MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
T is a commonplace of higtory that Coalitions, formed for joint effort against a common danger, are liable to disintegrate when nce that danger has been removed. It generally occurs, moreover, hat the cause of dissension is not so much the treatment to, be ccorded to the recently defeated enemy as the disposal of territories endered vacant by that enemy's .collapse. In 1814 the Quadruple
lliance split into two almost hostile camps, not owing to any dis- greement regarding the future frontiers of France, but as the result
a conflict regarding Poland. In 1918, again, the quarrel between taly and her former allies arose, not from any divergence of view s to the future frontiers of Germany or Austria, but owing to a violent conflict of appetite between the successor States which claimed various portions of the shattered Austro-Hungarian Empire. This time, unless the greatest wisdom and forbearance are exercised, it is possible that a serious divergence may arise between the United Nations wider each of these two headings. The Polish question has for more than a year been a constant cause of friction between Russia and her western allies ; and the old Adriatic problem,— centring this time, not on Fiume, but on Trieste—seems liable once again to set the Slays, the Latins and the Anglo-Saxons by the ears. It was distressing, at the very moment when peace was imminent, to read the communiqué issued by Marshal Tito's official agency, the TanjugE-claiming that the towns of Gorizia and Trieste were " liberated " by the Marshal's forces before the New Zealanders arrived. " It is true;' adds the communiqué, " that some Allied forces, without our pertn'ssion, entered the above-mentioned towns." It would seem indeed as if half of Trieste was occupied by the forces of Sir Bernard Freyberg, and the other half by those of Marshal Tito, with a • group of Chetniks cowering anxiously in the rear. Such a situation must have required all the tough sagacity at Sir Bernard's command.
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To understand the nature and origin of the passions which may be aroused it is useful to recall what happened last time. The Julian March has always been an indeterminate area, in which successive waves of Slav, Italian and even Teuton inimigrations have for cen- turies intermingled or clashed. With the creation during the nineteenth century of the ports of Fiume and Trieste, this conflict of nationalities became still further envenomed by a conflict of economic interests. It is m fact impossible to find a solution which will satisfy both the economic principle and the principle of nationality. The figures of population upon which the Paris Conference had to work give some idea of the immense complexity of the ethnical problem. If you took the city of Trieste by itself you had a 62.3 Italian majority and a 29.8 Yugoslav minority, with a few heterogeneous elements left over. In the Gorizia-Gradisca hinterland, however, these pro- portions were reversed, the Jugoslays representing 61 per cent. of the population and the Italians only 36 per cent. Again, if one took the Istrian peninsula as a whole the Yugoslays showed a percentage of 57 of the population and the Italians only of 38 ; yet if you ran a line down the centre of the peninsula and examined the figures to the east and west of that line, you had an overwhelming Italian majority for the western half and an overwhelming Yugoslav majority in the eastern half. It is true, of course, that these figures have been materially changed in the last twenty years. But the displacements which were carried out by Mussolini, often by the most tyrannical methods, do not simplify the problem, but add to it the poisons of resentment, hatred and a desire for retribution. The Paris- Peace Conference, in spite of repeated efforts and many dramatic quarrels, failed to solve the Adriatic problem ; it was only five years later that a direct settlement was negotiated at Rapallo between Count Sforza and the Yugoslays. And inevitably today Marshal Tito wishes to reverse that settlement in a sense favourable to Yugoslav aspirations. We cannot blame him.
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It must be realised, however, that the Rapallo settlement, in that it was based upon no natural principle, was essentially artificial. It violated the principle of self-deem:nation in that it left many
hundreds of thousands of Yugoslays under Italian rule: it violated the economic principle in that it sought to render Trieste an Italian rather than a European port. Mussolini tried by violence to force both economics and nationalism to conform to his own plan ; as a result, he completely ruined Fiume and all but ruined Trieste ; whereas the cruel methods which he adopted in the hope of stamp- ing out Yugoslav nationalism aroused the burning resentment from which Sir Bernard Freyberg is suffering today. Moreover, the present position is still further complicated by the fact that the Yugoslav desire to obtain Trieste has become part of the general Slav Drang nach Wester. If Russia really intends to create a zone of influence running from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and in- cluding Austria, Hungary and the whole Danubian basin, then, in fact; the ports of Fiume and Trieste become the natural southern outlets of this large economic unit. If, moreover, Yugoslavia under Marshal Tito, and with Russian sympathy and support, develops into a large Southern Slav Federation, embracing not only Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro, but Macedonia and Bulgaria also, then Salonika and Dedeagatch will find themselves in the same danger as Fiume and Trieste. And if this highly realistic pattern is at the same time to become blurred by ideological emotions, then a most complitated confusion of thought and feeling is bound to arise.
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It is fortunate, perhaps, that at this difficult moment the old Soviet incantations are beginning to lose their efficacy. People in every country are asking themselves what Soviet phrases really mean. Not for long will the Communists of Milan or Turin really credit the statement that any Italian who resents the presence of the Slays upon the Isonzo must be guilty of " crypto-fascist views." I doubt whether even our most ardent Russophils would seriously contend that Bulgaria, because she has a government " friendly " to the U.S.S.R., has a greater right to Salonika than have the Greeks, whose government is " friendly " to us. It seems unlikely that the Albanians will cease to desire the independence of their country if Russia informs them that such a desire amounts to " a diversionary activity hostile to the Red Armies." Nor can I really believe that the Viennese, in seeking to remain Europeans, will be deterred from that inevitable tendency for fear of being accused of " sabotage!! The Russians, in fact, have outrun their own phraseology ; the smoke-cloud of mysticism, the mists of righteousness, the fogs of almost religious awe, in which for so long they have been able to envelop their policy, are beginning to dissolve. In divesting her- self so flagrantly of her idealism, Russia has destroyed the spe:I of her ideology. And when once men cease to regard the Soviet formula as a bogey or as a revelation, they will observe that it is neither so terrifying nor so comforting as they at first supposed.
* * * * No man of my generation who had any knowledge of Tsarist Russia can lack understanding and sympathy for the Soviet system. There is, however, in this country a great fund of gratitude' and admiration for Russia which will not quickly be exhausted. Nor do I agree with 'those who interpret the present light-hearted ruth- lessness of Soviet policy as a revival either of Pan-Slavism or of the somewhat intermittent imperialism of the Tsars. The Russians are quite sincere in saying that they only desire security ; the misfortune is that the security which they desire is not against Germany only, but against the whole western world. Unfortunately, also, being the puritans of their own creed, they regard our protests as either cant or hostility and our principles as bourgeois inhibitions. They have not realised as yet that even theia best friends in this country will be unable much longer to preach confidence in Russian honesty or to dismiss their many deplorable actions as being due to boyish mischief or le charme slave. For the moment they are intoxicated by their own triumphs ; a mood of such insobriety cannot be permanent ; and if we are wise we shall treat them with that cautious indulgence, that wary solicitude, that watchful patience, which one adopts towards a suspicious and most quarrelsome friend.
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