Cornwall M. The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds

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134 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

war he was thinking of ways to betray the Monarchy. Already, when posted to

the Balkan Front in 1914, he had tried to desert with 20 men to Montenegro,

but instead had been wounded and gained an Austrian decoration for his

`bravery'. It was just the first of such risks which Pivko turned to his advantage,

gathering a reputation for reliability as the most decorated officer of his battal-

ion by

the summer of 1917. After a period of leave in early 1915, when he

witnessed at first hand the wartime authoritarian rule in Maribor and in Prague,

Pivko seems to have felt that instead of simply deserting to the enemy he

should stay and organize `revolutionary work' against Austria at the front. His

overall goal was still Slovene rather than Yugoslav: `the destruction of Austria

and the freedom of my nation, which can only be achieved by the destruction

of Austria!'

In this ideal, he gradually found consensus among some younger

Slav reserve officers of the battalion, chiefly Czechs like Karel Mlejnek, Josef

Kohoutek and Karel Pajger, but occasionally Bosnian Serbs such as Sime C

and Cvijo Djuric

. The burgeoning group, many of whom were with him during

Austria's conquest of Montenegro in the winter of 1915±16, were, in Pivko's

words, `amphibians': they fought in the Austrian army but at the same time

they rejoiced at Austria's defeats.

By August 1916, when Pivko's battalion (V/BHIR1) had been transferred to

Corvara in northern Tyrol, it had to engage in hostilities with the Italians on

Monte Sief. At the same time Pivko, as commander of the 4th company, made

his first secret contact with Italy. He managed to arrange for two Russian

prisoners to desert across the lines, taking with them documents (signed

under his code-name Ivan Vidovic

Pavlin) about his small group of agitators

and about the Austrian positions which had been regularly reconnoitred by his

patrols. By this time Pivko could rely for his cause on about 50 Bosnian Serbs of

his own company, men who felt personally committed to their charismatic

commander and seem to have been instinctively more receptive to his views

than their fellow-Bosnian Moslems. His own reliability in his superiors' eyes

had only been strengthened by his personal heroism on Monte Sief, with the

result that he gained more access to official documents at the brigade level.

was knowledge and experience which he built upon when the battalion in late

1916 was moved to the sector of the 18ID near the village of Carzano.

In the

new position there was not only the advantage for Pivko's plotters of

the Italians lying in close proximity. The position also defended key routes of

access to the Austrian rear, through Val Sugana to Trento, and along a new road

being built in early 1917 through the Calamento valley to link Borgo with Ora

and hence Bolzano. Any Italian break-through could therefore have far-reach-

ing consequences. Pivko immediately set out to place his conspirators at the

disposal of the Italian CS, attempting already in January 1917 to cross with his

plans to the Italian lines. He failed due to the snow, and then went on leave for

the last time. Six months later he was in a much stronger position. A German

The Seeds of Italy's Campaign 135

officer in Levico, who was a friend, provided him with precise information

about 11AK troop movements; his plotters were able to reconnoitre the entire

region, including the road to Ora which had now been completed; and he

himself was even temporarily placed in charge of the whole battalion. It was

thus that in early July 1917 Pivko resolved to send Karel Mlejnek, an honest if

rather naõ

ve individual, on a mission to the Italian lst army command. Under

cover of searching for enemy propaganda leaflets, Mlejnek would take to the

Italians a letter from `Lt Pavlin'. It informed them that Yugoslav and Czech

rebels of the battalion were now at Italy's disposal, eager as `allies of the

Entente' to give them the military advantage before the forthcoming Austrian

offensive on the Isonzo; Italy should prepare a surprise thrust in the Sugana

valley, for there the plotters could sabotage Austrian defences and act as guides

for the Italian advance. On the evening of 11 July, Mlejnek crossed the short

no-man's-land of apple trees to the Italian lines, equipped with the letter and a

package of detailed maps and plans. The Italians were asked to fire two grenades

over Carzano to acknowledge that they had received the package, and to return

Mlejnek to Carzano with a reply as to how `Pavlin' himself could meet the

Italians.

The two main accounts of how the plot developed in the following months,

by Pivko and Finzi, differ slightly in their timing of events, but they converge

on all major points. Finzi was clearly intrigued at the precise details which

Mlejnek's package contained although, it seems, he did not understand why

`Pavlin' should be doing this. Mlejnek was probably taken down to Vicenza to

meet Finzi

and was then returned to the Austrian lines, his long absence

converted into an `heroic incident' by Pivko which his superiors would only

question much later. Finzi meanwhile ordered the signals to be given, and met

Pivko at Strigno for the first time on the night of 21 July; it was to be the first of

eight such encounters. Finzi at this initial meeting was rapidly inclined to trust

Pivko: when Pivko insisted that the war would destroy Austria (and that the

sooner it occurred `the sooner we Slavs will achieve the fulfilment of our

national ideals'), Finzi simply replied, `that is the theory which guides my

work as well'. Both men undoubtedly exaggerated for the other their own

importance at this time. Finzi seems to have suggested that he had already

been in touch with the CS, while Pivko asserted that his men were now Finzi's

`foremost guard in such a vital and dangerous position, like no other Italian

guard'. But the two departed enthusiastically expectant about their future

contacts, Finzi instructing Pivko to expand the number of plotters and send

him as much information as possible about the Val Sugana sector.

Finzi would later suggest that at this meeting his own Italian prejudices

against the Slovenes and Croats had evaporated. In fact, at their second meet-

ing on

the night of 26 July the logical clash of their nationalist standpoints was

quickly revealed. When Pivko tried to suggest that all Slavs in the Monarchy

136 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

were revolutionary, Finzi countered with the evidence of the recent May

Declaration by Austria's South Slav leaders in the Reichsrat, according to

which they desired unification but still under the Habsburg sceptre. Finzi was

clearly sceptical about Pivko's attempts to excuse the declaration. Nor did he

feel that the Corfu Declaration between Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee (of

which Pivko was still ignorant until this time) was an accurate reflection of a

similar Yugoslav unity inside Austria-Hungary. Indeed, such declarations,

according to Finzi, were of `academic significance' since they took no account

of military realities or the views of the Great Powers. Pivko rightly sensed in

Finzi's language his commitment to Italian aspirations as laid down in the

Treaty of London, something which would always remain a sensitive point in

their relationship. Equally, it is clear that at this time Finzi was thoroughly

realistic in evaluating the situation: in correctly suspecting that most `Yugo-

slavs' of

the Monarchy were not united or even revolutionary, and in pointing

to the absence of any Entente commitments to the Yugoslav cause. The upshot

of this early discussion in any case was that, in their subsequent dealings, Finzi

and Pivko were usually able to subsume the sensitive territorial issue, concen-

trating instead

on their common zest to destroy Austria-Hungary in the milit-

ary field.

The real strength of Italy's campaign with front propaganda would

depend on maintaining such a common purpose despite the otherwise diver-

gent interests.

In the

following weeks Pivko energetically stepped up his preparations. His

plotters, whose number steadily expanded, were assigned specific reconnais-

sance tasks.

About half of them sent in details from the rear. For example, Pivko

posted a Czech officer, Jir

ÏÂ

õ Mas

lka

whose father had been imprisoned for

treason, to Trento to assess troop movements; a Slovene named Gobec sent in

reports on the basis of extensive travelling, since he was responsible for inspect-

ing the

telephone and telegraphic network of the sector; another Czech, Anto-

nõ

Stra

nsky

, was recruited in a bakery at Novaledo, on the main road along the

Val Sugana.

The rest of the conspirators remained in the front line, drawing

maps, hoarding munition and dismantling defences in order to facilitate an

Italian invasion. During August, Pivko ensured that many of the key plotters

went on leave for the last time and gave some of them extra tasks. Frantis

Jirsa, a late recruit and commander of the battalion machine-gun company,

took a special message of reassurance to Pivko's wife in Bohemia. Josef Kohou-

tek was

assigned a more political role, for Pivko not only entrusted him with a

letter about the Corfu Declaration for a Slovene contact, but also urged him to

meet leading Czech politicians if possible.

(It is not clear if this occurred, but

it perhaps indicates Pivko's sensitivity to Finzi's criticism of the absence of

revolutionary signs in the hinterland.) Meanwhile during August, Pivko was

able to betray to the Italians the details of three local Austrian raids, two of

which he effectively sabotaged. And more importantly, he relayed to Finzi a

The Seeds of Italy's Campaign 137

steady stream of information about all aspects of the Val Sugana sector as well

as of the Trentino as a whole, including all official communications from the

11AK and some even from the AOK at Baden. In light of this, Pivko would later

assert that during the First World War no belligerent was so precisely informed

about the strengths and intentions of an opponent as were the Italians about

the Austrians in the Sugana valley in the summer of 1917.

Finzi's memoirs lend weight to this contention: that by early September, on

the basis of Italian Intelligence at least, `Trento was already virtually ours'.

one starry night Finzi even donned Austrian uniform and was escorted around

the Carzano sector by Pivko, who indicated where the electric wires would be

cut, where an extra bridge could be constructed over the river Maso, and where

the Italians would be able to advance unnoticed by Austrian artillery.

Yet

Finzi's enthusiasm for the enterprise was not shared by his superiors, and events

would prove that Intelligence alone would not guarantee success. Despite his

confident assurances to Pivko, Finzi had found the CS initially sceptical when

he visited Udine on 4 August, since all eyes were turned upon the imminent

Bainsizza offensive. Only after a month, when the offensive on the Giulian

front had ground to a halt, was Finzi able to gain access to Cadorna and con-

vince him,

particularly in view of the weak Austrian occupation of the Trent-

ino, that

the Carzano plot ought to be exploited for more than Intelligence

purposes. And even then, when details of the attack were finalized (7 September),

Finzi was again to be disillusioned. The 6th army commander, General Etna,

who had already shown scepticism, put forward a very cumbersome plan of

action which contrasted markedly with the meticulous and rapid operation pro-

posed by

Ljudevit Pivko himself. Nor did it bode well that the officer chosen

by Cadorna to command the enterprise, Brigadier Attilio Zincone, had never

performed such a task before; in short, as Finzi wrote acidly, `he did not have

the makings of a condottiero'.

For the Carzano plotters, any delay in the operation could be fatal. Even

before the agreement with Cadorna, Finzi seems to have told Pivko that the

attack would be on 13 September. Pivko was then undoubtedly alarmed when

he learnt on 4 September that action would be in 15±20 days, since by this time

there were increasing signs that his battalion might soon be transferred to

another sector or front.

100

Such delay also heightened the risk of discovery or

betrayal. Pivko, as the temporary commander of the battalion, had been able to

disguise his movements by unilaterally `taking patrols into no-man's-land', and

he could be sure that his superior officers were at least in Telve or further afield.

Through an arrangement with the Italians, he had also tried to ensure that their

artillery fired whenever there loomed an official Austrian inspection of the

sector, so that the tour would be cancelled. But this was not a foolproof

procedure, and Pivko's position was weaker from 7 September when a Magyar,

Major Lakom, officially assumed command of the battalion at Telve and

138 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

proceeded to tour the sector. Moreover, Pivko had to be constantly vigilant as

the potential enemy was always in his midst. Alongside the 70 or so conspir-

ators who

had been recruited by early September, it is significant that there

remained a mass of `Austrians' including some prominent officers (Knott, Ertl,

the Bosnian Moslem Trampa, and the battalion doctor Turold) to whom the

plot could never be divulged. Pivko might occasionally test one of these offi-

cers' convictions,

101

but was increasingly wary about recruiting too widely. At

Finzi's suggestion, it was agreed that on the fatal night those of the battalion

who were not party to the plot would be drugged. Finzi arranged for the army

chemists at Turin to produce bottles of brandy laced with opium, as well as

extra doses of the drug in powder form for use in the battalion kitchens. As

Pivko observed, `he who is not with us, let him sleep'.

102

The plot, however, almost began to unravel before such drugging was pos-

sible. Like

the Italians, Pivko seems to have been unnecessarily paranoid about

the `skill' of Austrian espionage in Italy. But it was a far simpler indiscretion

which endangered the whole conspiracy. In his enthusiasm for new recruits,

Karel Mlejnek had divulged elements of the plot (his own visit to Vicenza, the

imminent Italian invasion and the use of opium) to an old Czech acquaintance,

Urban, who had just started to work in the officers' mess kitchen at Telve. On

11 September Urban, after wrestling with his conscience, betrayed these details

to the divisional command, which ordered that Mlejnek and Alojz Lahvic

(who had also confided in Urban) should be arrested and that an investigation

should be undertaken by Auditor Klima. Pivko's own dramatic account of this

eleventh-hour betrayal

103

corroborates what the later Austrian inquiry sus-

pected: namely,

that he had time to brief Mlejnek and Lahvic

ka about how to

behave before Klima. While they pleaded total ignorance and portrayed Urban

as a stupid and cowardly individual, Pivko himself when questioned was able to

play on his own excellent reputation to discredit Urban's `fantasies'. As the

Austrian inquiry noted later:

Naturally this

highly intelligent, ingenious criminal understood precisely

how to leave his accomplices spotless. Pivko was looked upon as the best

officer in the battalion. It was therefore not at all easy to bring such charges

against an officer who was so decorated and described with such distinc-

tion.

104

Klima therefore dropped all charges against the accused, enabling Pivko, who

had prepared for an armed rebellion if the judgement had been unfavourable,

to return to his comrades in the front line. Well might the conspirators feel,

notwithstanding, that a volcano was beginning to stir under their feet.

105

the very next day Pivko was called to Levico to represent the battalion at an

inspection by Emperor Karl, an occasion on which, ironically, the monarch

The Seeds of Italy's Campaign 139

accompanied by both Arz and Conrad praised Pivko, brushed aside the recent

shadow over his reputation, and proceeded to promote him to 11AK headquar-

ters. Pivko

fancifully informed the Italians that if they attacked immediately

they might capture the Emperor, `news which would send a buzz [bi preletela]

through Europe and overseas and probably mean the end of the war'.

106

realistically, it was now vital in view of the betrayal and Pivko's imminent

transfer that the Carzano plan was executed as soon as possible. On handing

over the brandy and opium to the plotters, Finzi fixed 17 September as the

probable night and arranged that the code-word for the attack would be `Como-

Cadorna'.

All the

evidence suggests that on the crucial night, Ljudevit Pivko and his

Carzanci were as coordinated as was feasibly possible, given the boundaries of

107

secrecy. Much of the battalion was drugged in the early evening, with the

cook of the 3rd company giving the men a double-dose of opium for good

measure. The electricity through the wires in no-man's-land was cut at the

appropriate time, as were all telephone links with neighbouring sectors. The

key plotters were in place to act as guides for the 12 columns of Italian troops

which were initially expected. The key sentry positions were largely in `reliable'

hands; Pivko made sure, for example, that Sime C

replaced Lieutenant

Knott in command of the vital guard at Castellare, a point which Pivko's

battalion commander had always viewed as the sector's Achilles' heel which

needed to be reinforced.

108

But in contrast, there was to be a distinct absence of coordination on the

Italian side, revealing in particular an abyss between Finzi's efficient Intelli-

gence and

Zincone's clumsy operations. Most damaging was the fact that,

unbeknown to the plotters, Italian `winter time' had been introduced on 15

September, so that the Italian advance was an hour behind the time which

Pivko expected. This, when added to Italian delays and the fact that `the

foremost Italians crept like snails', meant that the tight schedule was quickly

in arrears. By 2 a.m. only 30 Italians had crossed both front lines and a bridge

over the Maso to reach Carzano; by 4 a.m. it was still only 200, and the alarm

had long been sounded by `Austrians' who had recovered from their drug-

ging.

109

These delays were exacerbated by Italian suspicions and caution in

the face of the enemy. For in contrast to Finzi, many of the Italian officers

had not been carefully instructed and still made no distinction between the

opposing `Austrians'. Finzi's increasing commitment to disaffected Austrians

was clear during the operation, when he was prepared to employ several Aus-

trian Slav

deserters (including Novy and Nikolic

) in trustworthy roles of liaison

between the Italians and Carzanci.

110

But other Italian officers who slowly

advanced with their columns on the route from Strigno towards Carzano

could not betray their mistrust. It was as a result of this that Mlejnek (as a

guide of the 9th column) was wounded by his own Italians, while even Pivko

140 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

was `arrested' for a time by the wary commander of the 5th column.

111

As dawn

came, Zincone finally lost his nerve and ordered a retreat. He himself had

already contributed to the de

cle

by diverting the later columns onto a route

which was both narrow and slow of transit so that many failed even to reach

Spera.

112

True, some troops had advanced to seize the battalion command at

Telve, so that the first of three phases of the operation had been completed. But

this was not enough. Only five of the 12 columns had reached their allotted

destinations, and two critical high-points, Caverna to the north and Civaron to

the south, remained untouched, leaving Italians crossing the Maso exposed to

Austrian guns in daylight.

So it

was that, largely due to Italian hesitation, the Carzano operation was

abruptly terminated. Instead of becoming what Finzi would later call a pro-

spective `Austrian

Caporetto',

113

it became an episode for the Austrians to

scorn. Only much later would Austrian commentators feel able to talk about

Pivko as a `psychological phenomenon'.

114

For the Italians, meanwhile, it was a

story to conceal. As a result of an inquiry ordered by Cadorna, both Etna and

Zincone were relieved of their posts, but the episode remained secret. Even in

1926 when Finzi's account was published in Bologna, it was confiscated by the

Fascist censor as an incident unworthy of remembrance.

Nevertheless, the

dream of Carzano was not at an end. During the last year

of hostilities it was to have far-reaching repercussions for the way in which

warfare was conducted on the Italian Front, supplying a major basis for a new

type of front propaganda. While Pivko and his key accomplices were escorted,

disillusioned and nervous, to Verona to be housed in the Procolo fortress,

Cadorna still hoped to exploit Austrian confusion in Val Sugana. He personally

ordered Finzi to re-establish contact with those many conspirators who had

been abandoned on the Austrian side, as a prelude to a second Carzano opera-

tion. Finzi

duly sent two of his own Czech agents over the front, who reported

back that while the Trentino was still weakly garrisoned, the Austrians were

now investigating the conspiracy. Other intelligence from Marchetti's network

seemed to suggest that reinforcements were moving into southern Tyrol, but

Finzi dismissed this as a diversion to conceal an Austrian build-up on the

Isonzo.

115

He himself turned to Ljudevit Pivko to draw up a new Carzano

project on the basis of his detailed knowledge, and also requested from Pivko

some volunteers who would immediately try to contact their old battalion at

Carzano. In the end, the dozen Bosnian Serbs and Slovenes who travelled back

to Strigno on 2 October discovered on their first night that the battalion had

been dissolved. The CS then resolved to cancel a second Carzano, all the more

so because of alarming signs on the Isonzo. While Pivko was left largely ignor-

ant of

the reasons (his memoirs record that `they told us many things in

reply'), the short post-Carzano episode was still highly significant. For the first

time, volunteers from the Carzanci had been allowed to don Italian uniform

The Seeds of Italy's Campaign 141

(with the initial `J' ± Jugoslavo ± on their caps) in order to work for Italian

Intelligence in the front line.

116

This did not mean that Pivko and his dozen officers were now committed to

such activities. Most of them hoped to take advantage of a guarantee which

Finzi had given them in August, supposedly allowing them freedom if they

were forced to flee to Italy. Some hoped to join the Czech Legion in France,

others to travel to Salonika and the Serbian army: few were enthusiastic about

returning to the Italian Front. Pivko himself shared these doubts, not least

because of the experience of Carzano, and his anxiety increased during his

first weeks in Verona. He sensed that few Italians shared Finzi's enlightened

viewpoint; the average Italian thought vaguely of the war as a struggle for

Italian unity, categorizing all the enemy as `Austrians' and using `Croat' as a

term `synonymous with cruelty and barbarism'. It was, he felt, `appalling' that

`Italy, who had been at war with Austria for three years already, did not see the

necessity of scattering among the nationalities elementary ideas about the lands

and peoples who wished to be free of the Austrian yoke'. Even if the Czecho-

slovak movement

seemed to have a few Italian adherents and a new office in

Rome in the hands of Frantis

ek Hlava

ek, the atmosphere hardly appeared

conducive to winning similar support for Pivko's Yugoslav ideal, something

which the Yugoslav Committee itself seemed to acknowledge through its total

boycott of the country.

117

Such arguments were challenged by Finzi, who told Pivko in mid-October

that it was precisely Italy where the Yugoslav movement needed to win

friends and where `a propitious area for propaganda' now existed. Although

Finzi did not suggest that he himself had abandoned Italy's nationalist

claims, he firmly acknowledged that his horizons were widening as a result of

Carzano:

It is

a fact that you altered the opinion of the Slavs in me and in every head

who worked with you in the last few months and knew your work . . . Your

honest propaganda should now concentrate directly on Italy with the aim of

convincing the Italian public about the justice of your aspirations and the

need to solve the Yugoslav problem.

If for

Finzi it was the military benefits which remained the priority in his

thinking, his language also suggests that he was in tune with publicists such

as Luigi Albertini or G.A. Borgese who were newly converted to `nationality

politics': namely, that this was a weapon which had to be embraced in order to

win the war. Additionally, while Finzi spoke to Pivko about `new wars of

liberation', on behalf of Slavs as well as Italians, he knew that the Slavs within

the Monarchy were not yet revolutionary, as Pivko pretended, and so posed no

threat to Italian aspirations. Pivko continued to suspect Finzi's ambivalence,

142 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

but he was nevertheless persuaded by the Intelligence head's eloquence, the

challenge he offered and the probable absence of any alternative. There seemed

to be three useful and inter-locking roles which the Carzanci might fulfil in

Italy: a military role, as volunteers at the front against Austrian oppression; a

`moral' role, by demonstrating Slav unity and their belief in an Entente victory;

and a political role, by working to convince Italian public opinion that Austria's

Slavs were ready to form their own states. Each of these roles might directly or

indirectly inflict damaging propaganda against the morale of the Habsburg

Empire.

118

On 16 October, after sending a report on his decision to the Yugoslav Com-

mittee in

London, Pivko began with the aid of Finzi's officials in Verona to train

a unit which would carry out propaganda and Intelligence work on the 1st

army front. Numbering less than 20 men at this stage, the unit was to be

divided into groups, each of which would be fed by and liaise (via Italian

Intelligence personnel) with the nearest battalion command; otherwise it

would act independently and receive orders direct from lst army Intelligence

at Vicenza. Their specific task, apart from gathering information by intercept-

ing enemy

telephone conversations, was to contact former comrades, teach

them the `realities' of their position and incite them to have the moral courage

to desert. `In that way', Pivko noted, `we begin to decompose the solidarity of

the Austrian army, [for] with propaganda the Germans and Austrians smashed

the Russian army: they discovered in ``fraternization'' a new weapon, one which

will be even more dangerous when we turn it against them on the Austrian

front.'

119

The unit's baptism of fire was on the front from Asiago north to Monte

Zebio, whither it was transported on 26 October and divided into three

groups. Most of the individuals were former Carzanci (Kohoutek, Mlejnek,

Veselko-Sedlecky

) who only weeks before had been agitating on the other side

of the trenches. During the next ten days, while the Italians were retreating

across the Venetian plains after Caporetto, the unit's main achievement

appears to have been to use an eavesdropping apparatus on Monte Zebio from

which Finzi allegedly received `important and diverse telephone dispatches

as never before'. If this was so, their propaganda work of singing and calling

out while camouflaged in the undergrowth seems to have been less rewarding.

Pivko's account, while portraying the enemy as overwhelmingly hostile, still

concludes that the unit achieved `fine success' and caused 16 `Yugoslavs' to

desert.

120

Yet of those whom he names, at least nine had deserted over a month

earlier, and none are to be found in the full list of Pivko's volunteers as one

might expect of `Yugoslavs' who responded to idealist propaganda.

121

Any

success in any case was cut short because on 7 November the Italians were

forced to retreat on this front as well, and Pivko's volunteers returned to

Verona.

The Seeds of Italy's Campaign 143

Yet if Pivko was inclined to exaggerate his unit's achievements, it was indeed

the case that its short stay in the front line had already earned it some pub-

licity in

Italian military circles. In the following five months, when the volun-

teers were

assigned no further propaganda work and the Italians were largely

on the defensive, Pivko's main priority was to acquire for his unit a greater

respectability and so prepare the ground for the establishment of a Slav legion.

For this purpose, the volunteers in Verona were regularly drilled and trained in

the art of future Intelligence and propaganda duties. From January 1918 they

acquired in the person of Lieutenant Stane Vidmar, a famous Slovene Sokol

leader from Ljubljana who had just deserted, an enthusiastic teacher who even

included regular singing lessons in his Sokol training syllabus.

122

In the mean-

time, Finzi

was gradually incorporating the volunteers into the Intelligence

network. Pivko was asked by Marchetti's office to peruse the Monarchy's Slav

newspapers which arrived via Switzerland, to clarify news items, and draw up

reports relating them to military developments.

123

A handful of the volun-

teers, led

by Finzi's confidant Mate Nikolic

, were also employed from the

autumn in the mysterious Dolfin villa at Rosa

near Bassano. This building

was not simply a key centre for Intelligence analysis, but housed the most

recent Austrian prisoners who were thus immediately available for interroga-

tion with

the aid of Slav volunteers, after they had been sifted at the Procolo

fortress.

124

Already by January 1918, the impression which Pivko's volunteers

were making in the lst army zone was enough to draw from Frantis

ek Hlava

the remark: `I see that in Italy the ice is broken.'

125

Although Pivko had tried to establish contact with Edvard Benes

during the

Carzano episode, it was only in early January that the Czechoslovak National

Council in the person of Hlava

ek showed an interest. As we will see, Hlava

since his appointment to the Rome office in September had successfully

cultivated friends in governmental and journalistic circles. When he then vis-

ited Pivko's

volunteers at Verona on 6 January, he was impressed at the progress

made in military circles, for he could contrast it with his own former experience

in the war zone as well as his current frustrations in the hinterland. He urged

Pivko to obtain permission from lst army command to expand the small unit,

and particularly to include more Czechs for, since the Czechoslovak cause was

making more headway than the Yugoslav, it would be accorded more publicity,

but in turn this could only react favourably on the Yugoslav question.

126

Pivko

took Hlava

ek's advice and, with Finzi's permission, he began to recruit for his

reparto

czeco-jugoslavo among recently deserted Austrian Slavs. Since Carzano

there had been few additions to the group, for Finzi was still testing the water.

Because of Italian prejudice, he had advised the volunteers to present them-

selves as

American Slavs to inquisitive Italians and to avoid any indication of

their `Austrian' origin. Pivko himself was naturally aware that the Italians had to

be cautious, and that care also had to govern his own choice of recruits: