On November 3 the Italians arrived outside Vis (Lissa), the most
westerly of the large islands, where the entire population of 11,000 is
Slav, except for the family of an honoured inhabitant, Dr. Doimi, and
three other families related to his. Dr. Doimi's people have lived for
many years on this island--his father was mayor of the capital, which is
also called Vis, for half a century--and now they have become so
acclimatized that, as he told me, three of his four nephews prefer to
call themselves Yugoslavs. This phenomenon can be seen all down the
Adriatic coast. It has often, for example, been pointed out to Dr. Vio,
the very Italian ex-mayor of Rieka, that he has a Croat father and
several Croat brothers. Thus also the Duimi['c] family of the same town
has one brother married to a Magyar lady and very fond of the Magyars, a
second brother who is a Professor at Milan, and a third who lives above
Rieka and is a Yugoslav. The terms "Yugoslav" and "Italian" have now
come to signify not what a man is, but what he wants to be, applying
thus the admirable principle of self-determination. Well, in the old
days on the isle of Vis between two and three hundred people belonged to
the Autonomist party, owing to their great regard for Dr. Doimi; but
these say now that they are Yugoslavs, and the Italians--at all events
Captain Sportiello, their chief officer at Vis--acknowledged that they
must base their demand on strategic reasons. A day or two before the
Italians arrived the population had arrested several Austrian
functionaries, including the mayor and three gendarmes, who had
maltreated them during the War. None of these persons were Italian; and
when the Italian boats were sighted a committee went to meet them
joyfully and brought the officers ashore upon their backs. The officers
explained that they had come as representatives of the Entente and the
United States, and for the object--which appeared superfluous--of
protecting Vis from German submarines. If the Italians had been
everywhere as inoffensive as at Vis, it would be more agreeable to write
about their doings. Captain Sportiello, a naval officer, showed himself
throughout the months of his administration to be sensible; he
frequented Yugoslav houses. The greatest divergence occurred on June 1,
1919, when the Italians planned to have a demonstration for their
national holiday, and asked the inhabitants to come to the bioscope,
where they would be regaled with cakes and sweets; the inhabitants
replied that they preferred to have Yugoslavia.... But there is a
monument in the cemetery at Vis to which I must refer. It is a very fine
monument of white marble, erected by the Austrians to commemorate their
victory in these waters over the Italian navy in 1866.[9] On the top
there is a lion clutching the Italian flag, while on two of the sides
there are inscriptions in the German language. One of them, some feet in
length, relates that this memorial is placed there for the officers and
men who on July 20, 1866, gave their lives in the service of their
Emperor and country. The Italians screwed two marble slabs across the
upper and the lower parts of this inscription, so that the German
lettering of the central part remained visible; on the lower slab one
read: "Novembre 1918" and on the upper one "Italia Vincitrice"
(Victorious Italy). We were taken by several Italian officers to look
at this. They were so proud of it that they presented us with
photographs of the monument in its altered state. I fear that the
Italian mentality escapes me. I should not have written anything about
them.