PRETTY DOINGS AT KRK
Proceeding up the Adriatic we come to the Quarnero Islands, of which the most considerable is Krk (Veglia). The whole district had, at the last census, 19,562 inhabitants whose ordinary language was Serbo-Croat, and 1544 who commonly spoke Italian. Of these latter the capital, likewise called Krk, contained 1494, and only 644 who gave themselves out as Slavs. The town, with its tortuous, rather wistful streets, was the residence of the Venetian officials, and five or six of those old families remain. The rest of the 1494 are nearly all Italianized Slavs, who under Austria used to call themselves either Austrians of Italian tongue or else Istrians. However, if they wish to be Italians now, there is none to say them nay. They include five out of the twenty officials, and these five gentlemen seem to have boldly said before the War that it would please them if this island were to be included in the Kingdom of Italy. They did not give their Austrian rulers many sleepless nights; this confidence in them was justified, for during the War they placed themselves in the front rank of those who flung defiant words at Italy, and one of them enlarged his weapon, copying upon his typewriter some Songs of Hate, which probably were sent to him from Rieka or Triest. These typewritten sheets were then circulated in the island. One of them—"Con le teste degli Italiani"—had been specially composed for children and expressed the intention of playing bowls with Italian heads. The songs for adults were less blood-thirsty but not less cruel. The Yugoslavs of the island must have been engaged in other War work; no songs were provided for them.... When Austria collapsed, some youths came from Rieka, flourishing their flags and sticks, and crying, "Down with Austria!" "Long live Italy!" "Long live Yugoslavia!" "Long live King Peter!" There was, in fact general goodwill. A CroatNational Council was formed, and was recognized by the Italian party; it introduced a censorship, but as the postmaster's allegiance was given to the minority he sent a telegram to Triest, asking for bread and protection; and on November 15 theStoccoarrived. Other people soon departed; the Bishop's chancellor and his chaplain, two magistrates and a Custom-house official, were shipped off to Italy or Sardinia, while the owner of the typewriter flew off as a delegate to Paris, having persuaded the town council of the capital to vote a sum of 36,000 crowns for his expenses—but a crown was now worth less than half a franc. However, two members of the town council thought that it was a waste of money; but when they were threatened with internment in Sardinia they withdrew their active opposition, and the delegate set out. On the way he granted an interview to an Italian journalist, and depicted the spontaneous enthusiasm with which the islanders had called for Italy. But the journalist had heard of the National Council and he asked, very naturally, whether it shared these sentiments. "Ha parlato da Italiano!" ("I have spoken as an Italian"), replied the delegate; and when the newspaper reached the island, this cryptic saying was interpreted in various ways, his critics pointing out that, as he had diverged from truthfulness, this was another little Song of Hate. The Bishop, Dr. Mahnić,[12]did not go to Italy for several months. He was a learned Slovene, an ex-Professor of Gorica University, known also as a stern critic of any poetry which was not dogmatically religious. He gave vent to his dislike of the poetry of Gregorčić and Aškerc, both of them priests. The former, being of a mild disposition, bowed before the storm; but Aškerc wrote a cutting satire on his critic. The Austrians, disapproving of his religious and patriotic activities, thought they would smother him by this appointment to a rather out-of-the-way diocese. But his influence spread far beyond it, and in the islands he was so solicitous for the people's material welfare that, for example, he founded savings-banks, which werea great success. It was unavoidable, as he was a man of character, that he should come into conflict with the Italians, for their commanding officer, a naval captain of Hungarian origin, was not a suave administrator. He charged a priest with making Yugoslav propaganda because he catechized the little children in their own language; another priest on the island of Unie, which forms a part of the diocese, was accused of making propaganda, because he has had in his church two statues—which had been there for years—of SS. Cyril and Methodus. They were removed from the church, he put them back; finally he was himself expelled and Unie remained without a priest. The naval captain was irritated by the old Slavonic liturgy, which is used in all except four churches of the diocese, but if he could not alter this—Dr. Mahnić referring him to the Pope—he and the Admiral at Pola, Admiral Cagni, could manage with some trouble to rid themselves of the bishop. This gentleman, who was in his seventieth year and an invalid, said that he would perhaps go to Rome after Easter. On March 24 the captain told him that the admiral had settled he should sail in three days, but the bishop was ill. On the 26th the captain returned with a lieutenant of carabinieri to ask if the bishop was still ailing; the admiral, it seemed, had ordered that two other doctors—the officer of health for the district and an Italian army doctor—should verify the report of the bishop's own medical attendant. The three of them quarrelled for two hours, but finally they all signed a memorandum that the bishop was ill. On the 31st the captain came to say that a destroyer would arrive and that it would take the bishop wherever he wanted to go, for the Italians had made up their minds that go he must. He had objected far too vigorously to their methods—not approving, for example, of the written permit which was given in the autumn to the people of two villages in Krk, on which it stated that these people could supply themselves with timber at Grdnje. This was a State forest, rented by a certain man; but the Italians acknowledged that what they wanted was adherents, and these grateful villagers, if there should be a plebiscite, would vote for them. The man appealed to justice, but the judge received a verbalorder not to act. The villagers were given a general amnesty on January 1, an Italian flag was hoisted at the judge's office—the judge had gone away. Another transaction which the bishop had resented was after a visit paid by the captain and another officer of the French warshipAnnamiteto the Yugoslav Reading-Rooms at Lošinj mali (Lussinpiccolo); a priest and two other gentlemen had escorted their guests to the harbour at 11 p.m.; during the night all three were arrested and the priest deported. When theAnnamiteput in at the lofty island of Cres (Cherso) and a couple of officers went to the Franciscan monastery, it resulted in the monastery being closed and the monks removed. Their simple act of courtesy was, said the Italians, propaganda. From Lošinj mali and Cres five ladies were collected, four of them being teachers and one the wife of the pilot, Sindičić. They were guilty of having greeted the French, and on account of this were taken to the prison at Pola. Afterwards in Venice they were kept for six weeks in the company of prostitutes and from there they passed to Sardinia, on which island they were retained for nine months. As for Dr. Mahnić, he set sail on April 4 at 6 a.m. Being asked whither he would like to go, he said he wished to be put down at Zengg on the mainland. "Excellent," said the Italians; but after a few minutes they said they had received a radio from Pola that the bishop must be taken to Ancona. He was afterwards allowed to live in a monastery near Rome.
UNHAPPY POLA
The Italians had not been two days in Pola—in which arsenal town the population, unlike that of the country, mostly uses the Italian language—when they made themselves disliked by both parties. The President of the Italian National Council was told by the Admiral that an Austrian crown was to be worth forty Italian centesimi. This, said the Admiral, was an order from Rome. The President explained that this meant ruin for the people of the town. He asked if he might telegraph to Rome. "I am Rome!" said the Admiral, or words to that effect. Thereupon the President and the colleagues who were with him said they would never come again to see theAdmiral "If I want you," said the Admiral, "I will have you brought by a couple of carabinieri." On the next day red flags were flying on the arsenal and on the day after the Italian troops were taken elsewhere, while 10,000 fresh ones came from Italy. And Pola, in exchange for troops, gave coal. For some time the Italians carried off two trainloads of it every day. This absence of coal from their own native country, which rather places them at the mercy of the coal-producing lands, seems to be more their misfortune than anybody's fault, yet the Italian party of Rieka added this to their grievances against France and Great Britain. Those two countries ought, they said, in very decency, to correct the oversights of Providence; but no very practical suggestions were put forward.
WHAT ISTRIA ENDURED
According to the Austrian census of 1910 Istria contained 386,740 inhabitants, of whom 218,854 (or 58·5 per cent.) habitually used the Serbo-Croat language, while 145,552 (or 38·9 per cent.) used Italian. The Yugoslavs cannot help regarding the Istrian statistics with suspicion, and believing that here, more than in Dalmatia, they were made to suffer on account of Austria's alliance with Italy and with the Vatican: one of the wrongs which Strossmayer fought against was that Istria had been entrusted to an Italian Dalmatian bishop who could not speak a word of Slav. This prelate appointed to vacant livings a number of Italian priests whom the people could not understand; a Slav coming to confess had to be supplied with an interpreter. As to the statistics in the commune of Krmed (Carmedo), for example, of the district of Pola, the census of 1900 gave 257 Croats against three Italians, whereas in 1910 it was stated that 296 inhabitants spoke habitually Italian and six spoke Croatian. Nevertheless, if one accepts the Austrian figures, the 58·5 per cent. should not be treated as if they did not exist. Perhaps the Italian officials could find no interpreters to translate their proclamations and decrees; if the Yugoslavs could not read them that was a defect in their education. If they were unable to write to the authorities or to sendprivate telegrams in Italian, let them hold their peace. At any rate, said Vice-Admiral Cagni, we will not encourage the Croatian language, and on November 16, 1918, he commanded the Yugoslav schools to be shut at eleven places in the district and also two schools in the town. The Austrians had allowed these schools to remain open during the War; but of course if you wish to prevent people from learning a language this is one of the first steps you would take. Thirteen Yugoslav schoolmasters at Pola were thus deprived of their means of livelihood. The Admiral said that he really did not want to let matters remain in this condition, but all these schools had been at the expense of the State; let the Yugoslavs support their own schools. They were, as a matter of fact, entitled by reason of their numbers to have State-supported schools. Yet that was, of course, in the time of Austria; and why should Italy be bound by Austrian laws? Italy would do what she saw fit. In various places the teachers were, in the presence of Italian officers, compelled to use Italian for the instruction of purely Yugoslav children. Slav schoolmistresses were, in several cases, taken out of bed in the middle of the night and conducted on board Italian ships. The clergy were ordered to preach in Italian in churches, such as that of Veprinac, where the congregation is almost entirely Slav[13]—and so on, and so on. Well, there are several ways of governing a mixed population, and this is one of them.... "Zadar and Rieka," said Pribičević in November to an Italian interviewer at Zagreb—"Zadar and Rieka will enjoy all liberty of culture and municipal autonomy. And we are convinced that an equal treatment will be accorded to the Slav minorities who will be included in your territory. We understand and perfectly recognize your right to Triest and to Pola, and we would that in Italy our right to Rieka and Dalmatia were recognized with the same justice."[14]
THE FAMOUS TOWN OF RIEKA
Rieka is a place concerning which a good deal has been written, but I doubt if there have been two words more striking than the phrase which the Consiglio Nazionale Italiano applies in a pamphlet to the last Hungarian Governor. This official, appreciating that his presence in the town would serve no useful end, dissolved the State police on October 28, 1918, and departed. "Hôte insalué, il disparut...." says the pamphlet. After all the years of kindness, all the million favours showered on the Autonomists by their beloved friends the Magyars, after all the dark electioneering tricks and gutter legislation which for years had been committed by the Magyars to the end that the Autonomists and they should have all the amenities of some one else's house, it surely is the acme of ingratitude to call this tottering benefactor "Hôte insalué." If the Autonomists did not desire to reap advantages from any Magyar corruption, they might at any time since November 17, 1868, have torn the swindling piece of paper, the "krpitsa," from the Agreement made between the Magyars and the Croats. Then the Croat would not have been kept for all these years a slave in his own home.... But on October 28, 1918, the "krpitsa" had no more weight, the iniquitous Agreement was obsolete, the Croats came into possession of their own. The Compromise of 1868, which gave the administration of Rieka provisionally to the Magyars, was formally denounced on October 29, so that thestatus quo antereturned, and Rieka was again an integral part of the Kingdom of Croatia. The Croatian Government (that is, the National Council) had then every right to depute its adherents at Rieka to undertake the affairs of that town. Dr. Vio was too much of a lawyer to dispute the legality of any of these statements....
THE DRAMA BEGINS
Some of the leading citizens of Rieka formed themselves into a Croat National Council; Dr. Bakarčić and Dr. Lenac went up to the Governor's palace, and with them went Dr. Vio, as delegate of the town council. Hesaid they recognized the Croatian Government, on condition that the town's municipal autonomy was guaranteed. To this they readily consented, with respect to the Italian language, to their schools and to the existing town administration, thus agreeing to every suggestion which Dr. Vio made. Moreover they gave him the town register (of births, etc.), which the Magyars had appropriated and which was now discovered at the palace. This was at 9 a.m. on October 30. Dr. Vio said that he was glad that everything had been arranged so amicably. But on the same evening the Italian National Council elected itself, for a large number of the Autonomist party had now become the Italian party. There still remained, however, an Autonomist party, which was no longer inspired, like the old Autonomists, by despotic sentiments towards the Croats, but by a feeling that in consequence of this long despotism the Croats were, as yet, not fit to govern such a place as Rieka. This is a matter of opinion. These Autonomists considered that, at any rate for several years, the town should not belong to Yugoslavia or to Italy, but be a free town under Allied, British or American, control. After five or six years there could be a plebiscite, and during that period the population would be encouraged to devote itself more to business and less to politics. This would tend to make them a united people, with the interests of the town at heart. But the Italian party, said the Autonomist leader, Mr. Gothardi, did not appear to think these interests important; when it was argued that Rieka would not flourish under Italy, because of the competition with Italy's other ports and especially Triest, because of the vast Italian debt, and for other reasons, the Italian party answered that even if the grass grew in Rieka's streets it must belong to Italy. "Very well," said the Slavs, "then we will develop the harbour at Bakar" a few miles away. "Infamous idea!" exclaimed the Italianists; "Rieka is the harbour for the hinterland." There the Autonomists agree with them, that the town should finally belong to the State which has the hinterland. Mr. Gothardi's party gathered strength and he himself became so obnoxious to the Italianists that when I saw him in the month of May 1919 he had been for several weeks a prisoner in his flat, on accountof some thirty individuals with sticks who were lurking round the corner. His figures were as follows:
One may mention that he, like some others of his party, belongs to a family which has been at Rieka for two hundred years, whereas of the fifteen gentlemen who called themselves the Italian National Council, only one—a cousin of Mr. Gothardi's—is a member of an old Rieka family. Most of the others we are bound to call renegades.
It may be asked why the Italian National Council was established, and why its members swore that they would give their lives if they could thus give Rieka to the "Madre Patria." Some of them believed, I am sure, that this was for Rieka's good, cultural and economical; others entertained the motives that we saw at Zadar—personal ambition and the desire to satisfy some animosities. And there were others who remembered what occurred in the great harbour warehouses. They hoped, they thought that if the town fell to the lot of Italy no questions would be asked.[15]There must also have been some who could not bear to contemplate the loss of their old privileged position.
THE I.N.C.
For a considerable time it was not known who were the members of the Italian National Council. From internal evidence one saw that they were not particularly logical people, for they made much play, in their announcements, with "democratic principles" in spite of the undemocratic fog in which they wrapped themselves. Of course they had not been elected by anyone except themselves; but there was a vast difference between them and the self-elected Croat National Council, since the latter derived their authority from the Croatian Government at Zagreb, which Dr. Vio, in the name of the Rieka municipality, had recognized—whereas the Italian National Council was destitute of any parent, though they would, had they been pressed, have claimed, no doubt, the blissfully unconscious "Madre Patria." Subsequently it turned out that the I.N.C. consisted of Dr. Vio and of fourteen persons who had hitherto not taken part in public life. They were fourteen worthies of the background, the most remarkable act in the life of their President, Dr. Grossich, for example, dating from twenty years ago when he was the medical attendant of the Archduchess Clothilde, and decorated, sotheysay, his consulting-room with black and yellow festoons. The I.N.C. appeared at its inception to be different from a Russian Soviet because it had no power.
THE CROATS' BLUNDER
A number of deplorable transactions ensued, and they were not all committed by the Italianists. The proclamations which were sent from Zagreb, exhorting the people to be tranquil, were printed in the two languages, but some Croat super-patriots at Rieka tried to make the town mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed the old Italian inscriptions and putup Croatian ones, they wrote to the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made this demand were very properly snubbed by the municipal authorities.
MELODRAMA
These excited patriots, delirious with joy that at last their own town was in their hands, did not set Rieka on fire, nor did they murder women and children; but the Italianists forthwith sent wireless messages to Venice, screaming that all these enormities were taking place. A few of them rushed off in motors to Triest, where they made themselves into a Committee of Public Safety, picked up some Triest sympathizers and flew on to Venice, where they related breathless stories of foul deeds. One, which appeared in the Italian Press, was that three children of Rieka had been publicly committed to the flames.
FARCE
On November 4 an Italian destroyer, theStocco, shortly followed by theEmanuele Filiberto, a cruiser, came on their errand of humanity. The I.N.C. at once organized a plebiscite—by which is meant not a dull giving and counting of votes in the usual election booths. A plebiscite, at all events a plebiscite at Rieka, signifies for the Italianists a mob assembled in a public thoroughfare; photographs of such assemblies illustrate their pamphlets and are entitled "plebiscito." At the harbour the Italian Admiral, whose name was Raineri, told the joyous I.N.C.—who now had flung aside their anonymity—that he had come to bring them a salute from Italy, and that he had been sent to shield Italians and to protect Italian interests. The plebiscite threw up its hats and waved its flags, and shouted its applause and sang its songs. Flowers fell upon the Admiral, and on his men and on the guns; the ships, as we are told, were changed tofloating gardens. But the sailors did not disembark. Some ladies, members of the plebiscite, besought the Admiral to come ashore, and hoping to persuade the men, they climbed on board and playfully seized many sailors' caps, which in the town, they said, could be redeemed. Then shortly afterwards, the Yugoslav officials came to greet the Admiral, as did the commandant of the Yugoslav troops which had been for several days guarding the town. Meanwhile some unknown persons had been up in the old clock-tower and, for reasons known perhaps to themselves, had taken in both the Croatian and Italian flags; the Admiral drove up to see the Governor, Dr. Lenac, and requested that his country's flag should be rehoisted, which of course was done. And until November 17 the Admiral was nearly every day up at the Governor's palace, as a multitude of details had to be discussed. A French warship arrived on the 10th, followed by a British vessel on the 12th or 13th. Perfect calm prevailed. Croatian and Italian flags flew everywhere, as well as French ones, British and American. The name of the Hotel Deak was altered to Hotel Wilson.... But the men of theEmanuele Filibertoand theStoccodid not land. Colonel Teslić assured the Admiral that if anyone started to set fire to an Italianist child or to indulge in any other crime he would prevent it.
PAROLE D'HONNEUR
All this was very disconcerting to the I.N.C. They knew that on the hills outside Rieka were large numbers of Italian troops, which had come overland from Istria. But how to get them in? Rieka had not been ascribed to the Italians by the London Treaty.[16]... On November 15a detachment of Serbian troops arrived, under Colonel Maximović, and were given a magnificent reception. Thousands of people accompanied them, and in front of the French destroyer there was a manifestation. Some of the Serbs, old warriors who had been under arms since the first Balkan War, were moved to tears. The Italianists were furious; Admiral Raineri called on the Governor for an explanation of the Serbs' arrival. A conference was held between the Admiral, the Colonel and two Yugoslav officers. If the Serbs remained at Rieka, said the Admiral, he would land his marines. Maximović said he had come in obedience to his orders, and that he would have to prevent by force the disembarkation of the Italians. At this moment a Serbian officer entered to announce that Italian armoured cars were approaching from Abbazia. Maximović immediately ordered his troops to mobilize, but the Admiral said a mistake had been made and that the cars would be sent back. (The Government Secretary, Dr. Ružić, had been told at three o'clock by a telephone operator that the Admiral had himself telephoned to Abbazia for the cars.) It was decided at this conference that on Sunday, November 17, the Yugoslav troops would evacuate the town, that it would be occupied by Serbian and American troops, and that, to mark the alliance, a small Italian detachment would be landed. As Admiral Cagni, of Pola, ordered that Italian troops should be disembarked at Rieka, another conference was held between Admiral Raineri, Colonel Maximović, Colonel Teslić and Captain Dvorski (of the Yugoslav navy), as well as French and British officers. It was arrangedsous parole d'honneur d'officierthat at 4 p.m. the Serbian troops should leave Rieka and go to Porto Ré, an hour's sea journey, that the Yugoslav troops should remain, and that the Italians should not land. No other steps would be taken till November 20 at noon, and the Supreme Command would be asked to settle the difficulty. As soon as the Serbian troops were out at sea, the Italian army, under General di San Marzano (attended by a kinematograph), marched in from the hills, entering the town simultaneously from four directions, in accordance with a strategic plan. The General was told what Raineri had agreed to do; hereplied that he was Raineri's senior, that the final decision rested with him, and that he intended to proceed into the town. (One of the British officers is said to have addressed him rather bluntly.) At 4.30 Raineri landed his marines, and afterwards he was dismissed from his post—not, indeed, for having broken his word given at the inter-Allied conference, but for having delayed so long before disembarking troops in the town. He said he had received a written order from the Entente; if only Maximović had not left he might have shown it him. With twenty carabinieri the General went to the Governor's palace and asked Dr. Lenac to vacate it. He was so excited that he almost pushed the doctor out. "There is no room for the two of us," he said. And that is how the Italian occupation began. The French and British brought some troops in at a later date, but when they had six hundred each the Italians had 22,000. With the Italians came fifty Americans, so that the force might have an international appearance. These Americans were given broad-sheets, printed by the town Italianists in English; they welcomed the Americans as liberators, and informed them that the population had by plebiscite declared for annexation to the Motherland. On the same night the Yugoslav troops were turned out of their barracks into the street by the Italian army.... These are, I believe, the main facts as to the occupation which has been the subject of much heated argument. I had the facts from eye-witnesses and documents: I exposed the evidence of each side to the criticism of the other.
Very soon the disorders began. On the evening of the occupation Italian troops ran through the town, accompanied by some of the plebiscite, and compelled the people to remove the Yugoslav colours from their button-holes. In cases they surrounded their victim and used force. When this was used against women, after the arrival of the French and British, it produced some serious international affrays. The Italians, who invariably outnumbered the others, did not scruple to employ their knives; thus in the middle of December two French soldiers were stabbed in the back and their murderers were never found.
THE POPULATION OF THE TOWN
But there had been at Rieka an Englishman for whom I have an almost inexpressible admiration. This was Mr. A. Beaumont who, a couple of days after the Italians occupied the town in the above-mentioned curious fashion, sent from Triest a long message to theDaily Telegraph. How can anyone not marvel at a gentleman who travels to a foreign town which is in the throes of unrest and who, undeterred by his infirmity, sits down to grasp the rather complicated features of the situation? I am not acquainted with Mr. Beaumont, but he must be blind, poor fellow, for he says that the Yugoslavs occupied with ill-concealed glee a town entirely inhabited by some 45,000 Italians. Perhaps somebody will read to him the following statistics made after the year 1868, when Rieka came under Magyar dominion. The statistics were made by the Magyars and Italianists combined, so that they do not err in favour of the Yugoslavs. He might also be told that the Magyar-Italian alliance closed the existing Yugoslav national schools for the 13,478 Yugoslavs in 1890, while they opened Italo-Magyar schools for the 13,012 "Italians" and Magyars. They would not even allow the Yugoslavs to have at Rieka an elementary school at their own expense. Everything possible was done during these decades to inculcate hatred and contempt for whatsoever was Slav, hoping thus to denationalize the citizens. In view of all this it speaks well for Yugoslav steadfastness that they were able to maintain themselves. Here are the figures:
Assuming for the moment that these figures are correct—and it is an enormous assumption[17]—are not theAutonomists to be found chiefly among the Italians and Magyars? It is claimed that the Autonomist, Socialist and Slav vote exceeds that of those who desire annexation to Italy. One need not treatau sérieuxthe great procession organized by the Italianists, when they could not scrape together more than about 4000 persons, including many schoolboys and girls, the municipal clerks, visitors from Italy, Triest and Zadar. One need not gibe the Italianists with the numbers who followed Dr. Vio on that famous day when, weary of palavering, he summoned round him his supporters and strode off to the Governor's palace, where General Grazioli, who had succeeded General di San Marzano, was installed.[18]Arrived there, Dr. Vio with a superb gesture begged the General to accept the town in the name of Italy. It is not often in the lifetime of a man that he has the opportunity of giving a whole town away. Dr. Vio made the most of that occasion; if the crowd which followed him was disappointing, there may be good explanations. The allegiance of a town, one may submit, should be settled in another fashion. The house-to-house inquiry, conducted in the spring of 1919 by the Autonomists—resulting in an anti-annexionist majority—was much impeded by the police; and it is of course the business of the authorities and not of any one party to hold elections in a town. Had the Italian National Council, bereaving themselves of Italian bayonets,helda real plebiscite—secret or otherwise—the result would doubtless have given them pain, but no surprise.... And this will happen even if the Magyar system of separating Rieka from the suburb of Sušakis perpetrated. Sušak contains about 12,500 Yugoslavs and extremely few Italianists; and, by the way, to show how the Magyars and the Italianists worked together, it is worth mentioning that the Magyar railway officials who lived at Sušak were allowed a vote at Rieka, while if a Croat lived at Sušak and carried on his avocation at Rieka he could vote in Sušak only. One must not imagine that Sušak is a poor relation; most people would prefer to live there. Dr. Vio was intensely wrathful because the British General resided in a beautifully situated house there by the sea. Not only is Sušak about twenty yards, across a stream, from Rieka, but from a commercial point of view their separation seems absurd, since half the port, including the great wood depots, is in Sušak. One of these timber merchants presented an example of Italianization. His original name was E. R. Sarinich and this was painted on his business premises at Sušak, while in Rieka he called himself Sarini. It must have caused him many sleepless nights.... Counting Sušak with Rieka as one town, the total population in the autumn of 1918 was about 51 per cent. Yugoslav, 39 per cent. Italian and 10 per cent. Magyar. These Magyars, by the way, seem not to have been noticed by Mr. Beaumont. There were still a good number of them in the town. "Whilst Italy might have consented," says Mr. Beaumont, "to a compromise with Hungary, had that State continued to exist as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she certainly never contemplated handing over"—["handing over" is rather humorous]—"Fiume and its exclusively Italian population to the Jugo-Slavs." Underneath Mr. Beaumont's dispatch there is printed a semi-official statement, sent by Reuter, from Rome. "Yesterday afternoon," it says, "our troops occupied Fiume. The occupation, which was made for reasons of public order, was decided upon in view not only of the urgent and legitimate demands of the Italian citizens of Fiume, but also of the insistent appeals of eminent foreigners...."
THE TALE CONTINUES ON THE NORTHERN ISLES
"Italy's reward," says Mr. Beaumont, "must be commensurate with her sacrifices, and this is the attitude assumed here. It is quite apart from the mere question as to whether the Jugo-Slavs are in a majority in certain districts or not. Those districts form a part of old Italian territory, of Italian lands once peopled and occupied by the Italian race and into which, with Austria's encouragement, Slav populations have filtered." [I should love to know what are Mr. Beaumont's sources.] "The question must not be left to local ambition and antipathies. It must be decided authoritatively and quickly in strong counsel to the Jugo-Slav leaders." ... Let us leave Rieka and see how the Italians decided authoritatively and quickly on the island of Cres (Cherso). It is a large but not thickly populated island; having 8162 inhabitants for 336 square kilometres. The Yugoslavs, according to the census of 1910, number 5714 or 71·3 per cent., while the Italian-speaking population amounts to 2296 or 28 per cent. About the middle of November the Italian authorities placed in the village of Martinšćica, which is in the south-western part of the island, 17 soldiers, 3 carabinieri and a lieutenant. Let me say at once that I have never been to Cres, all my knowledge of this case comes from a Franciscan monk who lives there, the Rev. Ambrose Vlahov, Professor of Theology. At Martinšćica, he says, there is not a single Italianist; the entire village is Yugoslav. When the Italian military arrived the lieutenant insisted that the priest, Karlo Hlaća, should cease to sing the Mass in Old Slav, and that for the whole service he should use Italian, the only language, said the lieutenant, which he (the lieutenant) understood. It was futile for the priest to demonstrate what a ridiculous and unreasonable demand this was; the lieutenant always came back to the subject, being sometimes merely importunate and sometimes using menaces. As Hlaća was a model ecclesiastic, highly esteemed by his parishioners, the lieutenant comprehended that as long as this priest remained, he would be foiled in his endeavours; he therefore sought an opportunity to turn him out. On January 5, 1919, thepriest had, by order of his bishop, to read during the service a pastoral letter on the duties of the faithful towards the Church and towards their fellow-men; he had also to add a simple and concise commentary. In this letter there was a passage dealing with schools, and the priest on that topic remarked that "by divine and human law every nation may ask that its children should be instructed in their mother tongue." When Mass was finished, the mayor of the village assembled the parishioners and notified them that henceforward, by order of the lieutenant, there would no longer be in the village a Croatian but an Italian school. And in order to mollify the people he added that the lieutenant proposed to give subsidies to such as stood in need; they had only to present themselves before that officer. But, though the people often found it hard to satisfy their simple wants and were at that period in very great distress, they walked away from this assembly without making one step in the lieutenant's direction. This incited him to such fury that he ran, accompanied by soldiers and carabinieri, to the priest, and publicly, in a loud voice, insulted him, calling him an intriguer, a rebel, an agitator. On the following day the lieutenant had him conducted to the village of Cres by two soldiers and a carabiniere, who were all armed.... At Cres the priest was brought before the commanding officer of the Quarnero Islands—our old acquaintance, the naval captain of Krk—who happened to be in this village. He started at once to bellow at the priest and, striking the table with his hand, exclaimed: "This is an Italian island, all Italian, nothing but Italian and evermore it will remain Italian." About a score of parishioners had come to Cres behind their priest and his escort; they begged the commandant to set him free. As an answer he harangued them with respect to the Italian character of the islands, told them that they would have to send their children to the Italian school and that the whole village would be Italianized and thatonly in their homeswould they be permitted to speak Croatian.... On January 8 the priest was taken from Cres to the island of Krk, where he was informed that he would have to leave his parish, but that he might go back there for a day or two to fetch a fewnecessities. It was raining in torrents when Father Hlaća, wet to the skin, arrived at his village on the 11th at seven o'clock in the evening. As he suffers from several chronic ailments—which was known to the lieutenant—this bad weather had a grave effect upon him. When he reached his house he went to bed at once with a very high temperature. After about a quarter of an hour the lieutenant appeared with two carabinieri and shouted at him that he must get up. This draconian injunction had to be obeyed, the more so as the lieutenant was labouring under great excitement. He looked at the priest's permit which allowed him to come back to the village, and said, "If I were in your shoes I wouldn't venture to come back here." These words gave Father Hlaća an impression that his life was in danger. The lieutenant then ordered him not to go out among the people, but to stop where he was until he was taken away. Five days after this the priest was taken to Rieka, so that the villagers were left with nobody to guard them against the violence and the temptations offered them by the Italians. The Croat inscription outside the school was replaced by one in Italian and, with the lieutenant acting as teacher, the doors were thrown open. But the only children who went there were those of the lieutenant himself and those of the mayor, who was a renegade in the pay of the Italians. It was announced that heavy fines would be inflicted if the other children did not come. The villagers were in great trouble and in fear, with nobody to give them advice or consolation.... There may be some who will be curious to know concerning the "Italian" population of this island, which, according to the 1910 census, reached the large figure of 28 per cent. At a place called Nerežine it was stated, in the census of 1880, that the commissioner had found 706 Italians and 340 Yugoslavs. Consequently an Italian primary school was opened; but when it was discovered that the children of Nerežine knew not one traitor word of that language, the school was transformed into a Yugoslav establishment. This is one case out of many; the 28 per cent. would not bear much scrutiny.... But the Italian Government, at any rate the "Liga Nazionale" to whose endowment it contributes, had been taking inhand this question of elementary schools in Istria and Dalmatia among the Slav population. The "Liga" made gratuitous distribution of clothing, of boots, of school-books and so forth. Some indigent Slavs allowed themselves in this way to become denationalized.
When, however, you examine the embroideries of these islands—particularly beautiful on Rab and on the island of wild olive trees, the neighbouring Pag—you will be sure that such an ancient national spirit as they show will not be easily seduced. The Magyars, by the way, whose culture is more modern, borrowed certain features that you find on these embroideries—the sun, for instance, and the cock, which have from immemorial times been thought appropriate by these people for the cloth a woman wears upon her head when she is bringing a new son into the world, whose dawn the cock announces. Older than the workers in wood, much older than those who carved in stone, are these island embroiderers. In this work the people reproduced their tears and laughter.
RAB IS COMPLETELY CAPTURED
What will it avail to put up "Liga" schools in these islands, where the population is 99·67 per cent. Yugoslav and 0·31 per cent. Italianist—that is, if we are content to accept the Austrian statistics? What ultimate advantage will accrue to Italy from the doings of her emissaries, in November 1918, on the isle of Rab? It was Tuesday, November 26, when theGuglielmo Pepeof the Italian navy put in at the venerable town which is the capital of that island. The commander, with an Italianist deputy from Istria, climbed up to the town-hall with the old marble balcony and informed the mayor and the members of the local committee of the Yugoslav National Council that he had come in the name of the Entente and in virtue of the arrangements of the Armistice; he said that in the afternoon Italian troops would land, for the purpose of maintaining order. It was pointed out to him that no disturbance had arisen, and that, according to the terms of the Armistice, he had no right to occupy this island. The commander announced thathe must disarm the national guard, but that the Yugoslav flags would not be interfered with; the Italian flag would only be hoisted on the harbour-master's office and the military headquarters. On the next day, after he had been unable to induce the town authorities to lower their national flag from the clock-tower, he sent a hundred men with a machine gun to carry out his wishes. Filled with confidence by this heroic deed, he marched into the mayor's office and dissolved the municipal council. Armed forces occupied the town-hall, over which an Italian flag was flown. An Italian officer was entrusted with the mayoral functions and with the municipal finances, while the post office was also captured and all private telegrams forbidden, not only those which one would have liked to dispatch, but those which came in from elsewhere—they were not delivered. All meetings and manifestations were made illegal. The commander, whose name was Captain Denti di —— (the other part being illegible), sent a memorandum to the municipal council which explained that he dissolved it on account of their having grievously troubled the public order; he did this by virtue of the powers conferred upon him and in the name of the Allied Powers and the United States of America. The islanders did not pretend to be experts in international law, but they did not believe that he was in the right.
"I have every confidence," said the Serbian Regent, when he was receiving a deputation of the Yugoslav National Council a few days after this—"I have every confidence that the operations for the freedom of the world will be accomplished, that large numbers of our brethren will be liberated from a foreign yoke. 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."
AVANTI SAVOIA!
It would be tedious to chronicle a thousandth part of the outrages, crimes and stupidities committed on Yugoslav territory by the Italians. Where they were threatened with an armed resistance they yielded. Thus on November 14, when they had reached Vrhnica (Ober-Laibach) on their way to Ljubljana (Laibach), they were met by Colonel Svibić with sixteen other officers who had just come out of an internment camp in Austria. Svibić requested the Italians to leave Vrhnica. He said that he and the Serbian commander at Ljubljana would prevent the advance of the Italians into Yugoslav territory. They would be most reluctant to be obliged to resort to armed force should the Italians continue their advance, and they declined responsibility for any bloodshed which might ensue.... The colonel of the Italian regiment which had been stationed for some days at Vrhnica informed the mayor of that commune that he had received orders to depart; he retired to the line of demarcation fixed by the Armistice conditions.
THE ENTENTE AT RIEKA
It was ironical that a young State, struggling into life, should be hindered, not by former enemies but by friends of its friends. The Italians complained that the French, British and Americans were not fraternizing with them. In the first place, it was repugnant to the sense of justice of these nations when they saw that General di San Marzano, after having fraudulently seized the town of Rieka and turning its absolutely legal Governor into the street, did not ask the citizens to organize a temporary local government, in which all parties would be represented, but delivered, if you please, the town to fifteen gentlemen, the I.N.C., who—at the very utmost—represented half the population. On November 24, the local newspaperIl Popoloannounced in a non-official manner that the I.N.C., in full accord with the military command, had taken over the administration—i poteri pubblici. This, by the way, was never confirmed by the representatives of the other Allies. The I.N.C. furthermoredeclared null and of no effect any intervention of the Yugoslav National Council in the affairs of the authorities of the State of Rieka. When the Yugoslavs appealed to the French, British or Americans they were naturally met with sympathy and urged to have patience. Case after case of high-handed dealing was reported to these officers. They sometimes intervened with good effect; far more injustice would have happened; far more Croats and Autonomists, for instance, would have been deported if the Allies had not interceded. It was now, of course, impossible for Yugoslavs to wear their colours; nor could they prevent the C.N.I. from hanging vast Italian flags on Croat houses. One of the largest flags, I should imagine, in the world swayed to and fro between Rieka's chief hotel and the tall building on the opposite side of the square—and both these houses, mark you, were Croat property. But the Allied officers knew very well (and the C.N.I. knew that they knew) that more than thirty of the large buildings on the front belonged to Croats, whereas under half a dozen were the property of Italians or Italianists. The ineffable Mr. Edoardo Susmel, in one of his pro-Italian books, entreats certain French and British friends of the Yugoslavs to come for one hour to Rieka and judge for themselves. But twenty minutes would be ample for a man of average intelligence. In many ways the presence of the Allies grieved the C.N.I. The Allies looked without approval at the "Giovani Fiumani," an association of young rowdies of whose valuable services the C.N.I. availed itself. But if these hired bands could not be dispersed they could have limits placed upon their zeal. One of their ordinary methods was to sit in groups in cafés or in restaurants or other places where an orchestra was playing, then to shout for the Italian National Anthem and to make themselves as nasty as they dared to anyone who did not rise. If everybody rose, then they would wait a quarter of an hour and have the music played again. The Allied officers persuaded General Grazioli to prohibit any National Anthem in a public place. It was distasteful to the Allied officers when a local newspaper in French—l'Echo de l'Adriatique—which had been established to present the Yugoslav point of view, was continually being suppressed.For example, on December 14, it printed a short greeting from the Croat National Council to President Wilson. The most anti-Italian phrase in this that I could find was: "Their fondest hope is to justify to the world, to history and to you the great trust you have placed in them." This was refused publication. It is unnecessary to say that Yugoslav newspapers were confiscated and their sale forbidden—after all, one didn't buy German or Austrian newspapers in England during the War, and the Italians now regarded the Croats as very pernicious enemies.La Rassegna Italianaof December 15 called its first article—printed throughout in italics—"I Prussiani dell' Adriatico," and took to its bosom an "upright American citizen" returning from a visit to "Fiume nostra," who defined the Yugoslavs "on account of their greed and their brutality and their spirit of intrigue and their lack of candour as the Prussians of the Adriatic." Personally I should submit that the Prussian spirit was not wholly lacking in those two Italian officers who penetrated on November 25 into the dining-room at the quarters of the Custom-house officials and informed them that they wanted their piano. No discussion was permitted; the piano "transferred itself," as they say in some languages, to the Italian officers' mess. The Prussian spirit was not undeveloped in a certain Mr. Štiglić—his name might cause his enemies to say he is a renegade, but as my knowledge of him is confined to other matters, we will say he is the noblest Roman of them all. He likewise had a dig at the Custom-house officials; I know not whether he was wiping off old scores. Appointed by the I.N.C. as director of the Excise office, he communicated with the resident officials—Franjo Jakovčić, Ivan Mikuličić and Grga Mažuran—on December 5, and told them to clear out by the following Saturday, they and their families, so that in the heart of winter forty-one persons were suddenly left homeless.
A CANDID FRENCHMAN
This and innumerable other manifestations of Prussianism were brought to the attention of the French, so that it was not surprising when a Frenchman made afew remarks in theRijećof Zagreb. His article, entitled "Mise au point," begins by a reference to the Yugoslav cockades which were sometimes worn by the French sailors. This, to the Italians, was as if an ally in the reconquered towns of Metz and Strasbourg had sported the colours of an enemy. "The cases are not parallel," says the Frenchman. "You have come to Rieka and to Pola as conquerors of towns that were exhausted, yielding to the simultaneous and gigantic pressure of the Allied armies. These towns gave themselves up. Are they on that account your property, and are we to consider as a dead-letter the clauses of the Armistice which settled that Pola should be occupied by the Allies? I am not so dexterous a diplomat as to be able to follow you along this track; let it be decided by others. But we who were present perceived that your occupation, which you had regulated in every detail, had a close resemblance to the entry of a circus into some provincial town, whose population is known beforehand to be of a hostile character. It is needless to say that this masquerade, these vibrating appeals to fraternity that were placarded upon the walls gave us in that grey, abandoned town an impression of complete fiasco." ["It is significant," writes Mr. Beaumont the Italophil, "that the Slav population ... observe an attitude of strange reserve and diffidence. They are silent and almost sullen. When the Italian fleet first visited Pola there was hardly a cheer...."] "Now let me tell you," says the Frenchman, "that our entry into Alsace was different. Foch was not obliged to send emissaries in advance in order to decorate the houses with flags and to erect triumphal arches. The French cockades had not nestled in the dark hair of our Alsatian women since 1870, for forty-eight years the tricolors had been waiting, piously folded at the bottom of those wooden chests, waiting for us to float them in the wind of victory—nous rentrions chez nous tout simplement. Or, vous n'êtes pas chez vous ici, messieurs." ["Common reserve and decency should have induced the Jugo-Slavs to abstain," says Mr. Beaumont, "from rushing to take a place to which they were not invited ... an exclusively Italian city."] "Whatever you may assert," says the Frenchman, "everythingseems to contradict it. Your actors play their parts with skill, but the public is frigid. Now the decorations are tattered and the torches on the ramparts have grown black.... Permit me, following your example, and with courtesy, to call back the glories of old Italy, to remind myself of the great figures that stride through your history and that give to the world an unexampled picture of the lofty works of man. 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. As a method of pacific penetration you will avow that this is rather rudimentary and that the laws of Romulus did not teach you such fraternity. We have also seen you striking women in the street and disembowelling a child. What are we to think of that,fratelli d'Italia? Excuse us, but we are not accustomed to such incidents. Is it not natural that the legendary, gallant spirit of our sailors should infect the crowd? Our bluejackets have looked in vain for the three colours which are dear to them and which you have excluded utterly from all your rows of flags. Well, in default of them, they had no choice but to array themselves in the cockades which dainty hands pinned on their uniforms.... And our 'poilus,' in their faded, mud-smeared garments walk along 'your' streets, disdainfully regarded by your dazzling and pomaded Staff. Do you remember that these unshaven fellows who thrust back the Boche in 1918 are the descendants of those who in 1793 conquered Italy and Europe with bare feet? Therefore do not strike your breasts if now and then a smile involuntarily appears upon their lips. O you who henceforth will be known as the immortal heroes of the Piave, if our fellows see to-day so many noble breasts, it was not seldom that they saw another portion of your bodies."
ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS
"Yes, but that has nothing to do," some people will say, "with Rieka's economical position. We admit that Croatia has the historical right to the town, but we wish to be satisfied that the Croats are not moved by reasons that would cause Rieka's ruin. It may be nowadays, owing to the unholy alliance between Magyars and Italians, that the town, with respect to its trade, is more in the Italian sphere than in that of Yugoslavia." The answer to this is that Italy's share of the value of the imports into Rieka in 1911 was 7·5 per cent. of the total, while her share of the value of the exports amounted to 13 per cent., which proves that Italy depends commercially more on Rieka's hinterland than does that hinterland upon Italy. It seems to be of less significance that the millionaires of Rieka are mostly Croats, for they might conceivably have enriched themselves by trade with Italy. But of the nine banks, previous to the War the Italianists were in exclusive possession of none, while the Croats had four; of the eight shipping companies three were Croat, three were Magyar, one British, one German—not one Italian. It is true that some Italian writers lay it down that Rieka's progress should be co-ordinated with that of Venice, to say nothing of Triest, and should not be exploited by other States to the injury of the Italian Adriatic ports. Their point of view is not at all obscure. And all disguise is thrown to the winds in a book which has had a great success among the Italian imperialists:L'Adriatico et il Mediterraneo, by Mario Alberti (Milan, 1915—third edition). The author says that Italy, having annexed Triest and Rieka, will be "assured for ever"; her "economic penetration" of the Balkans "will no longer be threatened" by the projected Galatz-Scutari (Danube-Adriatic) railway; Italian agriculture which, he says, is already in peril, "will be rescued"; the Italian fisherman will no longer have the ports of Triest and Rieka closed (for exportation to Germany and Austria); the national wealth will be augmented by "several milliards"; new fields will be open to Italian industry; her economic (and military) domination over the Adriatic will be absolute. There will, he continues,be no more "disturbing" competition on the part of any foreign mercantile marine; the Adriatic will be the sole property of Italy, and so on. It would be worth while, as a study of expressions, to photograph a few Rieka Italianists in the act of reading these rapturous pages.... But lest it be imagined that I have searched for the most feeble pro-Italian arguments in order to have no difficulty in knocking them down, I will add that their strongest argument, taken as it is from the official report of the French Consul in 1909, appears to be that the commerce of Croatia amounted then to only 7 per cent. of the total trade of the port of Rieka. I am told by those who ought to know that wood alone, which comes almost exclusively from Croatia, Slavonia, etc., represents 16 per cent. If other products, such as flour, wine, etc., are considered, 50 per cent. of the total trade must be ascribed to Croatia, Slavonia, etc. And that does not take into account the western Banat and other Yugoslav territories. Serbia, too, would now take her part, so that there is no need to fear for the position of a Yugoslav Rieka based solely—omitting Hungary and the Ukraine altogether—on her Yugoslav hinterland. Rieka without Yugoslavia would be ruined and would degenerate into a fishing village, with a great past and a miserable future. This could very well be seen during the spring of 1919 when the communications were interrupted between Rieka and Yugoslavia. At Rieka during April eggs were 80 centimes apiece, while at Bakar, a few miles away, they cost 25 centimes; milk at Rieka was 6 crowns the litre and at Bakar one crown; beef was 30 crowns a kilo and at Bakar 8 crowns. Italy was calling Rieka her pearl—a pearl of great price; the Yugoslavs said it was the lung of their country. It is within the knowledge of the Italianists that the prosperity of Rieka would not be advanced by making her the last of a chain of Italian ports, but rather by making her the first port of Yugoslavia. What has Italy to offer in comparison with the Slovenes and the Croats? The maritime outlet of the Save valley, as well as of the plains of Hungary beyond it, is, as Sir Arthur Evans points out, the port of Rieka. And, in view of the mountainous nature of the country which lies for a great distance at the back ofSplit and of Dubrovnik, it would seem that Rieka—and especially when the railway line has been shortened—will be the natural port of Belgrade.
THE TURNCOAT MAYOR
One cannot expect in a place with Rieka's history that such considerations as these will be debated, calmly or otherwise, but at all events on their own merits. They will be approached with more than ordinary passion, since so many of the people of Rieka have been turncoats. Any man who changes sides in his religion or his nationality or politics—presuming, and I hope this mostly was so at Rieka, that his reasons were not base—that man will feel profoundly on these matters, more profoundly than the average person of his new religion, nationality or politics. He will observe the ritual, he will give utterance to his thoughts with such an emphasis that his old comrades will dislike him and his new associates be made uneasy. Thus a convert may not always be the most delightful creature in the garden, and he is abundant at Rieka. As an illustration we may study Dr. Vio. Many persons have repeated that he has a Croat father, yet they should in fairness add that his father's father came from Venice. But if he came from Lapland, that ought to be no reason why the present Dr. Vio should not, if he so desires, be an Italian. If he had, when he arrived at what is usually called the age of discretion, inscribed himself among the sons of Italy—à la bonheur. But he took no such step. He came out as a Croat of the Croats, for when he had finished his legal studies he became a town official, but discovered that his views—for he was known as an unbending Croat—hindered his advancement. The party in possession of the town council, the Autonomist party, would have none of him. At last he, in disgust, threw up his post and went into his father's office. He was entitled, after ten years' service, to a pension; the Autonomists refused to grant it for the reason that he was so dour a Croat. Very often, talking with his friends, did Dr. Vio mention this. He made a successful appeal to the Court at Buda-Pest and a certain yearly sum was conceded tohim, which he may or may not be still obtaining. Then, to the amazement of the Croats, he renounced his nationality and became—no, not an Italian—a Magyar. He was now one of those who called Hungary his "Madre Patria," and as a weapon of the ruling Hungarian party he was employed against the Italianists. In the year 1913 the deputy for Rieka died and Dr. Vio was a candidate, his opponent being one of the Italianist party, Professor Zanella. Dr. Vio had the support of the Government officials, railway officials and so forth, and was elected. Now he was a Magyar of the Magyars: Hungarian police officials were introduced, and Magyar, disregarding the town statutes, was employed by them as sole official language. The citizens still speak of those police.... The War broke out, and Dr. Vio donned a uniform, serving chiefly on the railway line between Rieka and Zagreb. Gradually he seems to have acquired the feeling that it was unnatural for him to be a Magyar of the Magyars, even though he was compelled, like so many others, to wear this uniform. But one day in 1916 when his friend and fellow-officer, Fran Šojat, teacher at the High School at Sušak, walked into his room at Meja, when he happened to be putting little flags upon a map, he prophesied—King Peter and the Tzar would have been glad to hear him. Presently, he had himself elected as the mayor, which enabled him to leave an army so distasteful to him. How long would he wait until he publicly became a Croat once again? He did not doubt that the Entente would win, and told that same friend Šojat that Rieka on the next day would be Croat. To another gentleman in June of 1918 he said he hoped that he would be the first Yugoslav mayor of the town, and on that day, out hunting, he sang endless Croat songs. In September, to the mayor of Sušak, "You will see," he said, "how well we two as mayors will work together." When the Croat National Council entered into office at the end of October he again met Mr. Šojat, just as he was going up to that interview in the Governor's Palace. "Jesam li ja onda imao pravo, jesi li sada zadovoljan?" he said. ("Was I not right that time? Are you satisfied now?") Joyfully he pressed Mr. Šojat's hand and greeted the two other persons who werewith him. And Mr. Šojat was pleased to think that Vio would now be a good Croat, as of old. But on the following day he was an Italian.
HIS FERVOUR
When I went up to see this variegated gentleman—whose personal appearance is that of a bright yellow cat—he purred awhile upon the sofa and then started striding up and down the room. As he sketched the history of the town, which, he said, had always been Italian and would insist on being so, he spoke with horror of the days when Jellačić was in control, and then, remembering another trouble, he raised both his hands above his head and brought them down with such a crash upon the desk where I was writing his remarks that—but nobody burst in; the municipal officials were accustomed to his conversation. He was reviling at that moment certain Allied officers who had not seen fit to visit him. "I care not!" he yelled. "We are Italian! I tell you we are Italianissimi!" (He was glad enough, however, when his brother Hamlet, who had remained a Yugoslav and was on friendly terms with the chief of the carabinieri, managed to obtain for the mayor a passport to Italy, concerning which the carabinieri had said that they must first of all apply to Rome.) The doctor was sure that Yugoslavia would not live, for it had two religions; and another notable defect of the Croats—"I speak their language quite well," he said—was that in the whole of Rieka not one ancient document was in Croatian. I was going to mention that everywhere in Croatia until 1848 they were in Latin—but he saw what I was on the point of saying and—"Look here! look here!" he cried, "now look at this!" It was a type-written sheet in English, whereon was recounted how the mayor had offered to four Admirals, who came to Rieka on behalf of their four nations, how he had, in order to meet them in every way—"They asked me," he said, with blankness and indignation and forgiveness all joined in his expression—it was beautifully done—"they asked me, the Italian mayor of this Italian town, whether it was truly an Italian town!"—well, he had offered to take a real plebiscite,on the basis of the last census, and the Admirals, while appreciating his offer, had not availed themselves of it. (Maybe some one had told them how the census officials, chiefly members of the "Giovani Fiumani," had gone round, asking the people whether they spoke Italian and usually filling in the papers themselves. Presumably the mayor did not propose to allow anyone who had then been described as an Italian now to call himself Croat.) I was just calculating what he was in 1910 when he played a trump card and begged me to go up to the cemetery and take note of the language used for the epitaphs. Then let me return to him on the morrow and say what was the nationality of Rieka. There seemed to be the question if in such a town where Yugoslavs so often use Italian as the business language, many of them possibly might use it as the language of death; as it happened the first Yugoslav to whom I spoke about this point—a lawyer at whose flat I lunched the following day—produced a little book entitledRegolamento del Cimitero comunale di Fiume, and from it one could see that in the local cemetery the blessed principle of self-determination was in fetters. Chapter iii. lays down that all inscriptions must have the approval of the civic body. You are warned that they will not approve of sentences or words which are indecent, and that they prohibit all expressions and allusions that might give offence to anyone, to moral corporations, to religions, or which are notoriously false. No doubt, in practice, they waive the last stipulation, so that the survivors may give praise to famous or to infamous men; but I am told that they raised fewer difficulties for Italian wordings, and that the stones which many people used—those which the undertakers had in stock, with spaces left for cutting in the details—were invariably in Italian.... I hope I have not given an unsympathetic portrait of the mayor who has about him something lovable. Whatever Fate may have in store for Rieka, Dr. Vio is so magnificent an emotional actor that his future is assured. I trust it will be many years before a stone, in Croat, Magyar or Italian, is placed above the body of this volatile gentleman.... And then perhaps the deed of his administrative life that will be known more universally than any otherwill be the omission of anIfrom certain postage stamps. When the old Hungarian stamps were surcharged with the wordFiume, the sixty-third one in every sheet of half an edition was defective and was stampedFume.[19]
THREE PLEASANT PLACES
In the immediate neighbourhood of Rieka, across the bay, lies Abbazia, which Nature and the Austrians have made into a charming spot. By the famous "Strandweg" that winds under rocks and palm and laurel, you go to Volosca in the easterly and to Lovrana in the westerly direction. Just at the back of all these pretty places stands the range of Istria's green mountains. More than twenty years ago a certain Dr. Krstić, from the neighbourhood of Zadar, conceived the happy thought of printing, in the peasant dialect, a newspaper which would discourse on Italy in articles no peasant could resist.He was given subsidies, and for some time the newspaper was published at Volosca. But perhaps the peasants did not read it any more than those near Zadar would take in thePravi Dalmatinac("The Real Dalmatian"), which attempted a few years previous to the War to preach sectionalism to the Serbo-Croats. The Italians who came to the Abbazia district in November 1918 did not try such methods. In the combined commune of Volosca-Abbazia the population at the 1910 census consisted of 4309 Yugoslavs, 1534 German-Austrians, and 418 Italians. Most of the 418 had never seen Italy; the only true Italians were some officials who had come from other parts of Istria. The official language was Italian, which was regarded as more elegant. The district doctor was Italian, but all the other 29 non-official doctors were either Germans, Czechs or Croats. At Volosca eighteen years ago there was no Croat school; when one was opened the Italian school at once lost half its membership and before the War had been reduced to 25 pupils. Before the War at Abbazia the Croat school had six classes, while the Italian had ceased for lack of patronage. The German school had 160 pupils; this has now been dissolved, the pupils being mostly sent to the re-opened Italian school. Thus it will be seen that efforts were required to Italianize these places. The efforts were continued even during the War, it is said by the ex-Empress Zita. At any rate the people who had altered their Italian names saw that they had been premature and reassumed their former ones. They reassumed the pre-war privileges: at Lovrana, for example, they "ran" the village, not having allowed any communal elections since 1905 and arranging that their Croat colleagues in the council should all be illiterate peasants. Some Italians were interned in 1915, as the Croats had been in 1914, but the council came again into their hands. At the meetings they had been obliged, owing to the council's composition, to talk Croatian; but their own predominance was undisturbed. On their return to power during the War they displayed more generosity, and admitted even educated Croats to the council. And if such out-and-out Italians as the Signori Grossmann, Pegan, etc. of Lovrana were kinder to theYugoslavs than the Signori Grbac, Korošać and Codrić of Rieka it may be because the gentle spirit of the place affected them. The leading families would even intermarry; Signor Gelletich, Lovrana's Italian potentate, gave his sister to the Croat chieftain. But, as we have said, idylls had to end when in November 1918 the Italian army came upon the scene. Abbazia and Volosca and Lovrana were painted thoroughly in the Italian colours. Public buildings, private houses—irrespective of their inmates—had patches of green, white and red bestowed upon them. Everything was painted—some occupation had to be found for the military, who appeared to be more numerous than the inhabitants. Meanwhile, their commanding officers had other brilliant ideas: an Italian kindergarten was opened at Volosca, and the peasant women of the hills around were promised that if they came with their children to the opening ceremony, every one of them would be rewarded with 1 lb. of sugar. So they came and were photographed—it looked extremely well to have so many women seizing this first opportunity of an Italian education for their babies. Some one at Rieka most unfortunately had forgotten to consign the sugar. The Italian officer who was appointed to discharge the functions of podestà, that is, mayor, of Abbazia was a certain Lieut.-Colonel Stadler. He sent to Rome and Paris various telegrams as to the people's ardent hope of being joined to Italy. The people's own telegrams to Paris went by a more circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people, thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Pošcić, a naturalized American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles, cried Stadler; on January 10 he stopped the lessons.