The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 17. "WATCHMAN, WHAT OF AMERICA?" AT NEW YEAR'S the British Legation as usual gave a reception. General Nedich, the only strong Serb in the Government, had been dismissed and had left town. An ancient general, once minister to Brussels, had succeeded him as Minister of War. General Boro Mirkovich was in command of aviation in the Belgrade district. Eager to give public and emphatic expression to the Serbian admiration for England, the general planned to attend the British reception with his whole staff in uniform. In high spirits he even went so far as to demonstrate how they all would bow low and say: "Your Excellency, we represent the real heart of our country." And "Long live our dear and admired friend, England!" The Minister of War got wind of his intention, and he received positive orders forbidding him to go. I was asked to explain to the British minister what had been intended. I did so. Only one member of the general's staff M.P., a reserve officer in a strong position, could brave the order. He received a very cordial and hilarious reception. This indicates the feeling in the country when the German negotiations with Yugoslavia for signing the Axis pact began. To the Serbs in general the thing was simply inconceivable: it couldn't be, it mustn't be-surely, surely it would not be done! But Machek and all the other Croat politicians were using every conceivable pressure and the threat of immediate German intervention to force the signature of the pact. Some of us knew that Cvetkovich, the Prime Minister, intended to do it. Yet, in the strangest way, even those most in the know couldn't bring themselves to believe it was going to be done. The strain was terrific. Almost hourly I received telephone messages. "He still means to do it." . . . "Yes, he is going to sign." Could he be in doubt about the feelings of the country? That seemed impossible. The Patriarch Gavrilo, head of the Serb National Church, a grand old man whose sister I knew in the Sanjak, warned the Regent and the Prime Minister that the Church and the people were solidly against it. Kosta Pechanats warned them that the Chetniks would certainly rise. Serbs of all stations begged Cvetkovich: "Delay, delay at least-until the British can come to our help." M.P., an old friend of his, in a surge of anxiety, fell on one knee before him: "I beg you, Dragisha, do anything, anything-break your leg-do anything to put it off even a few more days!" Cvetkovich brought his finger down in an imperious gesture: "If anyone so much as dares to move, he will be shot on the sport!" M.P. was immediately arrested and confined to his house under guard. Did Cvetkovich suspect? Already I knew, but only in outline, that there was a great plan for revolution. I was deeply alarmed for M.P. The place was seething with plots of all sorts. Unless you had lived yourself in that feverish atmosphere of threatening, subterranean violence, you would find it hard to imagine. At the instance of the same group of patriots who later carried out the coup d'etat, I approached the British minister with a plan for blowing up and blocking the Iron Gates on the Danube to halt, if only for a few days, German transport of munitions and oil to and from Rumania and Bulgaria. The plan was declined. I gave up the half-dead British Legation in despair. (America was not yet in the war.) Mihailovich has since carried out this plan with great success. The minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, was very well liked by the few people who ever succeeded in seeing him. Men of real knowledge and ability came to me in amazement and deep alarm at being unable to do so. And those who did succeed in getting through to him spoke, in this hour of desperate crisis for their country, with gentle yet bitter irony of the fact that a well-worn golf bag was the first object that met the eye on entering the Legation door. It must be said that the British representatives moved only within the narrowest circle connected with the Court. The Serbs are the most democratic people in Europe, not excepting the Swiss. As among our own grandfathers, there is no aristocracy in the sense of special privilege or a snobbish superiority based on titles or on great possessions. (And, as with our grandparents, there are also no Serb servants, there are only friends who come to help you: servants in Belgrade were almost without exception of German or Croat extraction.) Serbia is a land of self-respecting smallholders, and there are no castles in which to entertain with empressement. But in Croatia, with its Austrian culture and class distinctions, and so little ravaged by struggles for freedom, there are handsome castles. Foreign diplomatic circles therefore naturally made Croatia their playground and were unavoidably influenced by the more luxurious comfort there. And if moments of pleasant leisure were used by the eagerly planning Croats to instill in their guests a bias against the socially less adroit Serbs, who can be surprised? And who can wonder too that the best Serbs, notably lacking in a "keeping up with his lordship" complex, withdrew themselves in pride? Personally if I were King of Serbia, instead of trying to adopt alien usage, I would return to the dignified simplicity of my own tradition, with a Serbian house instead of a characterless palace, and with my proudest Serbs in their extremely handsome and dignified national dress around me: I would demand-and receive-respect instead of condescension. Self-respecting pride in our own inheritance, without either contempt or envy for that of others-that, I am convinced, must become the axiomatic basis of world co-operation and peace. The American representatives were much better mixers than the British, but far less influential on public feeling, since America, by her lack of participation in the war, seemed coldly unconcerned with the fate of small nations. I tried to spread the conviction that America, slow to move because of its huge size, was firm as ever in its great democratic principles and ideals. I said, as I believed, that as our own forefathers too had not hesitated to make every conceivable sacrifice for the attainment of that ideal, so the present generation of Americans, profiting by and enjoying the splendid fruits of those sacrifices, would in turn be willing, proud, and eager to make every sacrifice in defense of them. But there were those, thoughtful men, who saw in the burning fanaticism of the totalitarian converts, German and Russian (then still allies), inevitable defeat for democracy grown fat and slack with ease and success. "Everything we value," said Imre Gal, a wise old Czech, at one of my Sunday-evening gatherings, "everything we treasure must be paid for without ceasing-or it is lost. The totalitarian states are ready to sacrifice everything for their creed of loss of liberty for the common man, for government by terror of the few over the many, for dictatorship. Will Americans still be content to pay to the uttermost for their treasure of liberty? Are you sure democracy has not grown stale and uninspiring to them with use? Americans across the broad seas have forgotten what loss of liberty means. Can they understand that loss of freedom anywhere means greater danger to their own? They think themselves safe. The seas are their Maginot Line. Useless, useless! A new art has come into war. Secret penetration, like ants, can eat away at the heart, leaving only a still strong-looking surface, a hollow shell which-as in France-can crumble at a blow. Tells us, does the American heart still beat strong, alert, and eager for democracy ? " There was a silence. My friends looked at me agonized, holding their breath with anxiety. At that moment I felt humble and proud to be looked upon with such confidence as the interpreter of my country. I said: "It does. Yes. Be sure. It does." "Then," said my dear friend Imre Gal, "then and only then will America save the great ideal of human freedom. Then and only then will America save-herself." Imre, with his wife and girl and boy whom I loved, did not live to see my word made good: all four were among the more than 20,000 who died only a few days later in the fiendish Belgrade bombardment. I hope he knows that America now fights, stronger than ever in her history, for government "of the people, for the people, by the people" not only for herself but for all the smaller democracies of the world, including the Czech and the Serb. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel