ADRIATIC COAST

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 64, 17 March 1933, Page 3

ADRIATIC COAST

GRAVE SITUATION

JWO ARMED CAMPS

.WORLD PEACE MENACED

Just before Christmas, the attention of the world was directed afresh to the simmering " conditions 'of the Adriatic regions, partly by agitation in Italy against Yugoslavia and partly by mmours of plans made during the recent JVolta conference for the re-drawing of the political and economic maps of that part of the~world.

There were rumours.of military staff gatherings, first on the part of Yugoslavia and Rumania, and then by the encircling Powers. Finally, on December 24, a representative delegation of British public men, including such impartial experts as Lord Cushenden, Lord Noel-Buxton, Professor Gilbert Murray, and Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, issued a grave warning, through the agency of the London "Times," that, after personal investigation on the spot, they were convinced that tho position in Yugoslavia was "a standing danger to the peace of Europe." This protest crystallised the many disconnected happenings into a definite issue affecting world peace, and was the graver because of its source.

It is thus no exaggeration to say that the Adriatic, coast is one of the most dangerous two powder-magazines in Europe at-tho present moment, and ■unfortunately the one most likely to explode, writes S. H. Roberts, Challis Professor of Modern History- at the! TJniversity of Sydney, in the "Daily Telegraph." The trouble goes back to the peace treaties which arranged for the union of all the Southern Slavs round the nucleus of Serbia, and which -established a so-called Triune King! dom, comprising Serbs, Croats, and' Slovenes. But the peacemakers were too liberal in their ideas of what constituted Slavonic nationality, and trouble occurred from the outset. The mountaineers of Montenegro objected to losing their identity, and had to bo repressed by Serbian armies; large numbers of Bulgarians resented their incorporation in the eastern part of Yugoslavia; and many of tho Slavonic parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire have shown no liking for Serbian rule. In _ particular, the Croats—a strong, virile people—have stood out for self-government. STEEL FORTIFICATIONS. The new kingidom was ruled by Alexander, son of that Peter who had so gallantly conducted the retreat through the Albanian snows of 1914, and he avowedly stood for a dictatorship from Belgrade—for control of all the other racial atocks by the Serbs. The opposition of the Croats led to the murder of their Parliamentary leaders in 1928, and to the, suspension of the Constitution in tie following year. Since then Alexander has ruled as an untrammelled dictator, and has pursued a policy of centralisation, although this can only result in constant racial strife in a country where a loose form of federalism is needed. So extreme were his methods that he even sentenced to death foreign critics of his regime, like the historian, R. W. Setbn-Watson, however great their ser- . vices to the Slavonic races. It is at this point that the dictatorship assumes its international importance, for Yugoslavia finds herself contronted by hostile Powers on almost every mile of her frontiers. Italy has always wanted to dispute the mastery of the Adriatic with Yugoslavia, and was encouraged by the ease with which she seized Fiume in 1924; -Bulgaria finds her capital within gun-range of the Yugoslav frontier, and sees a grim Trail of steel fortifications running along her-frontier for almost two hundred miles, menacing her and separating her from her exiled subjects;'while Austria and Hungary, to the north, both claim that the surgeon's knife has cut deep into their living flesh and demand the reSif n Ot part of their lost Provinces. These Powers always constituted a formidable array around Yugoslavia, and the position has changed, for the worse in the last few months, especially through the new bonds between Italy, Albania, and Hungary. The Albanians "the men of the mountaineagle," led by their self-made King Zog, have acted as Italian agents in closing the south Adriatic' to Yugoslavia, and their land, only forty-five miles away from Italy, affords a perfectly_ situated opening to Belgrade, .mis is the significance of stories of gun-running to Albania and of cooperation between Albania, the Croatian «?£ + t •' the M°°tenegrin rebels under their hero-prince, Milo. fatill more important is the rapprochement between Italy and mitted to be the Mussolini of the Danubian countries. Gombos preaches the alw rreCl iOn. °f Ms ™™&> «ad ha* always kept the most sympathetic relationships with Italy. The recent tp support afforded Yugoslavia V he Little Entente and her strong military alliance with France. It xfqSres no great prescience, then, to perceive hnw Central Europe today is P d TvW ed S two araecT camps, the storm-centre be° ing kugoslavia.

THRUST TO THE ADRIATIC. Finally, the stand of Italy and the Croat unrest have directed attention once more to the basic . weakness of Yugoslavia and have shown how that imgdom is threatened by economic death as well as political disruption Yugoslavia,. under Alexander, has na^ rowed down to mean the Serbian aueleus, and the life of this nucleus depends upon a thrust to the Adriatic. On paper, there would seem little reason for this, f Qr the Yugoslav pa of the deeply indented coast is almost five hundred miles long. But the mountains come right down to the sea, and the harbours are useless alike because of their situation, and because of the bora, a wind treacherous to shipping. The two main exceptions—Fiume in the north and Albanian Valona in the south—are closed by Italian control and yet the Yugoslav railway system centres on Fiume! King Alexander might have built new railways to Zara midway along the coast, but Italy had the foresight to make this a free port under her own sovereignty.. The very life of Yugoslavia thus depends on tenuous lines of transit down the Danube and through- Austria, and the failure to strengthen these at the Conference of Stresa last September left her face to face with the encircling move of her opponents. Mussolini, Zog, and Gombos proclaim their move to be a peaceful one, but the tone of the Press in Italy and throughout Central Europe makes one Tecall the events of 1914. Yugoslavia's thrust towards the Adriatic resembles Austria's move towards the Aegean, Fiume takes the place of Salonika, and the Little Entente plays the part the Central Powers did then. Nor is Zagreb—the centre of the Croat movement—far distant from Serajevol Thus

the clouds over Croatia threaten not only the Dictator of Belgrade, not only the lands of the Danube—but, through their repercussions in the chancelleries of Paris, Bucharest, and Warsaw, the entire world.

The British experts referred to above, in emphasising tho gravity of the situation, suggested that the maintenance of the dictatorship would only serve to hasten such an outcome, and that, if Alexander would not adopt a conciliatory federalist policy within his own country (and thus diminish the danger to other countries), the great European Powers should cut off the financial facilities hitherto ac: corded him. In practice, such a proposal means passing the decision on to France—Yngoslavia's patron—although the fact that Italy's relations with Yugoslavia are as bad . now as they were in 1927, does not make for any undue effort on France's part to weaken her all}'. On a previous occasion a destructive force oozed out of this Adriatic cauldron and soon proved beyond the nations' control; the British warning* is to awaken the world to the fact that Central Europe is once more drifting into a similar set of conditions.