Bonsal, Stephen
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2
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256
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242.3 K
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20 h, 11 m
Note: The row over whether the Adriatic port of Fiume should be given to Italy or to the newly formed Yugoslav state was a complex and important one. The Italian claims to the city were set forth in a memorandum to the Conference dated February 7, 1919, which demanded possession of Fiume on the basis of the request made by “the Italian majority” (following the plebiscite conducted by the poet-filibusterer, d'Annunzio) for Italian annexation. Other arguments advanced by Italy’s delegates included: The…- 113.7 K • Completed
- King Nicholas, still in exile, died on March 1, 1921. Even at the last, when life was ebbing, he refused to abdicate in favor of his grandson, Alexander, and it was because of this that he was not allowed to return to his beloved Lovčen. I understand, however, that his ashes have now been interred in the soil which he loved and so gallantly…
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- Through other channels, when Queen Elena became passive, King Nicholas, her father, continued his efforts to obtain authorization to return to the Black Mountain country. His requests were never definitely refused; he was always put off with the plea that he must wait still a little while, until the situation had “cleared up.” Months later and still in exile, the sturdy Nicholas died, and although it was one of the Fourteen Points nearest to President Wilson’s heart, the restoration of Montenegro to…
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- Slowly but irrevocably, I fear, the Montenegro problem has faded from the picture. Sympathy for King Nicholas is frequently expressed, and in some quarters it is sincere; but the consensus is that nothing can be done about it or for the sturdy King, out of tune with the times. After Wilson’s illness early in April (See Chapter 16, “The Conference Runs into Heavy Weather.”)—and how serious it was we are only beginning to appreciate—the President naturally, indeed inevitably, concentrated his…
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- Today I must note in my locked diary one of the most “hush-hush” of the many graveyard secrets, to use the Colonel’s expression, that it contains. Ten days ago, King Nicholas showed me the original of a cable which he received from President Wilson in the summer of 1918. It appears that his agent in Washington at this time had approached the White House with the request that recognition and encouragement be afforded the struggling Black Mountain folk who, by their guerilla tactics, were harassing the…
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- King Nicholas has filed with the Secretary General of the Conference his protest against the situation in Montenegro for which he holds, with some justification, the Allied Powers responsible. It is but little toned down from the advance copy he gave me some days ago. It is a sweeping indictment of the Serbian authorities and their armies that surged into the Black Mountain country to replace the occupying Austrians* during the last days of October, 1918. He says that at least four thousand of his men and…
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- Today I feel that in all fairness I must put on record a more detailed account of my relations with Nicholas, his Royal Highness, King of Montenegro, which has been long withheld even from these confidential files. I must admit that these relations have not escaped misrepresentation in some quarters. They go back twenty-five years, and perhaps a few more, and I have for him such a deep admiration that when the problem which his future presented to the Supreme War Council came up, I felt it was only right…
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- One of the dreams I cherished in the first hopeful days of the Conference (as mentioned in a previous entry) was to bring Nicholas, the undoubted champion of Balkan Christendom, and Essad, the Saladin of these modern crusades, together at my table; not, of course, at the Crillon where we would be exposed to the Argus-eyed gaze of the press, but in some remote restaurant, well out of the path of the conferees. The denouement of the plot was to tip my Colonel off and have him drop in casually at the place of…
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- Of the many suitors and suppliants who, awaiting their critical hour at the bar of the Great Assizes, are gathered here, King Nicholas of Montenegro and Essad Pasha, who represents many of the Albanian tribes and perhaps all who are Moslems, while not the most important, are certainly the most picturesque. I visited both their mountain fastnesses years ago, and today I find them sympathetic and extremely interesting. They are both men of magnificent thews and sinews, and of the visiting monarchs of the…
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- When I returned ten days ago from my foray into Southeastern Europe, under the auspices of General Smuts, one of my first inquiries was of Ben Israel. The bo’sun said he had not been around for some time; that when last he called, he had a hacking cough, “and I gave him some lozenges.” I felt I ought to look him up. In fact, only my sudden departure for Vienna had prevented me from making the call upon which he seemed to set great store and which indeed I had promised to make at the first…
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