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

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234 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

Austrians as an area very receptive to their own propaganda, an area in other

words where Italian soldiers continued to gather the Austrian manifestos and

warn the Austrians when Italian officers were approaching.

246

Ferrari undoubt-

edly perceived

that Pivko's unit could again serve several purposes; first, by

encouraging desertions and gathering Intelligence, and second, by countering

the considerable Austrian propaganda offensive which continued until mid-

June in this particular sector. As a sideline, it might be hoped that Pivko's

officers would mix with Italians at the front and educate them to withstand

the promises and threats contained in Austrian leaflets.

247

It was usual for Pivko himself to examine any new terrain in which his units

would be operating, but the zone of the XX corps must have been reasonably

familiar to him. Most of those under his control were now not former Czech or

Yugoslav Carzanci. They were either part of his allotment from the 450 Czechs

who had arrived from the Padula camp, or (from late May) they were members

of the II/31st regiment which had been training at Perugia and then divided up

by Graziani.

248

Already on 4 May three units from Tugurio, of 15 men each,

arrived at XX corps HQ and were sent on to the front-line Bersaglieri battalions,

positioned around the Frenzella gorge and Croce San Francesco. A fortnight

later, two more units took up position on Sasso Rosso, while at the end of the

month Finzi assigned three predominantly Czech squads to Monte di Val Bella,

Col del Rosso and Col d'Echele to the west.

249

The volunteers were relieved

about every fortnight but they led an uncomfortable and strenuous existence.

In late May Eduard Klõ

mek, who had assumed control of the patrol on San

Francesco, reported to Pivko that his men were tired and that he had broken his

spectacles:

I am

blind, completely useless [siromak]. Send me spectacles . . . and under-

wear for

the men. We are ragged and dirty. I fear infectious diseases because

it is getting hotter. Every day there is a lot of propaganda, partly among the

Italians but even more among the Austrians with lively incidents and experi-

ences.

As in

the past the patrols' work continued to be complicated by the Italians

themselves, some of whom ignored official orders and, in tune with Austria's

own propaganda leaflets, blamed the Czech patrols for attracting enemy fire to

their positions.

Certainly Pivko's

volunteers seem to have paid rather dearly for the results

they achieved. When they first arrived at the front, some contact had been

possible with Czechs opposite. At San Francesco, for example, when the unit

threw over bread and spoke enticingly about the `Masaryk legionaries', an

elderly Czech corporal replied. He mentioned with amusement the 300 Kronen

reward which had been placed on a legionary's head, and went on to suggest

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 235

that his company could send correspondence from Czech legionaries back to

Bohemia. But he hesitated when asked about desertion. A week later in the

same position, the Czechs opposite had disappeared to be replaced by German-

Austrian Sturmtruppen and a hostile reception. Pivko correctly observed, `the

Austrian command was undoubtedly informed of our presence and so fights

usually took place instead of conversation'. For the patrols there were, of

course, grave dangers in `flirting' with an enemy regiment. When Klõ

mek

took over on San Francesco he managed to converse with a German-Austrian

opposite, but was unsure of how to entice him; finally he concluded that such

propaganda was too precarious to be continued and his patrol took the man

prisoner.

250

Any satisfaction which the Czech patrols might have about pro-

voking a

swift Austrian reaction, such as an exchange of unreliable troops, was

tempered by the fact that their Czech target was no longer visible.

251

Nor was it clear that Pivko's units were winning the propaganda duel in the

6th army sector. On the contrary, the distribution of manifestos by Austrian

Nachrichtentruppen was continued vigorously and even increased in some posi-

tions. In

the first week of June, for example, over 2000 pieces of propaganda

were thrown or deposited by the Austrians on both Sasso Rosso and San

Francesco respectively.

252

The very presence of Pivko's units, and their role in

stiffening Italian resolve, may well have forced the Austrians to cease their

propaganda in some positions such as Col del Rosso and the western slopes of

Sasso Rosso. But against this has to be set the fact that the patrols during May

had suffered six casualties, four of them fatal, as the price for only seven

Austrian deserters.

253

Where Pivko's units were undoubtedly more successful

was, as on the other army fronts, in supplying Italian Intelligence with timely

information about the imminent enemy offensive.

254

As for front propaganda,

the best conclusion is perhaps to measure its effect not by individual incidents

but in its broader and long-term impact: namely that at this critical point when

the Austro-Hungarian army was about to attack, its soldiers were conscious of a

new Czech presence in the Italian ranks. Even if few Czechs had openly

responded to the calls of the patrols, many in the Austrian trenches had been

stirred and were left, in the words of an official Austrian report, to act as `yeast'

for future agitation.

255

The Czechs remained one of Italy's strongest cards to play in terms of trench

propaganda. They were the most advanced in their military organization in

Italy; they did not carry the same sensitive `political baggage' as Poles, Roma-

nians or

(especially) the Yugoslavs; and the Intelligence service knew from long

experience that Czechs in the Austrian ranks always supplied a steady trickle of

deserters and were often the most receptive to enticement. Yet it was logical

that the CS would soon seek to incorporate other nationalities into their psy-

chological offensive.

In the case of Polish or Romanian soldiers, it proved to be

a slow process. If this was partly because neither had an e

migre

organization

236 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

in Italy to match that of the Czechs, it was also because Poles and Romanians

were far more reluctant to volunteer for re-employment on the Italian Front.

From the autumn of 1917 Polish prisoners had been concentrated together in

camps, the officers at Santa Maria Capua Vetere near Naples. Delegates of the

Polish National Committee, including Antoni Szuber, had been allowed access

to them for cultural purposes. The Czechs' advance then ensured that new

horizons opened up. In April 1918, for instance, Marchetti chose a dozen

volunters from Santa Maria and, adding them to a few in Verona, formed a

propaganda unit for the lst army; it seems to have served valiantly in the

following months.

256

Other Intelligence offices did the same (notably the 4th

army), so that by the end of the war 180 Polish volunteers were active at the

front. However, the process never expanded beyond this unilateral Italian

recruitment, because Zamorski and the Polish National Committee laid down

political conditions before they would sanction full military cooperation. It was

a stance, as we will see, which matched that of the Yugoslav Committee.

And since it was only in late October that Polish officials appeared in Padua

to try to build a legion, Polish trench propaganda always remained a sporadic

activity.

257

In the case of Romanian prisoners there were similar obstacles, but it appears

that the Intelligence service was able to make more use of them, not least

because after the Czechs they tended to form the largest number of deserters.

As with the Czechoslovak cause, Romanian e

migre

s who were pressing for a

Romanian volunteer force to be created out of the prison camps had powerful

Italian political backing. In the wake of the Rome Congress, Gallenga's ministry

began to finance a Romanian committee under Simeon Mõ

ndrescu as well as a

Comitato Italiano pro Romeni led by Maria Rygier which advocated a legion on

Italian soil.

258

At the same time Gheorghe Mironescu, together with Benedetto

de Luca (the `Romanian' delegate to the Padua Commission), had been allowed

to visit Romanian prisoners at Monte Cassino, and waxed lyrical about their

desire to shed their blood for the Allied cause.

259

As a result, by 7 May most

Romanian officers were collected together at Cittaducale while 3600 soldiers

were transported to two camps in the war zone.

260

There they were finally

under CS jurisdiction and could be recruited more easily for Intelligence or

propaganda tasks. In the lst army, for example, Marchetti formed a small

Romanian patrol which seems to have secured some deserters from the largely

Romanian IR50.

261

The other Intelligence officers seem to have followed suit

sporadically, and in the June battles the CS even permitted Romanian troops to

be used in combat. The creation of a legion took longer since there was firstly

the issue of how far Mõ

ndrescu's committee could represent the voice of Tran-

sylvanian Romanians,

and secondly the very real reluctance of Romanian

prisoners to enter a body which would fight for the ideal of a united Romania.

Although a legion was finally proclaimed in October 1918, the evidence

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 237

suggests that Transylvanian Romanians were always viewed by the Italian

military as an uncertain tool in their propaganda campaign.

262

Their occasional

use in trench propaganda simply complemented the relative weakness of argu-

ment in

Padua's Romanian manifestos.

It might

be considered even more of a risk to employ Yugoslav prisoners in

the Italian army. Could Croat or Slovene soldiers be trusted, but perhaps more

importantly, would not their enrolment imply that Italy was committed to an

independent Yugoslav state which claimed `Italian' territory on the Adriatic? In

fact, southern Slav patrols were destined to increase in number as the summer

approached, thereby illustrating that the CS was largely prepared to set aside

political scruples. Diaz and Badoglio were now keen to exploit the Yugoslav

issue for its propaganda benefits, even though at the same time the political

Italian±Yugoslav relationship remained unsettled and always threatened to

undermine the efficacy of such propaganda. After the Rome Congress, the

Yugoslav Committee expected that `Yugoslav' prisoners in Italy would be

treated like their Czechoslovak counterparts: they would be separated from

other nationalities, delegates of the Committee or the Serbian army would

visit them and urge them to volunteer for service, and those who responded

would be allowed to join the Serbian army as members of a Yugoslav legion on

the Salonika or Italian Front.

In early

May, after pressure from Trumbic

, about 200 Yugoslav officers were

collected together in a camp at Nocera Umbra Bagni. At the same time 11 600

Yugoslav soldiers were moved to six camps in the war zone where the CS

planned to use them as labour units.

263

On 18 May Dinko Trinajstic

informed

the Committee offices in London and Paris:

Concerning the

prisoners, we have been promised so far that they will be

selected and concentrated, with men and officers separated. The men will be

temporarily employed for work in the rear zones until the government here

decides to admit them into the fighting ranks, since at present there are

practical obstacles to that. We have about 20 000 prisoners and about

12 000 of them have just been collected together. As soon as we acquire

the register promised to us, we will visit them and make contact with

them.

264

This register, however, was not to be forthcoming. Although a week later the

Italians permitted Trinajstic

, Gazzari and Stane Vidmar to visit Nocera Umbra

(where they discovered a majority of officers eager to enter the Serbian army),

neither the Yugoslav Committee nor Serbian official representatives were

allowed to begin agitating for volunteers in the other camps.

265

Partly this

reflected the desire of both Sonnino and the CS that Yugoslav prisoners should

be employed only on the Italian Front, but it also highlighted Sonnino's

238 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

and Spingardi's objection to the creation of a Yugoslav legion which would

include Slovene and Croat volunteers, in other words prisoners who might

originate in regions assigned to Italy in the Treaty of London. Not surprisingly,

by early June Jambris

ak still felt that little progress had really been made:

`Spingardi could not help Austria better if he were an Austrian general.'

266

In fact, some advance was on the cards but it was not of a kind which the

Yugoslav Committee could sanction.

Since large

groups of Yugoslav prisoners had been moved into the war zone,

they were subject to the CS which duly began to exploit them. On 25 May,

Nikolic

and Pajk had hurried to Tugurio from 6th army Intelligence to exclaim

that `Italy had changed'. For the first time, the CS was going to allow recruit-

ment for

special Yugoslav units similar to Pivko's small group in the 6th army

sector. Badoglio's telegram, issued that day to the army commands, announced

that `Serbo-Croat elements' from Austrian prisoners employed in the war zone

were to be selected for propaganda duties in the Italian army; the army com-

mands should

send delegates to the `labour defence offices' at Goito or Badia

Polesine to choose suitable volunteers.

267

Finzi and Marchetti naturally selected

Pivko as their recruiting officer for the 6th and 1st armies. Pivko in turn, feeling

that his new task was the first stage towards a Yugoslav legion, chose as

recruiters to accompany him two of his officers, one a Slovene and one a

Croat, together with eight men as representatives of the `Yugoslav regions'.

268

Working from bases south of Lake Garda, Pivko and his men visited nine

centurie (labour units) in the last days of May and chose 200 Yugoslav volun-

269

teers.

