Premier and Foreign Minister of Serbia

[Speech delivered March 31, 1918, before the Skupshtina at Corfu and especially translated for Current History Magazine]

Since the last meeting of this Assembly a great number of events have come to pass which have measurably modified the general military and political situation. One of our greatest allies, Russia, has retired from the battlefield, but another ally, quite as powerful as Russia, but doubtless not yet bringing to bear all the force of which she is capable, has rushed to our aid.

These two principal events, with others of less importance, have perceptibly changed the situation which existed more than a year ago, when Germany proposed to us the conclusion of a peace "honorable" for both the belligerent groups. Already at that time had Germany perceived the impossibility of fighting her adversaries by military force alone, and was obliged to resort to other means, which she had already employed, although in a more restrained fashion. So Germany decided to make more energetic use of her hidden channels with the idea of disorganizing in the quickest possible time the unity of her adversaries. She contrived intrigues, employing different methods according to the country where they were to be used and where she believed they would succeed.

You still remember the case of Miassoyedov, which was perpetrated with the aim of annihilating an entire Russian army. You also remember the attempt of the enemy to have Ireland revolt, an experiment which dismally failed owing to the prompt and energetic measures taken by the British Government. Surely you have a vivid memory of the criminal exploitation which the enemy Governments made in Italy of the Papal note in favor of peace. Also, you remember the numerous cases of arson of munition plants by the action of their agents, and the enemy propaganda of a premature peace for the benefit of Germany, employed to the limit by pacifists and certain imperialist and international adventurers through lectures and "defeatist" newspapers in neutral countries.

RUSSIA ALONE DECEIVED

All these intrigues were clothed in fine phrases and put forward with high humanitarian ideals, by which the enemy propagated monarchistic ideas in republics and republican ideas in monarchies, eulogizing a military rÉgime in democratic countries and in autocracies democratic, republican, and even anarchistic ideals.

They all had one sole end—to provoke internal disorders and discord among the Allies in order to divert the attention of Germany's adversaries from the principal aim. In every allied country these secret machinations of our enemies were unmasked and repelled. Repelled—except in Russia. All these intrigues and secret machinations could not succeed anywhere except in Russia, where there are many Germans, and where our enemies managed to concentrate the entire attention of a people in the midst of war upon their internal organization. In this way the possibility was placed in the hands of enemies—most dangerous to the liberty of the people and to their right to dispose freely of their destiny—to guide more easily the struggle with free and democratic nations reared against Prussianism in order to defend the rights of the weak and prevent the enslaving of other countries and other peoples.

RUSSIAN LIBERTY DESTROYED

The first revolutionary movement in Russia was directed against an autocratic and irresponsible Government. On the side of the revolution they pretended that the Government had initiated pourparlers for a separate peace with Germany unknown to the Russian people and the Allies. After this first movement, a second took place in Russia demanding a democratic peace "without annexations and indemnities" on the basis of the right of peoples to determine their destiny freely and for themselves.

This second revolutionary provisional Government not having the desire to cut the bonds which attached Russia to the democratic and allied countries, a third movement followed, which did not hesitate to cut the bonds uniting Russia to the Allies, to demobilize the Russian armies—an act contrary to all reason, even revolutionary—and to initiate pourparlers with the enemy at Brest-Litovsk for a separate peace.

The result of these pourparlers was the capitulation of the Maximalists to Prussian militarism, the disguised annexation by Germany of the great Baltic provinces of Russia, and the conclusion of peace between the Central Powers and the Ukraine, by which the latter separated from her enfeebled sister in order consciously to aid the enemies of the Slav race. The recognition of the independence of Finland, Caucasia, and Poland by the Central Powers followed, and, upon its heels, disintegration and general discord in Russia finally giving place to the present civil and fratricidal war.

We would not wish to deny that the Russian revolution counted for something in the ranks of its sincere combatants in the way of high social ideals, for democratic reforms, and for liberty. But, judging from its results, it is impossible to deny that the Russian revolution sustained a German influence, and that this influence so far has been useful only to Germany, who still makes war on Russia in order to prevent the latter from unifying her enfeebled peoples and re-establishing her position in the world.

A SHAMEFUL CATASTROPHE

The Russian revolutionists fell before the blow of Prussian militarism and surrendered to it the peoples who had hoped to obtain the right of self-determination. It is possible, even probable, that the situation in Russia may improve. But at present what the Germans aimed at in Russia has been attained. They have taken away Russian provinces, incited civil war in the Russian fatherland, and removed the danger of the Russian armies which threatened them. These armies having been prematurely demobilized for incomprehensible reasons, the enemy is able to direct all his forces against his other adversaries. He has also obtained in this way a considerable amount of war material and food.

This catastrophe, which has covered the Russian people with shame, has been a lesson to all other nations, for it has definitely confirmed the conviction that it was certainly Germany who provoked this terrible war with the aim of conquest and hegemony.

But the great and free America did not wait for this moment before deciding to declare war on Germany, who had placed above the principles of right and justice that of brute force. On account of the Germans' conduct in the war, which surpassed all known horror and barbarism, not sparing even neutral nations, the United States became convinced that it was its duty to restrain this bestial force if the world were not to fall under the yoke of Prussian militarism. America entered the war to defend civilization and the right of people to dispose of themselves.

AMERICANS TO THE BREACH

The appearance of North America on the war stage filled the place made vacant by the surrender of Russia. Our allies having come to the conviction that they could count no longer on Russia, and that it would even be dangerous to regard her as a military asset, have employed all their forces in conformity with the new situation in order to fortify the solidarity which unites them and to augment their military and material force in proportion to what they had lost by the withdrawal of Russia, all with the idea of assuring the world a just and durable peace based on the liberty of the people to be self-determining. The strength of the army of our allies is greater by far than that of the enemy, not only in man power but also in material. Organization is improving, and on all questions there is complete accord. Quite recently German war atrocities decided Japan to participate still more actively in the struggle.

The Serbian people, who have made the greatest sacrifice and given the finest proofs of their loyalty and fidelity toward the Allies, may therefore be certain that their sacrifices have not been in vain, and that their ideals will be realized if they continue to give in the future the evidence of their military and civil virtues, and if, as in the past, they abhor all intrigues having for their aim the destruction of our concord and union in defense of the interests of our people, who bear three names, but who form but one nation. We have observed that Austria-Hungary, particularly in these latter days, has intensified her intrigues and her calumnies against the Serbian people. She began by spreading in Western Europe the false rumor that Serbia had tried, in an indirect way, to initiate pourparlers for a separate peace, because in our country and on the front of the Serbian Army she had suggested that she would be disposed to end the war against Serbia were it not for the fact that King Peter and the Serbian Government were opposed to the project. All such intrigues and calumnies, have only one end—to destroy the faith which our allies have in the Serbian people, to rupture the national concord, and by our discord and quarrels to assure the conquest of the Serbian Nation.

SERBIA STILL FAITHFUL

But our people know Austria-Hungary too well to be taken in by these infamous intrigues and to believe her lying words. The nation remains faithful to her noble allies, who are pouring out their blood for little and weak nations, and will not deviate one hair's breadth from her stand until the end. The Serbian people have given all that they have, and now, although few in numbers, they still stand faithfully by the side of the Allies. They should never lose sight of the fact that it was Austria-Hungary who provoked the war with the idea of annihilating Serbia.

Our allies will not fail to acquire the conviction that the various peoples of Austria-Hungary cannot be free, and that a durable peace cannot be guaranteed so long as these peoples shall live in the State of the Hapsburgs, who from peoples once free have made Germano-Magyar slaves and have prevented their development by subjecting them to Germano-Magyar exploitation.

Germanism in its drive toward the Orient hurled itself upon Serbia, and only as a single united nation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, closely bound to Italy, can we obstruct the German push toward the Orient and Adriatic, and aid in the establishment of a durable peace.

We ask only justice. We demand that slavery of peoples be abolished, just as slavery of individuals was suppressed. We demand equality among all nations, whether great or small, the fraternity and equality of all nationalities, and the foundation of a free State of all the reunited Jugoslavs. The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the complete re-establishment of independent Belgium; the re-establishment of the kingdom of all the Czechs, also that of all the Poles, the union of Italians with Italy, of Rumanians with Rumania, of Greeks with Greece, all of which would constitute the greatest and most solid guarantee for a just and lasting international peace. Hence we proclaim what should be realized soon or later—if not after this war then after a new shedding of blood—because this realization is identified with the progress of civilization and of humanity.

These great ends, humane and just, which are incarnated with the life and growth of civilization, we repeat, should be realized. They embrace those great ideals which spring from the soul and sentiments of individuals and races, and which will vanquish the brute force of certain anachronistic States, just as, in the last century, they vanquished the brute force of the individual.

Let us pledge our honor and eternal gratitude to all the peoples who are fighting for the right of all nations to shape their own destiny and for an international peace both just and lasting.