Imperial and Royal Army: Higher Command.Chief of the General Staff.Op. No. 109,942.Baden,August5, 1918.
[After discussing various manifestations of disloyalty, the writer says that he has observed how there is a kind of link between the Slav officers, educated at the Academy,and their men. He finds that Spalato is particularly given to these Southern Slav ideas, which he believes is to be accounted for from the fact that Dr. Trumbić, "the celebrated agitator," is mayor and deputy of that town.]
So much for the complaints with regard to Austria-Hungary's Southern Slav soldiers. Two military courts of justice sat at Zagreb through the War, the Imperial and Royal Court, and that of the Royal Hungarian No. 6 (Croatian-Slavonian) Honved Division. No statistics are to hand with reference to the various courts in Syrmia, and that one which earned such an evil reputation in the fortress of Peterwardein. The judgments of the two Zagreb courts, where Croat officers were able to make their influence felt, did not appear to the authorities of Vienna and Buda-Pest to be sufficiently drastic. No death sentences were pronounced, although these had been demanded; and on June 24, 1918, it was decided that any further trials for high treason or for offences against the military authorities should be held in Pressburg (Bratislava) and not in Zagreb. The following statistics, relating to the two Zagreb courts, were compiled from the official books which the Austrians did not remove. The figures shown opposite, which are certified by Captain Stožir, Provost-Marshal, show the increasing determination to risk everything rather than to fight for Austria.
IMPERIAL AND ROYAL COURT.Year.Total Number of Persons tried.Charged with Military Offences: Desertion, Self-inflicted Wounds, Insubordination and Disregard of Calling-up Orders.Offences against the State: High Treason, Espionage, Insults against the Emperor, Offences against Public Order.Number of Persons charged with Offences under Rubric 4.Number of those convicted under Rubric 4.Number of those who committed Offences under Rubric 4 and were acquitted.1914442233525331119152,7301,68866783619164,7902,73733637577191711,2757,78239741423191825,09519,83855956814ROYAL HUNGARIAN AND HONVED DIVISION.19146321542577304611619153,0007791,4711,8754817919163,4809261,2231,261228919176,1013,2487278391789191813,4258,0391,0071,018——
It may be of interest to give some details of one of the regiments whose composition was chiefly Slav. My informant, Dr. Ivo Yelavić, served as telephone officer on the staff of the 37th Dalmatian Regiment. At different times—at the fall of Gorica, in December 1916 at Sanmarco, and in June 1917 at Tolmein, three battalions went over to the enemy; 170 officers (of whom 169 were reserve officers) gave themselves up during the War. Some of them were Serbs, most were Croats. With respect to the fall of Gorica, this was not—despite the clamour that they made about it—due to the Italians, but to two officers, Tolja and Salvi, who took over with them all the plans of the underground forts and maps made to the scale of one step to a millimetre. Among the accomplishments which the officers of this regiment taught their men was how to surrender to the foe. Efforts were made tobring about a different state of things: German and Magyar regiments were placed behind it, with machine guns; the regiment itself was filled up with Magyars. On some occasions the 37th desisted from going over in order not to bring persecution upon their homes. In 1914, opposite the Montenegrins at Goražda, all the plans were worked out, but at the last moment Dr. Count Gozze (of Dubrovnik) said he had just thought of what would happen to their families, and they refrained. After the battalion had gone over in 1916 General Seidler told them he would do his best to have the regiment dissolved and the men divided among other regiments, but that not all the officers would go. This was an ominous hint that he intended to decimate them, after the fashion of Field-Marshal Liposcak. A fortnight later, in the presence of Field-Marshal Boroević, General Wurm and General Seidler, they were highly praised; and when they, in company with a Magyar regiment, took Hill No. 166, it was announced that this had been achieved by the "fame-covered regiment," which was done to throw dust in the eyes of the Italians and the Entente. Various other methods were used to escape service at the front. A Slav doctor, whose hospital at Konjica could hold 400 patients, used to have 4000-5000 on the books; those whom he was unable to keep he gave convalescent leave. In this way he saved a great many of the Dalmatianintelligentsia. He and another Dalmatian doctor would send the men backwards and forwards, now to one hospital, now to another. One ordinary method for avoiding the front was to bribe the company commander and the N.C.O. who made out the lists. Yet sometimes there was no help for it. When, for instance, in September 1914 they were at Banjaluka, the enemy advanced to Palé, very near Sarajevo. My informant has a vivid recollection of the way in which a Viennese captain, the leader of the contingent, trembled. In a Bosnian valley they met a woman with five small children, one of whom was at her breast. The captain told my acquaintance (who was then a N.C.O.) to stay behind with some men and shoot her, but not to let him hear anything. He said that the General at Sarajevo had commanded that everything Serb that goes on two legs must be cut down. Yelavić refused to carry out thisorder, whereupon the captain told Dr. Gozze, whom he greatly disliked, that he must do it. Gozze stayed behind, fired a few shots in the air and informed the captain that everything was over.
What the Austrian command really thought of the 37th Regiment, and of others, may be seen from a report dated December 2, 1916, and signed by the Archduke Frederick:
"... Certain events that have occurred can be explained only as the consequences of the weak attitude of the authorities towards the traitorous propaganda. On July 21, five soldiers of the 23rd Regiment deserted near Pogger, and gave the Italian Command important information regarding movements of troops and the course of the fighting near Gorica. Quite recently a lieutenant, two reserve officers, two N.C.O.'s and two soldiers deserted from the 37th Regiment, as did three soldiers from the 23rd Regiment. Since April, 244 desertions have taken place from the two regiments. Inquiry shows that these desertions occur regularly and immediately after the return of the soldiers from leave. Unless effective counter-measures are adopted it will be impossible to utilize these Dalmatian regiments."
It was not always an easy operation to surrender, even after one had reached the Italian lines. A friend of mine went over with another officer and eight men. In the first-line trenches they could see no one and felt uncertain what to do. However, they proceeded, and from the second-line trench their whispered calls were answered. They were made to pass in single file, holding up their hands, and with all the available weapons held in readiness against them. My friend, at his request, was conducted to the colonel, and the first thing that he did was to make a formal complaint against the way in which this army, of which he considered himself an ally, manned its front-line trenches.
The Yugoslavs who managed to escape to Russia volunteered for service and, after being organized by General Zivković at Odessa, formed the two Divisions which, as is well known, did remarkable work in the Dobrudja. One only has to hear what the Bulgars say about them. In the battles round Constanza, during thecampaign of 1916, one of these Divisions was so frequently engaged in the most arduous positions and had such enormous losses that it was regarded as having been wiped out. When the Roumanian troops retreated these Yugoslavs found themselves encircled by the Bulgarian and German armies; they hacked a way out with their bayonets. The higher officers had come from Serbia, the rest of them had previously been enrolled in Austria's army. Thirty-two officers out of 500 were killed, while 300 were wounded; and of the 42,000 men 1939 were killed and more than 8000 were wounded. Nevertheless themoraleremained excellent and there was no lack of new volunteers. "Verily," as the Serbian proverb says, "it does not snow to kill the beasts, but in order that they may leave their traces."
THE FAITHFUL ITALIANS
Now let us see what Austria's Italian subjects achieved in the War, basing ourselves less upon the post-war declarations of some Istrian, Trentino and Dalmatian Italians than upon the official Austrian reports that were sent about these gentlemen to the Government during the War. For example:
Imperial and Royal Army: Supreme Command.Pr. z. 3903.Dalmatia: Treatment of the Croatianand Italian Factors.To the Imperial and Royal Minister ofthe Interior, Vienna.Knin,June25, 1915.
I permit myself to notify:
[Herein the Statthalter, Graf Attems, praises his Government for not having favoured one party more than another at Zadar. He proceeds to testify to the admirable conduct of Dr. Ziliotto, the well-known mayor (who subsequently toiled with such zeal for Italy). He says that under this gentleman Zadar was a very model of a place, never allowing an occasion to pass by when it was possible to show that, in grief and in gladness, the sentimentsof the glorious House of Habsburg were its own. Thus on the "all-highest" birthday of the Emperor did the doctor and his townsfolk revel in loyalty, while at the outbreak of the Great War they accompanied the departing troops to the quay and provided patriotic music and refreshments.This worthy conduct was not in the least modified, says the Statthalter,when Italy entered the War.]
