In Asia Minor we have another disastrous example of the Allied policy of
allowing a disputed zone to be occupied _ad interim_ solely by the
troops of one interested country. The chronic state of war which
followed the landing of the Greeks at Smyrna, the atrocities, the
charges and the counter-charges, were investigated by an Inter-Allied
Commission of Inquiry; and their report, which was issued early in 1920
and was signed by an American Admiral and French, Italian and British
Generals, laid the responsibility at the door of the Greek Higher
Command. The Commission considered that an inter-Allied occupation was
necessary, because the Greeks, instead of maintaining order, had given
their position all the characteristics of a permanent occupation, the
Turkish authorities being powerless. They also considered that order
should be maintained by inter-Allied troops other than Greek.... No such
Commission visited Dalmatia, chiefly because the Yugoslavs, in spite of
endless provocations, displayed greater self-control than the Turks. But
an Inter-Allied Inquiry would have reported that the Italian regime had
not the marks of a permanent occupation simply because such methods
could never be permanent: everywhere in the occupied territory it was
forbidden, under severe penalties, to have any Serbo-Croat newspaper. On
one island I found about fifteen gentlemen gathered round a table in a
sort of dungeon, reading the newspapers which had been smuggled into
their possession. This they had been doing for more than six months.
Every letter was censored, all telegraphic and telephonic communication
between the occupied territory and the outside world was prohibited. All
flags, of course, except that of Italy, were vetoed. Admiral Millo told
us that this prohibition did not extend to the flags of France, Great
Britain and the United States; considering that it is on record when and
where the flags of these nations were, if flown by civilians, ordered to
be taken down at Rieka, despite the presence of Allied contingents, it
seems scarcely worth saying that, as we were often told, the Admiral's
permission, which was in accordance with the Armistice, was disregarded
by his subordinates. Another thing that was very rigorously forbidden,
especially on the islands, was for any Yugoslav to go down to the
harbour, if a boat came in, and carry on a conversation with somebody on
board. It would be tedious to enter into all the questionable and
tyrannical Italian methods, such as the requisitioning of Yugoslav
clubs, schools, etc., sometimes leaving them empty because they found
they did not want them, the requisitioning of private houses, with no
consideration for their owners, the wholesale cutting-down of forests,
the closing of law-courts, the demand that other courts should pronounce
no judgment before first submitting it to them. But, above all, what the
Yugoslav Government at Split complained of were the methods they
employed in the gratuitous or semi-gratuitous distribution of food,
clothing and money:
I
GOVERNMENT OF DALMATIA AND OF THE DALMATIAN ISLANDS AND OF THE CURZOLA
ISLANDS