Part 2

SENSITIVENESS WITH RESPECT TO THEIR ARMY

Of course one should not generalize regarding nations, except in vague or very guarded terms; but possibly it would not be unjust to say that the Italians, apart from those of northern provinces and of Sardinia, have too much imagination to make first-class soldiers. And they are too sensitive, as you could see in an Italian military hospital. Their task was also not a trifling one--to stand for all those months in territory so forbidding. And there would have been more sympathy with the Italians in the autumn of 1918 if they had not had such very crushing triumphs when the War was practically over. What was the condition of the Austrian army? About October 15, in one section of the front--35 kilometres separating the extreme points from one another--the following incidents occurred: the Army Command at St. Vitto issued an order to the officers invariably to carry a revolver, since the men were now attacking them; a Magyar regiment revolted and marched away, under the command of a Second-Lieutenant whom they had elected; at Stino di Livenza, while the officers were having their evening meal, two hand grenades were thrown into the mess by soldiers; at Codroipo a regiment revolted, attacked the officers' mess, and wounded several of the people there, including the general in command. Such was the Austrian army in those days; and it was only human if comparisons were made--not making any allowances for Italy's economic difficulties, her coal, her social and her religious difficulties--but merely bald comparisons were made between these wholesale victories against the Austrians as they were in the autumn of 1918 and the scantier successes of the previous years. In September 1916 when the eighth or ninth Italian offensive had pierced the Austrian front and the Italians reached a place called Provachina, Marshal Boroevi['c] had only one reserve division. The heavy artillery was withdrawn, the light artillery was packed up, the company commanders having orders to retire in the night. Only a few rapid-fire batteries were left with a view to deceiving the enemy. But as the Italians appeared to the Austrians to have no heart to come on--there may have been other reasons--the artillery was unpacked and the Austrians returned to their old front. In May 1917, between Monte Gabriele and Doberdo, Boroevi['c] had no reserve battalion; his troops, in full marching kit, had to defend the whole front: they were able to do so by proceeding now to this sector and now to that. No army is immune from serious mistakes--"We won in 1871," said Bismarck, "although we made very many mistakes, because the French made even more"--but the Yugoslavs in the Austrian army could not forget such incidents as that connected with the name of Professor Pivko. This gentleman, who is now living at Maribor, was made the subject of a book, Der Verrath bei Carzano ("The Treachery near Carzano"), which was published by the Austrian General Staff. His battalion commander was a certain Lieut.-Colonel Vidale, who was a first cousin of the C.O., General Vidale; and when an orderly overheard Pivko, who is a Slovene, and several Czech officers, discussing a plan which would open the front to the Italians, he ran all the way to the General's headquarters and gave the information. The General telephoned to his cousin, who said that the allegation was absurd and that Pivko was one of his best officers. The orderly was therefore thrown into prison, and Pivko, having turned off the electricity from the barbed wires and arranged matters with a Bosnian regiment, made his way to the Italians. The suggestion is that, owing to the lie of the land and the weak Austrian forces, it was possible for the Italians to reach Trent; anyhow the Austrians were amazed when they ceased to advance and the German regiment which was in Trent did not have to come out to defend it. Everyone in the Austrian army recognized that the Italian artillery was pre-eminent and that the officers were most gallant, especially in the early part of the War, when one would frequently find an officer lying dead with no men near him. But such episodes as the above-mentioned--it would be possible, but wearisome, to describe others--could not but have some effect on the opposing army, and would be recalled when the Italians sang their final panegyric. The reasons for the Austrian débâcle on the Piave are as follows: when the Allied troops had reached Rann, Susegana, Ponte di Piave and Montiena, the Austrian High Command decided on October 24 to throw against them the 36th Croat division, the 21st Czech, the 44th Slovene, a German division and the 12th Croat Regiment of Uhlans. However, the 16th and 116th Croat, the 30th Regiment of Czech Landwehr and the 71st Slovene Landwehr Regiment declared that they would not fight against the French and English, and, instead of advancing, retired. The 78th Croat Regiment, as well as three other Czech Regiments, abandoned the front, after having made a similar declaration. At the same time the 96th and 135th Croat Regiments, in agreement with the Czech detachments, made a breach for the Italians on the left wing at Stino di Livenza, while Slav marching formations revolted at Udine. The Austro-Hungarian troops consequently had to retreat.... No one expects of the Italian army, as a whole, that it will be on a level with the best, but when the British officers who were with the Serbs on the Salonica front compare their reminiscences with those of the British officers on the Italian front, it is improbable that garlands will be strewn for the Italians. Towards the end of October a plan was adopted by the British and Italian staffs for capturing the island of Papadopoli in the Piave; this island, about three miles in length, formed the outpost line of the Austrian defences. On the night of October 23-24 an attack was to be made by the 2nd H.A.C., while three companies of the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers were to act as reserve. This operation is most vividly described by the Senior Chaplain of the 7th Division, the Rev. E. C. Crosse, D.S.O., M.C.; and he says nothing as to what occurred on that part of the island which was to be seized by the Italians. Well, nothing had occurred, for the Italians did not get across and when the water rose they said they could do nothing on that night. These are the words of Mr. Crosse's footnote: "The obvious question, 'What was going to be done with the farther half of the island?' we have purposely left undiscussed here. This half was outside the area of the 7th Division, and as such it falls outside the scope of this work for the time being. The subsequent capture of the whole island (on the following night) by the 7th Division was not part of the original plan." Afterwards, when a crossing was made to the mainland, the left flank was unsupported, as the Italians did not cross the river, and thus the 23rd Division had its flank exposed. A belief is entertained that the Italian cavalry is one of the best in the world; evidently it is not the best, for on that Piave front, where thousands of Italian cavalry were available, the only ones who put in their appearance early in the battle were three hundred very war-stained Northampton Yeomanry.

"The record of the Italian troops in the field renders unnecessary an assertion of their courage," says Mr. Anthony Dell; "for reckless bravery in assault none surpasses them." But when you have said that you have nearly summed up their military virtues, for discipline is not their strong suit, and they have little sense of responsibility. On the other hand, we must remember their admirable patience, but the great mass of the people have not attained the level of Christianity; they are savage both in heart and mind, with no outlook wider than that of the family. It is the Italian proletariat which is judged by the Yugoslavs, whose otherwise acute discernment has been warped by the unhappy circumstances of the time. Indifferent to the fact that he himself is a compound of physical energy and oriental mysticism, the Yugoslav has become inclined to contemplate merely the physical side of the Italian, and for the most part that portion of it which has to do with war. The Italian long-sightedness and prudence and business capacity are ignored save in so far as they delayed the country's entrance into the Great War. The sensitiveness and artistic attributes of the Italians, who gaze with aching hearts upon the glories of a sunset, are but rarely felt by Serbs, who gather brushwood for the fire that is to roast their sucking-pig and who sit down to watch the operation, haply with their backs turned to the sunset. The Yugoslav, especially the Serb, is a man from the Middle Ages brought suddenly into the twentieth century. With his heroic heart and his wonderful strength he fails to understand those people who, on account of one reason or another, have no passion for war. And as the military deeds of the Italians have had such effect upon the minds of the Yugoslavs, we have alluded to them at a greater length than would otherwise have been profitable. The Yugoslavs despise the Italians. Also the Italians, who concern themselves with diplomacy, are conscious that their keen wits and their long training in the wiles of the civilized world, their old traditions and their prestige give them a considerable advantage over the Yugoslav diplomat, so that this kind of Italian despises the Yugoslav. He knows very well that the French or British statesmen do not, amid the smoke of after-dinner cigars, esteem his case by the same standard as that which they apply to the case which the ordinary Yugoslav diplomat presents to them in office hours. As for the wider Italian circles, one must fear that the old hatred of Germany, because the Germans seemed to despise them, will henceforward colour the sentiments with which they regard the Yugoslavs. It is a state of things between these neighbours which other people cannot but view with apprehension.

AN UNFORTUNATE NAVAL AFFAIR

There was in Yugoslav naval circles no very cordial feeling for the Italians. The Austrian dreadnought, Viribus Unitis, was torpedoed in a most ingenious fashion by two resolute officers, Lieutenant Raffaele Paolucci, a doctor, and Major Raffaele Rossetti. In October 1917 they independently invented a very small and light compressed-air motor which could be used to propel a mine into an enemy harbour. They submitted their schemes to the Naval Inventions Board, were given an opportunity of meeting, and after three months had brought their invention into a practical form. The naval authorities, however, refused to allow them to go on any expedition till they both were skilled long-distance swimmers. Six months had thus to be dedicated entirely to swimming. At the end of that time they were supplied with a motor-boat and two bombs of a suitable size for blowing up large airships. To these bombs were fixed the small motors by means of which they were to be propelled into the port of Pola, while the two men, swimming by their side, would control and guide them. Just after nightfall on October 31, 1918, the raiders arrived outside Pola.

Were they aware that anything had happened in the Austro-Hungarian navy? On October 26 there appeared in the Hrvatski List of Pola a summons to the Yugoslavs, made by the Executive Committee of Zagreb, which had been elected on the 23rd. This notice in the newspaper recommended the formation of local committees, and asked the Yugoslavs in the meantime to eschew all violence. When Rear-Admiral (then Captain) Methodius Koch--whose mother was an Englishwoman--read this at noon he thought it was high time to do something. Koch had always been one of the most patriotically Slovene officers of the Austrian navy. On various occasions during the War he had attempted to hand over his ships to the Italians, and when some other Austrian commander signalled to ask him why he was cruising so near to the Italian coast he invariably answered, "I have my orders." He found it, however, impossible to give himself up, as the Italians whom he sighted, no matter how numerous they were, would never allow him to come within signalling range. Koch had frequently spoken to his Slovene sailors, preparing them for the day of liberation, and he was naturally very popular among them. Let us not forget that such an officer, true to his own people, was in constant peril of being shot.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT POLA

On the afternoon of that same day, October 26th, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with its army and navy, was collapsing, Admiral Horthy, an energetic, honest, if not brilliant Magyar, the Commander of the Fleet at Pola, called to his flag-ship, the Viribus Unitis, one officer representing each nationality of the Empire. Koch was there on behalf of the Slovenes. The Admiral announced that a wholesale mutiny had been planned for November 1st, during which the ships' treasuries would be robbed, and he asked these officers to collaborate with him in preventing it. Koch, at the Admiral's request, wrote out a speech that he would deliver to the Slovenes, and this document, with one or two notes in the Admiral's writing, is in Koch's possession. "If you will not listen to your Admirals, then," so ran the speech, "you should listen to our national leaders." He addressed himself to the men, of course in the Slovene language, as a fellow-countryman. He begged them to keep quiet. He deprecated all plundering, firstly in order that their good name should not be sullied, and also pointing out that the neighbouring population was overwhelmingly Slovene. Out of 45,000 men only 2000 could leave by rail; he therefore asked them all to stay peacefully at Pola. Meanwhile the local committee had been formed; Koch was, secretly, a member of it, and on the 28th, Rear-Admiral Cicoli, a kindly old gentleman who was port-commandant, advised Koch to join it as liaison-officer. It was on the 28th at eight in the morning that the officers who had been selected to calm the different nationalities started to go round the fleet. That officer who spoke to the Germans declared that one must not abandon hopes of victory, and that anyhow the War would soon be over. Count Thun, who discoursed to the Czechs, was ill-advised enough to make the Deity, their Kaiser and their oath the main subjects of his remarks, so that he was more than once in great danger of being thrown overboard. Koch went first of all to the Viribus Unitis, but the mutiny had begun; a bugle was sounded for a general assembly; it was ignored, and the crew let it be known that they were weary of the old game, which consisted of the officers egging on one nation against another. This mutiny had not yet spread to the remaining ships, and on them the speeches were delivered. At the National Assembly that evening Koch was chosen as chief of National Defence; he thereupon went to Cicoli and formally asked to be allowed to join the committee. When Vienna refused its assent, Koch resigned his commission. By this time all discipline had gone by the board, no one thought of such a thing as office work and, amid the chaos, sailors' councils appeared, with which Koch had to treat. The situation was made no easier by the presence of large numbers of Germans, Magyars and Italians, of whom the latter also formed a National Council. On the 30th, Koch, as chief of National Defence, asked Admirals Cicoli and Horthy to come at 9 p.m. to the Admiralty, with a view to the transference of the military power. At 7.30, in the municipal building, there was a joint meeting of the Yugoslav and the Italian National Councils, and so many speeches were made that the Admirals had to be asked to postpone their appearance for two hours; and at eleven o'clock, with the street well guarded against a possible outbreak on the part of any loyal troops, the whole Yugoslav committee, accompanied by one member of the Italian committee, went to the Admiralty. Horthy had gone home, but Cicoli and his whole staff were waiting. The old gentleman was informed that he no longer had any power in his hands; he was asked to give up his post to Koch, and this he was prepared to do. "It is not so hard for me now," he said, "as I have meanwhile received a telegram from His Majesty, ordering me," and at this point he produced the paper, "to give up Pola to the Yugoslavs." The affair had apparently been settled between nine and eleven o'clock. Cicoli was ready to sign the protocol, but out of courtesy to a chivalrous old man this was left undone; after all there were witnesses enough.

During the night of October 30th-31st, a radiogram, destined for President Wilson, was composed. "Together with the Czechs, the Slovaks and the Poles, and in understanding," it said, "with the Italians, we have taken over the fleet and Pola, the war-harbour, and the forts." It asked for the dispatch of representatives of such Entente States as were disinterested in the local national question. But now a telegram was received from Zagreb, announcing that Dr. Ante Tresi['c]-Pavii['c], of the chief National Council, would be at Pola at 8 a.m. and that, pending his arrival, no wireless was to be sent out. Dr. Tresi['c]-Pavii['c], poet and deputy for the lower Dalmatian islands, had always been, in spite of his indifferent health, one of the most strenuous fighters for Yugoslavia. Two years of the War he spent in an Austrian prison, but on his release he managed to travel up and down Croatia and Dalmatia, inciting the Yugoslav sailors to revolt; many of them had already read a speech by this silver-tongued deputy in the Reichsrath, a speech of which the reading and circulation had been forbidden as a crime of high treason. About 9 a.m. of the 31st there was a meeting, on board the Viribus Unitis, between Tresi['c]-Pavii['c] and Koch. There was a brief ceremony, the leader of the Sailors' Council handing over the vessel to the deputy, as representing the National Council of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Admiral Horthy, in his cabin, likewise drew up a procès-verbal to the same effect, saying that he was authorized to do this by the Emperor, and he supported his statement by the production of a wireless message. Koch urged on the doctor the necessity of sending the above-mentioned wireless to Wilson. "The news of this great event," says Tresi['c]-Pavii['c] in an article in the Balkan Review (May 1919), "was dispatched to all the Powers by wireless." But unfortunately he seems, whether on his own responsibility or that of Zagreb, to have prevented Koch from sending it on that day. Captain Janko de Vukovi['c] Podkapelski was then placed in command of the fleet, though the Sailors' Council at first declined to accept him. He was at heart a patriot, but had taken no active part in Yugoslav propaganda and, unluckily for himself, he had been compelled to accompany Count Tisza in his recent ill-starred tour of Bosnia, when the Magyar leader made a last attempt to browbeat the local Slavs. Yet, as no other high officer was available, Koch told the Sailors' Council that they simply must acknowledge Vukovi['c], and at 4 p.m. he took over the command, the Yugoslav flag being hoisted on all the vessels simultaneously, to the accompaniment of the Croatian national anthem and the firing of salutes.

THE STORY OF THE "VIRIBUS UNITIS"

Three hours previously to this a torpedo-boat, with Paolucci and Rossetti on board, had sailed from Venice; and at ten o'clock in the evening, as Paolucci tells us, he and his companion, after a certain amount of embracing, handshaking, saluting and loyal exclamations, plunged into the water. The first obstacle was a wooden pier upon which sentries were marching to and fro; this was safely passed by means of two hats shaped like bottles, which Paolucci and Rossetti now put on. The bombs were submerged, and thus the sentry saw nothing but a couple of bottles being tossed about by the waves. A row of wooden beams, bearing a thin electric wire, had then to be negotiated, and the last obstacle consisted of half a dozen steel nets which had laboriously to be disconnected from the cables which held them. It was now nearly six o'clock; the two men cautiously approached the Viribus Unitis and fixed one of their bombs just below the water-line, underneath the ladder conducting to the deck. Paolucci simply records, without comment, that the ship was illuminated; perhaps he and his friend were too tired to make the obvious deduction that the hourly-expected end of the War had really arrived. A number of officers from other ships had remained on the Viribus Unitis after the previous evening's ceremony; but the look-out, seeing the Italians in the water, must have thought it was eccentric of them to come swimming out at this hour to join in the festivities. A motor-launch soon picked them up and they were brought on board the flag-ship. "Viva l'Italia!" they shouted, for they were proud of dying for their country. "Viva l'Italia!" replied some of the crew to this pair of allied officers. When they were conducted to Captain Vukovi['c] they told him that his vessel would in a short time be blown up. The order was given to abandon ship, and Paolucci and his friend relate that when they asked the captain if they might also try to save themselves he shook them both by the hand, saying that they were brave men and that they deserved to live. So they plunged into the water and swam rapidly away, but a few minutes later they were picked up by a launch and taken back, the captain having suddenly begun to suspect, they said, that the story of the bomb was untrue. They were again made to walk up the ladder, under which lay the explosives. It was then 6.28. The ladder was crowded with sailors who were also returning to their ship. "Run, run for your lives," shouted Paolucci. At last his foot touched the deck, and then he and Rossetti ran as fast as they could to the stern. Hardly had they got there than a terrific explosion rent the air, and a column of water shot three hundred feet straight up into the sky. Paolucci and Rossetti were again in the water, and looking back they saw a man scramble up the side of the vessel, which had now turned completely over, with her keel uppermost. There on the keel stood this man, with folded arms. It was Vukovi['c], who had insisted on going down with his ship. About fifty other men were killed.

When Koch came out of his house, feeling that there must be no more delay in sending the radiogram to President Wilson, a young Italian Socialist ran up to him in the street and told him of the fate of the flagship. As the news spread everyone thought it must be the work of some Austrian officers. It was feared that they would explode the arsenal, and that would have meant the destruction of the whole town. Amid the uproar and chaos, Koch had placards distributed, saying that the Viribus Unitis had been torpedoed by two Italians, who were in custody. And then the wireless was sent to Paris.

The two officers were taken to the Admiralty and then placed on the dreadnought Prince Eugene, it being rumoured that the Italians of Pola intended to rescue them. Subsequently Koch and other officers, together with Dr. Stani['c], President of the Italian National Council, went out to see the prisoners. Stani['c] was left alone with them for as long as he wished. And when Koch saw them--he did not then shake hands--and asked if they knew what they had done, "I know it," replied Rossetti rather arrogantly. Paolucci's demeanour was more modest.

"I was your friend all through the War," said Koch, "and now you sink our ships. I can only assume that you were ignorant of what had taken place."

They said that that was so.

"But if you had known," said the Admiral to Rossetti, "would you have done this?"

"Yes," he answered. "I am an officer. I had my orders to blow up the ship and I would have obeyed them."

Koch had undertaken that if it turned out that they were unaware of the ship's transference to the Yugoslavs he would kiss them both. He did so, and allowed them to communicate with Italy by wireless.

Never, says Koch, will the unpleasant taste of those kisses leave his mouth. The men were officers; their words could not be doubted. But as they must surely have been in Venice for at least a day or two before October 31, it seems extraordinary that they did not hear, via Triest, of what the Emperor Charles was doing with his navy. If only they had perfected their invention and learned to swim a trifle sooner there would be no shadow cast on their achievement, but the Yugoslavs--who had never seen any sort of Italian naval attack on Pola during the War--could not be blamed for thinking that the disappearance of their Viribus Unitis would be viewed with equanimity by the Italians.... With regard to the other vessels, it was arranged in Paris that they should proceed, under the white flag, to Corfu with Yugoslav commanders; but this was found impossible, as they were undermanned. Part of the fleet arrived at Kotor and was placed at the disposal of the commander of the Yugoslav detachment of the Allied forces which had come from Macedonia. A serious episode occurred at Pola, where on November 5 an Italian squadron arrived and demanded the surrender of the ships. The Yugoslav commander succeeded in sending by wireless a strong protest to Paris against this barefaced violation of the agreement. The Italian commander, Admiral Cagni, likewise sent a protest, but Clemenceau upheld the Yugoslavs. They were absolutely masters of the ex-Austro-Hungarian fleet; it rested solely with them either to sink it or hand it over to the Allies in good condition. The Yugoslavs did not sink the fleet, because they wished to show their loyalty to, and confidence in, the justice of the Allies. They never suspected at that time that the ships would not be shared at least equally between themselves and the Italians. But in December 1919 the Supreme Council in Paris allotted to the Yugoslavs twelve disarmed torpedo-boats for policing and patrolling their coasts.

HOW THE ITALIANS LANDED AT POLA

Admiral Cagni was invited by the Yugoslavs to enter the harbour of Pola. But for two and a half days he hesitated outside and heavily bombarded the hill-fortress of Barbarica, which had been abandoned. At last he made up his mind to risk a landing. The Italian girls of Pola, dressed in white, came down in a procession to the port; their arms were full of flowers for the Italian sailors. And the first men who disembarked were buried in flowers and kissed and kissed before the girls perceived that, by a prudent Italian arrangement, this advance guard consisted of men of the Czecho-Slovak Legion. The first care of the Italians at Pola was not to ascertain the whereabouts of the munition depots; they made for the naval museum, where trophies from the battle of Vis in 1866 were preserved. These they removed, as well as whatever took their fancy at the Arsenal. Among their booty was a silver dinner service which it had been customary to use on occasions of Imperial visits. An Italian officer appeared on the Radetzky. Very roughly he asked an officer who he was. "I am the commander," said this first-lieutenant. "No! no!" said the other, "I am that." But the Italians for the most part avoided going on board the ships.... Admiral Cagni himself was very ill at ease, but grew noticeably more confident as he observed the utter demoralization of Pola. His correspondence likewise underwent the appropriate changes. While Koch was in command of 45,000 men, Cagni wrote to "His Excellency the most illustrious Signor Ammiraglio"; when the numbers were reduced to 20,000 the style of address was "Illustrious Signor Ammiraglio"; when they fell to 10,000 it became "Al Signor Ammiraglio"; when only 5000 remained a letter began with the word "Ammiraglio!" and when the last man had left Pola and Koch was alone, Cagni sent word through his adjutant that he knew no Admiral Koch but merely a Signor Koch.

THE SEA-FARING YUGOSLAVS

Talking of numbers, one may mention that the Yugoslavs formed about 65 per cent. of the Austro-Hungarian navy, as one would naturally expect from the sea-faring population of Dalmatia and Istria. In the technical branches of the service only about 40 per cent. were Yugoslavs, for a preference was given to Germans and Magyars. Out of 116 chief engineers only two were Yugoslavs. Serbo-Croat was an obligatory language; but German, as in the army, was the language of command. Thus one sees that, in spite of not being favoured, the Yugoslavs of the Adriatic, who are natural sailors, constituted more than half the personnel of the navy. "These Slav people," writes Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who took the trouble to go to the Adriatic with a view to solving the local problems, "these Slav people have only tentatively approached the sea. Its traffic was never native to them." If he had continued a little way down the coast he would have seen many and many a neat little house whose owners are retired sea-captains. "They are not mariners," says Mr. Belloc. If he had made a small excursion into history he would have learned that Venice--since it was to her own advantage--made an exception of Dalmatia's shipping industry, and while she was placing obstacles along the roads that a Dalmatian might wish to take, allowed the time-honoured industries of the sea to be developed. Such fine sailors were the Dalmatians that Benedetto Pesaro, the Venetian Admiral against the Turks in the fifteenth century, deplored the fact that his galleys were not fully manned by them, instead of those "Lombardi" whom he despised. "They are," says Mr. John Leyland, the naval authority--they are "pre-eminently a maritime race. The circumstances of their geography, and in a chief degree the wonderful configuration of their coast-line, with its sheltered waters and admirable anchorages, made them sea-farers.... The proud Venetians knew them as pirates and marauders long ago." And "there has never been a better seaman," adds Mr. Leyland, "than the pirate turned trader." In 1780 the island of Bra had forty vessels, Lussin a hundred, and Kotor, which in the second half of the eighteenth century quadrupled her mercantile marine, had a much larger fleet than either of them. The best-known dockyards were those at Korula and Trogir, while the great Overseas Sailing Ship Navigation Company at Peljesac (Sabioncello) occupied an important position in the world of trade. The company's fleet of large sailing vessels was of native construction; both crews and captains were natives of the country, so that it was in every way the best representative of the Dalmatian mercantile marine of the period. When the Treaty of Vienna in 1815 gave Venice, Istria and the Eastern Adriatic to the Habsburgs the vessels plying in those waters were very largely Slav. And with the substitution of steam the Dalmatians are still holding their own, with this difference, that the ships are now built, even as they are manned, not by nobles and the wealthy bourgeoisie, but by men who come from modest sea-faring or peasant families. In the Austrian mercantile marine German capital formed 47·82 per cent., Italian capital 19·37 per cent. and Slav capital 31·80 per cent. One of these Dalmatian Slavs, Mihanovi['c], going out in poverty to the Argentine, has followed with such success the shipbuilding of his ancestors that he is now among the chief millionaires of Buenos Aires. With regard to fishing, there are along the Istrian and Dalmatian coast more than 5000 small vessels which give employment to 19,000 fishermen, of whom only 1000 are citizens of Italy. But Mr. Belloc says that these Slav people have only tentatively approached the sea, that its traffic was never native to them, and that they are not mariners. It is marvellous that you can be paid for writing that sort of stuff.... By Mr. Belloc's side is the Marchese Donghi, who in the Fortnightly Review of June 1922 says: "It is superfluous to add that everything which has to do with navigation [in Dalmatia] is entirely in the hands of the Italians." But I think it is superfluous to contradict a gentleman who ingenuously believes that Dalmatia is largely Italian because on our maps we have hitherto used Italian place-names. Will he say that the population of Praha is not Czech because on our maps that capital is commonly called Prague? It pleases the Marchese to be facetious about what he describes as "that queer thing called the Srba Hrvata i Slovenca Kralji (Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes)"; he should have said "Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca." He says that in Serbia "no industry is possible," whereas in one single town, Lescovac, there are no less than eleven textile besides other factories. He says that one-third of the population of Dalmatia is Italian, and "almost exclusively the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie." I suppose that is why more than 700 of Dalmatia's leading citizens were deported by the Italians after the Great War. He says many other nonsensical things, and sums it all up by telling us of the "bewildered incomprehension" of the Adriatic problem!

WHO SET A STANDARD THAT WAS TOO HIGH

Whether rightly or wrongly, the Yugoslavs had formed their opinion of the Italian sailors, an opinion which dated from the time of Tegetthoff and had not undergone much modification by the incidents of this War. They remembered what had happened when they cruised outside Italian ports; they knew very probably that the British had on more than one occasion to break through the boom outside Taranto harbour, and they may have read of the experience of some French ladies who came to the Albanian coast on the Città di Bari towards the end of 1915 with 2000 kilos of milk, clothing and medical supplies for the Serbian children who had struggled across the mountains. These ladies write that after the torpedoing of the Brindisi their own crew ran up and down without appearing to see them; the crew had life-belts, those of the ladies were taken away. Ultimately they succeeded in having themselves put ashore, and the Città di Bari fled in the night without landing the stores. And in Albania, the ladies say, one witnessed the "stoic endurance of the noble Serbian race, of which every day brought us more examples. In that procession of ghosts and of the dying there was no imploring look, there was no hand stretched out to beg." ... The Yugoslavs may have known what happened to Lieutenant (now Captain) Binnos de Pombara of the French navy. This officer, in command of the Fourche, had been escorting the Città di Messina and, observing that she was torpedoed, had sent to her, perhaps a little imprudently, all his life-boats and belts. A few minutes later, when he was himself torpedoed, the Italians did not see him; anyhow they made for the shore. De Pombara encouraged his men by causing them to sing the Marseillaise and so forth; they were in the water, clinging to the wreckage, for several hours, until another boat came past. The next day at Brindisi, when he met the captain of the Città di Messina, this gentleman once more did not see him; but the French Government, although de Pombara was a very young man, created him an officer of the Legion of Honour.

AN ELECTRICAL ATMOSPHERE AND NO PRECAUTIONS

There was thus a certain amount of tension existing between the military and naval services of the Yugoslavs and those of Italy. Other Yugoslavs were apprehensive as to whether the Italians would not demand the enforcement of the Treaty of London. But the United States was not bound by that agreement, which was so completely at variance with Wilson's principle of self-determination. One presumed that, pending an examination of these matters, the disputed territories would be occupied by troops of all the Allies. But unfortunately this did not turn out to be the case. France, Britain and America stood by, while the Italians and the Yugoslavs took whatsoever they could lay their hands on. As the Yugoslav military forces had to come overland, while the Italians had command of the sea, it was natural that in most places the Italians got the better of the scramble; and where they found the Yugoslavs in possession, as at Rieka, they usually ousted them by diplomatic methods. And in one way or another they managed to make their holdings tally, as far as possible, with the Treaty of London, and even to go beyond it. Baron Sonnino declined to make a comprehensive statement as to the Italian programme. Of course he desired in the end to exchange Dalmatia--the seizure of which would entail a war with Yugoslavia--against Rieka. But as Italian public opinion had scarcely thought of Rieka during the War, he made it his business to cause them to yearn for that town. His compatriots were asking why Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points should be waived for France in the Sarre Basin, for Britain in Ireland and Egypt, but not for them. And some of his would-be ingenious compatriots pointed out--their contentions were embodied in the Italian Memorandum to the Supreme Council on January 10, 1920--that as the Treaty of London was based on the presumption that Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia would remain separate States, this instrument had been altogether upset by the merging of those Southern Slavs into one country, Yugoslavia; it followed, therefore, that the Treaty which attributed Rieka to the Croats could no longer be invoked. But the other parts of the Treaty which gave the Slav mainland and islands to Italy were absolutely unassailable. The reader will resent being troubled by this kind of balderdash, but Messrs. Clemenceau, Lloyd-George and Wilson may have resented it even more.

ITALIAN MILDNESS ON THE ISLE OF VIS