Further on in this book there are similar good-conduct testimonials from Split, where the chief Italian used to wander down with an Austrian official to the harbour and there witness the embarkation, in chains, of the Yugoslavintelligentsiawho were being taken as hostages. Hundreds and hundreds of Yugoslavs were shot, hanged, imprisoned; we know the numbers (not difficult to count) of the Italians in Dalmatia who suffered in any way. We know the equally minute numbers who escaped to Italy and enrolled themselves in the Italian army. As for the population of the Italian irredentist provinces, one may read in theSecoloof August 11, 1916 how it became generally known that "with the exception of Cervignano and Monfalcone, our soldiers have been received, on the other side of the old frontier, with demonstrations quite the reverse of enthusiastic on the part of the agrarian population. The surprise and disillusion of our troops were very great, for they expected from our unredeemed brothers, who all speak our language, a joyous reception." This frigidity may, however, have been due to the influence of Austrian priests and gendarmes. What are we to say, though, when we come to the more enlightened classes? The Italians in Austria were represented by twelve deputies who were devoted to the Austrian Government and hostile to Italy, and by six national-liberals and one socialist who were animated with pro-Italian sentiments. In electing such deputies, however, the peasants may not have simply allowed the priests and the gendarmes to command them; it is also possible that they were moved by the fear that the Trentino would economically be ruined if it were to become Italian and had to compete with the agricultural products of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact it was the Trentinointelligentsiawhich looked forward to annexation, and not, as a class, the peasants. And, during the War, Italian deputies of various partiesoverflowed with loyal Austrian sentiments; unlike the Yugoslav deputies, who refused in a body to vote the budget and the war credits, the Italian deputies never even ventured on a national pronouncement. Pittoni, chief of the Italian socialists at Triest, Faidutti (who was born in Italy) and Bugatto, the chiefs of the Italian Catholic party of Gradišca, uttered not a few words of hate against the Madre Patria. The Italians praise always, and with excellent reason, their three heroes: Battisti, Rismondo and Sauro. But the Yugoslavs, in the course of the late War, lost in the unredeemed provinces so many hundreds of thousands who were hanged in Bosnia, who were dragged away—centenarians and infants—to the prison camps, were spat upon and stoned and treated in the most barbaric fashion, that they look upon those Yugoslavs who, like Battisti, fled from Austria and afterwards were slain by Austrians, as rather to be envied, since at any rate they struck a blow. But anyhow the names of all these volunteers could not be celebrated, on account of their great number. "There is nothing in fact," wired Mr. Beaumont on December 31, 1919, from Milan for the blameless readers of theDaily Telegraph, "there is nothing that creates such terrible exasperation in Italy as the persistent repetition of this patent falsehood that the Yugoslavs—meaning thereby the Croats—fought for the common cause."
Poor Battisti—when his regiment was captured he feigned to be dead. His men, however, told the Austrians that it was he, and this they did because they said that he and his Irredentist party were to blame for the War. These facts are now fairly well known, thanks to the Czech doctor who was on the spot and tried to save him by assuring the Austrians that it was not Battisti. The soldiers insisted, and in the end the Austrians executed him.
SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE AUSTRIAN NAVY
The several transactions or attempted transactions which took place at various periods of the War between the Yugoslav members of the Austro-Hungarian navy, associated with other Yugoslavs, on the one hand and theItalian authorities on the other, were frustrated time and again by the astounding conduct of the Italians. Had they made anything like a proper use of the invaluable information that was showered upon them or if they had requested the other Allied navies in the Mediterranean to act on their behalf many Allied ships in the Mediterranean would not have been torpedoed—since the submarine activity centred at Kotor, one of the stations which could have been seized—the Austrian front in Albania must have collapsed and the entire war would have ended sooner.
In October 1917 the Austrian torpedo boat No. 11 was seized by the Slav members of her crew and brought into Ancona, but their offers of service were refused. The ringleaders showed, by refusing to accept large sums of money, that their purpose was purely patriotic. The Italians, however, simply interned them.
A much more serious affair was that of February 1, 1918, on which day it had been arranged that the Slav sailors at Pola and Kotor should mutiny. At the former place it did not succeed, at Kotor it was so far successful that the mutineers, after imprisoning Admiral Njegovan and many other officers whom they suspected of not being in sympathy with them, took command of the ships and left unanswered an ultimatum addressed to them by the High Naval Command. There was a prospect of the whole fleet shaking off the Austro-Hungarian authority. The chief revolutionary leader was Ante Sesan, a Croat ensign, twenty-six years of age, from near Dubrovnik and the son of a well-known sea captain on the coast. "We drew up," he says, "a proclamation representing our case to the Yugoslavs, Czechs and Poles from the national point of view, and to the Germans and Magyars from the socialist point of view. The Germans threw in their lot with us, but the Magyars went against us. From our ship we continually sent wireless messages asking for help from the Entente fleet, and at first from Italy which was nearest and could help most quickly. The messages were continually jammed by sailors at the Ercegnovo station loyal to Austria-Hungary, but nevertheless it was known in Italy that something was happening at Kotor. We told the High Command at Bok Kotor(Bocche di Cattaro) that we no longer recognized their authority and asked that we might get into touch with our deputies, whom alone we recognized. The High Command consented. We wired for the following deputies to come to us: Trešić (Yugoslav), Stanjek (Czech), Karolyi (Magyar), Adler (German) and one Polish deputy, but our wires did not, for the most part, get through. Our object was to get help, but meanwhile our situation became more and more desperate. We knew that the Third Division was coming from Pola against us, and also the army in Herzegovina. We were prepared to take the battery of the Punta d'Ostro, the most important battery and the key to Bok Kotor, which was in the hands of sailors inimical to us. The news came from Gaa that the Magyars there had got the upper hand. We tried to bring them over to us, but in vain. They said, 'If you don't stop this, we shall join the Third Division and take action against you.' The Magyars from other boats sent the same message. The Council of Sailors then debated what was to be done, and it was suggested that Rasha (who was shot later) should go in a hydroplane to Italy to give information on the situation and ask for help, and that we in the meantime should lie low, and in the event of help coming, again raise a revolt. Rasha objected that he did not know Italian, and proposed that I should go. The Third Division meanwhile was already in the port Bok Kotor.
"At half-past eight in the morning we flew away in the hydroplane to Italy, I and two Poles. At ten we reached Mattinato, and I explained at the Carabineers' station why I had come and asked to be brought as soon as possible before the Commander of the District. Later I saw Captain Odo (of the Territorials) and told him all, and asked him to put me into communication with Brindisi, Taranto or Rome. He had us put under arrest. I was interviewed by two flying officers two days later, but they went off to Brindisi in my hydroplane without me.
"On February 17 I was taken under armed escort to Brindisi, where I was imprisoned in a cabin of the man-of-warVarese.... I told the commander of the ship that I was at his disposal with all my knowledge of the Austrian fleet. I asked him to put questions, becauseI did not know how much he knew. It was all to no purpose. On February 21 the Admiral in command at Brindisi saw me. From what he said I understood that nothing had been done about Bok Kotor and, what was more, that not one hydroplane had been sent to investigate the situation there. I learned that I was to go to Rome. They clapped me into barracks.... I again asked the Italians to allow me to speak to the Serbian Minister, whom I considered the representative of the Yugoslav people, but the request was refused on the plea that it was a question of high politics. Meanwhile the Polish representative Zamorski was allowed to visit the Poles, but from February 3 to May 25 I was unable to get into communication with any of our people."
In May there was another outbreak at Kotor, but it was overpowered, and many Yugoslav sailors were shot or imprisoned. Sesan was also kept in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out, questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor launches he undertook to organize communication between Italy and the Slavs of Dalmatia, in this way to follow events in Austria and help the revolutionary movement. It would be possible to procure the secret wireless codes which the Austrian and German submarines used—but the Italians would do nothing, because they were not willing to recognize that the Yugoslavs were fighting against Austria.... Seeing that he would never move the Italians to take serious action against the Austrian fleet, Sesan asked to be sent to the Serbian army in Macedonia, so that at Salonica he could get into touch with the French and British fleet. In this also he failed, for he was interned from June till December with Yugoslav officers at Nocera Umbra. While there he was visited by Bissolati, from whom he learned that the Chief of the Admiralty was hostile to the Yugoslavs. And at Nocera Umbra he remained until December 6, when hewas liberated, owing to the efforts of Trumbić and other members of the Yugoslav Committee.
In the month of September a memorandum was drawn up by Trumbić, in which he proposed to English and American political and military circles the landing at Šibenik of a force of 50,000 men. This would have been assisted by the mutinous crews of the Austro-Hungarian Fleet, whose preparations had been completed in July (at this port 90 per cent. of the sailors of the fleet were Yugoslavs, and among them there was a strong national feeling; in fact, if their political leaders had not held them back, they would have endeavoured in July to blow up the naval fortifications and sail with the ships to Corfu). The expeditionary army, once at Šibenik, could have penetrated inland and, acting in consort with the many Yugoslav deserters and the insurgent population of Dalmatia and Bosnia, have accelerated the Austriandébâcle. In this memorandum Trumbić asked that the combined Anglo-American-French fleet should support the action, but that the Italians, whom the Yugoslavs distrusted, should take no part. He sneered at the cowardice of the Italians who, with a huge army, did not dare to start an offensive on a grand scale.
[In well-informed circles in Italy this memorandum was already known, but when it was read in the Italian Chamber in the spring of 1919 it made a considerable sensation.]
On October 3, Messrs. Frederick Štepanek, Rudolph Giunio, Valentine Zić (of Šibenik) and other authorized Czecho-Slovak and Yugoslav emissaries went in a sailing-boat from Vis to Italy, with a view to getting into connection with Dr. Beneš (afterwards the Czecho-Slovak Foreign Minister) and Dr. Trumbić, to inform them as to the situation in the Monarchy and to obtain instructions regarding the moment of the revolution in which their soldiers and sailors were to participate. On arrival in Rome on October 7, the delegates were interrogated by Major Trojani of the Bureau of Information and on the same day for three hours by the Inspector-General of Public Safety. From then till October 20, they were interned in the Macoa barracks at the Castro Pretoris, and although they made repeated attempts to see amember of the Yugoslav Committee or Dr. Beneš, who was in Rome, they were told that this "delicate" question could only be solved by the Premier himself; and when brought before him Dr. Beneš had departed. The delegates had entreated that he and Trumbić should be informed of their arrival, but in spite of various assurances nothing whatever was done. It is suggested that the fleet would have been in Slav hands two or three weeks earlier, which would very probably have precipitated events on the Western front, if the Italians had not acted in this inexcusable fashion.
ADVANCE OF THE ALLIES IN MACEDONIA
The collapse of Austria-Hungary was being hastened by the fine work of the Allies' Macedonian army. France and Great Britain had provided for the re-equipment of the Serbs. And of the variegated forces that were based on Salonica none did more magnificently than this resurrected army. A weather-beaten sergeant of the French Infanterie Coloniale told me that he had never seen an exploit such as that of Kaimatčalan, where the Serbs set themselves the task of climbing to the summit, which towers 8000 feet high, and from there dislodging the Bulgarian artillery. Over and over again the Serbs were thrown back, and with terrific losses, for the mountain-side was strewn with rocks not large enough to shelter more than a man or two. But as the Infanterie Coloniale is habitually chosen for the roughest work, so the Serbs asked for nothing better than to climb the wall that shut them out from their own country. The labyrinth of trenches on the mountain-top was taken and retaken many times, until the Bulgars—inadequately supported by their Allies—had to retreat; and this, after further ferocious fighting, enabled the Serbs and the French to liberate Monastir. The complicated story of Greek manœuvres need not detain us, nor need we ask whether Mr. Leland Buxton[103]is justified in saying that the majority of that people were pro-German, "but were subsequently compelled by the Allied blockade ... to declare themselves supporters of Venizelos, on whosebehalf, indeed, the British Admiralty and War Office had to carry on a sort of election campaign (by Eastern European methods) until the numerous waverers wisely decided that it was better to be a well-fed Venizelist than a hungry Royalist." Sufficient that after months of delaying, in the course of which the Russian troops had to be turned into labour battalions, Marshal Mišić—whose plan of campaign had fortunately been adopted—had the satisfaction of seeing his own countrymen and their Allies racing up at last through Macedonia and Serbia to the Danube and beyond it.... What did they find? Bridges hastily blown up, tunnels rendered impassable by two locomotives laden with dynamite being made to collide in the middle of them—but the Serbs went rushing on. The supply columns could not keep pace with the troops—during the first eight days of the offensive the men of the 2nd Army received but two days' rations—they continued their advance across the Vardar, though but little bread and practically no other food was obtainable. In three days they had covered sixty miles. There was only time for them to greet the women and old men—and even if they had then been told of the 130,000 horses, the 6,000,000 sheep and goats, the 2,000,000 pigs, 1,300,000 cattle and over 8,000,000 poultry which the enemy had taken; if they had learned that the losses sustained by Serbia—exclusive of her own expenses and of the war loans from her Allies—amounted to some 10,000,000,000 frs. on a pre-war valuation, what did all this matter in that joyous time?
HOW THE MAGYARS TREATED THEIR SERBIAN SUBJECTS
At the beginning of the War the dominant Magyars of the Banat had as little uncertainty about the result as Count Julius Andrássy professed to have at a later period. "Victory must come to our troops," he said, "because they are better organized and more efficient, and because they are, above all, filled with unexampled enthusiasm, which makes heroes of them all." The enthusiasm which, for instance, caused the mob at Velika Kikinda to shout "Eljen a haboru!" ["Long live the War!"] while they fired revolvers in at the windows ofan unilluminated house because it was the house of a Serb, a son-in-law of the well-known banker, Marko Bogdan, without stopping to ascertain that he was at the front fighting against Serbia, might be dismissed as a folly on the part of the crowd if it were not so characteristic of the whole Magyar administration. The "subject nationalities" were to be enrolled in the Magyar host and treated, at the same time, with contumely. At Veršac Dr. Slavko Miletić,[104]son of the famous patriot, was suspected not only of cherishing Serbian sympathies, which was natural, but of committing a felony. The authorities believed that in his medical capacity he was exempting people from their military service, and not for the advantage of the Serbian cause so much as for that of his own pocket. Several detectives were therefore put to bed in one or two of the wards of the military hospital; and the upshot of it was that three other doctors—all of them Magyars—who had given way to these practices, committed suicide; the chief of the hospital poisoned himself, one of the staff shot himself, and the third culprit hanged himself in prison. Dr. Miletić had previously been kept for three and a half months under the shadow of a conviction for high treason: one Bonchocat, a Roumanian who did not understand the Serbian language, asserted that the doctor, at a meeting held two weeks before the Archduke's assassination, must have known that war was brewing, since—so said Bonchocat—he had not confined himself to Serbian ecclesiastical affairs, which was the object of the meeting, but had uttered the remark that if the Austrians had bayonets the Serbs had axes. Although Bonchocat was a man condemned to nine years' penal servitude for murder, and although the doctor only called on his own behalf two witnesses who were not Serbs, but the head of the frontier police and the head of the town police, he was nevertheless kept in suspense for three and a half months. Afterwards, owing to the lack of Magyar doctors, he was begged to be the State doctor for the town. Similarly the Orthodox priest, Radulović, of Pančevo, was transported to Aradand interned there for no other reason than his nationality, whereas his son, a first lieutenant of the Hungarian Honved, was expected to be very loyal. When certain rumours came to the son's ears—he was then serving on the Russian front—he inquired, and was told that his father had merely been warned. Presently he learned the truth, and in consequence deserted to the Russians and became a member of the Yugoslav brigade. Thus it will be seen that the Magyar unwisdom was on a par with that which they had shown in days of peace. Unfortunately for their State the Magyar politicians were less honest than the Magyar peasants, so that the de-nationalizing process met with pretty firm resistance. What can be said for the honesty of a legal decision which laid it down that as two Serbian philanthropists, Barajevac and Sandulović, at Pančevo had not specially mentioned that the funds they had bequeathed for a school were to be for a Serbian school—(this the benefactors had assumed as a matter of course)—they must be used for a Magyar establishment? Save for the officials there were practically no Magyars in Pančevo. And when the War began the remainder of the fund was invested by the Magyars in their War Loan! It is curious, by the way, to see what methods were employed to make the Loan successful. Fathers were frequently told that if their subscription was adequate their sons at the front would duly be granted leave. The Slovak village of Kovačica in the Banat was compelled to put three million crowns into War Loan, the Magyar notary making a list of the amounts which every person had to pay under penalty of being sent to the front; if he was too old for this he was threatened with internment. Kovačica, a few years before the War, had shown the Magyar fitness for governing an alien people. The population consisted of 5200 Lutheran Slovaks and 200 miscellaneous persons—Jews, Magyars and Germans. Nevertheless it was ordered that the church services must be in the Magyar and not in the Slovak language. When the parishioners objected, the police, with sticks and guns, expelled them from the large, lofty church, and 83 of them were sentenced to various periods of imprisonment. Serbian barristers defended them gratuitously, but the judge had himself taken an active part in turningthe people out of the church; and presently the barristers were told that they had themselves been convicted—Dr. Dušan Bošcović for one year, on the ground that he had had the napkins at a banquet decorated with the Serbian colours; Dr. Branislav Stanojević for three years, because his visits to Belgrade, where his parents and his brother were living, stamped him, said the Magyar judge, as a traitor. The total number of Magyars at Kovačica was ten, and for a time they came to hear their language, which had thus been compulsorily introduced. Handbills were sent round to summon the Magyars from neighbouring villages, but gradually this congregation grew smaller and smaller. When two Magyars attended, then the pastor gave them a sermon; if only one was present he confined himself to prayers. The Magyars had seen to it, by the way, that there should not be much sympathy between the pastor and his bishop: of this diocese about three-quarters were Slovaks and one-quarter Germans and Magyars; but the Government vetoed the choice of Dr. Czalva, who was disqualified for being friendly to the Slovaks—his father and grandfather had both been bishops of that same diocese—and a certain Dr. Raffay was appointed, who spoke nothing but Magyar and some words of German.... However, by taking in this way a few examples of Magyar methods, one may be accused of having chosen merely those which illustrate one's theme. It would be hazardous to draw conclusions as to Magyar officers in general because a certain Lieutenant Chaby, who, during the War, found himself quartered on a Serbian family of the name of Stejvović at Priboj in the Sandjak, behaved differently from his predecessor, an Austrian colonel. This Austrian had been well satisfied, but the lieutenant's first night was so disturbed that he fined his hosts sixty crowns for giving him a bug-ridden bed. Nevertheless, if large numbers of Austrian colonels and Magyar lieutenants had acted in a similar fashion we should be justified in deducing that several characteristics, be they good or bad, are possessed by the average Magyar subaltern. And the catalogue of Magyar limitations in the Banat, both prior to and during the War, is so voluminous that one would have thought them to be not worth discussing; if one restricts oneself to afew it is in order to avoid being tedious, and if they are ineffective among the resolute pro-Magyars of this country, then one must resign oneself to leaving these gentlemen unconvinced. They will argue that stupidity is universal, and that the Magyar authorities should not be called in question for their treatment of the priest of Crvna Crkva, a village with 1108 inhabitants—1048 Serbs, 34 Slovaks, 17 Germans and 9 Magyars. This intelligent man—he is a noted player of a complicated card game—was indicted for high treason, because on hearing that the Emperor William was alleged to have undertaken to slaughter every Serb, the priest remarked that the Emperor should have added, "if God wills it." But near the village of Zlatica there was, at the beginning of the War, one Adam Rada, who was charged with making signals to the Serbs across the Danube by means of lights, and this although the situation of Rada's mill made such a thing impossible. Before being executed he was led ceremoniously through the village, his coffin being carried in the procession. This coffin was so small that Rada's feet had to be cut off. The grave was guarded by a soldier, who kept the family away from it; Rada's servant was in the hands of the police—after having been thrashed in order to compel him to give hostile evidence, he was convicted to six years' imprisonment. But the lack of evidence does not appear to have weighed very strongly with the Magyar judges. "It is quite true," said one of them in 1915 in the town of Bela Crkva, during the trial of a young priest, Voyn Voynović, "that there are witnesses who say he did not utter certain words in 1913, and no witnesses who say that he did; but I am convinced that he uttered them." The ferocity of the punishments may be seen from the example of Alexa Petković of Pančevo, the father of nine, who was condemned to hard labour for nine years because his twelve-year-old son, during the War, is alleged to have said to him: "Father, don't accept German money; it won't have any value." At the same place, in 1914, the Serbian peasants were brought in from the village of Bortša; there was no proof that they were traitors, but they had been denounced and they were sentenced to be shot. With a military escort they were promenaded through the town, each one of them having tohold a Hungarian flag. At the scene of execution the Hungarian élite, together with their wives and daughters, were assembled. And after the bodies had been thrown on to a cart they were flogged, for some unknown reason, by one Blajek, a detective, while the audience cried "Eljen!" ["Hurrah!"]. But the War brought to an end the bad old days of a tyrannous minority. It will be shown, in a year or two, when a proper census is taken, that the Magyars were always much more in a minority than they ever admitted. Instead of nine millions out of the eighteen millions—which was the pre-war population of Hungary—it will be found that the Magyars themselves numbered barely six millions, though in their efforts to obtain recruits they charged only one crown and afterwards nothing at all for a naturalization paper. The day has gone by when a father could be interned for being a Serb, while his son, an assistant notary, was reckoned a Magyar—only Magyars being eligible for that office. The day has gone when the Buda-Pest Government could order its officials while taking a census to swell the Magyars' numbers as much as possible: the officials at Subotica confessed on oath, after the War, that they had received orders to this effect. One of their practices was to put down as "uncertain" those Serbian children who were too young to speak. Even those who were most willing to be absorbed into magyardom were often indigested: one finds in the statistics cases of converted Jews who, being asked to state their religion and nationality, replied to the former question "Catholic" and to the latter "Jew."
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS PAY PART OF THEIR DEBT TO THE HABSBURG MONARCHY
If the practices of Buda-Pest had been less flagrant one would write of Hungary's decomposition with a certain sympathy. It is conceivable that in the British Empire there are anti-British elements whose aims would commonly be classed by the authorities as "mad ambitions," which is what Count Apponyi called the separatist tendencies of the Southern Slavs in Austria-Hungary. But—may the platitude be pardoned!—there is all the difference betweenthe spirit in which the alien rule of the one government was, and of the other is, administered. No doubt there are portions of the British Empire in which a plebiscite would have the same disintegrating result as it would have had in most of the regions that have been lopped from Hungary. We, with our Allies, declined to permit a plebiscite in Hungary's late territories, since we believed that the population had overwhelmingly displayed its wishes at the end of the War; and an Englishman may hope to escape the charge of hypocrisy if he does not permit the withholding of a plebiscite from certain of his fellow-subjects to prevent him from alluding with satisfaction to those who have been liberated from the sway of Buda-Pest.
(a) IN SYRMIA
Everywhere the dawn was breaking for the Habsburg's Southern Slavs. At Vukovar in Syrmia—to take an example—there was formed, as elsewhere, a National Council. Under Baron Joseph Rajacsich, a grandson of the Patriarch and—to all appearances—a brother of Falstaff, the Council maintained order until the coming of the Serbian army. An Austrian naval captain with a floating arsenal, four steamers and twenty-two drifters, was held up, as he proposed to sail towards Buda-Pest, by being told of a battery at Dalja, higher up the Danube. However, the Vukovar townsfolk, in view of a possible explosion, begged that the prisoner, who had wept at being stopped, should be sent on his way. The German harbour-master, a lieutenant, assured the Baron that he would assist him if he were allowed to keep his liberty. But he was tempted, in the middle of a night, to assist two German captains who were trying to get through, each with a string of drifters. Rajacsich, whose armed force consisted of forty Serbian ex-prisoners and fifty of his own workmen—he armed them with what he found on the drifters—had no means of stopping the German boats. But after telephoning in vain to the ex-harbour-master, he fired a shot into one of the boats, which fortunately found the kitchen, and made such a terrible noise among the pots and pans that the Germans considered it more prudent to remain. TheBaron succeeded in sending back to Belgrade altogether 39 steamers and 217 loaded drifters, which contained booty, even from the Ukraine, that was valued at about a milliard crowns; ... but the Austro-Hungarians managed to get away with a considerable amount of plunder. The people of Buda-Pest were surprised, on the morning of November 5, to find theSophie, one of the most luxurious passenger steamers on the Danube, lying at their quay, with her decks groaning under such a pile of packing-cases and parcels and furniture and all kinds of objects heaped upon each other as almost to make the boat unrecognizable. A lieutenant with a dozen soldiers was sent to investigate, and the captain showed him an order from the Minister of War, commanding that theSophieshould take on board the Military Government in Serbia and transport it to Vienna. But the Buda-Pest authorities insisted on removing all the articles whose ownership the passengers were unable to prove; and it took a whole day to unload the enormous quantities of flour, leather, clothing, poultry, sugar, fats, etc. General Rhemen, the former military governor of Serbia, related that on October 5 he received the order to begin the military evacuation of Serbia. This was carried on day by day, and on October 28 it was completed. "We sent by the railway and by boats," said Colonel Kerchnaive to the Hungarian journalists, "4000 carloads of wheat, 10,000 fat oxen, 10,000 transport oxen, 10,000 pigs, 4000 sheep, 15 carloads of wine, 400 carloads of jam, enormous quantities of wood, of telephone material, of arms, munitions and 16 million crowns in silver." Such was the "military evacuation" of Serbia.... And at the beginning of the same month, when the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy was in a state of collapse, Baron Hussarek stood up in the Reichsrath and said that "the task will arise for the Government carefully to prepare and inaugurate the difficult but hopeful work of reconstructing the monarchy on the basis of national autonomy." The imperturbable Prime Minister announced that "we shall have to go to work and set our house in order." But you will say that the Baron was a futile Mrs. Partington, an isolated antagonist of the inevitable, and only mentioned here for the sake of dramatic effect.Not at all! So far from being laughed at everywhere as an absurd reactionary he was held in the highest Buda-Pest circles to be a perilous innovator. He actually spoke about conciliating the Austro-Hungarian Slavs: not so Count Tisza. "What is happening in Austria," exclaimed the grim Calvinist a few months before, "are strange, grotesque displays of the ridiculous symptoms of the presumptuous mentality of people of no importance."
(b) IN SLOVENIA
One further example of Southern Slav activity may be given, as it will show us what was happening among the pious and industrious Slovenes. It would have been unnatural if the Clerical party had longed for Austria's downfall, and a large number of priests would still have been Austrophil[105]if Dr. Jeglić, the eminent Prince-Bishop of Ljubljana, had not summoned all the political parties and caused them to adopt a patriotic Yugoslav attitude. (His retirement was in consequence demanded; but the Pope, who asked him for an explanation of the whole movement, was quite satisfied. Nor would Vienna have been able to take any serious steps against the Bishop, seeing that most of the Slovenes were behind him.) But the small Slovene people could, until November 1, 1918, offer nothing more than a passive resistance to their masters. They did not dare to speak Slovene in public. "What is the easiest language in the world?" was being asked in Maribor on the 1st of November. It was the language which so many people had apparently learned in a single night. The people were Slovenes, the officialswere Austrian—though one or two of the officials were Slovenes and a minority of the people claimed to be Austrians, this being more marked in the town of Maribor (where the German-Austrians were as many as 35 per cent.) than in the surrounding district (where 95 per cent. are Yugoslav). Dr. Jeglić had prepared the forces that were going to break their bonds on that fateful day. At 7 a.m. Dr. Srečko Lajnšić—one of the rare Slovene officials—he had been denounced by two of his colleagues and imprisoned at the beginning of the War, for having, as they said, "laughed maliciously" at Great Britain resolving to fight—Dr. Lajnšić and his friend General Maister took over the administration in the name of the Yugoslav State. General Maister had been till then a Major, employed—as he was a political suspect—on dépôt work. And when the eight or nine Austrian colonels appeared on November 1 before Lajnšić, the genial official, and Maister, they were informed by the latter that he was a General—he looks like a swarthy Viking—and they were asked to surrender their swords. As they did not know how many men the General had behind him—as a matter of fact he had nine—they acted on his suggestion; one of them wept as he did so. At 11 a.m. Lajnšić deposed all the chief civil officials in that part of Styria, and the General persuaded the 47th Regiment to leave by train. They were influenced by a notice in the papers which said that 100,000 Frenchmen (invented by the General and Lajnšić) had just arrived at Ljubljana. After this the two companions carried on at Maribor; very little was known of them for a month at Ljubljana, Zagreb or Belgrade. But then they were confirmed in the posts they had assumed and Maister became a regular General. They were not intolerant; they expelled less than ten people, although so many of the German-Austrians had come, under the auspices of the Südmark Verein (a colonization society) or the Deutsche Schulverein (an educational body), to propagate Germanism. One of these colonists, a doctor, who had lived a dozen years in Maribor, could only say "Good morning" in Slovene; and German women in the market-place (themselves unable to speak proper German) used to insist on the Slovene peasants speaking a language of which theyknew scarcely a word. Lajnšić and Maister took no steps against the Bishop of Maribor who, three months after the Austrian collapse, celebrated a Mass in honour of the ex-Emperor. This Bishop, the son of Slovene peasants, had been educated near Vienna, had been a confessor of the House of Habsburg, and he found it difficult to regard himself as a Slovene. Gradually the voice of his own people spoke in him and then, after very long and honourable mental conflict, he developed into an excellent Yugoslav. He and Maister are, both of them, poets. Most of the General's pieces—which are all in Slovene—treat of love and nature. But he wrote at least one set of other verses, which the Austrians suppressed during the War. This is the nearest translation I can make of them: