Part 19

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ARMY: HIGHER COMMAND. Chief of the General Staff.

Op. No. 109,942.

BADEN, August 5, 1918.

* * * * *

So much for the complaints with regard to Austria-Hungary's Southern Slav soldiers. Two military courts of justice sat at Zagreb through the War, the Imperial and Royal Court, and that of the Royal Hungarian No. 6 (Croatian-Slavonian) Honved Division. No statistics are to hand with reference to the various courts in Syrmia, and that one which earned such an evil reputation in the fortress of Peterwardein. The judgments of the two Zagreb courts, where Croat officers were able to make their influence felt, did not appear to the authorities of Vienna and Buda-Pest to be sufficiently drastic. No death sentences were pronounced, although these had been demanded; and on June 24, 1918, it was decided that any further trials for high treason or for offences against the military authorities should be held in Pressburg (Bratislava) and not in Zagreb. The following statistics, relating to the two Zagreb courts, were compiled from the official books which the Austrians did not remove. The figures shown opposite, which are certified by Captain Stoir, Provost-Marshal, show the increasing determination to risk everything rather than to fight for Austria.

__________________________________________________________________________ | | IMPERIAL AND ROYAL COURT. | ROYAL HUNGARIAN AND | | | | HONVED DIVISION. | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------| |Year. |1914|1915 |1916 | 1917 | 1918 |1914|1915 |1916 |1917 |1918 | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Total Number| | | | | | | | | | | |of Persons |442 |2,730|4,790|11,275|25,095|632 |3,000|3,470|6,101|13,425| |tried. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Charged with| | | | | | | | | | | |Military | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences: | | | | | | | | | | | |Desertion, | | | | | | | | | | | |Self- | | | | | | | | | | | |inflicted |233 |1,688|2,737|7,782 |19,838|154 | 779 | 926 |3,248|8,039 | |Wounds, | | | | | | | | | | | |Insubordi- | | | | | | | | | | | |nation, | | | | | | | | | | | |Disregard of| | | | | | | | | | | |Calling-up | | | | | | | | | | | |Orders. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------+----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |against the | | | | | | | | | | | |State: High | | | | | | | | | | | |Treason, | | | | | | | | | | | |Espionage, | | | | | | | | | | | |Insults | 52 | 66 | 336 | 397 | 559 |257 |1,471|1,223| 727 |1,007 | |against the | | | | | | | | | | | |Emperor, | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |against | | | | | | | | | | | |Public | | | | | | | | | | | |Order. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |Persons | | | | | | | | | | | |Charged | | | | | | | | | | | |with | 53 | 78 | 375 | 414 | 568 |730 |1,875|1,261| 839 |1,018 | |Offences | | | | | | | | | | | |under | | | | | | | | | | | |Rubric 4. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------| |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |those | | | | | | | | | | | |convicted | 3 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 46 | 48 | 22 | 17 | -- | |under | | | | | | | | | | | |Rubric 4. | | | | | | | | | | | |------------|----+-----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+------+ |Number of | | | | | | | | | | | |those who | | | | | | | | | | | |committed | | | | | | | | | | | |Offences | 11 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 4 |116 | 179 | 89 | 89 | -- | |under Rubric| | | | | | | | | | | |4 and were | | | | | | | | | | | |acquitted. | | | | | | | | | | | |__________|__|___|___|____|____|__|___|___|___|_____|

It may be of interest to give some details of one of the regiments whose composition was chiefly Slav. My informant, Dr. Ivo Yelavi['c], served as telephone officer on the staff of the 37th Dalmatian Regiment. At different times--at the fall of Gorica, in December 1916 at Sanmarco, and in June 1917 at Tolmein, three battalions went over to the enemy; 170 officers (of whom 169 were reserve officers) gave themselves up during the War. Some of them were Serbs, most were Croats. With respect to the fall of Gorica, this was not--despite the clamour that they made about it--due to the Italians, but to two officers, Tolja and Salvi, who took over with them all the plans of the underground forts and maps made to the scale of one step to a millimetre. Among the accomplishments which the officers of this regiment taught their men was how to surrender to the foe. Efforts were made to bring about a different state of things: German and Magyar regiments were placed behind it, with machine guns; the regiment itself was filled up with Magyars. On some occasions the 37th desisted from going over in order not to bring persecution upon their homes. In 1914, opposite the Montenegrins at Gorada, all the plans were worked out, but at the last moment Dr. Count Gozze (of Dubrovnik) said he had just thought of what would happen to their families, and they refrained. After the battalion had gone over in 1916 General Seidler told them he would do his best to have the regiment dissolved and the men divided among other regiments, but that not all the officers would go. This was an ominous hint that he intended to decimate them, after the fashion of Field-Marshal Liposcak. A fortnight later, in the presence of Field-Marshal Boroevi['c], General Wurm and General Seidler, they were highly praised; and when they, in company with a Magyar regiment, took Hill No. 166, it was announced that this had been achieved by the "fame-covered regiment," which was done to throw dust in the eyes of the Italians and the Entente. Various other methods were used to escape service at the front. A Slav doctor, whose hospital at Konjica could hold 400 patients, used to have 4000-5000 on the books; those whom he was unable to keep he gave convalescent leave. In this way he saved a great many of the Dalmatian intelligentsia. He and another Dalmatian doctor would send the men backwards and forwards, now to one hospital, now to another. One ordinary method for avoiding the front was to bribe the company commander and the N.C.O. who made out the lists. Yet sometimes there was no help for it. When, for instance, in September 1914 they were at Banjaluka, the enemy advanced to Pale, very near Sarajevo. My informant has a vivid recollection of the way in which a Viennese captain, the leader of the contingent, trembled. In a Bosnian valley they met a woman with five small children, one of whom was at her breast. The captain told my acquaintance (who was then a N.C.O.) to stay behind with some men and shoot her, but not to let him hear anything. He said that the General at Sarajevo had commanded that everything Serb that goes on two legs must be cut down. Yelavi['c] refused to carry out this order, whereupon the captain told Dr. Gozze, whom he greatly disliked, that he must do it. Gozze stayed behind, fired a few shots in the air and informed the captain that everything was over.

What the Austrian command really thought of the 37th Regiment, and of others, may be seen from a report dated December 2, 1916, and signed by the Archduke Frederick:

"... Certain events that have occurred can be explained only as the consequences of the weak attitude of the authorities towards the traitorous propaganda. On July 21, five soldiers of the 23rd Regiment deserted near Pogger, and gave the Italian Command important information regarding movements of troops and the course of the fighting near Gorica. Quite recently a lieutenant, two reserve officers, two N.C.O.'s and two soldiers deserted from the 37th Regiment, as did three soldiers from the 23rd Regiment. Since April, 244 desertions have taken place from the two regiments. Inquiry shows that these desertions occur regularly and immediately after the return of the soldiers from leave. Unless effective counter-measures are adopted it will be impossible to utilize these Dalmatian regiments."

It was not always an easy operation to surrender, even after one had reached the Italian lines. A friend of mine went over with another officer and eight men. In the first-line trenches they could see no one and felt uncertain what to do. However, they proceeded, and from the second-line trench their whispered calls were answered. They were made to pass in single file, holding up their hands, and with all the available weapons held in readiness against them. My friend, at his request, was conducted to the colonel, and the first thing that he did was to make a formal complaint against the way in which this army, of which he considered himself an ally, manned its front-line trenches.

The Yugoslavs who managed to escape to Russia volunteered for service and, after being organized by General Zivkovi['c] at Odessa, formed the two Divisions which, as is well known, did remarkable work in the Dobrudja. One only has to hear what the Bulgars say about them. In the battles round Constanza, during the campaign of 1916, one of these Divisions was so frequently engaged in the most arduous positions and had such enormous losses that it was regarded as having been wiped out. When the Roumanian troops retreated these Yugoslavs found themselves encircled by the Bulgarian and German armies; they hacked a way out with their bayonets. The higher officers had come from Serbia, the rest of them had previously been enrolled in Austria's army. Thirty-two officers out of 500 were killed, while 300 were wounded; and of the 42,000 men 1939 were killed and more than 8000 were wounded. Nevertheless the morale remained excellent and there was no lack of new volunteers. "Verily," as the Serbian proverb says, "it does not snow to kill the beasts, but in order that they may leave their traces."

THE FAITHFUL ITALIANS

Now let us see what Austria's Italian subjects achieved in the War, basing ourselves less upon the post-war declarations of some Istrian, Trentino and Dalmatian Italians than upon the official Austrian reports that were sent about these gentlemen to the Government during the War. For example:

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ARMY: SUPREME COMMAND.

Pr. z. 3903.

Dalmatia: Treatment of the Croatian and Italian Factors.

TO THE IMPERIAL AND ROYAL MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR, VIENNA.

KNIN, June 25, 1915.

I permit myself to notify:

Further on in this book there are similar good-conduct testimonials from Split, where the chief Italian used to wander down with an Austrian official to the harbour and there witness the embarkation, in chains, of the Yugoslav intelligentsia who were being taken as hostages. Hundreds and hundreds of Yugoslavs were shot, hanged, imprisoned; we know the numbers (not difficult to count) of the Italians in Dalmatia who suffered in any way. We know the equally minute numbers who escaped to Italy and enrolled themselves in the Italian army. As for the population of the Italian irredentist provinces, one may read in the Secolo of August 11, 1916 how it became generally known that "with the exception of Cervignano and Monfalcone, our soldiers have been received, on the other side of the old frontier, with demonstrations quite the reverse of enthusiastic on the part of the agrarian population. The surprise and disillusion of our troops were very great, for they expected from our unredeemed brothers, who all speak our language, a joyous reception." This frigidity may, however, have been due to the influence of Austrian priests and gendarmes. What are we to say, though, when we come to the more enlightened classes? The Italians in Austria were represented by twelve deputies who were devoted to the Austrian Government and hostile to Italy, and by six national-liberals and one socialist who were animated with pro-Italian sentiments. In electing such deputies, however, the peasants may not have simply allowed the priests and the gendarmes to command them; it is also possible that they were moved by the fear that the Trentino would economically be ruined if it were to become Italian and had to compete with the agricultural products of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact it was the Trentino intelligentsia which looked forward to annexation, and not, as a class, the peasants. And, during the War, Italian deputies of various parties overflowed with loyal Austrian sentiments; unlike the Yugoslav deputies, who refused in a body to vote the budget and the war credits, the Italian deputies never even ventured on a national pronouncement. Pittoni, chief of the Italian socialists at Triest, Faidutti (who was born in Italy) and Bugatto, the chiefs of the Italian Catholic party of Gradica, uttered not a few words of hate against the Madre Patria. The Italians praise always, and with excellent reason, their three heroes: Battisti, Rismondo and Sauro. But the Yugoslavs, in the course of the late War, lost in the unredeemed provinces so many hundreds of thousands who were hanged in Bosnia, who were dragged away--centenarians and infants--to the prison camps, were spat upon and stoned and treated in the most barbaric fashion, that they look upon those Yugoslavs who, like Battisti, fled from Austria and afterwards were slain by Austrians, as rather to be envied, since at any rate they struck a blow. But anyhow the names of all these volunteers could not be celebrated, on account of their great number. "There is nothing in fact," wired Mr. Beaumont on December 31, 1919, from Milan for the blameless readers of the Daily Telegraph, "there is nothing that creates such terrible exasperation in Italy as the persistent repetition of this patent falsehood that the Yugoslavs--meaning thereby the Croats--fought for the common cause."

Poor Battisti--when his regiment was captured he feigned to be dead. His men, however, told the Austrians that it was he, and this they did because they said that he and his Irredentist party were to blame for the War. These facts are now fairly well known, thanks to the Czech doctor who was on the spot and tried to save him by assuring the Austrians that it was not Battisti. The soldiers insisted, and in the end the Austrians executed him.

SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE AUSTRIAN NAVY

The several transactions or attempted transactions which took place at various periods of the War between the Yugoslav members of the Austro-Hungarian navy, associated with other Yugoslavs, on the one hand and the Italian authorities on the other, were frustrated time and again by the astounding conduct of the Italians. Had they made anything like a proper use of the invaluable information that was showered upon them or if they had requested the other Allied navies in the Mediterranean to act on their behalf many Allied ships in the Mediterranean would not have been torpedoed--since the submarine activity centred at Kotor, one of the stations which could have been seized--the Austrian front in Albania must have collapsed and the entire war would have ended sooner.

In October 1917 the Austrian torpedo boat No. 11 was seized by the Slav members of her crew and brought into Ancona, but their offers of service were refused. The ringleaders showed, by refusing to accept large sums of money, that their purpose was purely patriotic. The Italians, however, simply interned them.

A much more serious affair was that of February 1, 1918, on which day it had been arranged that the Slav sailors at Pola and Kotor should mutiny. At the former place it did not succeed, at Kotor it was so far successful that the mutineers, after imprisoning Admiral Njegovan and many other officers whom they suspected of not being in sympathy with them, took command of the ships and left unanswered an ultimatum addressed to them by the High Naval Command. There was a prospect of the whole fleet shaking off the Austro-Hungarian authority. The chief revolutionary leader was Ante Sesan, a Croat ensign, twenty-six years of age, from near Dubrovnik and the son of a well-known sea captain on the coast. "We drew up," he says, "a proclamation representing our case to the Yugoslavs, Czechs and Poles from the national point of view, and to the Germans and Magyars from the socialist point of view. The Germans threw in their lot with us, but the Magyars went against us. From our ship we continually sent wireless messages asking for help from the Entente fleet, and at first from Italy which was nearest and could help most quickly. The messages were continually jammed by sailors at the Ercegnovo station loyal to Austria-Hungary, but nevertheless it was known in Italy that something was happening at Kotor. We told the High Command at Bok Kotor (Bocche di Cattaro) that we no longer recognized their authority and asked that we might get into touch with our deputies, whom alone we recognized. The High Command consented. We wired for the following deputies to come to us: Trei['c] (Yugoslav), Stanjek (Czech), Karolyi (Magyar), Adler (German) and one Polish deputy, but our wires did not, for the most part, get through. Our object was to get help, but meanwhile our situation became more and more desperate. We knew that the Third Division was coming from Pola against us, and also the army in Herzegovina. We were prepared to take the battery of the Punta d'Ostro, the most important battery and the key to Bok Kotor, which was in the hands of sailors inimical to us. The news came from Gaa that the Magyars there had got the upper hand. We tried to bring them over to us, but in vain. They said, 'If you don't stop this, we shall join the Third Division and take action against you.' The Magyars from other boats sent the same message. The Council of Sailors then debated what was to be done, and it was suggested that Rasha (who was shot later) should go in a hydroplane to Italy to give information on the situation and ask for help, and that we in the meantime should lie low, and in the event of help coming, again raise a revolt. Rasha objected that he did not know Italian, and proposed that I should go. The Third Division meanwhile was already in the port Bok Kotor.

"At half-past eight in the morning we flew away in the hydroplane to Italy, I and two Poles. At ten we reached Mattinato, and I explained at the Carabineers' station why I had come and asked to be brought as soon as possible before the Commander of the District. Later I saw Captain Odo (of the Territorials) and told him all, and asked him to put me into communication with Brindisi, Taranto or Rome. He had us put under arrest. I was interviewed by two flying officers two days later, but they went off to Brindisi in my hydroplane without me.

"On February 17 I was taken under armed escort to Brindisi, where I was imprisoned in a cabin of the man-of-war Varese.... I told the commander of the ship that I was at his disposal with all my knowledge of the Austrian fleet. I asked him to put questions, because I did not know how much he knew. It was all to no purpose. On February 21 the Admiral in command at Brindisi saw me. From what he said I understood that nothing had been done about Bok Kotor and, what was more, that not one hydroplane had been sent to investigate the situation there. I learned that I was to go to Rome. They clapped me into barracks.... I again asked the Italians to allow me to speak to the Serbian Minister, whom I considered the representative of the Yugoslav people, but the request was refused on the plea that it was a question of high politics. Meanwhile the Polish representative Zamorski was allowed to visit the Poles, but from February 3 to May 25 I was unable to get into communication with any of our people."

In May there was another outbreak at Kotor, but it was overpowered, and many Yugoslav sailors were shot or imprisoned. Sesan was also kept in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out, questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor launches he undertook to organize communication between Italy and the Slavs of Dalmatia, in this way to follow events in Austria and help the revolutionary movement. It would be possible to procure the secret wireless codes which the Austrian and German submarines used--but the Italians would do nothing, because they were not willing to recognize that the Yugoslavs were fighting against Austria.... Seeing that he would never move the Italians to take serious action against the Austrian fleet, Sesan asked to be sent to the Serbian army in Macedonia, so that at Salonica he could get into touch with the French and British fleet. In this also he failed, for he was interned from June till December with Yugoslav officers at Nocera Umbra. While there he was visited by Bissolati, from whom he learned that the Chief of the Admiralty was hostile to the Yugoslavs. And at Nocera Umbra he remained until December 6, when he was liberated, owing to the efforts of Trumbi['c] and other members of the Yugoslav Committee.