Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  In the circumstances of November 1918, however, there was no question of ‘friendly counsel’ or a level political playing field. The Serbian army, which had marched into the void left by the Austrians, gave its backing to the pan-Serbian group in Montenegro, which immediately set up a so-called National Council, together with a Provisional Executive Committee to organize elections to a ‘Grand National Assembly’. The plan was masterminded by Radović. The country’s political class as a whole were given no chance to compete on equal terms. The king and government were still abroad; they commanded no independent troops and few officials; and the effective influence of their supporters outside Cetinje was minimal.52 From his French exile, King Nikola issued a decree on 12 November, the day after the Armistice, for convening the Montenegrin parliament or Skupština; but his loyal subjects had no way of implementing it.

  So far, no fundamental disagreement had arisen over the joint Yugoslav project. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians and Montenegrins had all felt the weight of Austrian rule or occupation, and all saw the benefits of future co-operation. A Yugoslav state suited the purposes of the Western Allies, who saw it as a desirable replacement for Austrian influence, and the smaller nations were enthusiastic. King Nikola himself had expressed his willingness to join. He was thinking, no doubt, of a federal Yugoslav state modelled on the German Empire, in which several reigning monarchs had retained their separate crowns. Here was an issue on which ‘friendly counsel’ was certainly needed.

  Montenegrins, therefore, had many worries. It was not clear how Montenegro’s territory was to be fully restored, or how the Yugoslav project might be realized. Disagreements were always in the air; pessimists might have despaired. Yet it was a great relief to hear that the Armistice had been declared, and a comfort that Montenegro was accepted as one of the victorious allies. In such circumstances, small nations are naturally inclined to put their faith in the benevolence of the Great Powers; Montenegro, it appeared, was not in so sorry a pass as Hungary or Bulgaria, which had backed the wrong side.

  The Serbs, in contrast, would have spotted several major obstacles from the start. Time, for them, was of the essence. If they were to realize their dream of a state in which Serbia would play the same dominant role as Prussia played in Germany, they had to act quickly. In particular, they had to forestall their principal partners and rivals, the Croats, who were still extricating themselves from the old Austro-Hungarian institutional structures. The outcome of the Peace Conference and its deliberations was uncertain. The Serbian delegation would be in a far stronger position if preliminary arrangements to Serbia’s liking were put in place in advance.53

  The Serbs were equally concerned about the future of their monarchy. One might have expected the monarchists of Serbia and Montenegro to act in harmony, if only to keep the republicans at bay. After all, King Petar I of Serbia was King Nikola’s son-in-law, had lived in Cetinje and shared a very similar background. He, too, had been educated in France; he was a graduate of the military academy at Saint-Cyr, and had served (as ‘Pierre Kara’) as a French officer during the Franco-Prussian War. The two monarchs were of the same age and of the same outlook and had a very great deal in common. But there lay the problem. There were generals and courtiers in Belgrade who regarded the House of Petrović-Njegoš as a dangerous challenger. They had brought King Petar to the throne in 1903 through a murderous military coup d’état, and were fearful of something similar happening again. Moreover, their king was sick, and had ceded his prerogatives to his Montenegrin-born son. In the race for the throne of Yugoslavia – there were no kings in Slovenia or Croatia – the Montenegrin dynasty was the Serbians’ only serious competitor.

  In addition, Serbia was a landlocked country. There were four possible directions in which her promised ‘access to the sea’ could be projected: over Croatian territory to the north-west, over Albanian territory to the south-west, over Greek territory to the south, or directly over Montenegro. Greece and Croatia were strong enough to resist. Albania was in turmoil. Montenegro offered the easiest target.

  At the turn of October 1918 the stalled Yugoslav project had suddenly come to life. Another National Committee appeared in Croatian Zagreb on 29 October, announcing the creation without warning of a ‘State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs’. Its president, Dr Anton Korošec, was a Slovene who had been active in the imperial Reichsrat in Vienna, and its vice-presidents were a Croat and a Serb from Croatia. Its putative territory was made up exclusively of lands from the dying Habsburg Empire – the Serbs in its title referring to inhabitants of Bosnia and Hercegovina, not of Serbia or Montenegro. Nonetheless its appearance opened up opportunities which the exiled government of Serbia could not ignore. Nikola Pašić immediately saw the chance of building a ‘Greater Serbia’ within a still larger Yugoslavia, and he sought a swift encounter with the politicians from Zagreb. Korošec was equally eager to do business with Pašić, because conflict was looming with Italy over the Adriatic littoral from Trieste to Dubrovnik. (In a last act of Austro-Hungarian desperation, Korošec had been handed control of the entire Royal and Imperial Fleet.)

  The resultant Conference of Geneva was attended by Pašić, Korošec and Trumbić, representatives respectively of the government of Serbia, the National Council from Zagreb and the Yugoslav Committee, but with no authorized representative from Montenegro. On 6 November, after four hectic days, it reached an agreement whereby the newly announced State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs would be merged with the Kingdom of Serbia. An expanded National Council was recognized as the provisional government of the merged states, while parallel ministries would function in Zagreb and Belgrade. The name of the new entity, subtly modified, was to be the ‘Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes’.

  Serbia, therefore, had the strongest of motives for eliminating Montenegro without delay, and the chance of exploiting a golden opening presented itself before the war had formally ended. The chosen course of action, adopted with lightning speed, was to bring all Serbs into the Yugoslav fold on Belgrade’s terms. It was applied to ex-Austrian Bosnia and Hercegovina and to the ex-Hungarian Vojvodina as well as to Montenegro. In all cases, the organizers achieved their goals with the tacit assistance of the Serbian army. In Montenegro’s case, they selected Podgorica, not the royal capital of Cetinje, as the meeting-place for the ‘Grand National Assembly’, and quickly distributed white and green voting cards: white for the pro-Serbian Yugoslav option; green for advocates of the restoration of the Kingdom of Montenegro. The timetable was draconian, and the sleight of hand brazen. The few foreign observers who learned of the elections were blissfully unaware that the ‘Grand National Assembly’ was something quite different from the constitutional Skupština, whose convocation the king had decreed.

  Two short weeks, starting on 10 November, were allotted for the election campaign, which was marked and marred by a tide of anti-Petrović smears and insinuations. Brochures and press articles fanned hostile rumours. The absent King Nikola’s dealings with the Habsburgs were described as selfish and unpatriotic: he was said to have amassed a huge personal fortune in (unspecified) British banks. Rallies were limited to seven days only (and in Cetinje to three days). The Serbian army was ordered to arrest all ‘agitators’, and to prevent the return of Montenegrin exiles. A council of compliant bishops announced the reunion of the Montenegrin and Serbian Orthodox Churches.

  In this stage-managed scenario, the result of the ‘plebiscite’ was entirely predictable: 168 delegates were chosen with a crushing majority for the pro-Serbian Whites, the byelasi, and the resulting ‘Grand National Assembly’ met on 24 November. During the Assembly’s second session two days later a ‘Decision Document’ stated first that ‘the Serbian people of Montenegro share one blood, language, religion and tradition with the people of Serbia’, and secondly, that the unification of Montenegro with Serbia offers ‘the only possible salvation for our people’. No debate was permitted.

  Four resolutions were then passed:

>   1. to dethrone King Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš and his dynasty

  2. to unify Montenegro and Serbia into one state under the [Serbian] Karadjeordjević dynasty, and thus unified… to join the common mother country… of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

  3. to select an Executive Committee of five persons to manage all activities until unification is complete: [and]

  4. to inform the former King, his Government, the Allied Powers, and all non-aligned states about this decision.54

  Out of 168 delegates, 160 assented. ‘With Serbian troops in occupation,’ writes one disinterested historian, ‘a national assembly, apparently made up only of those with the correct views, voted hastily to depose their king and to unite with Serbia.’55

  Contemporary descriptions of the Podgorica Assembly do not reflect well on its participants:

  They smoked, talked, shouted as in a café; the resolutions were declared to have been carried by unanimity. Anyone who attempted to object was howled down. Objections were raised that some members present, even those from Cetinje itself, were not the persons elected. But no hearing could be obtained. Some Albanians had been sent forcibly to represent the county of Pec, but they protested in vain that they had no wish to take part in the proceedings. All this was under the shadow of the bayonet.56

  Protests made no difference, and once the vote had been recorded, the Assembly’s participants were surplus to requirements. On 1 December a Serb-appointed Montenegrin Council invited the Serbian regent, Prince Aleksandar, to assume power, and Montenegro was annexed to Serbia by royal decree; Aleksandar had already assumed the additional post of regent of the Yugoslav kingdom. On 4 December, in Belgrade, the invalid Petar I was proclaimed king of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, making his last public appearance. His new style made no mention of Montenegro. The Serbian Yugoslav authorities severed relations with King Nikola, assuring the Allied Powers that the demise of his kingdom had come about through his subjects’ democratic choice.

  The backlash was not slow in coming. The royalist Greens or zelenasi appealed to General Venel to annul the Podgorica resolutions and to support free elections. Fighting broke out in Cetinje on Christmas Eve, 24 December. The royalists, already classed as ‘rebels’, suffered dead and wounded. During a brief visit to Cetinje, General Venel called for a ceasefire, ordering the rebels (but not the Serbian army) to lay down their arms. In essence, Montenegro had been pacified before the Peace Conference in Paris had even started work.57

  King Nikola and his ministers still had the use of their embassy in Paris, in addition to the royal residence in Antibes and their offices in Neuilly-sur-Seine and Bordeaux, where a Montenegrin military camp was located. They approached all and sundry with pleas that Montenegro’s independence be respected; the king was personally assured by Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and President Poincaré that they all understood his position. He publicly appealed to his subjects to renounce violence. But no practical assistance was forthcoming. The king’s letters to the Allied leaders usually went unanswered, or, if answered, were degraded by high-flown but evasive replies. On 24 November 1918, the day of the king’s deposition, Poincaré wrote: ‘Your Majesty may rest assured that the Government of the [French] Republic… will lend itself to no attempt which would aim to force the will of the people of Montenegro and to deny their legitimate aspirations.’58 President Wilson only replied after two months’ delay: ‘A good opportunity will soon be offered to the Montenegrin people’, he opined, ‘to express themselves freely upon the political form of their future Government.’59

  The Greens launched a more determined rising on the day of the Orthodox Christmas, 7 January 1919. Their temerity quickly ignited a civil war, which divided the traditional tribes. The Serbian army carried out fierce reprisals, provoking counter-reprisals. Both sides perpetrated atrocities; the house of Andrija Radović in Martinici was torched by marauders, his mother kidnapped and his father shot. But the Greens were no match for Serbian fire-power. ‘Their houses were burned down. They were pillaged and beaten. The women had cats sewn into their skirts, and the cats were beaten with rods. The soldiers mounted astride the backs of old men and forced them to carry them across streams. They attacked girls. Property and honour and the past: all this was trampled on.’60 Montenegrin soldiers were required to swear a new oath of allegiance to King Petar I. Those who refused were arrested. Serbian jails filled up with Montenegrin inmates.

  The Peace Conference proved a disaster for Montenegro. In the absence of Russia owing to the Bolshevik Revolution, King Nikola’s kingdom found itself friendless. The seat reserved for the country’s delegate remained empty. The explanation offered by the Supreme Council on 13 January 1919 stated that ‘the seat could not be allocated until the political situation in the country had clarified’.61 The Yugoslav delegation, in contrast, headed by Trumbić and Pašić, took their seats without difficulty. They were accompanied by Andrija Radović, the head of their Montenegrin Section, and were able to feed their views to the conference almost unopposed. Their publicity materials, including a book by Radović, were widely translated and widely distributed, greatly outnumbering the pro-Montenegrin offerings.62 King Nikola’s representative, General Gvozdenović, was only invited to address the Supreme Council on one occasion, on 6 March, but to no effect. In May the Conference extended formal recognition to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, of which Montenegro, willy-nilly, now formed part.63 Thereafter the Serbian government had nothing to do but to protect its gains; King Nikola would be hammering on a door that was already shut.

  Despite continuing international concern, the whole of 1919 passed without any meaningful discussion about Montenegro. The British government sent out a prominent diplomat, the earl de Salis, to make enquiries on the spot. An Irish landowner and a count of the Holy Roman Empire, Sir John De Salis-Soglio (1864–1939) had held several posts in the Balkans, including that of British envoy at Cetinje in 1911–16; he deposited his report in the Foreign Office in September, but the foreign minister, Lord Curzon, told Parliament that its publication was impossible.64 Questions were tabled both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, to no avail. Rumours spread that De Salis had disappeared, that he had been rescued by a British warship, or that his life was in danger. A parliamentary review prepared by Major Temperley* duly informed the House of Commons that nothing improper had occurred.65 Yet the feeling grew that the British government knew far more that it was prepared to concede.

  Once the main sessions of the Peace Conference were over, Britain’s Foreign Office published all the handbooks which it had earlier prepared for the use of its officials and diplomats. No. 20 in the series was devoted to Montenegro. Its eighty-two pages contained copious information on history, geography and social and economic conditions, but only a few lines on developments since 1913:

  Especially since the two Serb states have been coterminous, contact with Serbia has led the Montenegrins to make comparisons not to the advantage of their own country; and a movement for the abdication of King Nikola so as to unite the two countries under the Karageorgevich dynasty was publicly started by the ex-Premier M. A. Radovich in 1917. The conference of Jugo-Slav delegates held at Geneva in 1918 discussed the relation of Montenegro to the new Jugo-Slav state; and a specially summoned Skupshtina deposed the king and declared for incorporation… This decision, however, has been challenged on constitutional grounds.67

  This summary could easily have been written in Belgrade. The failure to distinguish between the ‘Grand National Assembly’ and the constitutional Skupština, which never convened, was fundamentally misleading.

  In 1920–21 Britain, France and the United States proceeded one by one to withdraw their representatives from the Montenegrin government-in-exile. They had decided that the king’s ministers had lost their ability to influence developments, and, since fresh elections were being held throughout Serbia, accepted the view that the people of Montenegro were participating in a democratic system. The
y were deeply at odds by now with the Italian government, which was voicing its displeasure over the Adriatic settlement, and which saw itself alongside Montenegro as a fellow victim of Allied callousness. It was left to the American press, and to a lesser extent to the Italians, to tell the world some basic and long overdue details. Early in April 1920 the New York Times published a sensational article entitled ‘Serbs Arrest De Salis’:

  Paris, April 2. The Count de Salis, formerly British Minister to Montenegro and a special envoy to the Vatican… has been arrested and imprisoned by the Serbians while executing a mission of investigation into Montenegro for his Government. This information is contained in a declaration made to King Nicholas, who is now in Paris, by the Montenegran Foreign Minister… The declaration alleges that the [count’s] Report was to the effect that the Serbian Army ‘which overran Montenegro after the armistice terrorized the population’, [and that] the reign of terror continues.

  In conclusion, the complaint is made that ‘Europe knows what is happening to Montenegro, but remains indifferent’ and that President Wilson, ‘the great champion of small nations, persistently turns a deaf ear’.68

  Prime Minister Bonomi of Italy told his parliament at this time: ‘The Montenegrin question has not been discussed by the powers, and the state of affairs created by Serbia has never received international sanction.’69 The queen of Montenegro asked for a meeting with Lloyd George when he visited Cannes. The request was refused. The powers were giving their former ally the cold shoulder. The contents of the De Salis report were not disclosed, though historians now know how damning it was. Among other things, Montenegro was ‘under occupation by a strong Serbian force’, Montenegrin officials had been replaced by Serbians, elections to the Podgorica Assembly had been illegal, the prisons were full and the present regime was hated.70