For months the Italians had been consoling themselves with the thought
that such a hybrid affair as Yugoslavia would never really come into
existence. Some visionaries might attempt to join the Serbs and Croats
and Slovenes, yet these must be as rare as Blake, who testified that
"when others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the sons of
God shouting for joy." One only had to listen, one could hear already
how they were growling, how they were quarrelling, how they were killing
each other. In Montenegro, for example, and Albania the Italians were
greatly interested--not always as spectators. If you tell a hungry
Montenegrin peasant in the winter that there is a chance of his
obtaining flour and--well, that he may have to fight for it, but he will
get good booty at Cetinje, he will go there. In January 1919 there was a
battle. "The Montenegrin people rose in rebellion against the Serbians
to recover their independence," said an Italian writer, one Dr. Attilio
Tamaro in a weekly paper called _Modern Italy_, which was published in
London. "This intensely popular revolt, animated by the heroically
patriotic spirit of the Montenegrins, was relentlessly suffocated in
blood. In the little city of Cetinje alone, where there are but a few
thousand inhabitants, over 400 were killed and wounded. The Serbians and
the French together accomplished this sanguinary repression. We repeat,
it is painful to see the French lend their men, their blood and their
glorious arms to the carrying out of the low intrigues of Balkan
politics." The money and the arms that were found on the dead and
captured rebels were Italian. If the schemes of the Italians had not
been upset by the timely arrival of the Yugoslav forces, with the few
Frenchmen, they would have occupied Cetinje and restored the traitor
king. As it was, they occupied Antivari, from which place they smuggled
arms and munitions into the country. They conspired with the adherents
of the old regime, a very small body of men who were enormously alarmed
at the loss of their privileged position. The chief of them was Jovan
Plamenac, a former Minister whom the people at Podgorica had refused to
hear, a few weeks previously, when he attempted to address them. He was
hated on account of the most ruthless fashion in which, as Minister, he
had executed certain of his master's critics at Kola[vs]in. There was a
time, during the first Balkan War, when he advocated union with Serbia
and on April 6, 1916, he wrote in the _Bosnische Post_ of Sarajevo that
Nikita, owing to his flight, "may be regarded as no longer existing."
But his unpopularity remained and, with vengeance burning in his heart,
he went from Podgorica to the Italians. They concocted a nice plan--he
was to raise an army of his countrymen and the Italians would bring
their garrison from Scutari. On January 1 Plamenac and his partisans
tried to seize Virpazar, on the Lake of Scutari--the Commandant of the
Italian troops at Scutari, one Molinaro, had asked the chief of the
Allied troops, three days before this attempt, whether he might dispatch
two companies to that place for the purpose of suppressing the disorders
which had not yet come to pass. Another rising was engineered at
Cetinje, where twenty or thirty of the poor peasants who had let
themselves be talked over by Plamenac were killed; the rest of the
misguided fellows were sent home, only their leaders being detained.
Plamenac himself escaped to Albania.[26] On the side of the Montenegrin
Provisional Government no regular troops were available, as the Yugoslav
soldiers who had lately arrived were engaged in policing other parts of
the country. Volunteers were needed and a body of young men, mostly
students, enrolled themselves. They were so busy that they omitted to
inform Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., that they really were Montenegrin
students. That indignant gentleman insists that they were Serbs, armed
with French and British rifles, against which, he tells us (in the
_Nineteenth Century_, January 1921) the insurgents could not do much.
Eleven of these volunteers were killed and they were buried underneath
the tree where Nikita used to administer his brand of justice. All kinds
of incriminating documents were found upon the dead and captured rebels,
as also a significant letter from the Italian Minister accredited to
Nikita, which was addressed to the chancellor of the Italian Legation at
Cetinje. An inter-Allied Commission, over which General Franchet
d'Esperey presided, issued their report on February 8 at Podgorica. "All
the troops," it said, "in Montenegro are Yugoslavs and not Serbs; there
are not more than 500 of them." It further stated that the rebellion had
been provoked by certain agents of the ex-King, assisted by some Italian
agents. As for the ridiculous Italian charge which I quoted, accusing
the French of a share in the low intrigues of Balkan politics, this
participation consisted in their General at Kotor demanding of
Darkovi['c], the leader of the Montenegrin deputies, that his followers
and the rebels should not come to blows. The reply, which annoyed the
General, was to the effect that if the rebels made an attack, then
Darkovi['c] with his scratch forces would defend himself--and the battle
lasted for two or three days. A junior French officer, who had been in
command of a small detachment at Cetinje, told me that the noise of
firing had awakened him every night and he had not the least idea what
it was all about. But the French had a pretty accurate idea of the
nationality of the "brigands" who on December 29 fired on the SS.
_Skroda_ and _Satyre_ near the village of Samouritch when it was
carrying a cargo of flour up the Bojana for the Montenegrins. These
vessels were sailing under the French flag and the "brigands," about
fifty in number, were armed with machine guns. An International
Commission established these facts, as also that the Italian ship
_Vedeta_ passed up the river just before the outrage and the _Mafalda_
just after it, and neither of them was molested. In consequence of what
occurred and as practically all the supplies for Montenegro had at that
time to be sent by the Bojana, General Dufour, in the absence of French
troops, authorized the Serbs on February 12 to occupy the commanding
position of Tarabosh.