What he

found was a striking indication of the actual reality of `Yugoslav aware-

ness' behind

the enthusiastic claims of the Yugoslav Committee. Although

Pivko himself spoke to all the prisoners and assured them that Austria-Hungary

was finished, that King Petar of Serbia would be ruler of Yugoslavia, and

that those who volunteered would be part of a Yugoslav national army in

Italy, the response was undoubtedly weaker than he anticipated. From one

centuria of 387 men, only 15 volunteered; from another of 113 men, only 30

were found to be `nationally mature'; and in four of the centurie he found only a

shadow of Yugoslav national awareness. Most of the Slovenes and Croats in

particular remained `Austrian' at heart or were simply not prepared to jeopard-

ize their

lives for some new cause. Pivko might have expected this since a few

weeks earlier Vidmar had visited a Yugoslav camp to the south and discovered

that most Slovenes were indifferent while the Croats and Moslems were openly

hostile to his overtures.

270

It was the Serbs who always formed the predominant element among volun-

teers. They

were certainly most attracted by the chance of being transported

to the Salonika Front to serve in the Serbian forces. Pivko proceeded to criticize

some Serbs who ignored the wider Yugoslav cause and refused to volunteer

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 239

unless they were sent immediately to the Serbian national army; in view of the

Italian government's attitude, he knew that such hopes were unrealistic. How-

ever, he

dangled a carrot in front of them, suggesting that they should become

`revolutionaries' for the new cause and would then, when liberated, have the

chance of links with both the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Commit-

tee. Rather

than waiting for a favourable decision from Spingardi or Sonnino,

which could mean waiting for ever, the Serbs should take advantage of the CS's

progressive attitude, and prove their commitment by deeds at the front. Pivko

added, rather optimistically, that although he and the hierarchy of the Yugo-

slav Committee

were agreed that Yugoslav troops should remain on the Italian

Front, the CS would indeed concede if the Committee decided to transfer the

volunteers to Salonika. However, in this case Pivko's `carrot' was not attractive

enough and was rejected by a mass of Serbs (from the Banat) who were only

prepared to volunteer in order to fight for `Greater Serbia'. The simple fact

was that the Yugoslav cause was not a reality for many South Slav prisoners in

Italy. Consequently the Italians were quite justified in their suspicions or

uncertainties; indeed, doubts on the Serb or Croat side were matched by some

from Italians who seemed most committed to Pivko's cause. Even Tullio Mar-

chetti admitted

later in his memoirs that he had excluded Slovenes from the

Venezia Giulian region from those whom Pivko had recruited: for their enrol-

ment could

have caused embarrassment in view of Italy's territorial aspirations

in `Slovenia'.

271

Pivko sent the 200 recruits to Verona where they were issued with Italian

uniforms and began a fortnight's training course which included Intelligence

work, rifle drill and gymnastics. Then on the eve of the Austrian offensive they

were divided, half joining the volunteers at Tugurio while half remained near

Verona as a new Reparto Posina in the lst army sector. Despite this division,

Pivko himself retained considerable control of the Yugoslav units in both the

1st and 6th armies since both were supplied with officers from Tugurio. From

mid-June a Slovene officer, Oton Kovac

, who had deserted at Tonale and

knew Pivko from his days in Maribor, was assigned to organize a Yugoslav

reconnaissance unit for the 7th army sector.

272

Thus Pivko's overall supervision

of Yugoslav trench propaganda incorporated all army sectors from Switzerland

to the river Brenta.

Where Pivko

had far less control was in the sectors between the Brenta and

the sea. This was largely due to the way in which trench propaganda had

evolved at a different pace in the eastern sectors over the previous months.

Badoglio, moreover, had instructed the 3rd, 4th and 8th armies to send repres-

entatives for

Yugoslav recruitment to a different labour office (at Badia Pole-

sine) so that they acted with little reference to Tugurio, something which Pivko

appears to have resented.

273

Vigevano of the 4th army was able to recruit 100

Yugoslav volunteers, most of them Serbs but none of them officers; an attempt

240 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

to recruit directly from the camp of officers at Nocera Umbra failed since they

insisted on being used only as members of the Serbian army.

