everybody rose, then they would wait a quarter of an hour and have the
music played again. The Allied officers persuaded General Grazioli to
prohibit any National Anthem in a public place. It was distasteful to
the Allied officers when a local newspaper in French--_l'Echo de
l'Adriatique_--which had been established to present the Yugoslav point
of view, was continually being suppressed. For example, on December 14,
it printed a short greeting from the Croat National Council to President
Wilson. The most anti-Italian phrase in this that I could find was:
"Their fondest hope is to justify to the world, to history and to you
the great trust you have placed in them." This was refused publication.
It is unnecessary to say that Yugoslav newspapers were confiscated and
their sale forbidden--after all, one didn't buy German or Austrian
newspapers in England during the War, and the Italians now regarded the
Croats as very pernicious enemies. _La Rassegna Italiana_ of December 15
called its first article--printed throughout in italics--"I Prussiani
dell' Adriatico," and took to its bosom an "upright American citizen"
returning from a visit to "Fiume nostra," who defined the Yugoslavs "on
account of their greed and their brutality and their spirit of intrigue
and their lack of candour as the Prussians of the Adriatic." Personally
I should submit that the Prussian spirit was not wholly lacking in those
two Italian officers who penetrated on November 25 into the dining-room
at the quarters of the Custom-house officials and informed them that
they wanted their piano. No discussion was permitted; the piano
"transferred itself," as they say in some languages, to the Italian
officers' mess. The Prussian spirit was not undeveloped in a certain Mr.
Štiglić--his name might cause his enemies to say he is a renegade,
but as my knowledge of him is confined to other matters, we will say he
is the noblest Roman of them all. He likewise had a dig at the
Custom-house officials; I know not whether he was wiping off old scores.
Appointed by the I.N.C. as director of the Excise office, he
communicated with the resident officials--Franjo Jakovčić, Ivan
Mikuličić and Grga Mažuran--on December 5, and told them to
clear out by the following Saturday, they and their families, so that in
the heart of winter forty-one persons were suddenly left homeless.
A CANDID FRENCHMAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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