In May there was another outbreak at Kotor, but it was overpowered,
and many Yugoslav sailors were shot or imprisoned. Sesan was also kept
in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out,
questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed
Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive
and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan
begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian
fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the
Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor
launches he undertook to organize communication between Italy and the
Slavs of Dalmatia, in this way to follow events in Austria and help
the revolutionary movement. It would be possible to procure the secret
wireless codes which the Austrian and German submarines used--but the
Italians would do nothing, because they were not willing to recognize
that the Yugoslavs were fighting against Austria.... Seeing that he
would never move the Italians to take serious action against the
Austrian fleet, Sesan asked to be sent to the Serbian army in
Macedonia, so that at Salonica he could get into touch with the French
and British fleet. In this also he failed, for he was interned from
June till December with Yugoslav officers at Nocera Umbra. While there
he was visited by Bissolati, from whom he learned that the Chief of
the Admiralty was hostile to the Yugoslavs. And at Nocera Umbra he
remained until December 6, when he was liberated, owing to the
efforts of Trumbić and other members of the Yugoslav Committee.
In the month of September a memorandum was drawn up by Trumbić, in
which he proposed to English and American political and military
circles the landing at Šibenik of a force of 50,000 men. This would
have been assisted by the mutinous crews of the Austro-Hungarian
Fleet, whose preparations had been completed in July (at this port 90
per cent. of the sailors of the fleet were Yugoslavs, and among them
there was a strong national feeling; in fact, if their political
leaders had not held them back, they would have endeavoured in July to
blow up the naval fortifications and sail with the ships to Corfu).
The expeditionary army, once at Šibenik, could have penetrated
inland and, acting in consort with the many Yugoslav deserters and the
insurgent population of Dalmatia and Bosnia, have accelerated the
Austrian _débâcle_. In this memorandum Trumbić asked that the
combined Anglo-American-French fleet should support the action, but
that the Italians, whom the Yugoslavs distrusted, should take no part.
He sneered at the cowardice of the Italians who, with a huge army, did
not dare to start an offensive on a grand scale.
[In well-informed circles in Italy this memorandum was already known,
but when it was read in the Italian Chamber in the spring of 1919 it
made a considerable sensation.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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