The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 31. A MYTH DIES UNMOURNED AT DUBROVNIK we found the large hotels closed, and my Croat sailor friends put me down at a smaller one, the Gradats, in which I was lucky to get a room. This part of the town had been slightly bombed. It was packed with Jewish refugees fleeing before the Germans into what was hoped would be Italian and therefore more humanly decent administration. At once I took a streetcar out to Gruzh, the harbor of Dubrovnik, to see the British consul, M}. Harcourt. (There was no American consul.) From him I hoped to get some clear facts of the situation. He either knew or would tell none. He was hurriedly closing the consulate. I had known his cousin, the late Lord "Lulu" Harcourt, and as we made for the return streetcar, I listened with speechless admiration while he explained to me, at acidulous length, how superior and older was his own branch of the family and the reasons why he himself was no nobleman! Back in town, I called on Laura McCullaugh at the Pension Ivy. (I give complete names only when I am certain that no injury to the person or to relatives still there can possibly result.) She was an American with friends of much influence both there and at home and, with quiet confidence in her nationality, was awaiting the issue of events. We listened to various radio stations and had our worst fears confirmed: the Germans were already well into Greece; the few British troops that had landed were departing in haste. Mr. Harcourt came in to say that he was leaving at once for Rizan with a British consul from farther north. To amuse myself and to try the effect, I reminded him that I was, as was well known, certain at least of imprisonment by the Germans. Could he not therefore please take me too, as his would probably be the last car with any chance of getting through? He replied that he was sorry but the car was already overfull: he had too much luggage. Well, he got only a few miles out of town when he was caught by the Italians. Among the soldiers who got him was an Italian waiter from the Hotel Imperial, just next door, a particularly obliging fellow who had taken pains to teach me some of my first Serbian words. A fifth-column Eyetee teaching me Serbian was an amusing thought. In striking contrast to Mr. Harcourt's was the behavior of the British Legation staff from Belgrade. When the British seaplane came in to rescue British nationals, it was found that there was room for only twenty-two persons. The British minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, and his staff had priority, of course, and in view of the treatment of ministers in, say, Bulgaria (under the Germans), there was urgency in their removal. Sir Ronald, however, and his whole staff stood aside and sent in their own places those civilians of Balkan nationality who were in danger of their lives if captured by the enemy. This gesture greatly enhanced England's prestige in Serbia and will not be forgotten. Sir Ronald, his staff and about two hundred British nationals were taken by the Italians, kept confined for some weeks at Herzegnovi, transported to Italy, and at last exchanged to England. In Dubrovnik I dined that night with my two Croat naval friends in the huge dark kitchen of the Gradats Hotel. It was a strained and silent meal. I am pretty sure they guessed what I was there for. They informed me that they would be leaving just before dawn in the morning. They would have tried to return that night, they said, but in the completely disorganized state of the country armed highway robbers were already infesting the roads, attacking motorists and stealing their cars. They said they would knock on my door just before they left to see if I would come. I said I should at least be glad to say good-by to them. They looked at me and sighed. We all had a dim prescience of what was to come. If there was a knock on my door that night I did not hear it. But in the morning the hotel porter told me in a whisper that they had been called for and taken away at midnight-by whom, it was impossible to say. Good luck to two loyal fellows! But I'm afraid . . . Good, loyal fellows had little chance in Croatia in those black days. At exactly a quarter to ten that morning the first Italian detachment entered Dubrovnik. The town was gaily decorated with flags, the Yugoslav flag hung upside down to become the Croatian flag. I felt bitterly sad for all that had once been hoped for Yugoslavia, all that King Alexander and other idealists had died for. Where there had been no spiritual union, blood had turned to poison. The faces of the townspeople were cheerful. There was only one worry: how soon would the Italians pass on and the Germans move in? It was the Germans these people eagerly hoped for and wanted. I went over to see if Laura McCullaugh had heard any radio news and found the great gates of the Ivy locked. This pension was well known as the favorite haunt of British and American visitors and was the first place