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People who live far from the country itself and know little of the sentiments entertained by the citizens themselves, can easily entertain very incorrect ideas about public opinion in Montenegro. Mr. Ronald McNeill, writing in the January number of the Nineteenth Century, has said some foolish things about the "Martyrdom of Montenegro." However much, for sentimental reasons, we may regret the passing of an independent Montenegro and a picturesque dynasty, we ought to recognize the plain fact that the Montenegrin people want to be incorporated into the Jugo-Slav confederation, that they glory in the reunion of the Serbian race, and that they disowned their former king, not merely because of the part he played in the Great War, but mainly because he was not true to their great national ideal—the ideal of reunion which has been cherished by the race ever since the bloody day of Kossovo, in 1389.

The personal ambition of Nicholas made him a separatist. In other days, when he was but a prince and not a king, he was himself in favor of union between Montenegro and Serbia. In 1866 he made an agreement with Prince Michael, according to which he was to abdicate in favor of the latter, who in turn was to transfer his hereditary rights to Nicholas in the event that he himself should have no direct descendants. Even at this date, we may be sure, Nicholas would have favored the union if the Serbian crown were offered to his own, the Petrovitch, dynasty. Yet his former subjects, who for the last two years have celebrated with enthusiasm the birthday of Peter, of the Black George dynasty, do not forget that the actual regent, the Crown Prince Alexander, who in all probability will shortly succeed to the crown of Jugo-Slavia, is a grandson of Nicholas himself. It is worth while to note that when, on November 28 last, the general elections were again held in Montenegro, not one partisan of King Nicholas was elected for the Constituent Assembly of Jugo-Slavia. The question of his

return to the throne had been settled by the people once and for all.

The climax of Italian misconduct in the Adriatic territory was reached when D'Annunzio seized Fiume or Rieka (as it is known in Croatian). This ancient porttown, which even the Emperor Augustus had not brought within the confines of Italy when he extended her borders so as to embrace the Istrian peninsula, was not included in the territory to be assigned to Italy under the Pact of London. But she was an important outlet upon the Adriatic, she had a large Italian element in her population, and, if Jugo-Slavia did not resist Italian aggression elsewhere, she was even less likely to do so at this point. It is true that the Italian government never set the seal of public approval upon D'Annunzio's high-handed act. Yet throughout Italy the dictator won loud applause and there can be little question that he enjoyed the secret sympathy of Rome. Only thus can we account for the ease with which he waylaid ships from Italy and secured from them money and supplies that had been consigned to Italian troops elsewhere, and without which he could not possibly, for so long a time, have maintained his extraordinary position. This seizure of Fiume was bitterly resented throughout Jugo-Slavia, but again the government showed its power of control, its wisdom, and its moderation in not yielding to popular clamor, however reasonable and legitimate. Belgrade, indeed, has from first to last taken the position that she wants no territory to which she can not establish a claim, and she has been perfectly content to rely upon the Council of the Allies, which she knew was in possession of all the facts, and before which the most impartial member, the President of the United States, had been a strong advocate of her

cause.

President Wilson had made a careful study of the whole Adriatic problem from both the Italian and the Jugo-Slav points of view. His decision was based on a

mass of evidence secured by technical experts, which might be classified as geographical, historical, ethnical, and economic. Like most Americans he entertained a deep affection for Italy; but he saw that her arrogant and aggressive attitude toward her neighbors across the narrow sea, if unchecked, and strengthened by territorial accessions which could be defended only by force of arms, not by force of reason, would lead to endless trouble and ultimate disaster. Therefore, as a friend of Italy, rather than as an advocate of Jugo-Slavia's cause, he drew the so-called Wilson line, by which action he brought down upon his head such a torrent of abuse as few statesmen of any age have encountered. Wilson, so lately the idol of Rome and Italy, was transformed over night into a fiend incarnate, a devil with smiling face, and cartoons, placarded over the walls of Bari and other provincial towns, presented him under a German helmet, a soldier fighting for the enemy's cause.

Yet, in accepting the Treaty of Rapallo, the Italian government practically acquiesces in the President's main contention, namely, that Dalmatia belongs essentially to Jugo-Slavia. Later historians will, I believe, affirm that our President was absolutely right, for if the Treaty of Rapallo fails to keep the peace between Italy and Jugo-Slavia, it will be, not because Italy has not acquired all that she had a right to expect, but because Jugo-Slavia has waived some of her legitimate claims.

From north to south, Croatia and Dalmatia are Slavic, not Italian, in population; and this is true, not merely of the hinterland, but also of the coast itself. Fiume doubtless has a slight Italian majority, but even here, if one includes in the reckoning her suburbs or any of the immediately adjacent country, the majority passes to Jugo-Slavia. The farther south one goes, the smaller becomes the Italian element. Even in Zara, the ancient capital of Dalmatia, which under the treaty has been given to Italy, if one wanders through the town and talks

to the citizens, he soon discovers that however freely the shops and houses of the town are placarded with brave legends, "O Italia o Morte," or "O Dalmazia o Morte," together with quotations from D'Annunzio's fiery speeches, yet the Slavs predominate in the district as a whole. Apart from soldiers, marines, and officials, the Italian element even in the city's streets does not seem very large, and it dwindles more and more as we pass southward to the towns of Sebenico, Traù, Spalato, Metkovich, Ragusa, Castelnuovo, and Cattaro, until in the places last named it reaches the vanishing point. True, most of these cities have a charming Italian aspect, and in all of them one may use the beautiful Italian speech; but let us remember that Spanish architecture does not make California Spanish, nor does the soft southern tongue of which one hears so much in Los Angeles take from that city its ultra-American character. Venice has left her mark on many a Dalmatian site, as she has left it in distant Crete and Rhodes, and as for the musical Italian language, that will always, we hope, remain the medium of commercial intercourse between the peoples on either side of the Adriatic Sea.

And, let us hope, a medium of cultural intercourse as well. A few months ago the writer was one of a party taken to see the interesting old Romanesque cathedral of S. Trifone, at Cattaro. It happened to be an hour when high mass was being celebrated in honor of the city's patron saint, and in this connection the visitors learned two facts of peculiar significance one that the Old Slavonic tongue was used in the liturgy, and the other that the venerable Bishop who officiated had translated Dante's Divina Commedia into the Serbian language. Italy will never vanquish Jugo-Slavia by force of arms, but she may easily win a way to her heart through the power of her painting and her sculpture, her architecture and her literature. Today the coast cities of Dalmatia, delightfully Italian as they often are in

general appearance, owe but little to contemporary Italy. They are indebted mainly to the medieval Queen of the Adriatic, the Most Serene Republic, which in the days of her glory and grandeur provided models for duomo and loggia, for campanile, casa, and cortile; and they owe much to the great empire of Rome, some of whose stately ruins, such as those at Spalato, have exerted an enormous influence upon the civil and ecclesiastical architecture of all Dalmatia.

As is well known, Jugo-Slavia's claim to Fiume has been based mainly on geographical or rather physiographical conditions. Along the Adriatic coast there is an easy and natural approach from the interior of JugoSlavia to the sea at only two points-on the south, by the valley of the Drin, and on the north, over the low Croatian mountain-background, which separates the Save from the Gulf of Quarnero. But the Drin would lead rail or road into Albania, a country very sensitive on questions of territorial integrity. As to the Quarnero district, however, the war had wrested that from the clutch of Hungary, and no one doubted that, as it was a Slavic land, it would be incorporated in the new Slavic kingdom. The value of the acquisition, however, has been enormously curtailed by the loss of its only available port, due to D'Annunzio's outrageous coup de main.

The divorce of Zara from the land of which it has been the capital for centuries, though far less serious to Jugo-Slavia than the loss of Fiume, is due to the Pact of London, to which Italy forced the allies to subscribe in those dark days of April, 1915, when the fate of Europe was trembling in the balance. Surely no participant can take pride in the signing of that bargain, least of all Italy.

And yet, after all the weariness of the years of war and strife, so strong on both sides of the Adriatic is the yearning of the people for the blessings of peace, that the compromise reached in the Treaty of Rapallo may

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