The sinister shadow of d'Annunzio had fallen across Dalmatia and beyond
it: for instance, on November 20, 1919, the King of Italy's name-day, a
general holiday was proclaimed in the occupied districts. The director
of the school at Zlosela, a Slav who had never been an Italian subject,
gave--perhaps injudiciously--the usual lessons. He and his wife were
arrested and for months they were in prison, their six-months-old child
being left to the mercy of neighbours; and the local commandant, Major
Gracco Golini, told Dr. Smol[vc]i['c], the President of the National
Council, that the slightest action on the part of the Yugoslavs would
provoke terrible measures on the part of d'Annunzio's arditi, who would
spare neither women nor children.... The reader may remember the
Montenegrin General Ve[vs]ovi['c], who took to the mountains and defied
the Austrians. On the accession of the Emperor Karl he surrendered and,
much to the surprise of his people, he travelled round the country
recommending every one to offer no more opposition, to be quiet and
obedient to the Austrians. When the war was over the authorities at
Belgrade gave him, as they did to other Montenegrin generals, the same
rank in the Yugoslav army; but the numerous Montenegrins who resented
his unpatriotic behaviour persuaded the War Office, after two or three
months, to remove him from the active list. This exasperated the
ambitious man to such an extent that he withdrew to his own district and
began to work against Yugoslavia. A major with a force of 200 gendarmes
was sent to fetch him back and, after conversations that lasted ten
days, induced him to return to Belgrade. There he was not molested; he
used to sit for hours in the large cafe of the Hotel Moscow in civilian
clothes. But one day a policeman at the harbour happened to observe him
talking for a long time to a fisherman; he wondered what the two might
have in common. When the fisherman was interrogated he refused at first
to give any information, but he finally divulged that he had agreed, for
1500 francs, to take the General down the Danube either to Bulgaria or
Roumania. That evening at nine o'clock the General appeared, with his
son and a servant; he was captured,[54] and among his documents were
some which proved, it was alleged, that he was in communication with
d'Annunzio.