Jella[vc]i['c], on September 11, crossed the Drave with forty thousand
Croats, annexed the territory between the Drave and the Mur, and
advanced without opposition up to Lake Balaton. His commissary,
General Joseph Brinjevac, occupied Rieka. They were confident that
History would not misjudge them. "We demand," said Jella[vc]i['c], in
his declaration of war, "we demand equality of rights for all the
peoples and for all the nationalities who live under the Hungarian
crown." Before he left Zagreb he transformed the feudal Croatian Diet
into an elective assembly. This new Parliament cancelled the
institution of serfdom and proclaimed that one of their objects was to
have the Habsburg monarchy a federation, on the model of Switzerland.
One would suppose that it was clear to everyone that Jella[vc]i['c]
was not fighting for the Habsburgs but for the subjected
nationalities, and that if the vacillating Austrians who had outlawed
him on account of his nationalist views later on joined him in his
attacks on the Magyars, this does not show that he was fighting
Austria's battles. "The banner which the Croats have unfurled," said
Cavour in a great parliamentary speech a month later, "is a Slav
banner, and in no way, as some people suppose, the banner of reaction
and of despotism.... His [Jella[vc]i['c]'s] chief, if not his only,
aim was the redemption of the Slav nationality." This page would
doubtless be more dignified if, after the dead lion, it did not refer
to Mr. Edoardo Susmel; but since the autumn of 1918 a large number of
people at Rieka have pinned their faith to Susmel rather than
Cavour--his book was handed to me in a most impressive manner by the
mayor. Let us see, therefore, what he says of 1848. "When the Croats,"
says he, "on account of national reasons"--so far we are with
him--"and on account of their loyalty to Austria, on account of the
desire of Jella[vc]i['c] and by order of the Emperor attacked Hungary,
which was at that time fighting for freedom, they also threw
themselves upon Rieka.... For the first and solitary time Rieka fell
into the hands of the Croats. It was, wrote the contemporary Giacich,
an enemy invasion." Mr. Susmel sails merrily ahead, for he knows that
Truth is mighty and that it is said to prevail; but in order to
convince the most captious he calls on Mr. Giacich to testify. I know
nothing about Mr. Giacich except that he was a contemporary--and yet
it seems that one ought not to wish that Mr. Susmel had rather put his
faith in Cavour, who was also a contemporary, since that gentleman was
far less capable and never could have proved that when a Croat army
comes into a Croat town it is engaged upon an enemy invasion.
The Magyars were not to be repressed so easily, and Ferdinand made
promise after promise to the Croats and the Serbs if they would help
to overcome this people. From Serbia itself came many volunteers to
aid their brothers who were trying to throw off the Magyar yoke; they
came with the connivance of Prince Alexander, in fact, he sent one of
his generals to lead them. And a great many hasty Kossuth enthusiasts
in Western Europe, knowing only that the Magyars, a chivalrous
nation, had been in arms against the despotic Habsburgs, and that the
Serbs and Croats had a considerable share in subduing them, could not
find invective virulent enough for this abominable brood of hell,
whose one desire it was to be a tyrant's executioners. They were
denounced as having not the least conception of independence; for a
people of a disposition so abandoned there was not the faintest hope
of any future; and the day would come when these outrageous little
nations would be wiped away. Had not the noble Kossuth spoken like a
prophet when he asked disdainfully where was Croatia, for he could not
find it on the map?
In December the new Emperor, Francis Joseph, began to rule his
variegated realm with justice. He confirmed the Serbian Patriarch and
Voivoda, who had been chosen in the previous May, and he bestowed upon
the Serbs of Syrmia and Ba[vc]ka and the Banat a territory of their
own, with their own organization and jurisdiction. Even a less
extensive Serbian authority, namely, the Banat town of Velika Kikinda,
with its ten dependent villages, raised its own taxes, had its own
police and had the power of life and death. There was, indeed, a cloud
which came across the Serbians' happiness when [vC]uplikac, the
Voivoda, died suddenly. He was at Pan[vc]evo when he received from the
Emperor the gracious edict and a box of cigars. No sooner had he
mounted his horse, lit one of the cigars and uttered the word
"Brother," than he fell down dead. As for the Croats, the Emperor made
Jella[vc]i['c] governor of Dalmatia, which signified the union of that
province to Croatia.