ITALIAN BORDERLAND
By AN VIIIth ARMY OFFICER
LONG Italy's northern frontiers today recent history can be
read on the signposts and milestones. Over the doors of the ,mall hotels in the South 'Tirol, where in 1918 " Albergo " was written for the first time, now stands " Gasthaus " in neat Gothic script. The village signposts have been changed : " Campaccio " has become " Kompatsch," " Oris " has become " Eyrs." On the white engraved milestones the Germans had carefully erased the final "o " of " Merano." Since the N.to Adige was reoccupied by American and Italian troops, the " o " has been replaced in black paint in an untidy hand. Meanwhile the Italian soldiers and German- speaking peasants sit at neighbouring tables in the cafés, both fiercely discussing the future of their disputed borderland. Away to the east, along the frontier between Trieste and Tarvisio, it is the same story. " Gorizia " has become " Gorica," " Caporetto " has become " ICaborid." Every wall is plastered with slogans—" Zivel Tito," " Long live the Jugo-Slav IVth Army." During its occupation Tito's army surpassed even the Italians in its enthusiasm for the paintbrush. The number of hammers and sickles and Partisan stars per square foot of wall-space is greater even than in the great cities of north-west Italy. And because the Italians have not re- assumed control of Venezia Giulia, the slogans remain, and the Slovenes of the valleys are able to see the names of their villages written in their own language for the first time for twenty-five years.
In the officers' messes and soldiers' billets of North Italy and Austria there is much talk of the Yugoslays and Russians, and little of it is friendly. Those who were in Trieste or Klagenfurt during the first tense days speak of the "rabble" of Tito's army. Stories circulate—and are believed—of large-scale looting and raping by the Russians; of wholesale shooting of displaced Russians returned to their countrymen from British-occupied areas ; of a Communist reign of terror over all the lands east of the last British sentry. Exaggerated rumours spread in every army, and are often harmless. In this case they will soon do permanent damage to relations between ourselves and the Yugoslays and Russians. Nothing could please the Austrians and certain Italians more. The rumours, of course, have a substratum of truth, but while the frontiers are rigidly sea'ed it is impossible either to confirm or discredit them. Undoubtedly the Russians are removing stocks of goods and machinery, even furniture, from Austria ; to them this is not loot but reparations.
It is true that the Russians are ruthless with Ukrainians or Cossacks returned to them from the German army. It is true that our displaced persons' camps are full of men and women who beg us not to send them back to the Russians or Tito's Yugoslavia. It is true that the British troops who entered Trieste were greeted as liberators, and that the first trucks to enter Graz after the Russian withdrawal were in a few minutes knee-deep in flowers. All this makes a disturbing picture. But it is an incomplete picture. The memory of the British public—which includes the British Army—is notoriously short. We perhaps have a right to forget the Italian , "stab-in-the-back" of 1940, or the Italian bombing of London. We are certainly right to remember recent Italian contributions zo our victory—the record of the Italian divisions in the line, the work of the Partisans, and the friendship and hospitality shown to thousands of British soldiers by humble Italians. But we have no right to forg. t what Germans and Austrians did in Russia, nor the contribution of the Italians towards reducing large parts of Yugoslavia to a chaos of misery and starvation and civil war. Nor should we forget the Italians' treatment of their Slovene minority between the two wars. We should remember that the Russians and Yugoslays have been our allies since 1941—not co-belligerents since 1943—and that at one period Tito's armies were engaging as many German divisions as were the whole of the Allied Armies in Italy.
A great effort of the imagination is required of us. We have had our cities devastated by bombs and rockets, but we have never seen the invader on our own soil. We must try to imagine the feelings of the Russian soldier who, after marching for hundreds of miles through his own country, deliberately scorches and looted and de- populated, arrived in Austria and saw the trim prosperous farm- steads with their flowers and fat cows and well-fed children. We must try to imagine the grim struggle for survival of Tito's partisans in the mountains of Bosnia and Montenegro. It is hard for The British soldier, accustomed to regular rations and his weekly N.A.A.F.I. issue of 5o free cigarettes, to picture an army forced to find its own food from the land on which it is fighting. Perhaps even the British Army, had it fought under these conditions for over four years, might have been a bit of a " rabble " when it entered Trieste.
The gap between east and west does exist, but if we are to survive in the world of the atomic bomb it must be bridged. On July 25th, the second anniversary of Mussolini's fall, there was a great political demonstration in Trieste. The streets of the town bloomed with red flags and hammers and sickles. The Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes were also carried in the procession. There were shouts of " Morte ai Fascisti," and the Internationale was sung. But the slogans were written in two languages, Italian and Slovene. The flags of Italy and Yugoslavia were carried side by side, each with the Partisan star in the centre. And the slogan most frequently seen was " Viva la fratellanza Italo-Slovena."
Here is an attempt to bridge the gap which we should surely support. International co-operation should not be allowed to become a Communist monopoly. But talk of a Yugoslav " rabble " or of Russian atrocities is not enough. Eastern Europe will not be governed as Great Britain is governed for many years to come. And we who have never personally experienced German tyranny are easily shocked. " An eye for an eye " is a poor principle on which to build a better world. But we must try to understand the brutal facts of history behind our allies' actions, and make the effort of imagination. There are all too few signs of a similar effort from their side. But unless we make the attempt, we of the west have no right to ask the east to see our point of view.
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