860h.01/29

The Chargé in Yugoslavia (Dodge) to the Acting Secretary of State

No. 147

Sir: I have the honor to enclose to you herewith a clipping from the Pravda of the 26th. December/8th. January giving the text of a [Page 894] proclamation addressed on Christmas Day, old style, by the Prince Regent to the Serb, Croat and Slovene people. I also enclose a translation which I have made from a French translation of this proclamation.

The proclamation will be found to be of considerable interest as it outlines the future plans of the Government. These in general outline have already been reported, especially in my Despatch No. 137. of December 24th.2 After referring to the final union of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in a single Kingdom by the unanimous wish of the people, & mentioning the representative character of the present Cabinet composed of men of all the political parties, regions and creeds of the new State, the proclamation describes the composition of the provisional body which under the name of “National Council” is to act as a national parliament until a parliament is elected under the Constitution to be framed by the Constitutional Convention. It will be noted that this Council is to include delegates of the various National Councils which exist in each of the Yugoslav provinces of the former Austro–Hungarian Empire and delegates from the Banat and Batschka (the Voivodina). It will also include, from Serbia proper, in addition to delegates of the Skupschtina, delegates from the territories of Old Serbia and Macedonia which were acquired during the Balkan wars. It will be remembered that these territories, while annexed to Serbia, were placed under a special régime and were not allowed to be represented in the Skupschtina. This régime is in fact generally acknowledged to have been harsh and meddlesome.

The proclamation then declares that the corner-stone of the new State and its liberties will be constitutional and parliamentary Government and that the Constitutional Convention will be elected upon a basis of universal suffrage. The Cabinet will submit to the Constitutional Convention a draft for a democratic Constitution on the basis of a unified State with extensive local autonomies and the strictest guaranties for political and personal rights. The future Government is not to be a federal one but a strongly unified State with local autonomies. As formerly reported, there appears to have been from the beginning little popular sentiment in favor of a federal form of Government although it is generally stated that local autonomy in the new State will be more extensive than it has been in Serbia. The chief reason given for desiring a centralized State is in order that it may be stronger in a military sense as it will have enemies in Germany and Hungary.

All the liberties and rights now given to the population of Serbia by its Constitution are to be extended over all the new Kingdom. [Page 895] This will be a distinct democratic gain in the former Austro–Hungarian provinces where much of the present legislation is aristocratic and even feudal in character. This is especially true in Croatia and especially as regards the land laws which favor large estates. Many of these are of vast extent (as those of the Odescalchi family) and the peasants living in them are little better than serfs. The recent unrest in Croatia is largely economic in character and owing to the desire of the peasants to acquire the land which they till. In Serbia the reverse is the case and in fact the whole country is one of peasant proprietors.

The proclamation also refers to the duty of the Government to relieve the present distress, to care for the victims of the war and to reconstruct the country. It calls upon the people to forget their differences and to trust and support the Government in order that the Government may inspire confidence abroad and be able to obtain its true ethnographic frontiers. In describing the extent of these frontiers “unquestioned sovereignty” is mentioned “from one end to the other of our sea.” This phrase may be considered somewhat unfortunate but from what I have been told by persons in authority, it should in no way be taken as signifying more than a desire for the ordinary rights of a nation having a sea-coast.

I have been assured lately by several prominent political men, including the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Gavrilovitch, that the Cabinet is strongly opposed to including in the Kingdom any territories not peopled by Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, especially owing to the danger which this would cause to the Kingdom. Where this appears to be a necessity, as in the case of the Italian populations of Fiume and Zara, the fullest educational and language liberties would be given.

Certain of the measures mentioned in the Prince Regent’s proclamation have already been executed. The National Council has already been chosen and is expected to meet about March 1st. The Skupschtina which has held a short session, has elected the Serbian delegates and adjourned, presumably to meet no more. A special Ministry has been appointed for preparing for the coming Constitutional Convention, as has already been reported, and is stated to be already engaged in drafting an electoral law for this Convention and considering plans for a Constitution. A decree has already been published extending to all the Kingdom the rights and liberties enjoyed in Serbia. Regarding the relief of the indigent population and reconstruction however, little has yet been done. Lack of funds is partly responsible for this, lack of efficient administrative personnel and a certain weariness and demoralization after six years of exhausting warfare. The Croatians show more ability in such [Page 896] measures than the Serbs, owing to their having suffered less and possessing more administrative ability. It is however a herculean task and it is especially unfortunate that it must be accomplished at a time when so many matters of absorbing political importance are forcing their solution. Without substantial foreign assistance, proper relief and reconstruction will be beyond the Government’s powers.

While adding that I have sent a copy of this Despatch to the Secretary of State in Paris, I have [etc.]

H. Percival Dodge
[Enclosure—Translation]

Christmas Day Proclamation of Prince Regent Alexander of Yugoslavia

To My People:

To the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes!

We have finally reached the day so long desired of our delivery and our free union in a National Independant State in which our race will live its full life and will enjoy without hindrance the gifts which the charitable hand of God has so richly bestowed upon our beautiful country.

Finally is fulfilled the vow which through centuries and continuously all the generations of our race have confirmed and sanctified by their blood.

The unanimous decision of the people, expressed by the unanimous vote of its best representatives, has united into a single Kingdom all the portions of our country until now scattered, a Kingdom over which the national will has called to rule the King of all the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, my August Father, His Majesty King Peter I.

Exercising the Royal Power in His name, I have formed, in agreement with the leaders and representatives of all the National parties, Serb, Croat and Slovene, Our first State Government. As a visible sign of our fraternity and complete fraternal solidarity there are working in full concord in this Government the notables of the Nation of all three religions and of all the three names, the representatives of all the parties and of all the portions of Our Kingdom.

My Government will work in full accord with the Representatives of the Nation and will be responsible to them. For this purpose its duty will be to call together as soon as possible at Belgrade the National Representatives who include delegates of the Serbian Skupschtina, of Old Serbia, of Macedonia, of a proportional number of members of the National Councils and of representatives of the Voivodina and of Montenegro. This National Representation will form a provisional but complete representation of the Legislative Branch in Our Kingdom.

[Page 897]

As King of a free and democratic people, I will hold without fail to the principles of constitutional and parliamentary Government which will be the corner-stone of our State created by the free wish of the Nation.

In this spirit and in conformity with these principles my Government will govern the country and decide all questions of foreign and domestic policy. My Government will propose to the National Representatives an electoral law which will insure, on a basis of universal suffrage, free elections for the Constitutional Skupschtina to which the Government will submit a draft for a democratic Constitution of the State, framed on a basis of the unity of the State, with extensive administrative autonomy and with the widest guaranties of political liberty and civic rights.

It will be the duty of My Government to extend immediately to the whole territory of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes all the rights and liberties now enjoyed by the Serbs in accordance with the Serbian Constitution. In this manner the complete equality of all citizens before the law will be recognized and confirmed, all class privileges will be abolished and the liberty and equality of religious rights will also be guaranteed.

I desire that the solution of the agrarian question may immediately be proceeded with and that the fiefs and great estates may be abolished. In both of these cases the lands will be divided among the poor farmers with a just indemnity to the present proprietors. May every Serb, Croat and Slovene be the lord of his field. In our free State only free proprietors will be able to exist and will exist. It is for these reasons that I have requested my Government to form at once a commission which will prepare a solution of the agrarian question while I call upon the peasant-proprietors to wait quietly, trusting in my Royal word that our State will give them the land by legal process, the land which in the future will belong only to God and to them as is the case since long ago in Serbia.

The four years’ war has caused profound disorder in all matters. In order to cure these matters rapidly and successfully and to bring back the country into its normal condition, my Government will devote its attention principally to revictualling the people, especially the most indigent, to helping and supporting the victims of the war, to reconstructing the pillaged and ravaged regions and to reestablishing the lines of communication by land and sea which is the primary condition of the regular development of national life.

The most urgent and most important duty of my Government today is to determine, at the conclusion of the world peace, the frontiers of our State so that [they] will coincide faithfully with the ethnographic frontiers of our entire nation, so that no portion of Our [Page 898] Kingdom will fall under foreign domination. In order to obtain this success it is indispensable that our young State should gather together and unite all its moral and material strength, it is indispensable that its internal life should remain strong and powerful. Consequently I invite all the good citizens and faithful sons of Our Kingdom to support by words, acts and example My Government in its efforts to preserve the present peace and order in the country. This is not only a present necessity but also a pledge for the future of Our Kingdom.

Our noble Allies and the whole world have seen with just admiration and recognized with all due appreciation the heroic and self-denying efforts of My Army and the perseverance of my people. Let us try by forgetting our mutual rivalries and giving up all our differences of opinion to show to all the example of a people healthy and conscious of its rights, worthy to live and labor in peace with the cultured nations whose brave brothers in arms and loyal Ally it has had the honor and pride to have been.

Encouraged by the examples of deep patriotism and self-sacrifice which our soldiers, our martyrs and public men have shown during the war, I and My Government will always take great care of the families of the warriors who, covered with eternal glory, have fallen in the bloody struggle for the realization of the great historical idea of our nation.

In the name of My August Father and in My Own Name I send My Royal greeting to all my people, to all the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

May the New Year be a happy one for us all, the year when, with God’s help, our Tricolor will be unfurled to wave proudly through centuries as the glory-covered symbol of Our Kingdom, recognized and honored by the whole world, a shining token of the unquestioned sovereignty of Our State throughout all its territories, over all our mountains, all our rivers and islands and from one end to the other of our sea.

Let us all preserve a faith unshakable in the healthy, strong and brilliant life of Our Kingdom.

May God and the spirits of our glorious ancestors and of our great men preserve us without fail to encourage us and keep us at work, incessant, hard and wholehearted, for the prosperity and happiness of My people.


Alexander
  1. Not printed.