274

Smaniotto's

Intelligence office appears at first to have gained only 28 recruits for the 3rd

army: 17 Serbs (chiefly Bosnians), eight Croats and three Slovenes, most of

whom had been prisoners for several years.

275

As for the 8th army, their

Intelligence office had made use for some weeks of a Dalmatian Croat, Nikola

de Marchi, who in April had been individually summoned to the war zone to

help compose propaganda leaflets. In June, the 8th army command sent De

Marchi westwards to the labour units where he recruited 100 volunteers, chiefly

Serbs, who were then dressed in Italian uniform with red, white and blue

Yugoslav collar insignia and put through some intensive training.

276

Although Italian military Intelligence retained control of all these volunteers,

trench propaganda was not totally divorced from the work of the Padua Com-

mission. Ojetti

and other members of the commission, including the national

delegates, had from the start viewed it as part of their remit to liaise with actual

or potential volunteers from among deserters or prisoners. Thus Ojetti and

Baker had been quick to visit Tugurio. Ojetti thought Pivko `the highest and

purest example of someone who hates Austria and loves Italy that I have

encountered among Slavs in four years of warfare'. Baker was amazed at the

quality of military Intelligence in the 6th army sector where Major Finzi had

created the `model bureau'.

277

A certain uneven liaison developed between the

Intelligence network and Padua, so that the former occasionally supplied

material for manifestos while the latter sent some of its manifestos for direct

distribution by patrols in the front line.

One area

offering particular potential for friction was the political status of

the volunteers. In the Czech case all had been resolved since, as we have seen,

from May all volunteers were part of the Legion and took an oath to the

Czechoslovak National Council. In the Yugoslav and Polish cases, the matter

was unresolved and it was their delegates at Padua who assumed the task of

following in the Czech footsteps, demanding that Italy treat their volunteers as

soldiers of a future Yugoslav or Polish state. This inevitably meant that the

Yugoslav Committee was not happy with Pivko's extensive activity. Trumbic

himself had not had time in April to visit Tugurio, but knew about Pivko,

Vidmar and Nikolic

, noting down that `all three were good for propaganda'

and that `Pivko is a man of great moral ascendency over people'.

278

But when

the first exchange of letters, the first real contact, took place between the

Committee and Tugurio, Jambris

ak on 10 May replied to a letter from Vidmar

in a rather lofty tone which indicated clearly the Committee's priorities on the

volunteer issue:

Certainly we

contemplate your cooperation as soon as we begin to form our

unit here in Italy. Remain for now in contact with the Czech unit because

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 241

there you can give useful help. It is good that you develop your talents with

them because they too need good organizers for the army and their tenden-

cies are

the same as ours. As far as Professor Dr Pivko and the remaining

Slovenes are concerned who wish to assist in our work, please tell them that

we are thinking about their cooperation too and that they will be informed

at the proper time. We are indebted to you and Dr Pivko for your serious and

energetic work.

279

While Jambris

ak and Kujundz

were in favour of retaining Yugoslav units on

the Italian Front, they felt that the existing situation, where volunteers wore

Italian uniform and technically remained prisoners, was compromising the

Committee's efforts to found a Yugoslav legion. Rather, the new units should

wear Serbian uniform and take an oath to King Petar. Although the Commit-

tee's office in Rome explained this to Vidmar when he visited the capital in

May, he and Pivko were already irritated by the Committee's indifference to

their work.

280

They were inclined to maintain some independence, something

which was, of course, fully shared by Intelligence officers like Finzi who did not

want political interference in a military sphere which seemed to be working

effectively; Finzi commented dryly that Pivko had far more authority than

Trumbic

in the war zone.

281

The Yugoslav Committee, however, was gradually

extending its leverage. Its members helped to persuade volunteer-officers at

Nocera Umbra not to agree to be sent to the front unless they went as officers of

the Serbian army. And in the war zone itself, the Committee for a time retained

a loyal follower at the 8th army in the person of Nikola de Marchi. From the

start of his `enrolment', De Marchi had been in touch with the Committee and

would do nothing without reference to Jambris

ak and Kujundz

at Padua.

Since they regularly advised him to move cautiously until the volunteer ques-

tion was

properly solved, De Marchi faced increasing tensions in his relations

with the Intelligence office of the 8th army. Major Dupont was, not surpris-

ingly, irritated

at De Marchi's divided loyalties and began to rely on two other

Yugoslav officers who were more of the `Pivko persuasion' and would carry out

Italian orders without reservation. When De Marchi realized that he was being

elbowed out and the Committee ignored, he simply resigned and returned to

Nocera Umbra.

282

It was another taste of the actual reality behind Italy's public

commitment to the Yugoslav cause, and it foreshadowed a steady battle over

the volunteer issue during the summer.

It was

clear during these first months of Italy's propaganda campaign that the

Yugoslav issue could bedevil its efficiency. In both trench propaganda and the

work of the Padua Commission, it was already apparent that there were major

problems in presenting the Yugoslav cause to the enemy. The Yugoslav ideal,

which some like Pivko or even Ojetti sought to propagate, was indeed just that,

an ideal. It was often at variance with the reality of kaisertreu Croats and

242 The Undermining of Austria-Hungary

Slovenes, or Serbs who wished only to fight for a Greater Serbia. On this basis, it

was no easy task to construct a common Yugoslav propaganda. Such difficulties

were then compounded because of the attitude of official Italy. The Italian

government might profess a `nationality policy', but in the Yugoslav case was

highly reluctant to make specific commitments, to create a Yugoslav legion, or

to accept fully the theory of `Yugoslavism'. They were, in short, wary of drawing

logical conclusions from the grand celebrations of the Rome Congress.

Thereby, as the propagandists always argued, the Italians were weakening the

very essence of their own propaganda campaign, based as it was on the slogans

of liberation and national unity. It remained to be seen how long this para-

doxical state

of affairs could continue. Already by June 1918, cracks had

appeared in the facËade which Orlando had erected at the Rome Congress. But

even more serious cracks seemed to be appearing in the enemy stronghold. The

Comando Supremo was confident that when the Austrians launched their long-

awaited offensive, the first fruits of their coordinated psychological campaign

would fully materialize.

Notes

1. Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (London, 1927) p. 200.

2. Sir Campbell

Stuart, Secrets of Crewe House: The Story of a Famous Campaign (London,

1920); Henry Wickham Steed, Through Thirty Years 1892±1922: A Personal Narrative,

2 vols (London, 1924).

3. O

sterreichisc

he Wehrzeitung (Vienna), 8 April 1921, Folge 13, p. 3.

4. Edmund von

Glaise-Horstenau, The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (London,

1930) pp. 119±23, 162; [Glaise-Horstenau in], OULK, VII, pp. 18±19.

5. Hugh and

Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Europe: R.W. Seton-Watson

and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary (London, 1981); M.L. Sanders and P.M. Taylor,

British Propaganda during the First World War 1914±1918 (London, 1982).

6. For example

, Piero Melograni, Storia Politica della Grande Guerra 1915±1918 (Bari,

1972) pp. 521ff; Leo Valiani, The End of Austria-Hungary (London, 1973) pp. 221ff;

Luciano Tosi, La Propaganda Italiana all'Estero nella Prima Guerra Mondiale (Udine,

1977) chapter 4.

7. IWM, Sir

Campbell Stuart MSS: manuscript, `Propaganda by War Office during the

Great War'; George Cockerill, What Fools We Were (London, 1944) pp. 60ff. According

to Cockerill, the DSI had actually begun such propaganda in March 1915, and the

efforts were then tightened up a year later.

8. Sanders and

Taylor, British Propaganda, pp. 216±17. Guest was formerly a clerk in the

National Insurance Commission, whose premises were taken over by the War Propa-

ganda Bureau

in 1914; he has left no papers of his wartime activities and was killed by

a V-2 in 1944 (I am grateful to his son-in-law, Dr W.L. Weinstein, for this informa-

tion).

9. SWP, `Report

on work in Switzerland' by R.W. Seton-Watson, pp. 1±4.

Italy's Campaign against Austria-Hungary 243

10. PRO, FO

395/235, Department of Information, report by Buchan, 1 December 1917

(enclosing maps); ibid., `Inquiry into the content and efficiency of Propaganda' by

Robert Donald, 14 December: Appendix I, Buchan's comments in reply, 21 Decem-

ber 1917.

11. BL, Northcliff

e MSS, vol. XCIV, Add.Mss 62246, Steed to Northcliffe, 7 March 1918.

12. Steed, Through

Thirty Years, II, pp. 33, 53, 118. For a summary of Steed's most notable

journal articles, see Peter Schuster, Henry Wickham Steed und die Habsburgermonarchie

(Vienna, Cologne and Graz, 1970) pp. 168ff.

13. Seton-Watsons, The

Making of a New Europe, pp. 102, 111, 191.

14. Steed, Through

Thirty Years, II, pp. 42±5, 101±6. Note also Steed's efforts (`a useful bit

of Allied propaganda') to depress the morale of an Austrian diplomat whom he met

on a train in Switzerland: pp. 108ff.

15. Ibid., p.

66; Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson et al. (eds), R.W. Seton-Watson and

the Yugoslavs: Correspondence 1906±1941 [hereafter Seton Correspondence], 2 vols

(London and Zagreb, 1976) I (1906±1918), pp. 213, 279.

16. Steed, Through

Thirty Years, II, pp. 169±70; Albertini, Epistolario, II, p. 1054. Steed's

claim is accepted uncritically by Sanders and Taylor, British Propaganda, p. 225.

17. The Times

Archive, London [hereafter TTA], Steed MSS, Steed to W.K. McClure

(correspondent in Rome), 26 June, 14 August, 2 October 1917.

18. Luciano Tosi,

`Romeo A. Gallenga Stuart e la propaganda di guerra all'estero (1917±

1918)', Storia Contemporanea, II (1971) pp. 529±30: he communicated these views to

Orlando on 13 August.

19. See Seton-Watson

's views, based on an examination of the enemy press in his work

from May 1917 for the Intelligence Bureau of the Department of Information: Seton-

Watsons, The Making of a New Europe, pp. 214±15, 228.

20. AJA, JO

19/15, notes by Trumbic

: `Conversation with Steed at his invitation', 11

December 1917. Steed's prime initiative in the whole affair is clear from these notes,

but he played it down in his memoirs. Mola had been told to proceed by his friend

the Minister of War, General Alfieri, and presumably had also informed his actual

superiors at the CS.

21. The following

discussion uses the three accounts of the meetings: those of Emanuel

(Albertini, Epistolario, II, pp. 1054±61); Trumbic

, used here in the slightly edited

form which Trumbic

sent to Steed on 13 February (AJA, JO 19/39; full version in

JO 136/2/4); and Steed, which partially drew on Trumbic

's account (Through Thirty

Years, II, pp. 169±79).

22. According to

Emanuel's notes (Albertini, Epistolario, II, p. 866), it was possible that

Boroevic

favoured Yugoslav unity. The idea stemmed from Boroevic

's own remarks

to a Croat politician (Franjo Barac) in Zagreb which were passed on to Trumbic

.If

Boroevic

was sincere, the evidence suggests that, like many `Croats' (Boroevic

was a

Croatian Serb), he felt dual loyalties to Croatia and to the Habsburgs: see Ivan

Mes

trovic

, Uspomene na Politic

ke Ljude i Dogadjaje (Zagreb, 1969) pp. 86±7.

23. Albertini,

Epistola

rio, II, p. 1060.

24. Jankovic

and Krizman (eds), Gradja o Stvaranju Jugoslavenske Drz

ave, I, no. 72, p. 96.

25. AJA, JO

27/91, De Giulli to Trumbic

, 28 January 1918 (reporting a long discussion

with Edvard Benes

26. Paulova

Jugoslavenski Odbor, pp. 386±402.

27. See Tosi,

La Propaganda Italiana, p. 172.

28. Jankovic

and Krizman (eds), Gradja, I, no. 69, p. 90: Trumbic

to De Giulli, 6 February;

epic

, Italija, Saveznici i Jugoslavensko Pitanje, pp. 266±7.