But in the field of Agrarian Reform there has been one excellent plan, the transference of men from the unfertile districts of Montenegro and Lika, also of landless men from the Banat and Bačka, as also Serbs from Hungary and Slovenes from Istria, to those parts of Kossovo and Macedonia which were lying ownerless. The Albanians in Kossovo are mostly shepherds, and the land, which by Turkish law had belonged to "God and the Sultan," was now at the disposal of the Yugoslav authorities. Down to the spring of 1922 they had placed some 35,000 persons in these regions, the Montenegrins being generally allocated to an Albanian neighbourhood, for they are accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the Shqyptart. At first the Albanians viewed the new settlers with disfavour,but now so great a sympathy has developed between them that on various occasions the Montenegrins have remonstrated with the gendarmes for the excessive order they enforce and which, the Montenegrins say, you really cannot ask of an Albanian. Against the Montenegrins the Albanians do not care to use their rifles, since the custom of blood-vengeance is in the Montenegrin blood. In fact, these Albanians are very fair neighbours, the most unruly of them living in the mountains of the frontier. And the Montenegrins have been showing that when they are not compelled to live with weapons in their hand they can be quite industrious. There has, till now, been more colonization of Kossovo than of Macedonia; but there are wide tracts of country around Skoplje which will be settled, once they have been freed from malaria. The political consequences that this will have on Macedonia, by the stabilization of economic conditions, the supersession of the wooden plough by the steam plough—in fact, the advent of a new European spirit need scarcely be enlarged upon. In Serbian Macedonia, or South Serbia as it is now officially called, more than seven million acres of good soil are as yet not being used.
FRENZY AT RIEKA
As the months rolled on at Rieka the Italianists became more frantic. Their telegrams to Rome, in which they begged for instant annexation, were in vain, and after all, what was the use of adopting the system of Lieut.-Colonel Stadler, their energetic podestà at Abbazia, who would go into the hills, accost the peasants and instruct them that they must not say: "It will be settled by the Paris Conference," but rather—"It has been settled by the Paris Conference." All the world was learning what was the position of affairs at Rieka; one of the most important of these plaguy Allied officers had said that when he first came to the town he thought it was Italian, but he had soon perceived that it was all a comedy, and the Italianists were dreadfully afraid that memoranda and statistics and what not had been dispatched to Paris and that there was the faintest, awful possibility thatone could say: "It has been settled by the Paris Conference." Everyone, alas! was studying the case—one heard that Cardinal Bourne, in the course of being fêted at Zagreb, was reported to have shown himself quite intimate with Croatian history and to have discussed especially the story of Rieka. But by far the shrewdest blow to the Italianists was Wilson's Declaration. What had his emissaries, who had listened with such care to everybody, told him? One must have a grand procession through the town to show the whole world what the people wanted! As for Wilson, it was good to hear the lusty shouts of the "Giovani Fiumani": "Down with Wilson! down with redskins!" Some of the demonstrators, after shouting that Wilson was a donkey, a horse, a ruffian, would acclaim the new suggestion, that their enemy was not Wilson at all but Rudolf of Austria, who was still alive. Another very good idea would be to have great posters made with Wilson's head crowned by a German helmet, and now, of course, the Hotel Wilson must become the Hotel Orlando. Let them put a large black cross on all the Croat houses of Rieka—well, on second thoughts, next morning, that was not a very brilliant idea, because the crosses were too numerous; so let the soldiers rub them out again. And where the Croat names on banks and shops and elsewhere had been effaced, demolished—one could hide them by long strips of paper which they were so busy printing: "Either Italy or death!" "Viva Orlando!" "Viva Sonnino!"—those papers were the best reply to people who were asking if the entire Italian Cabinet was in harmony with Sonnino. Not merely in harmony—the CabinetwasSonnino and more particularly Orlando was Sonnino. An Italian major came out on to a balcony one evening, in uniform, and opened his Italian heart to the crowd. What would the Allies say to that? TheDante Alighieri, the great dreadnought, manœuvring with her searchlights, let them rest awhile upon theSchley, an American destroyer. What would the Yankees do? "Avanti Savoia!" Perhaps in the old days they would have sent a shot or two into the searchlights, just for luck, but now they did nothing. And what a scene at the Opera whenAndré Chenierwas performedand one of the singers came to the word "Traitor!" and some one shouted "Wilson!" and the whole house shouted "Wilson!" and the singer, forced to repeat the blessed word, added amid indescribable enthusiasm the name of the President, that ignominious President concerning whom it was revealed by one of their newspapers that he must obviously have pocketed Yugoslav money, perhaps a million, and who most probably had a Yugoslav mistress—when that opera-singer had emended the phrase, did that very exalted Italian officer leave his box? Why, no—he stayed until the end of the performance.... Did any Italian in Rieka read to the end a small and lucid American book,Italy and the Yugoslavs, A Question of International Law, by C. A. H. Bartlett of the New York and United States Federal Bar? "It is an admitted fact," says Mr. Bartlett, "that Italy at the outbreak of hostilities had no rights to, or in, the territory to which she now makes claim. Her title, therefore, has arisen since the commencement of the War, and must be founded on either effective possession legally acquired or on documentary evidence or some other right recognized by international law." And quoting Professor Westlake (International Law, Part I. p. 91) as to the four grounds on which a State may vindicate its sovereignty over new domain, he discusses the position in the Adriatic, and concludes that Italy can claim no title by occupancy, cession, succession or self-determination. We refer elsewhere to Mr. Bartlett's commentary on the London Treaty, which is the instrument invoked by the Italians for their claims to Dalmatia. With regard to Rieka, which, as everybody knows, was not included even in the London Treaty, Mr. Bartlett says that while "admitting, for the purpose of argument, that the seizure has since resulted in an effective possession, yet, as that is not sufficient in itself to give title, it has no legal or effective force, but can be compared with nomads squatting on the roadside and then claiming a right to the soil. Italy was ashamed to assume the responsibility for the original appropriation of Rieka, which was made in violation of every legal right of those to whom it belongs, and she might well be, for a more audacious, unjustifiable proceeding in violation of everyprinciple of international law it is difficult to imagine." ... As for the Italian National Council, listen to the stirring sentences of Mr. Grossich, its old President, after they had unanimously voted on May 17, and with passionate conviction, an order of the day directed to Orlando. In that order it was stated that they looked upon the plebiscite of October 30, 1918, as an indestructible, historical and legal fact. Grossich exposed the situation and was then for some instants mute. His voice was trembling when he spoke: "The sacrifice which circumstances may demand is tremendous, but if it is required by the supreme interests of Italy we will know how to support it. More than a citizen of Fiume, I feel myself an Italian" ("Primo che fiumano mi sento italiano"). At this point the old patriot broke into tears. "Fiume will defend herself with arms against all those who desire to violate her will, her national conscience. Seeing that her tenacious, indestructible Italianity is a grave impediment for Italy in the attaining of other objects, let Fiume be left to look after herself, sure as she is of her sons, prepared as she is, to-day more than ever, to sacrifice herself. She will defend herself against all and from wherever they come." Those who listened thought that this must mean that either thePester Lloydof April 29 was lying when it printed an official message stating that General Segré, the Italian representative at Vienna, had in the name of his Government requested the Hungarian Soviet Republic to undertake the care of Italian subjects in Rieka, or else that the Magyars had told him that the 22,000 or 23,000 Italian soldiers in Rieka ought to be sufficient, as this was practically one soldier for every person who had been described as an Italian. But the I.N.C. had now resolved to take no risks; they entered into negotiations with Sem Benelli, a well-known poet of the school which some critics call enlivening and other critics call inflammatory. Anyhow, on the afternoon of June 13, Mr. Benelli was made a citizen of Rieka, a member of the central committee and was entrusted with the portfolio of Minister of War, that is to say Commissary for Defence. He thanked the I.N.C. in a long speech, and declared that his appointment was the wedding of Riekaand Italy. Then Dr. Vio proposed a law, respecting the defence to the uttermost of Italian rights—that an army should be created and that the expenses should be met by the issue of bonds for a hundred million lire. The citizen Benelli was asked to undertake the organization and the command of the army.
ADMIRAL MILLO EXPLAINS THE SITUATION
Farther down the coast and on the islands the Italians seemed, with few exceptions, to have relinquished every effort to make themselves popular with the Slavs. Of course one naturally hears more of the cases of tension than of those where friendliness prevails; but in the towns or villages where the Slavintelligentsiaappreciated that an officer was doing his best, they were obliged invariably to add that he was doing it in spite of his men, and that his control of these men was more or less defective. Numbers of the soldiers, marines and carabinieri may have been animated, when they landed in Dalmatia, with excellent intentions, but their months amid an alien population had produced in them too often a deplorable effect. It must be taken into account that many of them had an almost insurmountable desire to be demobilized. At Gradišca, where many Slovenes were interned, with fences round them but with no roof other than the sky, their guards with other soldiers had risen in revolt. This outbreak was suppressed, certain soldiers—some say sixty, but the number is doubtful—being shot; and all the others took an oath that on the first occasion of a deserter being shot at, they would, down to the last man, leave the barracks. This movement had been growing since the withdrawal of Bissolati from the Cabinet. As for the young officers, they had been exhorted, in a communication from Admiral Millo, the Governor, that they must realize the position they were in. The Admiral's memorial, which was marked with wisdom but also with a too-sweeping air of superiority, was labelled "Secret Document: No. 558 of Register P. Section of Propaganda. Sebenico, March 21, 1919." A copy was found by the Yugoslavs under an officer's mattress, was transcribed and replaced. Since it made admissions with regard to theCroats the contents were telegraphed to Paris. It is a lengthy and to us at times a rather rhetorical exposé, of which it will suffice to make some extracts. "The Officer," says Admiral Millo, "should place himself in a calm and dignified fashion outside and above the disputes which divide the sentiments of the local population. And in accounting, psychologically and historically, for the detestations and the aspirations of either party, he must regard the situation with the serene mind of a judge.... The position of officers is extremely delicate, more particularly in the small centres. It is known that outside the towns the population in its great majority and often its totality consists of Yugo-Slavs or Slavs of the South, that is to say, Croats or Serbo-Croats. It is a people of another race, of that formidable Slav race which for centuries has been pressing against the West, athirst for liberty and eager for the sea; a people with a psychology, a mentality, a civilization, habits, traditions, a national consciousness and a quite special individuality. This population is fundamentally good, good as simple and primitive people are. But the simple and primitive peoples are also extremely sensitive and suspicious and violent in their impulses.... May Heaven preserve the officers from not taking these things into account and from letting themselves be guided solely by their Italian feelings.... Firm nerves, sangfroid and an evenly-balanced mind are required in order to prevent the hostility of the population from causing, as a reaction, resentment and a spirit of revolt, of vengeance and of oppression on our part. The officer must ... become an element of moderation and pacification, with the object of assuaging and obviating the bitter feelings which have been created and fed by a past that is and must be wiped out for ever; and of dissipating that hostility which, determined by a political situation and events, has been and is being incited and strengthened by blind passions and an artificially created campaign of interested parties (da artificiose interessate campagna).... It must be remembered that this is the first contact (il primo contatto) which the population, as yet primitive and uncultured in its mass, has had with Italy, where it instinctively sees the enemy and the new oppressor. We must do our best tomake them see in Italy their friend and liberator.... It is evident and it leaps to the eyes of all how delicate and important is the moment of this first contact. Nothing more than a superficial knowledge of the circumstances is needed for the officer to understand that in all his official and personal acts he must behave in such a manner that the population, which is primitive and simple and therefore all the more susceptible to suggestions, should regain the impression that Italy is a great country, the country of liberty and right, that its people is educated and civilized, that its officers and soldiers are here to fulfil a work of civilization and education, of love, in a country which must be Italian on account of historic rights and for the exigencies of Italy's defence: in which the Slavs, who have been introduced by the course of events and as an effect of the expansive potentiality of their race and the artifices of those who dominated the country, will find in the independence and development of their nationality a great fatherland which is civilized, powerful, humane and free.... In estimating the enmity of the Croats the fact must be taken into account that the Croatian world, I mean to say the Croat people, with its action in the interior of Austria while the Italian army was acting outside, resolutely and victoriously, has co-operated in precipitating the downfall of Austria and in freeing itself from a detested régime; particularly in the last year of the War this sentiment of nationality became accentuated with the fervent aspiration for liberty.... These are the circumstances which have determined a special psychology composed of joy and ecstasy—both elements which, in minds that are laden with all the influences of the East, produce a facile and dangerous excitement. On the other hand there survives in the Italian population the hatred against the Croatian supremacy, a hatred which is comprehensible but which in time must give place to other sentiments, rendering possible a fair coexistence of the two populations, whose aim should be common—the prosperity and development of Dalmatia, in the prosperity and for the prosperity, in the greatness and for the greatness of Italy. From this picture it must be instantly clear to every officer that his duty here is ... a truly lofty mission of civilization.... Especially the officer who is in charge of administrativework must awaken impressions that are naturally caused by the sense of justice for all; his severity must be good and his goodness must be severe, and from every act there must transpire the dignity which comes from the might and right of Italy, the kindness and generosity which come from the virtue of the race.... There is already an impression on the part of the Croats that the Italians are good, that Italy is strong. There must also be born and reinforced the other conviction that we are not oppressors but liberators.... The best propaganda, the most efficacious, because spontaneous and unexpected, is done by the officer and his men. The Italian officer ... with the harmony of manners which distinguishes him, obtains very easily the sympathies of this population, a sympathy, however, which for an optimist may become dangerous. Young officers must not forget that the propagators of the great Yugoslavia still exercise with their megalomania a potent influence over the primitive population and that a gesture of theirs, a word, an attitude, may even yet indirectly favour the Croat cause and make difficulties for us in exhibiting our mission of civilization."
HIS MISGUIDED SUBORDINATES AT ŠIBENIK
It is strange that this order should have been so scurvily treated in the town of Šibenik, where it was issued and where the Admiral resided until the beginning of June, after which he transferred the seat of government to Zadar. At Šibenik, by the way, the population comprises 13,000 Yugoslavs and 400 Italianists. On February 20, 1919, there arrived from Zadar, in consequence of an invitation from Admiral Millo, the Italian professor Domiakušić who, according to the sixth clause of the Armistice, was justified in assuming the functions of school-controller, but was not authorized to become the inspector or in any way to interfere in didactic matters. Two inspectors existed in Dalmatia, one for the elementary and one for the secondary school, but the chief school authority of the province and the two inspectors under him were not informed of Professor Domiakušić's nomination. If the Governor intended him to abide by the stipulations of the Armistice, he must have been astonished at theschools being shut on the day after his arrival. And they remained shut, both the modern school and the middle-class girls' school for months, because the Professor's quite illegal attempt to usurp the inspectorship was resented. The secondary school was closed and the teachers who had come to Šibenik with their families, but whose permanent domicile was elsewhere, received an order, delivered by carabinieri, that they would have to leave the town in four days. A few Italians were brought from Split and the school was reopened, but the attendance, which had been about 200, was now 24, and of these only two were the sons of Yugoslavs—but Yugoslavs who had taken office under the Italians, one as President of the Court of Justice and the other as prison inspector; these gentlemen took their boys by the hand and led them to school. Perhaps the Admiral was unaware of these transactions; but various Yugoslav officials, whose salaries had been withheld because they would not sign a paper asking to be made Italian officials, continued, notwithstanding, at their posts for two months; after which the Government perceived that by the clauses of the Armistice they were compelled to pay them. Each of them received exactly what was due, while some Italian teachers who had signed the paper were given a war bonus, extending over five months, of 80 per cent. Whether the Admiral knew of this or not, it does not harmonize with his exalted sentiments. And the town-commandant spoke very darkly[37]on various occasions tothe leading citizens of what would come to pass if the Italians by any chance were told to leave the place. His brave fellows, the arditi, so he said, had plenty of machine guns and of ammunition. But this fair-haired German-looking officer was a rampageous sort of person who discharged, according to his lights, the Admiral's "truly lofty mission of civilization." It was not he, but another of the Admiral's subordinates at Šibenik, who, whenapproachedby a certain Mr. Ivaša Zorić with the request that something might be done to release his son, a prisoner of war in Italy, replied: "Your son shall be released in eight days, provided that you declare, in writing, that you are content with the Italian occupation." On Mr. Zorić saying that he was unable to do this, "Very well," said the officer, "then your son will be one of the last to be set free."