to be put under enemy surveillance. Laura came to the high iron-grilled gate, and as we stood talking, we looked down the street and saw that everyone was being stopped and searched. I had a valuable small camera with special attachments on me and, of course, my Chetnik pass. Something had to be done, and Laura, with great pluck, did it. I pushed my camera and the pass through the gate. If the pass had been found in her possession she would have suffered extremely serious consequences. Nevertheless she took it. She put it into a sponge bag and buried it in the garden while pretending to play with her Scotty dog. The camera she unfortunately laid on Mr. Harcourt's abandoned books (he did abandon some of his possessions) and it was seized by the Germans. Now began the great entry of the Imperial Italian Army. And for forty-eight hours it was hell. In that narrow street the noise and concussion of the motorized transport, going for the sake of "invincible" effect at dashing speed, was maddening. Most of the hundreds of motor lorries were decorated with palm leaves and flowers, and some were crudely scrawled with the usual fascist mottoes. One or two carried huge pictures of Mussolini hung on the radiators. The common soldiers were morose, with now and then an inexpensive sort of pleasantness as they ogled the girls in the windows and balconies. But the officers-they were a curious study. Martial and even aristocratic in bearing, many of them, they yet had a glum, uncertain, amateurish ineffectiveness about them which could inspire only an amused contempt. That contempt was not unmixed with pity. For the majority of these attractive little officers quite obviously, in spite of some pleasure at success, had no joy in what they were doing, no respect for themselves in doing it. Some German detachments came through, and the behavior of the "dear allies" to each other was uproariously funny. It was a surprise too. For lot, it was the Germans who meticulously saluted and it was the Italians, privates and officers, who turned their backs or with staring rudeness refused to reply. And this not just sometimes but invariably. It was worth hanging over the terrace for hours in the noise, dust, and smell to watch the absurd performance: it was like a bantam cock getting fresh with a turkey. Whispered jokes about Italian courage were heard everywhere. We heard, for instance, that they were so terrified of the Chetniks that they shot on sight anyone wearing the typical and almost universal Serbian black lambskin cap because it happened to be also the Chetnik uniform cap. I had already disposed of mine. Removing the insignia, I pushed it under some bomb wreckage in the garden of the hotel to look as if it had been tossed over the wall by a passer-by: there would be plenty more when I got up into the mountains. When would my investigation come, I wondered? I destroyed my British passport, mainly because I did not wish to reveal the dates on which I had visited Bulgaria. (Useless precaution; the Germans later knew quite well.) I put my uniform into safekeeping where I hope to find it again-it was actually a Croat who very courageously took it for me. And after considerable thought I decided to leave my gun for the present with another friend, a Serb. Immediately behind the Italian troops, their wives and relatives poured in from Albania and even from Italy itself. The shops were cleared as if a mighty swarm of locusts had settled on the town and neighborhood. Food, clothes, and even tourist trinkets disappeared as if by magic. But the Italians paid with money, however worthless their paper, while the Germans mostly gave "promissory" notes-and those only in compliment to their new "dear allies" the Croats. Elsewhere in Yugoslavia the looting, the barefaced stealing of every usable article, including even floors, to be carted off to Germany in trainload after heavy trainload, had already commenced. Dubrovnik has always been the greatest center in the Balkans for local and Near East antiques. The shops were to me a never-ending delight, and I had spent many happy hours and many thousands of dinars in buying treasures. Several of the shopkeepers were Jews, some were Serbs, and both were my good friends. Their kindness to me and their anxiety about my safety now were so remarkable as to justify one's good opinion of humanity. They notified me that if I needed anything, all they had was at my disposal. Seeing how things were vanishing, I hurried to try to grab a bathing suit and cloth for a beach gown to play my role of the harmless summer visitor. Returning to the hotel, I found the place in an uproar. Italian police had found in my room English books (borrowed from Laura) and photographs of a flier they thought English and had raised a hue and cry for "the British spy." But behold, in the usual Pleasant or half hearted Italian manner, instead of a cordon of bayonets and trample of heavy boots, there fluttered a little slip of paper bearing the name of the officer to whom the "suspicious character" should at once report. After lunch, accompanied by the nervous hotel porter I walked down to the Hotel Imperial, my old-time roost, now the Imperial Italian Military Headquarters. I showed my slip to an officer just coming out, and it happened that he was the man himself. As he was about to lunch at the Gradats, he courteously suggested our walking over together. Arrived there, he asked where we could talk and, as the hall was occupied, he suggested my room. Now I had far and away the pleasantest corner room in the hotel. The sun shone in through green foliage, and to a man just arrived from the Greek mountain campaign it must have looked like paradise. I judge that it made him slightly absent-minded. "You are British?" he began stiffly in awkward French. "But no, mon colonel, you are quite mistaken. I am an American caught here by events and with nowhere to travel safely. The great Italian nation are our friends of long standing." He bowed. I drew my American pass from my pocket and held it in my hand. I talked on gaily. "Where could one find a place more beautiful to pass this terrible time of war, which will soon, I am sure, be over!" He saw my nice, fat American eagle. If he should take the pass to look at, his suspicion would be aroused at once, as it was completely blank, without a single visa. Quickly I picked up a cigarette to offer him and, to strike a match, laid the pass on a table beside me. Busily I talked on, and, as if the matter were now settled, took up the pass and slipped it back into my pocket. He was looking round my pretty room. "This room," he said, slightly embarrassed, "this room, I'm afraid- I regret to say this room has been requisitioned." "Indeed?" "Yes, I'm afraid you will have to move," and with the usual Italian gallantry: "Perhaps you would be kind enough to take the room next door." I bowed noncommittally. "Perhaps by four o'clock?" He made a few agreeable remarks, bowed low and departed. I had surmounted my first hazard. What they had not found in my room-what I had taken care they should not find-was a large photograph of the old Chetnik chief, Pechanats. On it was written a dedication in very flattering terms calling me "the best and most valued friend Serbia possessed, at heart a true Chetnik." I was anxious not to destroy this but meant to save it somehow for a future time. How to do it? I had considered numberless ways and at last hit upon the perfect place. Balkan carpentry is not very precise, and the floor of my closet, built into the wall, had a crack at the bottom. I managed to slip the picture in, followed by my Chetnik skull-and-crossbones badge and the cap insignia. I was content that, unless the hotel burned or the walls were torn down, these mementos would await me at the end of the war. The thought that, throughout the later frantic effort to find a single positive piece of evidence of my Chetnik connection, one of the highest officers of the Italian Occupation was and is now sleeping every night, with his nose almost directly over that evidence, has given me unending pleasure. Now began in Dubrovnik the wholesale removal and destruction by the inhabitants of any signs that they, a branch of the same South Slav stock, had ever had any connection with their fellow South Slavs, the Serbs. The beautiful bas-relief by Mestrovich of King Peter I, the founder of Yugoslavia, grandfather of the present King Peter II, is considered his finest work. I watched it being torn down, together with other inscriptions and memorials of a Yugoslavia vanished now into the past. The myth of a brotherhood based on blood was exploded-irrevocably as regards the Serbs. The Croats, when they see themselves again on the losing side and their frightful crimes coming home to them, can be confidently expected to try to revive it. The Fighting Serbs will positively have none of it. Yugoslavia has gone, and the fact that now, as I write (May 1943) the American and British governments still use the word officially is merely, and quite properly, to save themselves the work of dealing with a problem which will solve itself. The Serbs love their Karageorgivich king as loyally as ever. They want him back. They know him to be in the hands of old and inept Serbian and intriguing Goat advisers. He is very young; they do not blame him for his helplessness. But nothing is more certain than that any official who has compromised with the Croats can consider his career closed. The Croats believed the Germans would win. But should the impossible occur and the hated democracies after all prevail and pursue their "stupid" policy of allowing the peoples to decide their own destiny, then they would see to it that they kept the rich lands bought from Germany with their treachery: there should be no more Serbs there to vote. Let those cunning butchers take this word of warning: when that day of voting comes, one million Serbian graves will cast their ballots too. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel