Henry Baerlein

“ Careless of the applause and the antagonism which he excited, the serene orator pointed out that the conflict between Serbs and Croats was based on their different psychology. Croatia had had her independent life and must be considered as a factor in Yugoslavia; but having come in, like Montenegro, of her own accord, she had not wished to be a separate factor. Traditions should not be so lightly set aside; and while there was perhaps no people more homogeneous than the Yugoslavs it should be remembered that none was more ready to resist the application of force. ”

“ Our sailors, who are simple and often uncultured men, have no remembrance of these things; the brutal facts, in this whirling age in which we live, have more power to strike their imagination. What is one to say to them when they see their comrades stabbed, slaughtered by your men as if they were noxious animals—yesterday at Venice, the day before that at Pola, to-day at Rieka. Englishmen and Americans, your Allies, receive your 'sincere and fraternal hand' which holds a dagger. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most serious phase of the Adriatic crisis is now ushered in, for a new Alsace has been created; and those who point this out cannot be charged with an excessive leaning towards the Yugoslavs. It also seems to me that one can scarcely say they are alarmists. If Yugoslavia, in defiance of that most immoral pressure, had declared for war, Vesnić at the general election would have swept the country with the cry of "War for Istria!" To his eternal honour he chose the harder path of loyalty to the new ideas which Serbian blood has shed so freely to make victorious. ”

“ But he prefers to be a Minister, and most unfortunately he is not a statesman. A zealous patriot, he is as yet unable to conceive that the business of the State could be more successfully managed without him. The sweets of office appear, if anything, to have made him more bitter; and even among the Serbs of the old kingdom his withdrawal is considered advisable. A friend of his has told me that in the middle of a laughing conversation he threw out a hint of this, and like a cloud blown suddenly across a summer sky, Pribičević's face grew black. ”

“ It was a melancholy spectacle to see a man of Giglioli's reputation saying that Dubrovnik, the refuge of Slav culture in the age of darkness and the place in which Slav literature so gloriously arose, was, forsooth, throughout its history always Italian in culture and in literature. "Among thinking people in Italy," proclaims the Professor, "there are indeed but few who will abandon to the Balkan processes a region and a people which have always been possessed by Italian culture and which constitute the necessary wall of Italy and Western Europe against the inroads of the half-barbaric East." ”

“ I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right; stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." In view of the wilful trespass committed by Italians on the property and rights of the Yugoslavs and the oft-repeated guarantees of protection given to the Slavs by the American Government against such invasion, it is passing strange that d'Annunzio should have appealed to Abraham Lincoln of all people. ”

“ He observes that the land is one land with Serbian soil—its frontiers are merely the artificial imposition of kings and policies. The nations, he points out, are not two but one—one in blood, in temperament, in habits, in tradition, in language; round the fireside they tell their children the same stories, sing them the same songs: the greatest poem in Serbian literature, as all the world knows, was written by a Prince-Bishop of Montenegro. Since the day when the Serbian State came into existence it has been, he says, the constant, burning desire of the Montenegrins to be joined to it. ”

“ It is most foolish to pretend that all these people are thinking regretfully of the old Habsburg days—they are, in the vast majority, sincere and loyal Yugoslavs who have certain grievances. They do not believe that Croatia has fared very well since the institution of the new State and it would seem wise to give them as much autonomy as is consonant with the interests of the whole country, for then they will only have themselves to blame if there is no improvement. ”

“ Traditions which are deprecatingly called Balkan, but which were at that time suited to a Balkan country, should not be allowed to spread across a country which is so much more than Balkan. Merit does not everywhere in this imperfect world advance you automatically, but an effort is required in Yugoslavia to resist the calls of friendship in appointing men to offices. The army of officials is too numerous; yet many of them are so badly paid that even if a great reformer could reduce by half their numbers he would be inclined to lay no hand upon the total sum they now enjoy. ”

“ For at least a generation Zagreb will remain particularist, zealously preserving the differences—personal, social and religious—which distinguish her people from the dominant Serbs. The Croat officers who burned with shame at the Archduke's murder on Bosnian soil, the Croat regiments that in 1915 marched into Belgrade with bands playing and their colours flying, the Croat officials whose bread and salt came from the Habsburgs in administering Yugoslav countries during the War—all these will not forget a long, deep-rooted and honourable tradition. ”

“ The Slavs have not always treated their raw neighbours with indulgence; in the Balkan War, when their army marched through Albania to the sea some very discreditable incidents occurred, whatever may have been the provocation they received from the sniping natives and however great be the excuse of their own state of nerves. Yet the first stone should be flung by that army of Western Europe which, in its passage through the territory of a treacherous and savage people, has done nothing which it would not willingly forget. ”

“ As our boat—we had returned to the old Porer at Komiža—sailed into the harbour a huge Yugoslav flag was flying from the summit of a hill, with French, British and American flags around it. The destroyer had arrived before us and the burly journalist was striding up and down the quay. "I protest," he exclaimed, as he saw us, "and not as a journalist but as an Italian citizen! I protest!" Between us and the front row of houses, which included the town-major's office, there was a large empty space—the inhabitants could be descried up the side-streets and behind the windows. ”

“ Apparently the Yugoslavs contravened the Italian regulations by omitting to ask whether their band might play in the harbour, but, on the supposition that this would not be accorded to them, went down to the harbour just as if they were not living under regulations. They waved American, Serbian and Croatian flags, all of which the Italians attempted to seize; the most gorgeous one, a Yugoslav flag of silk with gilt fringes, they tore up and divided among themselves as a trophy. ”

“ The Serbs who maintained themselves in those mountains developed certain characteristics which differentiate them from their brothers. The Serb of the old kingdom walks, the Serb of the mountain struts. The magnificent Serbian warrior of the kingdom is so disciplined that although a Field-Marshal will sit down openly in a café and drink wine with some old comrade who is in the ranks, yet when the soldier is on duty his obedience is perfect. But if the Montenegrin private thinks that his officer has rebuked him unjustly, he will not hesitate to kill him. ”

“ They are not a people, but tribes ... they are against every principle of public officials, they live the most primitive lives. I who know Albania from end to end, who have sacrificed myself for that country, am absolutely convinced that there could be no greater misfortune than if, in its present state, it were given autonomy or independence. Otherwise I confess that an Albania free from any foreign Power would be to the interest of Italy." And he concludes by saying that the Albanians have done nothing to deserve an independent State. ”

“ On the other hand there survives in the Italian population the hatred against the Croatian supremacy, a hatred which is comprehensible but which in time must give place to other sentiments, rendering possible a fair coexistence of the two populations, whose aim should be common—the prosperity and development of Dalmatia, in the prosperity and for the prosperity, in the greatness and for the greatness of Italy. ”

“ And I feel sure that this point of view will be adopted by the Government of the Kingdom of Italy, which was founded on these very principles. They were cherished in the hearts and executed in the deeds of great Italians in the nineteenth century. We can say frankly that in choosing to have us as their friends and good neighbours the Italian nation will find more benefit and a greater security than in the enforcement of the Treaty of London, which we never signed nor recognized, and which was made at a time when nobody foresaw the crumbling of Austria-Hungary. ”

“ But when you have said that you have nearly summed up their military virtues, for discipline is not their strong suit, and they have little sense of responsibility. On the other hand, we must remember their admirable patience, but the great mass of the people have not attained the level of Christianity; they are savage both in heart and mind, with no outlook wider than that of the family. It is the Italian proletariat which is judged by the Yugoslavs, whose otherwise acute discernment has been warped by the unhappy circumstances of the time. ”

“ But when the Yugoslavs ask for a revision of the Treaty—if the Italians do not wisely offer it themselves—it would be rash if in attempting to foretell the future we should base ourselves upon the premise that their patience will be everlasting. A new Alsace has been created, an Alsace to which, in the opinion of competent observers, all the Yugoslavs will turn until the day comes when it is honourable to set the standards forth on a campaign of liberation. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I hope the indignant Italian population dispatched, later on, a telegram of thanks to the Paris Conference for having ordered Yugoslavia to guarantee the position of the handful of Italians to be left in Yugoslav territory, and even their special commercial interests in Dalmatia; while the half million Slovenes and Croats whom Italy proposed to annex were not to be protected by an equivalent guarantee. It would be ridiculous to bind with such conditions a Great, Liberal Power. ”

“ NEW FOES FOR OLD
With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian army, the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes saw that one other obstacle to their long-hoped-for union had vanished. The dream of centuries was now a little nearer towards fulfilment. But many obstacles remained. There would presumably be opposition on the part of the Italian and Roumanian Governments, for it was too much to hope that these would waive the treaties they had wrung from the Entente, and would consent to have their boundaries regulated by the wishes of the people living in disputed lands. ”

“ Now this confession may be true or false, but the Triest "fascisti" (Nationalists) believed in it, for they issued a placard on which they called Borghese a traitor and threatened him with death. "He who after November 1918 returns to the martyred town," writes Signor Zanella, "is simply stupefied in beholding that those personages who now strut on the political scene, burning with the most ardent Italian patriotism, are the same who until the eve of Vittorio Veneto were the most unbending, the most eloquent and the most devoted partisans and servants of the reactionary Magyar régime." ”

“ Tomić believes that a real intelligentsia would demand of the people what it can execute, and he regrets to think that at least two-thirds of the intelligentsia want the people to call themselves Yugoslavs. But Mr. Tomić has a far greater majority than two-thirds against him, because while his arguments would be admirable if the Serbs and Croats and Slovenes had no neighbours, they must be—and the vast majority of Yugoslavs feel that they must be—superseded on account of this imperfect world. ”

“ The Podgorica Skupština was not elected by these troops. No one will pretend that in the excitement of those days the voting was conducted in a calm and methodical fashion. Here and there a dead man was elected; the proceedings—though they were not faked, as in Nikita's time—were rough-and-ready. But if the deputies had been selected in a more haphazard fashion, say according to the first letter of their surnames, the result would have been identical—they would, with a crushing majority, have deposed their King and voted for the merging of their country in the rest of Yugoslavia. ”