of carrying on their twenty-six years of war during this last century—but in the south and south-east of the Banat, perhaps through mere love of comfort, perhaps through Magyar oppression, there has been a marked tendency not to increase. The Magyars and Germans have had normal families, the Roumanians have increased by assimilation (a woman marrying into a Serbian family will often cause them all to speak her easier language). The Serbs, however, will in their part of the Banat absorb the others if they show political understanding and a liberal spirit. "We will give the Germans," said Pribičević to one of them at Veršac—"we will give them everything up to a university."

The north-west corner of the Banat, which has a considerable Magyar population, has been ascribed to Hungary. Opposite the apex of this triangular tract of country lies Szeged, the second city of Hungary (118,328 inhabitants, of whom 113,380 are Magyars) and the chief centre of the grain trade of the rich southern plains. As was pointed out in The New Europe,[115] Szeged, which lies in flat country, would be even more defenceless than Belgrade if the lands on the other side of the river were under alien rule. If one draws a strategical frontier the nationality of the people is, of course, disregarded; it is, therefore, beside the point to mention that there seem to be far more Serbs in the angle opposite Szeged than there were Magyars in the lands opposite Belgrade. The Entente has simply made up its mind to be generous to Szeged, and let us hope that we have not left this region to Hungary on account of the activities of the extremely intelligent Baroness Gerliczy—a Roumanian lady married to a Magyar—who owns a large estate there and was much in Paris during the critical period.

The other imperfections in the Paris arrangements, whether with regard to villages or fields, are not incapable of amendment. One presumes that the Roumanians, who have no lack of other international problems, will be wise enough to discard certain dicta of their Liberal party and of Bratiano, its self-satisfied leader, to whom all subjects seem great if they have passed through his mind. One particular dictum which the Roumanians ought to cast aside is that which insists upon the indivisibility of the Banat. Another Roumanian statesman, Take Jonescu, was more sagacious when he, during the War, drew up a memorandum whose object was that Greece, Serbia, Roumania and the Czecho-Slovak Governments should work in harmony. This idea of presenting a single diplomatic front was to the liking of Mr. Balfour, who observed to M. Jonescu that it would be better for these States and better for Europe. As regards an understanding between Roumania and Serbia in the Banat: "I," said Pašić—"I speak for Serbia. Can you speak for Roumania?"

And Jonescu unfortunately had to shake his head.

In the fatuous policy of crying for the whole Banat—they even require the little island in the Danube between Semlin and Belgrade—Bratiano is assisted by the aged Marghiloman, who is the chief of a branch of the Conservative party. But the relations between these two do not seem destined to be cordial, since Bratiano is married to Marghiloman's divorced wife.

May the Roumanian people become reconciled to Yugoslavia's righteous possession of part of the Banat. It would be a pity if these two neighbours were to live together on such terms as, in the eastern county of the Banat, Caras-Severin, do the Bufani and the other Roumanians. The Bufani came from Roumania some hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, on account of the taxes which they found intolerable; and they have not been able to arrive at amicable relations with those countrymen of theirs who are the descendants of earlier emigrants. Very seldom do the Bufani and the others intermarry. These Bufani, so say the others, are like ivy. "They called out," complain the others, "they called out: 'Little brother, be good to us!' and then they strangled us." The Bufani, who are easily recognizable by their dialect, frequent the same church and have one priest with the others, but they have a separate cemetery.

(e) THE HUNGARIAN FRONTIER

North of the town of Subotica the frontier between Yugoslavia and Hungary is almost a natural one, as it runs over vast hills of shifting sand which are still partly in motion. Neither on foot nor on horseback, still less with loaded carts, is it possible to travel through these hills. But to the east and to the west of them the frontier is no better than that which separates Yugoslavia from Roumania, and when it came to the delimitation the Magyars thought it would be preferable if this work were done with their assistance. Otherwise, so they urged, there would be no check upon the wicked intolerance of their neighbours. It is true that they themselves had in the past been in favour of centralization, but against this one must remember that the "subject nationalities" were inferior beings. The Yugoslavs, the Roumanians and the Slovaks could not claim a glorious descent from Attila, of whom a fresco decorates the House of Parliament at Buda-Pest, and thus the Magyars had always thought it seemly that, by various devices, a limit should be put to the number of Yugoslav, Roumanian and Slovak deputies. Count Apponyi and his colleagues told the Peace Conference very frankly at the beginning of 1920 that it really ought to take their word for it, and not persist in looking on the Yugoslavs, etc., as if they were as good as any Magyar. Surely it was obvious that Yugoslavia, Greater Roumania and Czecho-Slovakia would be "artificial and improvised creations, devoid of the traditions of political solidarity and incapable of producing any." But if the Supreme Council was resolved to allow certain Magyar territories to join themselves, if they desired, to these ephemeral States it would be necessary to ascertain by means of a plebiscite what were the real wishes of the people in these territories; and Count Apponyi was kind enough to tell the Council very definitely how this plebiscite should be conducted. The principal Allies were to arrange, in accordance with the Magyar Government, as to the districts in which a plebiscite was to be held, and the secret voting was to be controlled by neutral commissions and delegates of the interested Governments. This may sound rather rash on the part of the Magyars, since a plebiscite, no matter how it was arranged and controlled, would presumably detach a good many jewels from the crown of St. Stephen, and it was not astonishing that Count Apponyi and his friends proposed that the Magyars should be safeguarded by further Commissions which, if requisite, would override the results of the voting. These results would indeed, as between the Magyars and the Yugoslavs, have given our Allies a larger dominion than they have actually obtained. The triangle south of Szeged, to which we have alluded, would certainly, if there had been a plebiscite, have gone to Yugoslavia. In Baranja the Yugoslavs have claimed that the census of 1910, which indicated 36,000 Serbo-Croats, should have given them 70,000; but this does not take account of the large number of Šokci—Slavs whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism and who came to consider themselves as one with the Catholic Magyars. This widespread phenomenon of race being superseded by religion may be noticed, for example, at Janjevo in the district of Old Serbia; it is inhabited by the descendants of Dubrovnik colonists who, being Catholic, have come to look upon themselves as Albanians. In Hungary the dominant Magyar minority was wont to clasp the subject races to its bosom, not with bonds of love but of religion. Thus in 1914 at Marmoros-Sziget they charged 100 persons with high treason, because it was their wish to leave the Uniate Church, in communion with Rome, and return to the Orthodox faith. The same charge would have been preferred against certain Ruthenians who were just as unwilling to be members of the Uniate Church; but in the case of these humble, backward people the conversion had been effected by their priests, who would thereby procure for themselves a better situation, and the Ruthenians, who had not been told of this occurrence, were under the impression that they were still Orthodox. Professor Cvijić believes that, with the help of the Catholic religion, no less than 113,000 Serbo-Croats have in Baranja been lost by their Yugoslav brethren.... When the Yugoslavs were asked by the Supreme Council to evacuate most of Baranja they did so. A republic, under the presidency of one Dobrović, a well-known cubist painter, a native of those parts, was formed by Yugoslavs and the Magyars whose freedom had been safeguarded under their rule. But as this republic was not assisted by the Yugoslav Government it only lasted for a week.