At the same time I should like to inform Your Excellency that a similar
Memorandum has been submitted to His Britannic Majesty’s Government.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum
In view of the fact that problems of Europe after the war concerning
certain territories have been brought into discussions by
Yugoslavia’s neighbors to the detriment of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav
Government considers it necessary to inform the United States
Government with regard to the present state of these questions, as
it appears to the Yugoslav Government, in order that the Yugoslav
point of view may be an object of the studies of all institutions
which are concerned with matters regarding frontiers and
international relations in post-war Europe after an Allied
victory.
In principle, the matter concerns the territory on which live compact
masses of the Slovene and Croat people. Since 1848, the Slovenes and
Croats have carried on their struggle and have organised a
resistance against the German-Habsburg regime, because in that
period the Slovenes were subjects of Austria. The first part of
about 56,000 Slovenes who were in the district of Udine (Beneski
Slovenci) came under the Italians in 1866. The rest of the Slovenes
remained in Austria-Hungary till 1920.
Already in 1872, the Slovenes, in agreement with the Serbs and
Croats, formulated a Yugoslav Programme. The programme gained in
reality especially during the Balkan Wars of 1912–14. The Yugoslav
efforts were particularly developed during the last war, when the
whole Slovene and Croat delegation in the Vienna parliament declared
for Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, other Slovenes, Croats and Serbs actively
participated in the Yugoslav Committee in London. In 1917, i. e. at
the time when Germany and Austria were strong on all fronts, all the
Slovenes and Croats were carrying out their national plebiscite for
Yugoslavia. The Peace Conference after the last world war did not
bring the Slovene people a complete national liberation. Owing to
the Italian insistence, because of the promise given to Italy by the
secret Treaty of London in 191554 and
because of the Italian promise that she would be the principal
guardian of Western democratic interests in Central Europe, with the
promise to consider the national character of the Slovene people who
remained within the Italian frontiers, it was decided after many
difficulties in the Peace Conference to draw the frontiers between
Italy and Yugoslavia in such a manner that in the Kingdom of Italy
there would remain about 600,000 Slovenes and Croats. In such a
manner also were drawn the frontiers between Austria and Yugoslavia
so that in Austria there remained about 120,000 Slovenes and in
Hungary about 10,000. All
[Page 843]
these parts of the Slovene and Croat people, comprising the Slovenes
in the Italian district of Udine, live in compact masses on that
territory and form with the rest of the Slovene parts which are
within the frontiers of Yugoslavia a national unity in the
geographical and economic sense. They are, especially: the districts
of Trst,55 Istra, Gorica
and Videm (Idine) in Italy; Koruska in Austria (Germany) and the
small district of Rabskih Slovenac, near Monostra, in Hungary.
These partitions of the Slovene people between three foreign States
is considered as a national disaster and injustice which is all the
greater and more noticeable inasmuch as the Slovene people number
scarcely 2,000,000 souls, who, by their culture, solidity and
diligence, are to be considered among the most progressive people in
Europe.
In the present war, after the occupation of Yugoslavia, Germany,
Italy and Hungary have partitioned between them all the parts of
Slovenia in Yugoslavia and annexed them to their respective
countries.
Italy, Austria—and, since the occupation of Austria, Germany—and
Hungary have, for these twenty years during which they had the
Slovenes under their rule, brutally over-ridden all international
obligations towards the Slovene minorities in their respective
States. They have forbidden the use of the Slovene language in the
schools, churches, courts and all public departments; they have
forbidden Slovene literature and newspapers; they have destroyed the
economic, cultural and humanitarian and even religious institutions
and organisations of the Slovene people. The Slovene intelligentsia
has been expelled or put in prisons and concentration camps or
rendered materially destitute. Many of those engaged in the Slovene
national struggle have been condemned to this, or to many years’
imprisonment. Slovene Christian and surnames and the names of
districts, villages, rivers, towns, forests and so on have been
forbidden and changed. In the politics of denationalization, the
Italian, Austrian, German and Hungarian regimes have been equal. The
Croat people had the same fate in Istria.
The present rounding-up and expulsion of the Slovenes is similar only
to what has been done in Poland.
In spite of the fact that Italy, Austria (or Germany) and Hungary are
on the side of the Axis Powers, the Royal Yugoslav Government fears
that the Slovenes and Croats may find themselves, after this war,
again outside the Yugoslav frontiers and exposed to the injustice of
foreign regimes. Because of this, the question is constantly under
consideration in the Slovene emigrant press in America.
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By this communication, the Royal Yugoslav Government does not suggest
that the questions raised above must be decided now, or that any
definite point of view must be formulated. It is only intended to
inform the U. S. A. Government of the Yugoslav point of view and to
put forward its hope that, at the time when the questions come to be
settled, there will be taken into account the reasons which merit a
just decision. This will mean that all the abovementioned Slovene
and Croat territory will come within the frontiers of Yugoslavia, in
conformity with the principles of the Churchill-Roosevelt Atlantic
Declaration,56 and in
accordance with the self-determination of peoples. The last-named
principles were in 1920 very seriously injured as regards the
Slovene people.
Washington,
May 20,
1942.
