Izvorni znanstveni članak
Dragovan Šepić
Sažetak
This essay attempts to cast some light on British government policy towards Yugoslav aspirations for the Julian Region in 1941, and under what conditions the Yugoslav government in London brought the question of the region before the British government and world public opinion. The author presents some hitherto unknown data from the archives of the British Foreign Office concerning British attempts, in the critical days following the French capitulation and Hungarian, Rumanian, and Slovak entrance into the Tripartite Pact, to persuade Yugoslavia to join Turkey and Greece in opposing a German attack on Greece through Bulgaria. British support of Yugoslav demands for a revision of the Yugoslav-Italian frontier was one of the inducements offered to this end.
The author states that the proposal was initiated by the Yugoslav Minister to Moscow, Gavrilović, and taken under consideration by the Foreign Office, which subsequently requested Balliol College at Oxford (The Foreign Research and Press Service) to prepare a memorandum on the Julian Region. The hastily prepared memorandum (by early February, 1941) asserted that on the basis of nationality Yugoslavia could lay claim to the entire former Austrian coastland (Istria, Trieste, Gorica-Gradiška) except to the plain west of Monfalcone. She was also within her rights in seeking Zadar and Rijeka as well as the islands of Cres, Lošinj, and Lastovo, particularly inasmuch as Italy had forfeited her right to govern Slovenes and Croatians in these areas because of her policy of enforced Italianization. Even this proposed boundary did not adhere strictly to ethnic lines, however, as the memorandum pointed out the necessity of taking into account economic interests of the population as well as strategic considerations. As a result the author of the memorandum recommended that Italy retain the coastal strip from Monfalcone to Pula, including Gradiška, Gorica, Trieste, and Rovinj.
The memorandum was favourably commented on in the Foreign Office, and on February 27, 1941 the British Cabinet decided to give discretion to the Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden, then in Ankara, that in discusions he may have with the Yugoslav government to inform them that the British government was disposed to admit the case for revision of Italo-Yugoslav frontier.
The article explains the situation in Yugoslavia at the time and explains why Prince Paul declined to meet Eden upon the British Foreign Minister's arrival in Athens. Eden vas informed of the Yugoslav government's position by the British Minister to Belgrade, Ian Campbell, who immediately afterwards returned to Belgrade with Eden's message to Prince Paul concerning the military aid which Britain intended to offer Greece and other states opposing Germany, and promises by the British government to support demands for a Yugoslav-Italian border revision. Campbell followed Eden's instructions, but failed to influence the Yugoslav government, which joined the Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941.
Following the coup d’état of March 27, which was helped by the British Secret Service, the same promises previously made to Prince Paul were made to the new president of the Yugoslav government. General Simović, but it appears that not all the government ministers were informed of these promises. On May 1, 1941, while the Yugoslav government was still in Jerusalem, the government's vice-president and representative of the Slovene Popular Party (Clerical), Miha Krek, sent a memorandum to the British government, pointing out the difficult position Slovenes had been in and requesting that after the war Slovenia obtain new borders reaching to Tagliamento in the west and to Hohe Tauern just south of Graz in the north, which would fulfil age-old Slovene ideals of a united Slovenia, and ensure that Yugoslavia in the future would have strategic borders with both Germany and Italy. In one of his radio speeches Premier Simović went so far as to announce that after the war Yugoslavia would obtain all areas inhabited by Yugoslavs, and he mentioned in particular Istria, Gorica, and Zadar, as well as the Carinthian Slovenes, the Burgenland Croatians, and Croatians and Serbians in Hungary.
In the United States, Simović's broadcast was taken as a proof that the British government had given secret assurances to the Yugoslav government: concerning these areas. The Italian anti-fascist emigres in the United States were consequently worried and the "Giuseppe Mazzini" Society requested the British Ambassador to the U. S., lord Halifax, to explain whether such assurances were given. Lord Halifax replied that General Simović expressed his personal view for which the British government could not take any responsibility, a statement which left Simović in an awkward position. When asked for an explanation by the Yugoslav Minister in London, Sir Anthony Eden replied that Simović's broadcast had exposed the British government to some embarassment and that it seemed necessary to make clear that General Simović was not speaking on behalf of the British government. At the same time, Eden repeated the assurances given to the Yugoslav government concerning the revision of the Italo-Yugoslav frontier.
The author sees the main reason for such a reaction by the British government in a concern that the United States, which had not yet entered the war, would get the impression that the British government's hands, as in the First World War, were tied by some secret obligations.
Fears arose in Yugoslav emigre circles in London, however, that the British position was motivated by consideration for Italy - that the British government was even giving certain promises to Italy at the expense of Slovenes and Croatians. Spurred by its Slovene and Croat representatives, the Yugoslav government presented its views with regard to Yugoslav national aspirations, particularly on the part of Slovenes, in a memorandum in late December, 1941, in which were expressed hopes that all Slovenes and Croatians then under Italy, Austria, and Hungary, would be included in Yugoslavia after the war.
Through President Simović's speech and these memorandums the British government and world public opinion were informed of Yugoslav territorial claims. The British government, however, went no further than its secret promises given first to Prince Paul and later to General Simović. Its position was to be bound by no obligations concerning the post-war territorial rearrangement of Europe, during the war, a policy which coincided with the American position. As a result, the issue of border revision was effectively blocked. The secret promise given the Yugoslav government was made in extenuating circumstances, and its overly general and inprecise nature invalidated it as a firm obligation.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
216334
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.4.1975.
Posjeta: 1.071 *