THE ITALIANS WANT TO TAKE NO RISKS
Altogether one might say that the schoolmasters were being treated in a manner that was at variance with the Admiral's document. To give a few examples: Ivan Grbić, the schoolmaster at Sutomišcica, was arbitrarily imprisoned and was afterwards removed to another school at Privlaka. The Government school at the former place was closed, an Italian private institution being opened in the same building, with a teacher who was devoid of professional qualifications. The pupils of the school which had been dissolved were compelled by soldiers to attend the new Italian school. The elementary schools at Zemunik were likewise closed and the schoolmasters, after a period of imprisonment, taken to anothervillage. If in the rather dreary little Zemunik, where there is not one Italian, the schoolmaster was very dangerous to the might of Italy, let us compare with this the conduct of the Slovene authorities whopermittedmore than one priest of the old régime to remain in office—one of them at a village four or five miles from Ljubljana—though they knew that these clergy were wont from the pulpit to utter disloyal sentiments. Maybe the Slovene Government was unwise, but they had scruples in removing a priest; and moreover, they had not given up the hope that these gentlemen would by and by change their opinions. On the island of Pag the schoolmaster Buratović and his wife, who was also a teacher, had to fly in order to escape imprisonment. The schoolmaster Grimani of the same place was obliged, with his wife, to follow the example of Buratović, so that the school was necessarily closed; and an Italian school was started in this island with its 0·31 per cent. of Italians. The same edifying scenes must have taken place as in so many Magyar schools where the pupils—Serbs, Slovaks, Roumanians and so forth—did not understand what the teacher was saying. The Government of the occupied part of Dalmatia appointed to the elementary schools at Rogoznica and Primošten two young Italian law-students from Zadar, who had no pedagogic qualifications; and whereas the legal annual salary was 1080 crowns, these lucky young men were in receipt of 625 crowns a month, which covered more than handsomely any depreciation in the currency. But now to another subject:
The London Treaty had conferred on Italy the foregoingJudiciary Districts, whose population, according to the last Austrian census, was as given on page 147.
Italy was also to receive portions of the following Justiciary Districts:
In the early part of 1919 a plebiscite was organized by a delegation which the representatives of the occupied communes elected at Split on January 11. According to the census of 1900 the occupied territory contained 35 communes, divided into 398 localities, with 297,181 inhabitants. In 35 localities, with 14,659 inhabitants, the census was prevented by the Italians, who also confiscated the results of the plebiscite in the commune of Obrovac.[38]The delegates were therefore successful in canvassing 95·07 per cent. of all the inhabitants. In 34 communes the majority for union with Yugoslavia was over 90 per cent., while in 24 it exceeded even 99 per cent. At Zadar (the town) out of 14,056 inhabitants 6623 (= 47 per cent.) voted for Yugoslavia, while in the suburbs, with a larger population, the majority was 89·57 per cent. In the islands the majorities ranged from 96 per cent. to 100 per cent. And if any doubts were entertained as to these figures, the delegates were authorized to propose another plebiscite under the control of a disinterested Allied Power.
