During the night of October 30th-31st, a radiogram, destined for President Wilson, was composed. "Together with the Czechs, the Slovaks and the Poles, and in understanding," it said, "with the Italians, we have taken over the fleet and Pola, the war-harbour, and the forts." It asked for the dispatch of representatives of such Entente States as were disinterested in the local national question. But now a telegram was received from Zagreb, announcing that Dr. Ante Tresić-Pavičić, of the chief National Council, would be at Pola at 8 a.m. and that, pending his arrival, no wireless was to be sent out. Dr. Tresić-Pavičić,[3] poet and deputy for the lower Dalmatian islands, had always been, in spite of his indifferent health, one of the most strenuous fighters for Yugoslavia. Two years of the War he spent in an Austrian prison, but on his release he managed to travel up and down Croatia and Dalmatia, inciting the Yugoslav sailors to revolt; many of them had already read a speech by this silver-tongued deputy in the Reichsrath, a speech of which the reading and circulation had been forbidden as a crime of high treason. About 9 a.m. of the 31st there was a meeting, on board the _Viribus Unitis_, between Tresić-Pavičić and Koch. There was a brief ceremony, the leader of the Sailors' Council handing over the vessel to the deputy, as representing the National Council of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Admiral Horthy, in his cabin, likewise drew up a _procès-verbal_ to the same effect, saying that he was authorized to do this by the Emperor, and he supported his statement by the production of a wireless message. Koch urged on the doctor the necessity of sending the above-mentioned wireless to Wilson. "The news of this great event," says Tresić-Pavičić in an article in the _Balkan Review_ (May 1919), "was dispatched to all the Powers by wireless." But unfortunately he seems, whether on his own responsibility or that of Zagreb, to have prevented Koch from sending it on that day. Captain Janko de Vuković Podkapelski was then placed in command of the fleet, though the Sailors' Council at first declined to accept him. He was at heart a patriot, but had taken no active part in Yugoslav propaganda and, unluckily for himself, he had been compelled to accompany Count Tisza in his recent ill-starred tour of Bosnia, when the Magyar leader made a last attempt to browbeat the local Slavs. Yet, as no other high officer was available, Koch told the Sailors' Council that they simply must acknowledge Vuković, and at 4 p.m. he took over the command, the Yugoslav flag being hoisted on all the vessels simultaneously, to the accompaniment of the Croatian national anthem and the firing of salutes. THE STORY OF THE "VIRIBUS UNITIS"