C.F.M. Files: Lot M–88: Box 2080: CFM Documents
Statement by the Yugoslav Minister for Foreign Affairs (Simić) to the Council of Foreign Ministers, November 6, 194666
CFM (46) (NY) 5
Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen: We have been invited to state our views on Article 16 of the Draft Peace Treaty with Italy. We are [Page 1032] confident that we shall, later on, have the opportunity of cooperating with you, and with your organs, for the purpose of finding solutions to the other questions also pertaining to the Peace Treaty with Italy, which are of a vital concern to Yugoslavia, and in respect of which no agreement was reached in Paris. The most important of these questions were: the question of frontiers between Italy and Yugoslavia (Article 3), the question of the protection of the Yugoslav minority in Italy (Articles 13 and 13a, the question of reparations (Article 64–B).
May I be allowed, however, before going on to Article 16, to deal briefly with the frontier question.
We have stated, both to you in July of this year and to the Peace Conference, that the so-called “French line” was inacceptable to us. Our views on this question have remained unchanged. If the delimitation between Yugoslavia and Italy, and between Yugoslavia and Trieste, where to be carried out on the basis of this line, this could not fail to have deplorable economic and, what is far more serious, deplorable political and moral consequences. Not only the Slovenes and the Croats, the peoples directly affected, but the entire Yugoslav nation would feel that, after all they have undergone and sacrificed for the Allied cause, they are not receiving the treatment which is due to an Ally, while the former aggressor is being favored and encouraged to embark upon further acts of aggression.
In Paris, we had the opportunity of drawing attention to the character and importance of each sector which the “French line” was taking from us. We therefore do not feel it is necessary to prove once again that which we have already proved beyond the possibility of a doubt:
that Istria is an indivisible whole;
that one cannot ask an Ally to relinquish, a year and a half after the end of the hostilities, part of her own soil which she has liberated by shedding her own blood;
that it is a very serious matter to deprive an allied people—the Slovene people—which has been living on the shores of the gulf of Trieste for 13 centuries, of its entire coast;
that the part of Istria which the “French line” incorporates in the city of Trieste, and the corridor between Trieste and Trzic (Monfalcone), possess no importance whatsoever for the prosperity of Trieste, which is solely and exclusively dependent upon the town’s connections with its natural hinterland—Yugoslavia;
that it is absurd to separate a main town—Goricia— from its province, which has for a thousand years constituted a living organism;
that this line gives Italy considerable strategic advantages, while it is unfavorable to us, the Ally.
All these are well known facts now, and, although the Yugoslav government does not wish to dwell upon them again at any length, it nevertheless feels it is necessary to state the following:
The fact that we stood by our frontier claims until the last in Paris, did not mean that we had adopted an attitude of absolute intransigency. We showed that we had a right to the territory encompassed by our line, but that at the same time we consistently repeated that we were prepared to try and reach a compromise. Unfortunately, no such compromise was reached in Paris. I consider that all of us Allies are conscious of the extremely serious consequences that the failure to find an agreed solution would entail. In order to facilitate this, we, on our part, are prepared to make new concessions, and we are therefore proposing now a new tentative line.
In proposing this line, we know full well that we are making further sacrifices, the territory of Trieste is increased by 44 square kilometers, i.e., by a third; we are agreeing to the frontier being drawn further east in the sector of the Ter River, as is shown on the map67 which is being circulated; we are giving up a considerable part of the eastern Kanal valley with Trbiz (Tarvisio) the only town and the center of this valley. I must point out here that we are thereby accepting that Italy receive the whole of that part of the Kanal valley through which the Pontebba railway line and the road parallel to it run as far as the Austrian frontier, and that only the extreme eastern communities, with a population of barely 2,500, are being claimed for Yugoslavia in order to ensure communications between the Slovene valley of the Soca (Izonso) and Sava Rivers. This new line means that, from a strategic point of view, we are relinquishing in the Kanal valley—which served in 1941 as a starting point for Italy’s attack on Yugoslavia—the watershed and accepting that the new frontier be drawn through a broad valley which opens up towards Yugoslavia.
The Adriatic problem was first given an erroneous answer in the unfortunate London Pact of 1915,68 whereby Yugoslav ethnical territory, which had never been Italian, was given to Italy without consulting the population and in violation of the principle of self-determination. President Wilson grasped, with remarkable foresight, the tremendous importance of a correct solution of the Adriatic problem, and fully backed the Yugoslav point of view as against Great Britain [Page 1034] and France who considered themselves bound by the London Pact. Wilson’s efforts did not meet with success. The tragic conception underlying the London Pact and a fallacious solution of the Adriatic problem directed both against the Yugoslavs and against the entire hinterland prevailed.
Now, almost 30 years after the London Pact, and 27 years after the failure of President Wilson’s and Yugoslav efforts in Paris, now, after the Second World War—is there still a single historian or statesman who has any doubt as to which of the two sides showed more foresight at the time, which of the two have been vindicated by history?
Why should we now, after the bitter experiences which we have all had to undergo, why should we now, after the great triumph of democracy, repeat mistakes, the amplitude of which has been demonstrated by such terrible sacrifices in human lives?
The Adriatic problem, the fate of the whole of Istria, of Trieste, of Goricia, was settled in the spirit of the most narrow-minded Italian chauvinism. An injustice was inflicted upon the Yugoslavs who were having to suffocate under the weight of Italian supremacy in the Adriatic, just as they were suffering on account of all the other reasons with which you have become acquainted while studying this problem. But Yugoslavia did not go fascist, nor did she provoke war. On the contrary, when she felt that democracy was at stake, she did something which appeared as a heroic suicide; on March 27, 1941, she overthrew the government which had drawn Yugoslavia into the orbit of Axis policy and brought a brutal attack upon herself; in so doing, however, she upset Hitler’s timetable.
On the other hand, the efforts that were made in 1915 and 1919 to meet Italian chauvinism half way failed either to disarm or to weaken it; they only stimulated its further growth. It was in the very area, which the London Pact had given to Italy, that Italian fascism which together with Hitler plunged the world into war, was born.
Nevertheless, after the Second World War in which the taking of sides has been clearer than in the first—Yugoslavia is again being asked to make sacrifices, although we are convinced that what we have suggested would give more adequate protection, not merely to Yugoslav interests, but also to those of peace and of the democratic world, we wish, gentlemen, to contribute the greatest possible effort in order to facilitate your work, because we are aware how tremendously important it is that this conference succeed, and because we are conscious of our responsibilities.
I have given a more detailed account of the frontier question in the first part of my speech. I shall here dwell upon a very important question of general significance—I shall deal with international status [Page 1035] of Trieste. On this point, too, Yugoslavia is prepared to make further concessions.
In order to facilitate the making of a Statute on democratic lines, Yugoslavia renounces her request that the Governor of Trieste be a Yugoslav, and agrees to his being appointed by the Security Council. She also accepts that her political representative do not have the right to hold the putting into effect of decisions of the Trieste authorities; and she gives up her request to have a garrison in Trieste. She therefore proposes a new draft of Article 16.69 We are thereby making a new effort to facilitate the reaching of a solution.
Yugoslavia has accepted, as a very great sacrifice, the principle of the internationalization of Trieste. One of the main arguments, raised against our thesis, that Trieste should become part of the Yugoslav Federation—was the fact that Trieste has an Italian majority, and that the latter’s national survival would be imperiled if it were to be brought within the framework of Yugoslavia, Despite the fact that Yugoslavia was willing to offer the most comprehensive guarantees and to accept the supervision of the Big Four, or of the United Nations, as regards her obligations to safeguard international social and economic position of Trieste—it was the former point of view which prevailed.
And now, gentlemen, that Yugoslavia has agreed to the internationalization of Trieste, now that the danger which allegedly threatened the Italian majority in Trieste has disappeared, why should the population of Trieste be deprived of the right to govern itself through democratic institutions, under the protection of the Security Council? Why is it felt necessary that the Governor of Trieste, who is a representative of the world’s central democratic organization, be given dictatorial powers? Do you not think it is a mistake, that it is wrong from a pedagogic point of view, to give the impression, when making the first attempt to set up a small administration under the auspices of the United Nations, as if one doubted the very principle of democracy. It seems to us that it will be detrimental to the prestige of the representative of the world’s supreme democratic organization, which is entrusted with the maintenance of peace and which has the requisite moral and material forces to maintain it, to place him in the position of a dictator. This can surely not add to the ascendancy of the Security Council, it could but cast doubt on its efficiency and strength.
We consider that the best cure, for countries where democracy has been destroyed by fascism, is democracy. Dictatorship is no remedy. [Page 1036] Such is the experience of all the countries which have lived through fascism. And this is one of the main reasons which prompts us to plead in favor of a Statute which would, under the supervision and with the guarantee of the Security Council, grant full democratic rights to the people.
This is not a concession to Yugoslavia, It is merely the opinion of a nation, which has had to pay so heavy a price in blood for the mistakes of which it has been a victim in the past, for mistakes which would have spelled doom upon us all, had it not been for the fact that the great nations which you, gentlemen, represent, united their efforts in a common struggle.
- This statement was read at the 3rd Meeting of the Council, November 6, the records of which are printed on pp. 1021 and 1030.↩
- The map under reference is not reproduced.↩
- British Cmd. 671, Miscellaneous No. 7 (1920): Agreement between France. Russia, Great Britain and Italy, signed at London, April 26, 1945.↩
- Annex, p. 1036.↩