YET THEY ARE INCREDIBLY NONCHALANT
Dalmatia, as is shown by the number of emigrants, is not a wealthy province; and one would have supposedthat if the Italians thought it necessary to occupy a country whose inhabitants were so unmistakably opposed to them, it would have been—to put it at the lowest—politic to hamper no one in the getting of his livelihood. Austria had established fourteen military fishing centres (besides others in Rieka, Istria, etc.), and these the Croats joined most willingly, as a means of avoiding service in a hated army. After the war, when their nets were worn out, Italy supplied her Chioggia fisherfolk with new ones. Owing to the conditions of the Triple Alliance, the Italians enjoyed the right to "high-sea" fishing, that is to say, the fishing up to three miles from the Dalmatian coast; but now the Italian boats occupied all the rich fishing grounds among the northern islands. These dispossessed natives were originally more preoccupied with fish than with Italians. Is it strange that they refused to see that Italy was, in the words of Admiral Millo, the friend and liberator?... A German firm, the Steinbeiss Company, had built in Bosnia a very narrow-gauge line for the exploitation of its forests; during the War this line was continued to Prijedor, and with great difficulty it had served for the transport of food-stuff and passengers from Croatia: on the Croatian lines up to Sissak normal gauge; from there to Prijedor narrow gauge; from there to Knin very narrow gauge, and from there to Split or Šibenik narrow gauge. Thus with the loading and unloading between 30 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the goods were lost; but when Italy sat down at Rieka the inhabitants of Dalmatia looked to this line. At Prijedor hundreds of waggons of wheat and corn were waiting to be forwarded, and with Italy blocking the road at Knin they simply perished.
ONE OF THEIR VICTIMS
The Italian administration of Dalmatia—economically, politically, scholastically, ecclesiastically and financially (as we will show)—was thoroughly mistaken. Wherever one goes one is overwhelmed with evidence; it is impossible to print more than a tithe of it. But the mention of Knin recalls the case of Dr. Bogić, who was deported to Sardinia for political reasons. On January 1 he wasarrested, together with a Franciscan monk, a schoolmaster and others, transported to Šibenik and put into a cell devoid of bed, light or a window. Thence, with nothing to eat, although the weather was wintry, he was taken on to thes.s.Almissa, bound for Ancona. Near Šibenik the boat collided with the isle of Zlarin; he and the other prisoners attempted to get out of their cabin, but carabinieri kept them there by flourishing revolvers in their faces. At Ancona, Spoleto, Perugia, Florence and Leghorn the doctor was always lodged in prisons, had his finger-prints taken, had to stand up to salute the warders, had to look on while his things were stolen—at Ancona, for instance, they despoiled him of eighty cigars. His wrists were always bound; he was attached not only to his fellow-travellers but to Italians who were under life-sentences. The carabinieri cut up their bread, put it on their knees and then, without unbinding the ropes, left them to eat it as best they could. The journey was very slow; thus from Perugia to Florence—being all the time attached to one another—it took sixteen hours. Dr. Conti, the prison doctor at Florence, said that Dr. Bogić was ill, but as he declined to give him a certificate the journey was resumed. From Florence to Leghorn he was bound so tightly that his wrists were very much swollen. From Leghorn in thes.s.Dernahe was shipped to Sardinia, where he had experience of several prisons, including that of Terranuova-Pausania, where water flows down the walls and vermin are everywhere. He received 2.75 lire a day with which to buy his food, and although he is a doctor they refused to let him read any medical books. When I asked him of what he had been guilty, he began by recounting his war work. Over 6000 Italian prisoners were at Knin, and he was there as military doctor for more than two years. These Italians were employed on the railway line and—as is clear from the letters they wrote to him after their release—letters some of which I read—they had very friendly recollections of the doctor. Once in the summer of 1918 a group of Italians arrived who had been, in the doctor's words, "bestially maltreated at Zala-Egerseg by the Magyars." Dozens died on the way to Knin, others while they were being got out of the station, otherson the way to the hospital. They were nothing but skeletons, dressed almost exclusively in paper clothes. General Wucherer happened to be at Knin and to him the doctor reported that the Italians had been treated in an absolutely criminal fashion. Wucherer, who was a decent fellow, ordered the doctor to dictate the whole affair and said that if nothing else could be done he would go direct to His Majesty. Then standing up he struck the table, in the presence of his staff, of Dr. Grgin of Split and of the railway commandant Captain Bergmann, and "Wir sind doch die grössten Schuften!" he exclaimed ("After all, it is we who are the biggest scoundrels!").... When the Yugoslavs overthrew the Austrian Government at Knin, the doctor, a kindly-looking, little, bald man, made a speech to the prisoners from the balcony of the town hall. He armed two of the Italians and ten French prisoners, whom he told off to guard the magazine. The two Italians (Cirillo Tomba and Mario Favelli) vanished after a couple of days; the French remained for a week, and when a French destroyer arrived at Split they were taken there, not as prisoners but as soldiers, bearing arms. Dr. Bogić was a member of the National Committee at Knin, and as such he wrote to a colleague at Drniš to ask him whether the Italian troops were coming up from Šibenik. This letter was his undoing. The reason he wrote it was because the population at Knin was extremely agitated by the prospective occupation and begged him to ascertain the latest news. He should have remembered, no doubt, that the Italians regarded this as enemy country and that to make inquiries with regard to the movement of troops was a crime. An officer came and asked him, in the General's name, if he would kindly take part in a conference; on reaching the place which was indicated he found himself surrounded by carabinieri. Their captain, a certain Albano, said that he and two or three others must go to Šibenik to undergo a short interrogatory, and that as he would return in two days at the latest it was unnecessary for him to take any money, clothes or linen. As a matter of fact the doctor had, on the previous day, been warned from Split that the Italians meant to intern him; but he laughed—he had done so much for them and he felt so innocentthat it seemed absurd to run away. He could have gone, because he had a written permit issued to him on January 10 by the 144th Italian infantry regiment at Knin, which stated that he and his wife might go, whenever they wished, to Split.
SEVEN HUNDRED OTHERS
During the winter and spring over seven hundred persons, chiefly belonging to the clerical, the legal and the medical professions, had been deported from Dalmatia. The leader of the Italian party at Zadar told me that two of them had written him from Nocera Umbra, saying that this, their place of interment, was a health resort and that they were getting fat. He scouted the idea that they were under any sort of compulsion when they wrote or that they were pulling his leg. One must anyhow congratulate them in not being taken to Sardinia, as were the vast majority. Those who managed to return from that island—among them Dr. Macchiedo of Zadar, through the intervention of Bissolati, on account of Mrs. Macchiedo being at death's door—said that they found in Sardinia what they had expected of a penal establishment. Many priests were deported, on account of crimes which varied in enormity. A very frequent cause was that they refused to preach in Italian to a congregation which only understood Serbo-Croat. One must say that the Italians exhibited no religious partiality, for they treated the Roman Catholic Church just the same as the Orthodox. Some of the persecutions were so fatuous that one could only suppose they must be due to a misunderstanding. To mention only one which came under my observation at Skradin, not far from Šibenik, where the Orthodox priest in his sumptuous vestments had led his congregation out of the old town in order to perform an annual ceremony in connection with the fertility of the fields. In what way was the Italian cause assisted when carabinieri broke up that procession and refused even to allow the people to walk back on the road, so that all of them, including the priest and the other church officials with the sacred emblems,were forced to go back to Skradin as best they could by wading through the marshes?
A GLIMPSE OF THE OFFICIAL ROBBERIES
An allusion has been made to the Italian financial methods. More than one Italian officer, including Admiral Millo, spoke to me about the Austrian currency, which seemed to them one of the gravest problems. In Yugoslavia these notes were only legal tender if they had the Government stamp, and the Italians resolved that in the territories which they occupied the notes must have no stamp upon them. So far, so good. But when some poor peasant came across the line of demarcation from Croatia or else landed somewhere in a boat the Italians were not making good propaganda for themselves when they seized the notes, tore them up and refused to give their victim a receipt. One poor fellow whom I know of came with his mother along that wonderful road which the Austrians built over the mountains and down to Obrovac. He had some serious affection of the eyes and was compelled to go to Zadar to consult an oculist. He took with him practically all his fortune, as he and his mother did not know what otherwise to do with it. They had never yet made use of a bank. Well, the Italians tore up the notes and told him testily to go about his business. The same thing happened to the following persons:
These were the complaints over a period of a month, which were received by the Provincial (Yugoslav) Government at Split. One has to take their word for it that the list is not fictitious. I did not investigate any of the cases; the Italian officers to whom I showed the list said that they were persuaded I would find that in every case the person culpable was an officious, ignorant N.C.O. The list is, of course, no more than a fragment. At Starigrad, on the island of Hvar, I was told that from the people, who were searched both on landing and on leaving, 40,000 crowns had been confiscated, and at first they had been told that the money should be stamped. A merchant whom I happened to meet during the few hours I was at Metković told me that he had gone to the island of Korčula to his brother and, on landing, had been relieved of 34,000 crowns.
AND HARSHNESS AND BRIBERY
In Asia Minor we have another disastrous example of the Allied policy of allowing a disputed zone to be occupiedad interimsolely by the troops of one interested country. The chronic state of war which followed the landing of the Greeks at Smyrna, the atrocities, the charges and the counter-charges, were investigated by an Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry; and their report, which was issued early in 1920 and was signed by an American Admiral and French, Italian and British Generals, laid the responsibility at the door of the Greek Higher Command. The Commission considered that an inter-Allied occupation was necessary, because the Greeks, instead of maintaining order, had given their position all the characteristics of a permanent occupation, the Turkish authorities being powerless. They also considered that order should be maintained by inter-Allied troops other than Greek.... No such Commission visited Dalmatia, chiefly because the Yugoslavs, in spite of endless provocations, displayed greater self-control than the Turks. But an Inter-Allied Inquiry would have reported that the Italian régime had not the marks of a permanent occupation simply because such methods could never be permanent: everywhere in the occupied territory it was forbidden, under severe penalties, to have any Serbo-Croat newspaper. On one island I found about fifteen gentlemen gathered round a table in a sort of dungeon, reading the newspapers which had been smuggled into their possession. This they had been doing for more than six months. Every letter was censored, all telegraphic and telephonic communication between the occupied territory and the outside world was prohibited. All flags, of course, except that of Italy, were vetoed. Admiral Millo told us that this prohibition did not extend to the flags of France, Great Britain and the United States; considering that it is on record when and where the flags of these nations were, if flown by civilians, ordered to be taken down at Rieka, despite the presence of Allied contingents, it seems scarcely worth saying that, as we were often told, the Admiral's permission, which was in accordance with the Armistice, was disregarded by his subordinates. Another thing that was very rigorously forbidden, especially on the islands, was for any Yugoslav to go down to the harbour, if a boat came in, and carry on a conversation with somebody on board.It would be tedious to enter into all the questionable and tyrannical Italian methods, such as the requisitioning of Yugoslav clubs, schools, etc., sometimes leaving them empty because they found they did not want them, the requisitioning of private houses, with no consideration for their owners, the wholesale cutting-down of forests, the closing of law-courts, the demand that other courts should pronounce no judgment before first submitting it to them. But, above all, what the Yugoslav Government at Split complained of were the methods they employed in the gratuitous or semi-gratuitous distribution of food, clothing and money: