What will it avail to put up "Liga" schools in these islands, where the
population is 99.67 per cent. Yugoslav and 0.31 per cent.
Italianist--that is, if we are content to accept the Austrian
statistics? What ultimate advantage will accrue to Italy from the doings
of her emissaries, in November 1918, on the isle of Rab? It was Tuesday,
November 26, when the _Guglielmo Pepe_ of the Italian navy put in at the
venerable town which is the capital of that island. The commander, with
an Italianist deputy from Istria, climbed up to the town-hall with the
old marble balcony and informed the mayor and the members of the local
committee of the Yugoslav National Council that he had come in the name
of the Entente and in virtue of the arrangements of the Armistice; he
said that in the afternoon Italian troops would land, for the purpose of
maintaining order. It was pointed out to him that no disturbance had
arisen, and that, according to the terms of the Armistice, he had no
right to occupy this island. The commander announced that he must
disarm the national guard, but that the Yugoslav flags would not be
interfered with; the Italian flag would only be hoisted on the
harbour-master's office and the military headquarters. On the next day,
after he had been unable to induce the town authorities to lower their
national flag from the clock-tower, he sent a hundred men with a machine
gun to carry out his wishes. Filled with confidence by this heroic deed,
he marched into the mayor's office and dissolved the municipal council.
Armed forces occupied the town-hall, over which an Italian flag was
flown. An Italian officer was entrusted with the mayoral functions and
with the municipal finances, while the post office was also captured and
all private telegrams forbidden, not only those which one would have
liked to dispatch, but those which came in from elsewhere--they were not
delivered. All meetings and manifestations were made illegal. The
commander, whose name was Captain Denti di ---- (the other part being
illegible), sent a memorandum to the municipal council which explained
that he dissolved it on account of their having grievously troubled the
public order; he did this by virtue of the powers conferred upon him and
in the name of the Allied Powers and the United States of America. The
islanders did not pretend to be experts in international law, but they
did not believe that he was in the right.
"I have every confidence," said the Serbian Regent, when he was
receiving a deputation of the Yugoslav National Council a few days after
this--"I have every confidence that the operations for the freedom of
the world will be accomplished, that large numbers of our brethren will
be liberated from a foreign yoke. And I feel sure that this point of
view will be adopted by the Government of the Kingdom of Italy, which
was founded on these very principles. They were cherished in the hearts
and executed in the deeds of great Italians in the nineteenth century.
We can say frankly that in choosing to have us as their friends and good
neighbours the Italian nation will find more benefit and a greater
security than in the enforcement of the Treaty of London, which we never
signed nor recognized, and which was made at a time when nobody foresaw
the crumbling of Austria-Hungary."