THE TERRORISTS OF EUROPE
By A CENTRAL EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT
THE assassinations at Marseilles have suddenly focussed the eyes of Europe once again on the Terrorist organizations endemic in various quarters of the Con- tinent, but most particularly in the Balkans. Secretly as such organizations necessarily work, enough is known about the chief of them to enable their aims, and to some extent their methods, to be distinguished.
So far as Terrorism in South Eastern Europe is con- cerned it has no connexion with either Anarchism, Communism or Nihilism, for it concerns itself not with social revolution but almost exclusively with questions of nationality. Perhaps even the expression " nation- ality " in its usual ethnographic sense is hardly accurate, for the struggle in progress in the Balkans, and especially in modern Jugoslavia, is not an affair between nations in the Western sense, but rather between small groups of the same racial family. The Terrorist organizations involved, according to the police reports, in the murders at Marseilles are the well-known Macedonian Revolu- tionary Organization and a group of Croat Terrorists, whose spiritusl leadership is attributed to Dr. Ante Pavelic. Of these the Macedonian Terror has far longer traditions and a far wider ambit than the Croat. The whole Macedonian struggle for freedom dates back to the days of Turkish overlordship, and has always repre- sented the struggle of a racial group in the Central Balkans for autonomy. It was always a conflict against a stronger foreign domination and was waged with every weapon of political fanaticism, secret ccnspiracy and assassination. Otherwise it would hardly have been possible for the Macedonian ideal to survive.
The Macedonian revolutionary struggle is the most characteristic and striking expression of the eternal Balkan conflict which originally aimed at emancipation froM the Turkish yoke, and later took the form of- conflicts-between Balkan peoples. In view of the fierce and bloody history of the uniformly bellicose developinent of - the Balkans it is not surprising that the revolutionary tactics of the Macedonians are still based on the traditional terror, the more so since there are also perpetual vendettas between the Macedonian chiefs, fought out with daggers, revolvers and bombs. The Macedonians are of almost the same race as the Bulgarian people and are for the most part incorporated in the Bulgarian State. Since 1918 their external struggle' has been directed against Jugoslavia and Greece, where many of their fellows lived in a perpetual consciousness of oppression by the domination of Belgrade. In Bulgaria itself the Mace- donian Revolutionary Organization exerted an effective influence over the leading figures in the Central Govern- ment at Sofia, while in the specifically Macedonian regions on Bulgarian soil it maintained an unofficial self-governing regime. From the point of view of Sofia it was a kind of terrorist conspiracy-State within the State.
The existing Georghieff Government; which itself attained power through a military though bloodless putsch, is the first to venture an open breach with the revolutionary organization in Macedonia. As a result the last Macedonian chieftain, Mihailoff, has had to take to flight and is understood at the moment to be in hiding in Turkey. Not the least valuable effect for the Bulgarian Government of the liquidation of the Macedonian organ- ization from the point of view of, external politics has been the establishment of more cordial relations between Bulgaria and Jugoslavia ; the recent visit of King Alexander to Sofia was the first great step on the new path. But the consequence was that in the eyes of the Macedonians King Alexander appeared as the chief exponent of a new Bulgarian policy which struck at the heart of Macedonian hopes by destroying their stronghold on. Bulgarian soil. The Marseilles murderer, Kalemen, alias Georghieff, is apparently a lieutenant of the Mace- donian leader Mihailoff and has struck down King Alexander as an act of revenge for the new policy assumed by Bulgaria in agreement with him.
The second Terrorist group- apparently concerned in the plot against the King, and which in case of need would have put its plans into operation in Paris, is the Croat. This group has been in existence for some years and arose out of the political struggle of Croats against the centralizing policy of Belgrade. - This pan-Seth centralism was opposed for ten years, from 1918 to 1928, on a parliamentary basis by the Croats and the less import- ant Slovene section, but with the murder of the Croat peasant leader, Raditch, by a Serbian fanatic the parlia- mentary struggle reached its climax and its end. In January,. 1929, the coinstitution was suspended by King Alexander and a military dictatorship set up. Since then the struggle between the Central Government of Belgrade and the Croat people has taken violent forms — police. terror on the part of the Government, illegal attempts on the part of the Croats. Dr. Matchek has becoMe the hero of the Croat peasants in succession to the murdered Raditch. He carried on the struggle for Croat freedom within the Jugoslavian State till he was sentenced two years ago to three years' imprisonment for treason: But Dr. Matchek and the mass of the Croat peasant party have never so far waged their internal struggle against Belgrade as separatists or in association with .Tugoslavia's external enemies. The other Terrorists who have carried on their conflict from abroad and with external assistance, and have now involved themselves in the murder plot against Alexander, belong not to the main Croat peasant opposition under Dr. Matchek, but to Dr. Pavelic's small party of intellectuals. They are the successors of Dr. Frank's earlier State Party, which drew its support not from the Croat peasants but mainly from officials, business men and townsmen generally, who were dependent directly or indirectly on the Hun- garian Government. This section ranged itself from the first in bitter opposition to the new State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Its members soon quitted their own country and carried on their conflict against Jugo- slavia through Terrorist organizations with foreign help. Their leaders, like Dr. Pavelic and others, were sentenced to death for high treason in contumaciam. They have devoted themselves for years to propaganda abroad and.the preparation of Terrorist activities against .Tugoslavia. In external politics they are associated with the revisionist demand.
For the preparation of its Terrorist activities this Separatist Croat organization has its head- quarters on Hungarian soil close to the Jugoslav frontier on the farm known as " Yanka-Puszta," and from Hungary stretch links with the Macedonian Terror, which alSO has sent emissaries to the Yanka-Puszta farm. Besides their purely Terrorist activities the Croat Separatists hive developed within Croatia itself a revolutionary organization known as the " Ustaca." This is an illegal Semi-military organization designed to achieve an armed insurrection in Croatia. It is staffed not only by Separationists but also by Croat peasants who arc ready to fight for the freedom of their people and nothing else. The Ustaca has already started rural revolts in the Like mountains in Croatia, but has always so far been suppressed by the gendarmerie and the regular forces.
The main Croat 'peasant party of Dr. Matchek, it must be repeated, is in no way implicated in these reproaChes. TO understarid-this is of great importance for the futur. for anunderstanding between Belgrade and the Croat peasants would rapidly effect the consolidation of augOslavia: On the contrary continued oppression of the CrOats- would throw the whole Croat people, through the trsTaCa, into the arms of Separatists and Terrorists, and through" their external relations with the revisionist movement might plunge the whole of Southern Europe into anew war: - . .
Previous page
