The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 16. VAIN WARNINGS I CANNOT SAY I liked living in Belgrade: big cities were never my milieu. I need too much strenuous exercise. I hated the icy winds that suddenly howled down upon this rock at the confluence of the majestic Danube and the lovely Sava, facing the illimitable plains like a great ship at sea. So I stupidly caught pneumonia just for Christmas. Being ill had its compensations in the kindness of friends and in the fact that, Iying in bed at ground level, I could watch the busy life of my street without myself being seen through the double windows and the fishnet curtains. It was like a non-stop variety show. Just as we by fixed custom eat turkey for Christmas dinner, so the Serbs eat suckling pigs. They buy them alive, mostly a few days beforehand so as to give them a last fattening. My house was near one of the largest markets. For ten days before Christmas, therefore, in the early mornings tiny pigs in uncounted numbers and all sorts of color combinations were herded squealing, bouncing, rushing, balking, down the street. And all day long almost everyone passing by-men, women, messenger boys, young maids, old maids-was carrying, in every conceivable style and position, a tiny live pig. To them it was the most natural thing in the world. But to me the sight of ladies in fine fur coats and big handsome businessmen in formal clothes, struggling desperately with wriggling, screeching pink or spotted baby porkers or tearing madly after them when they escaped, kept me in a riot of laughter. Soon I was well again and the pleasant meetings round my fireside could be resumed. One of my favorite visitors was a doughty old Chetnik of about eighty. Men live to a great age in the Balkans-if they're quick or lucky -and this delightful old man, Zaria M., made no concessions whatever to the passing years. He stood as straight as ever and weighed not a pound more than in his active youth. Endless were the tales told about him and his unceasing warfare with the Turks. Perhaps the mildest one was this: A pasha in a south Serb village had made himself fiercely hated by the peasants for his merciless tax grinding, beatings, and theft. He took whatever he pleased, including, worst of all, any pretty girl who caught his fancy. To murder him outright would have called down the Turkish soldiers in a general massacre of the village. What to do to teach the tyrant a sharp lesson? Zaria thought of a plan. The pasha had a wife, young, beautiful, carefully hidden, whom he loved as the proverbial apple of his eye. One evening the Turk was called away on "urgent business." Zaria and his men surrounded the house and overpowered the guards. Then he violated the pasha's darling-without, they say, removing the knife from his mouth. That done, a whistle, the guards were released, and Zaria and his men faded away into the night. There could not be a worse punishment for a Turkish pasha: this one is reported to have become a model of probity. Nothing more gentle and courtly than my old Chetnik Zaria could be imagined-except when old tales lit fires in his eyes. They brightened, too, for pretty girls. His latest exploit in that line was cause for endless teasing. One day when an airliner he was in reached four thousand feet, he went forward to a lovely but perfectly strange lady and asked courteously if he might be allowed to kiss her, because "it was the first time he had ever flown." She agreed graciously, even with enthusiasm, and the salute was, they say, heard above the engine's roar. He proudly felt he held a record. The political atmosphere was getting steadily more gloomy. The state of Yugoslavia, being a marriage of geographical and political convenience rather than a really fundamental union of ideals, was a perfect breeding ground for cynical opportunism. Prince Paul, the regent during the minority of the young king, had obviously only a single thought: to hand the country over to the new ruler, when his regency ended, as unchanged as possible. He forgot that nothing can stand still; it must go forward or it goes back. Yugoslavia was drifting back, bogging down so fast in rapacious self-seeking by the "ascendancy" class that to me it seemed certain that soon a crisis must come, when the country would be either saved or ruined by a rising of the exasperated people. Men of good will with ideals of public service desperately comforted themselves with the hope that when the boy Peter became king in the following September, everything would change at once for the better. I saw him several times and was convinced that he had character and the most sincere intentions. Nevertheless I found little cause for hope. Could a boy of eighteen who had been kept lonely for years-so lonely, with not even his mother to lean on-could he be expected to see through and control those practiced intriguers? Prince Paul disliked the business of ruling; he knew himself unfitted for it. Those who suspected him of designs upon the throne were certainly wrong. The "ins" in government ran things with a high hand. Since in this strangling bureaucracy there was no appeal against the whims and fancies of a government bureau, and since nobody could start a private enterprise without a government license, peasant and businessman alike had to use the only instrument that proved effective in getting action: bribery. The feeling of insecurity within the country was so great, the future so doubtful, that officials preferred to grab while the grabbing was good rather than build up a solid reputation for honesty. Corruption became an unbelievable, incurable scandal. After Machek secured autonomy for Croatia and became vicepremier of the new government, Parliament was dissolved and was never reconvened. The country was ruled by decree. Anyone who criticized or rebelled against this state of affairs was simply labeled "communist" and persecuted. There were exceedingly few real Communists in Serbia, but there were many despairing critics who, for lack of any other hope, drifted toward communism. Honest Serbs of noted family, after a humiliating struggle, withdrew into disgusted retirement, and public life took on a more and more shady character. Machek was the strong man of Yugoslavia. There can be no doubt that it was he and no other who blew the state of Yugoslavia to the winds-never again to be put together. He was a Croat first and a Yugoslav second, if at all. He actually opposed the use of the word "Yugoslavia," even going so far as to change the name of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences to the "Croat Academy of Sciences." Croatia must as usual have the best of every world. Croatia, with its Western commercial training, had a firm hold on the industry of Yugoslavia. It was the most prosperous part of the country and drew its greater wealth largely from Serbian trade. It shared the strength and had the protection of a common state, of Serb prestige and Serbian solid international reputation. Yet: "Croatian taxes, Croatian superior education and brains," cried the Croats, "must be used only for the benefit of Croatia." They did not wish to help to improve the country as a whole. Machek worked for Croat autonomy with might and main. He wanted a "Great Croatia," or, failing that, complete Croat control of Yugoslavia. He went too far. He worked up the ill feeling of the Croats against the Serbs to an absolutely vicious degree. Like many another politician who fell short of being a statesman, he thought to conjure up a breeze, and, by the whirlwind he roused, was blown away. He did not foresee, when he pointed the hatred of his compatriots toward the Serbs, what it would mean to release the repression engendered by hundreds of years of foreign vassalage. For when, as they thought, their moment of triumph had arrived, the Croats went berserk. There is no question at all that Machek himself is guilty equally with the actual perpetrators of the murder of not less than 600,000 Serbs. Machek was too strong. He wanted a weak central government which would permit him to exercise more power. He had it, since the Prince was afraid of him. This weak government fell easily into the clutching, terrifying German hand, and thereby the very thing Machek wished for-Croat control of Yugoslavia-was destroyed. Koroshets died, the Slovene leader. He was a wiser man than Machek but less dynamic. And because he worked with gentler means, the Slovenes, their democratic ideal similar to the Serbian, have been much more loyal, much more steady than the Croats. Prince Paul and his government were not bought with money by Germany. Being weak and spoiled by luxury, they were bought with promises of safety of lives and possessions. Alas, they too meant well enough, I suppose. (I must in fairness mention that three months after Germany overran Yugoslavia the German governor of the Belgrade prison where I was an inmate said to me: "Don't think we have ever looked upon Premier Cvetkovich as a friend of Germany!") Everywhere I talked with the simple people in trains, in little country restaurants, in bookshops. I began to get a pretty clear picture of the Croat attitude. I became more and more convinced that, at best, their loyalty could not be relied upon; at worst, they would go over completely to Germany. But I did not then suspect that the basest treachery had been long and systematically prepared. I begged and pressed in various quarters, I urged and urged again that all Croat soldiers be drafted into separate regiments. I was assured: "It will be done." "We have begun to do it." "Hurry!" "Well, it's being done." But it wasn't done. Shall we blame the Serbs for inability to see what was coming? They were like ourselves-they judged others by themselves. We in America and England could not bring ourselves to believe that Germany was planning war, world conquest, though we were warned with solemn words and even with conclusive figures. Just so the Serbs, themselves loyal and forthright, could not believe in Croat treachery. They clung to the union ideal of King Alexander for which he himself was murdered by a Croat organization. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel