Principles

Chapter I

To secure the newly formed European system for evermore, everything was done through the diktat of Versailles, on the occasion of the creation of new states, to destroy every national group that could contribute to the destruction of this system; it was undertaken to involve these groups in such state formations that would leave them incapable of any resistance for a considerable time. One of the clearest examples of this method is the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which subjected the Croatian people to Serbian domination in the so-called Yugoslav state. It is no coincidence that the Allies readily provided and recognised the state independence of all the peoples of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy, including those who did not previously have autonomy, but denied this right only to the Croatian people, despite their having, – based on their thousand-year state past – until 1918, not only their own administrative political but also legislative independence. The Allies knew all too well that all those peoples who were hostile to the Germans would form shock troops against the resurrection of German greatness, and they knew just as well that the Croats would be the first ones to march along with Germany against the unjust peace diktat. It was therefore necessary to prevent this danger thoroughly. The classic comparison of Croatia and Austria best shows how the Allies readily sacrificed their thesis of self-determination of peoples when it came to following their own political interests. The peace diktats created an independent Austria, and, to this day, all means have been used to prevent the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, even though the Austrians want it; but at the same time, the Croats are forced to live in a foreign state, and, to this day, everything is being done to maintain this foreign state formation, despite their dissatisfaction. Great efforts are made to maintain the existing condition that the peace diktat created, and all the elements opposed to the struggle of the German people against the unjust European order are to this end supported, and, at the same time, everything that would benefit the Germans is prevented. That is the real reason why the Croatian people is in today's freedomless position. Everything else is more or less just transparent diplomatic formulas intended to obscure the real state of affairs. It is all too well known that the liberation of Croatia would smash the bloc of the so-called ‘small nationalities’ that encircle Germany. That is a fact.

It is also a fact that the Croatian question exists despite all these efforts, and that it is visible in the current turbulent political relations of the world. Moreover, the circles that rule in Yugoslavia consider this question so open and acute, that it is exclusively the starting point and the subject of all political events and discussions on the agenda. Since the creation of the so-called Yugoslavia, all state activity has been focused on the eternal struggle to maintain the unity of the state, which is always endangered due to the unresolved Croatian question. Since the first day, no issue of political or social life has been seriously dealt with, much less resolved, because everything is suppressed by the weight of the Croatian question. Due to this question, Belgrade, immediately after the founding of the state, prevented the realisation of the constituent assembly that the ruler guaranteed, and later denied. Because of this question, the Vidovdan Constitution (1921) was passed without the participation of Croats, which was to impose not only the state but also national unity. Because of it, on January 6, 1929, the ruler repealed this constitution and introduced his dictatorship because, according to his declaration, it provided too little guarantee for the maintenance of state unity. That is why the current Belgrade government is standing on shaky foundations; it relies on an assembly created in elections in which the government’s party did not even participate. That is why the Belgrade rulers have so often and officially stated in the last eighteen years that the state is finally and permanently organised, first by dividing it into counties, then into banates, and ruling it once democratically, next time dictatorially, and then once again pseudo-democratically, only finally to admit again that nothing has been organised at all, that everything will again be done now, and that the Croats are called to participate in the new order of the state.

However, the Croatian question is not only the core of the Yugoslav state's domestic policy. It has been shown repeatedly that this is a serious international question from which unforeseen waves could arise. This question was not solved in 1918; it still exists today and will exist in any reorganisation of southern Europe, insofar as it is solved without the participation of the Croatian people, and insofar as it is decided with the Yugoslav state as such, instead of with Croatia as a special subject of international law.

It would, therefore, be useful if the Croatian question were paid more attention in Germany as part of the revisionist and Danube problem, and especially if it were admitted:

what the nature of the Croatian question is, and what its European significance depends on,
what are the constituent parts of the Croatian national territory,
what is the purpose of the Croatian liberation movement,
who are the enemies of the Croatian liberation movement,
what are the main guidelines of Belgrade's foreign policy,
how the Croatian people relate to current political questions in Europe, especially to those concerning Germany.

THE NATURE OF THE CROATIAN QUESTION AND ITS EUROPEAN SIGNIFICANCE

The so-called Yugoslav state is built upon two fictions: the first, that Croats and Serbs are one people, and the second, that Croats want this state. On top of that, the Belgrade rulers spread around the world the untruth that Serbs are a large majority in that country, and that Croats are a minority. They are therefore forced to submit to the will of the majority. In particular, they claim that Serbs are also an important military and economic factor, while Croats would, on the other hand, be insignificant and unimportant. Nothing is more incorrect than a view like this.

1. CROATS AND SERBS ARE NOT ONE PEOPLE

History, culture, and race have made Croats a standalone national individuality, which can no longer be hidden or destroyed.

At the end of the sixth century, the Croats settled in their present homeland as a politically and militarily organised people; in the seventh century, they founded an independent state, known in the 10th century as a mighty realm. From the time of the Migration Period until 1918, the Croats lived as a state and national unit under their ancient name, without anyone doubting that they are one people, or claiming that they are only part of another people. For thirteen centuries the Croats haven’t borne any other name, and no one in their entire history called them Serbs or Yugoslavs. This people, which found its expression and form in its thousand-year past, could not abandon its name and replace it with another, which in our case is nothing but a wrong geographical term.

Such a change of nationality is already impossible, for it would mean the complete destruction of all moral and material values of the Croatian people. Already a millennium ago, the Croatian people decided on Occidental culture and civilization. Standing on the border between West and East, they took the heaviest sacrifices, successfully defending this culture for centuries from Byzantine and Turkish invasions not only for their own interests but also for the interests of Europe as a whole. For over a millennium, the Croats have stood on one side and the Serbs on the other, as neighbours separated by a clear demarcation line, which is also the border between East and West. In these thousand years, they never once tried to unite with the Serbs in a common state or even in one nation, because for that there were no prerequisites. Neither a loose nor a violent attempt at a peace diktat, which in this case, as in all others, is unfounded and violent, will be able to change this fact. The times when an entire people could be denationalised and transformed from the ground up are long gone. This is especially impossible where, as with the Croats, there is a culture that has created timeless values over the centuries and preserved their nationality, and especially literature, which has through the centuries reflected the national character by transmitting national consciousness from generation to generation. Such cultural values cannot be replaced by empty forms invented in the passing epoche of Europe's political and cultural decline.

Perhaps not everyone knows that the Habsburgs originally played a decisive role in creating the unnatural South Slavic name and spreading the South Slavic idea. To prevent the awakening of the people – and convinced that the Croats, who are oppositionists, would not be of use for the far-reaching foundations of their Balkan policy – the Habsburgs had the idea to create a nationally mixed South Slavic state within the framework of the Habsburg Empire, in which the individual peoples could be played off against one another on a small scale and in the overall empire on a large scale. Thus, the most important champion of the South Slavic idea among the Croats, bishop Strossmayer of Đakovo, was the one who had been appointed to the bishopric from his position as court chaplain at the Habsburg court. For many decades, until the turn of the century, the South Slavic idea was a weapon of Viennese politics; influential Viennese circles were fascinated by it, even during the World War. However, this idea could never take root in the Croatian people. Apart from a small part of the intelligentsia, most of whom were of foreign blood, the Croatian people, and above all the peasantry, with all determination rejected Yugoslavism. There was never a general Slavic consciousness in the broad strata of the Croatian people which could seriously compete with the Croatian national consciousness. These strata never felt themselves to be members of Slavdom, so the Slavic and South-Slavic propaganda carried out by Prague, Moscow, and Belgrade in the last century was instinctively rejected by them as something alien and dangerous. One can see in this irrefutable fact a further proof for the already seriously documented thesis that the Croats are not at all of Slavic, but of Gothic descent.

The core and essence of the Croatian question, therefore, lies in this:

The Croats, as a people conscious of their thousand-year national character, can never and will never give up their national individuality and will absolutely resist its annihilation with all available means. This will to live of the Croatian people is a fact that cannot be shaken by any justification, explanation, or evidence; a fact that is beyond all discussion and is not accessible to other claims. Thus, life itself renders the arguments of the victorious powers of the World War irrelevant, especially since there is pure selfishness behind the striving to preserve the situation created at Versailles.

2. THE CROATS REJECT THE YUGOSLAV STATE

From the fact that the Croats are an independent nationality, and not part of the fictitious South Slavic people, comes another necessary fact: that the Croats do not agree with the Yugoslav state, but reject it with all determination. This state was founded against the will of the Croatian people; the delegation of the Zagreb National Council, which proclaimed the unification of Croatia and Serbia on December 1, 1918, in Belgrade, never received the authorisation to do so from the Croatian people. Immediately a few days after the founding of the state, the Croatian resistance in Zagreb had to be crushed with machine guns. In 1919, the then leader of the overwhelming majority of Croats, Stjepan Radić, sent a petition to the peace conference signed by hundreds of thousands of signatories, demanding the establishment of an independent state of Croatia. However, the Allies forcibly carried out the unification with Serbia. This plunged Croatia into the throes of total Balkan chaos, riddled with political and private amorality, where disorder and corruption are normal forms of state administration, and immorality is the ideal of private life.

Even without repeating the atrocities that Serbia, under the protection and with the moral and material help of France, has committed against the Croatian people in the past eighteen years, which the Croatian side has repeatedly documented, it will be understandable to everyone that the Croatian people does not want to submit to this situation.

Since 1918, all political manifestations and events have proved the unwavering will of the Croatian resistance against foreign Serbian rule. This resistance is not only aimed at easing but also the final overthrow of foreign rule, as well as the disintegration of the so-called Yugoslav state. Therefore, the Croatian question is not only an internal question of Yugoslavia but also a question of international politics, and it has been shown as such many times.

3. THE NUMERICAL RATIO BETWEEN CROATS AND SERBS

The Croatian question is open and acute primarily because the destruction of Croatian nationality is opposed not just by strong spiritual forces but also by a significant number of Croatians. That is why Serbia cannot absorb Croatism any more than the Czechs, for example, can absorb the three and a half million Sudeten Germans, whom the allies pushed down their throats just as generously as they did the Croats to the Serbs.

The Belgrade government portrays things abroad as if there were only two and a half million Croats and seven and a half million Serbs. The central offices in Belgrade provide corresponding information to all the statistical offices and editorial offices of statistical publications abroad, to persuade the outside world that the Serbs are a factor to be taken into account in terms of their numbers, while the Croats are insignificant in terms of their population and are unimportant. According to official statistics, this does not correspond to the truth, although these are based on completely unreliable, falsified census results. In reality, there are five and a half million Catholic and Moslem Croats, therefore more than the [five million] Orthodox, whom Belgrade declares to be all Serbs, even though they are not. These numbers come from impeccable statistical sources. If it were otherwise, and if Croats represented such a numerically weak group as the Serbs show abroad, Belgrade, with the enormous resources at its disposal thanks to French support, would have already overcome this weak group. The Croatian question would no more exist today than, for example, the Slovenian one.

4. THE MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE OF CROATIA

In international politics, the so-called Yugoslav state is considered a significant military factor. This importance is not so much based on the Yugoslav state itself as such, but mainly on the Croatian part of this state. The military significance of Croatian lands lies in their geographical position. The country inhabited by Croats lies on this side of the line, which separates the body of the European continent from the Balkan Peninsula, between the great Danube plain and the Balkans with the significant navigable rivers Drava, Sava, and the Danube, and the Drina, Bosnia, Neretva, Vrbas, Una, flowing from the Bosnian and Dinaric mountains. On the other side, Croatia descends to the Adriatic Sea, which connects it with one of the globe's most developed shores, the Mediterranean world. This geopolitical position has already conditioned the political and military significance of the Croatian state in the past, and even today significant military and political interests intersect here. In the event of war, it will not be without consequence on whose side the Croatian people stand - and they will without doubt and naturally stand on the side of Serbia's enemies.

The strategic and military significance of the Croatian living space is further enhanced by the martial merit of the Croatian people. It would not suit in the least the feeling of politeness to mention something about it ourselves. Therefore, let us allow ourselves to invoke the judgments of others, who have not only had the opportunity to see for themselves according to their own convictions but are also real and authoritative observers. Prussian King Frederick the Great called the Croats unsurpassed masters in the ‘party wars’ (Parteigegnerkrieg). He based this statement on his own military experience. History knows the participation of the Croats in the Thirty Years and Seven Years' War, and it always states and emphasises this in particular. In the Thirty Years' War, the Croats, led by the famous military leader Isolani, picked the laurels of victory. In the overwhelming centuries-long wars with the Turks, Croatia was given the name ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’ (Bulwark of Christendom). Croats were no less prominent in the Napoleonic Wars. From Napoleon himself come the words: ‘Les Croates, se sont les premiers soldats du monde’. The Croatian troops who fought against Marmont in Lika in 1809 amazed Napoleon to such an extent that it was precisely what caused him to demand that Lika be surrendered to him during the later making of peace.

In the war against Napoleon in 1809, Hungary was represented by one per cent, Austria by four per cent, and Croatia by eleven per cent of its population. It is important for the military capabilities of the Croatian people that central Croatia (excluding Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina) in the alliance of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, gave the highest percentage of senior officers, fifteen per cent, while its population was only five per cent of the total population of the Monarchy. Thus, seven generals came from the peasant family Knežević from Lika, two of whom were knights of the Order of Maria Theresa. Six generals came from the Grivičić family, four generals from the Rukavina family, and three generals from the Filipović family, etc. It happened more often than not that the same village gave three or four generals in the same generation.

This martial merit of the Croats has survived to this day. The military successes of the Croats in the World War prove this. This time as well, Croatia was ahead of other nations of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in terms of the number of generals. In 1914, there were thirty Croatian generals and two admirals, and on January 1st, 1917, that number rose to sixty generals, who came from central Croatia (excluding Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina). Among them was the military leader Borojević, who, throughout the whole war, led the supreme command of the battlefield on the Soča. The rulers of Belgrade, who know of these military abilities of the Croatian people as much as they know of the will of the Croats for freedom and independence, hold that the military education of the Croatian youth would be a real danger to the state. For these reasons, access to the Military Academy was indeed denied to the Croats, while at the same time all the older officers were either not admitted to the Yugoslav army or subsequently removed from it, thus stifling the great martial tradition of the Croatian people. Through the Ustasha movement, the Croatian liberation movement ensured that the people were not left without every generation of officers. Due to its area, which is completely encircled from a strategic point of view, it is a closed unit, and due to its special geopolitical position, as well as its hereditary martial merit, Croatia will always be of great importance as a military ally. This importance is yet intensified by the proverbial Croatian loyalty to their ally. Yugoslavia will never, and under no circumstances, be able to use the military strength of the Croatian people, nor use the Croatian territory as an operational base, because the entire Croatian people would oppose it as one man.

5. THE ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF CROATIA

The economic significance of the Yugoslav state rests primarily on the economic strength of Croatia. Croatia has enough land, which is fertile with so many foodstuffs of every kind that it can meet the entire population's needs, even though the state has not done anything for the last eighteen years to improve arable land. The harvest could very easily be doubled by improving the soil and permanently cultivating it, and the agricultural branches, so far neglected, could be improved.

In Central Europe, Croatia is the richest country in forests. 4,176,798 hectares of soil are forested, which yields abundant hardwood and softwood for various economic purposes. Almost all Yugoslav timber exports come from Croatian lands. Croatian forests produce three million cubic metres of construction wood and four million wood for fuel annually. It is well known that Slavonian oak, due to its quality, is the most demanded in all of the world’s markets. The Croatian territory is very rich in coal and ores. Despite the insufficient exploitation of mineral wealth, Croatia produces larger quantities of hard coal, black coal, lignite, iron ore, and bauxite, followed by smaller quantities of asphalt, manganese, bromine, and mercury. In addition to these ores, there is also underground gas and oil in Croatia, primarily near Uljanik (Međimurje), but these important deposits have so far remained unused.

If we take into account the export of livestock, poultry, and eggs from Yugoslavia, which come almost exclusively from Croatian lands (except for pigs, which Serbia is rich in), it is obvious that Yugoslavia has become an important economic factor due to its Croatian component, and that Croatia is without any doubt economically capable of life. The numerical military-political and economic ratio between Croatia and Serbia is therefore such that it excludes any possibility of the inclusion of Croatdom under Serbdom. In their struggle against Serbian domination and the Yugoslav state, the Croats have real preconditions for success, which gives the Croatian question its European significance.

Chapter II

THE NATIONAL TERRITORY OF THE CROATS

Before the Turkish invasion, during the national dynasty and the personal union with Hungary, Croatia stretched from the Mura, Drava, and Danube rivers in the north, to the Drina and Montenegro rivers in the east, and the Adriatic Sea in the south. When the powerful Ottoman Empire inescapably penetrated Central Europe, the eastern and southern borders of Croatia moved more and more to the northwest until, during the greatest rise of the Ottoman state, Croatia was limited to the narrowest area between the Sava and the Drava with a narrow exit to the Adriatic coast along the Carnolian border. Historical documents have referred to these areas as: ‘reliquiæ reliquiarum olim magni et inclyti regni Croatiæ’ (the relics of relics of the formerly great and glorious Kingdom of Croatia). To that extent, Croatia endured several centuries in the most difficult battles with the Ottomans, and so the Croatian name remained in the memory of the people limited to this narrow area. And the politically independent Croatian kingdom from that time included essentially only that crippled Croatia since the Habsburgs and Hungarians knew how to prevent the inclusion of the territories re-conquered from the Turks. Austria and Hungary directly annexed these territories under various provincial names.

In actuality, Croatia does not consist only of the small territory of the – until 1918 – autonomous Banate of Croatia, as is shown on most maps, but of all its historical components. This area covers over 100,000 kilometres. Croatdom has not only a historical right to these parts, but also a living right in the present because the Croatian people lives in them in uninterrupted national continuity, and forms a significant majority of the native population. Non-Croatian national groups, which we find as national minorities in these individual provinces, penetrated the closed Croatian territory as dispersed groups, partly during the Turkish period, and partly in recent times, on a politically calculated colonialist basis. The great majority of the populace of all these provinces proved at every opportunity their belonging to Croatdom and their will to unite into one independent state of Croatia.

Therefore, if the objection is heard abroad that Croatia would be incapable of living independently due to its too small territory, it is an objection which, of course, the Serbs instigated and promulgated because of ignorance of the real situation, which is due namely to the notion that Croatia means only the Banate of Croatia as is shown on maps.

Chapter III

THE OBJECTIVES OF THE CROATIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT

The Croatian liberation movement seeks to establish a free and independent Croatian state in the entire historical and nationally encircled territory of the Croatian people. The movement pursues this goal because it corresponds to the will of the entire Croatian people and its living needs, and because the Croatian people has an inalienable right to it, and no one is authorised under any pretext to deny it that right.

This is the goal of the Croatian liberation movement, for which thousands upon thousands of Croatian fighters sacrificed their lives, freedom, health, or property. For transparent reasons, our enemies have slandered the Croatian liberation movement and claimed that it was in the service of this or that neighbouring state, or fighting for the political or even territorial gain of a foreign nation; nevertheless, the events in recent years have punished them as liars. Of course, the Croatian people is looking for friends in its fight for freedom because no nation in a similar position has ever been able to liberate itself without at least outside moral support. From this, however, it must not be concluded that the Croatian liberatory struggle is being waged for the interests of any foreign state, or, rather, that it is governed by such.

The Croatian people is waging its struggle primarily for its own interests. In addition, it uses all the available means at its disposal which all the nations who freed themselves from a similar position so far have successfully used. It is a difficult struggle, especially due to great obstacles, of which we shall talk about more. Nevertheless, this struggle has already led to significant successes, and eventually – in this, we unwaveringly believe – the final triumph will come.

When Serbs seek to diminish the prospects of our liberation movement's success to the outside world, they present us as if the Croats are a people of molluscs without resistive strength and incapable of carrying out any sweeping work to liberate themselves, while the Serbs play themselves up as if they were an extraordinarily capable and shrewd martial people. We have already emphasised the martial merit of the Croatian people, which no side can deny. This is sufficient evidence to nullify the above belittling. If the Croatian people were truly a people of molluscs and weaklings, how could it, in the most difficult struggles against neighbouring superpowers for a whole millennium, as an autonomous political unit under the leadership of its special class, continuously maintain its state and national character and the permanence of their cultural development, while all the nations in the East, and indeed all the smaller nations of Europe, have through the ages sank into complete slavery and were interwoven with layers of foreign blood?

How could the Croatian people, above all, resist the Turkish invasion, to which all the peoples of the East succumbed by the first conflict? Even in the World War, the tried martial merit of the Croats proves that the great martial tradition of the Croatian people lives on in the current generation as well.

The Croats falling into slavery in 1918 was in every way because of reasons beyond the control of the Croatian people. The Croats were then disarmed, not as Croats, but as an integral part of the Central Powers, and not by the Serbs, but by the allied armies that occupied Croatia on the basis of a truce with the Central Powers. Croatian soldiers on all battlefields fought side by side to the end with their German comrades. After returning home under the armistice agreement, they stumbled upon an allied army. It can only be attributed to the protection of these armies that the Zagreb National Council, which was created ad hoc, mainly as a society of Freemasons under their protection, and against the will of the Croatian people, could declare the unification of Croatia with Serbia. The Serbian army did not play any role in these events, because it did not exist at that time. It returned only later under the protection of the allies, following its renewal after the conclusion of the armistice agreement. Thus, after the World War, Croatia was disarmed just like Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria. While Germany and other countries remained independent, Croatia, for the reasons we mentioned at the beginning of this document, became an integral part of the Yugoslav state under the supremacy of the Serbs, and so did not get its own self-rule. The national governments of the countries defeated in the World War could later break the shackles of the peace diktat and rearm. In Croatia, any possibility of rearmament was doomed to fail. Without arms, of course, a subjugated people cannot achieve its freedom nor carry out any great and successful actions. Thus, the only open path left for the Croats was the path of revolutionary action and revolutionary arming, a path known to Europe as Ustasha banditry, whose representatives were declared outlaws. From the new Germany, the Croatian people can expect a complete understanding of their heroic fight against Versailles.

Those interested in this can be convinced by the fact that thousands of Croatian freedom fighters have fallen in the last eighteen years in major or minor revolutionary actions. Through these activities, a terrible tyranny - that, in Yugoslavia, was directed against the Croats - was forced to retreat, while revolutionary Croatia today heading to meet with the final revolutionary act so shook the enemy's gentry. Only the Ustasha struggle can end with victory and liberation since it has created the preconditions for all of this. Anyone who knows all these facts, which speak for themselves quite clearly, will not at all believe that the Croatian people are incapable of self-defence.

Chapter IV

THE ENEMIES OF THE CROATIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT

1. SERBIAN STATE GOVERNMENT

To fully assess the difficulty of the Croatian liberatory struggle, we must subject this issue to closer examination through its opponents. In the first place is the Serbian state government, which, with the mechanical means at its disposal, worked with great effort to destroy the Croatian movement. Croatian-Serbian mutual relations are generally known, so we do not need to closely go into them here. Independently of the Serbian state power, other forces stand in the way of the Croatian liberation movement. Forces which are strong and have enormous resources at their disposal that they ruthlessly use against the Croatian movement. It would not be difficult for the Croats to deal with Serbia itself and the Serbian state, but their helpers are sitting in the best-fortified positions, which the Croatian liberation fighters must conquer.

2. INTERNATIONAL FREEMASONRY

Very little is known on the outside about the role of Freemasonry in Yugoslavia. Whoever examines this question more closely will see that the whole state power is in the hands of Freemasons. Freemasonry devised the establishment of Yugoslavia during the World War. During the World War, it organised and supported for this purpose the ‘Yugoslav Committee’ abroad, which was the first seed of Yugoslavia and was constantly under the dominant influence of the prominent, German-hating, English Freemason, Wickham Steed. The Zagreb National Council, founded in October 1918, in Zagreb, and which declared the unification with Serbia, was also a body completely ruled by Freemasons. International Freemasonry holds the Yugoslav state firmly in its hands as its own creation. All the figures from the founding of the state until today, who have had a significant political or even more important administrative position, were members of the Lodge. The supreme patron of Yugoslav Freemasonry is the Karađorđević dynasty, and the ruler usually bears the honour of being the Grand Master of the Yugoslav Lodges. This fact has a decisive influence on Belgrade's foreign and domestic policy. Several years ago, efforts were made to unite the Yugoslav and Bulgarian lodges into a single organisation. King Alexander also proclaimed the military dictatorship in 1929 with the prior approval of Freemasonry. At the end of 1928, he visited Paris to come into personal contact with official France and with the Grand Lodge of the Grand Orient. Shortly afterwards, ‘Cercle’, the official publication of Freemasonry, published a conclusion that Freemasonry must, under all circumstances, for the interest and maintenance of Yugoslav unity, support the politics of King Alexander. After this, the proclamation of the king's dictatorship followed. It goes without saying that both Yugoslav and international Freemasonry observed and closely followed the Croatian liberation movement, which fought against masonic Yugoslavia. They tried to destroy every Croat in the country who was supposed to have had even the slightest involvement in the liberation movement. At the same time, abroad, and especially in the so-called democracies, with the help of the local press which was entirely in their hands, they spread the most mendacious and shameless fictions about the liberation movement and its fighters.

Freemasonry did not attack those Croatian party politicians who advocated for Croatian autonomy within the framework of the Yugoslav state based on democracy, because they themselves were partly allies of Jews and Freemasonry. The Freemasons’ actions were directed exclusively against our independence movement, which is neither masonic nor democratic but fights for the complete liberation of Croatia and for the building of internal order on sound nationalist principles, which would forever exclude any influence of Judeo-Masonic democracy.

3. JEWRY

Today in Croatia, almost all banking and trade is in Jewish hands. This was possible only because of the privileges imparted to them by the state, which saw in it, on the one hand, the strengthening of Jewry’s loyalty to Belgrade, and, on the other hand, the weakening of the Croatian people's strength. Jewry welcomed with great joy the founding of the so-called Yugoslav state because a Croatian nation-state would never suit them as well as Yugoslavia, a state of various peoples! In national tumult lies the kingdom of Judah, where Jewry, as a financially strong and seemingly loyal element of state power, can ingratiate themselves with and gain the favour of the potentates. Jewry disliked the Croatian nation-state also because the founder of modern Croatian nationalism, Dr Ante Starčević, was an open opponent of Jewry (an antisemite). Indeed, Yugoslavia developed, as the Jews had predicted, into a real El Dorado of Jewry because of the briberous public life in Serbia. Jewry was very grateful to Belgrade for the protection provided, to such an extent that it used the capital stolen from the Croatian people to fight against the Croatian liberation movement. At every opportunity, Jewry in Croatia expressed its devotion to Yugoslavia and state unity in its own characteristic and noisy way, to create the impression to the outside that the Croats are satisfied with their fate. In the elections of May 5th, 1935, where, as is well known, the voting was public, the whole of Croatian Jewry voted for the state list, and against the national Croatian list. The enthusiasm of the Jews for Belgrade and Yugoslavia is so great that the Jews named their first forested area in Palestine the ‘Forest of King Peter Karađorđević’.

In Judeo-Masonic hands lies also the whole of journalism in Croatia because, as is well known, after the introduction of the military dictatorship in 1929, Croatian journalism was banned and destroyed. This [Judeo-Masonic] journalism serves, above all, to fight directly or indirectly against the movement for Croatian independence and, at the same time, to present to the outside world the Croatian public opinion in a distorted light. Brazen forgeries against Germany are especially used. The Judeo-Masonic press constantly attacks Germany, the German people, and National Socialism, after which come the representatives of Belgrade to show that it is journalism from Croatia and that, therefore, the Croats are hostile to the Germans. However, they are keeping quiet about something they know very well, which is that we are not dealing with Croatian, but Judeo-Masonic, journalism, which, in addition to not having anything to do with true Croatdom, is actually hostile to the Croats and is in the service of Belgrade. On top of that, they keep silent about how in Yugoslavia, due to the introduced censorship, nothing can be written which does not suit the Belgrade authorities anyway.

4. COMMUNISM

Communism failed to breach the broad strata of the Croatian people. Belgrade is endeavouring to have a large number of communism-infected Serbian university students study at the University of Zagreb at the state’s expense. Together with the Jews, they carry out communist propaganda in Croatia and manifest themselves at every opportunity for communism, thus trying to falsify the attitude of Croatian nationalist university students to the outside world. In addition, the Belgrade rulers have placed prominent communist ideologues on top of some very important administrative positions in Croatia. Although well-known as such, and despite their high civil offices, they conduct covert, destructive communist actions, and often even public communist activities, by supporting and editing a considerable number of Marxist-Bolshevik magazines, primarily to promote communism among intellectuals. Recently, the Belgrade government has actively supported Marxist-Communist workers’ unions in Croatia with financial help, to protect them from disintegration and incorporation into the Croatian Workers' Union, which accounts for about eighty per cent of all Croatian workers.

At first glance, it seems paradoxical that the Belgrade rulers, who banned the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, who did not recognise Russia, and who are considered opponents of Bolshevism in the world, support it in Croatia. A closer look at the circumstances will clarify this apparent paradox. The fact is that Belgrade is trying at all costs to destroy Croatian nationalism, which is on the rise and has become a direct threat to the country's survival. Since all previous efforts have failed, Belgrade sees the communist movement as a means of undermining Croatian nationalism. Regardless of that, and of the different social views of the Belgrade rulers and communists, there is an apparent agreement among them in understanding the national questions in the Yugoslav state.

The Communists of Yugoslavia have always been the best ‘Yugoslavs’ because Yugoslavism corresponds to the communist ideology of creating ethnically mixed state organisations, on which the Soviet empire bases itself. The communists immediately accepted the Yugoslav struggle, and already in 1918, while the creation of the state was still only visible in vague outlines, they named their party the ‘Communist Party of Yugoslavia’, receiving this state and this name with the greatest joy, just as the Jews. In this respect, Communism and Jewry completely coincide and work together against the national liberation of Croatia. Besides that, the Comintern holds the, in this case, entirely correct position that the Bolshevik goals are much easier to achieve in a disorderly, briberous, and, due to the Croatian-Serbian conflict, shaken state, than in a nationally strong Croatian state, whose national unity, healthy peasantry, strong Central European cultural traditions, and historical mission are the West’s stronghold against Bolshevism. That is why the Bolsheviks advocate for the maintenance of the Yugoslav state and are fighting with immense hatred against our people's movement for independence. For these reasons, it is all too understandable why the Belgrade rulers, looking from their narrow horizons, tolerated and even supported Marxism and Communism in Croatia. Then again, the real reason why Yugoslavia has not yet established diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia lies elsewhere, and not where one usually assumes. The reason for this opposition is, for the most part, sought in Belgrade's supposedly strong, essential opposition to communism. However, completely different reasons are paramount, and they, no matter how incredible they may seem to the common Westerner, have been determining the policy of the Belgrade court for more than a decade. After the fall of the Russian imperial house, the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty remained the last ruling Slavic dynasty. This led King Alexander to the audacious hope that he would one day ascend to the Russian imperial throne. He dreamed of a day when his sceptre would rule over lands from Vladivostok to the Adriatic. However, this is a dream where actual possibilities stand in stark opposition to the kind of audacity that smaller dynasties often exhibit. That foggy hope was the reason why Yugoslavia received numerous Russian fugitives and placed them in the civil service. Belgrade founded a special military academy for Russian refugees for the same reasons. The hope for the realisation of the biggest Slavic empire under the Serbian dynasty, and not the inclination of the Serbs towards Bolshevism, was paramount for Belgrade's adversarial attitude towards Soviet Russia. In recent times, these reasons certainly have lost their significance and been replaced by others, which are admittedly more real, but still far from being of an essential nature. Prince Paul declared himself ready to recognize the Soviets immediately after taking over the regency. Laval was the one who prevented this shift by threatening to suspend any further aid to the state. Although the regency continued not to recognise the Soviets, that was because of the realisation that this would bring great advantages, and almost no disadvantages, to Belgrade, which was in a very difficult position in that transitional period after the weakening of French power. The longer this non-recognition lasts, the more advantages there are. The attitude of the Belgrade regency, which was an attitude of rejecting Soviet Russia, could not for any reason be described as the attitude of an essential nature. A firm and essentially hostile attitude towards the Soviets could be taken by the Belgrade rulers all the less because they did not have the necessary support for it in their people. Most of the intellectual generation and broad strata of the Serbian people were accessible to communist destruction in the social and cultural fields, due to the negligence of the state. The end of the war did not improve the most necessary living conditions of these strata. The thirty governments which ruled the country from 1918 to 1936 contributed much to the enrichment of hundreds of ruling Belgrade families and several hundred speculators but did nothing to improve the situation of the broad national strata, especially the peasantry. No one will deny that the economic situation of these strata is much more difficult today than it was in little pre-war Serbia. There are other special and cultural-historical reasons which entail the Serbian people’s susceptibility to communism, but these we cannot go over within this brief explanation. One of the most potent reasons for this phenomenon is that Serbia has lost its cultural and moral support following the collapse of tsarism in Russia. Due to cultural, historical, and geopolitical reasons, it could not find an internal connexion with other powerful political and cultural hubs. Serbia, which used to be an extended branch of Russia, is naturally in the highest degree accessible to Bolshevism. The Serbian people becoming heavily infected with communism also clarifies the apparent hesitation of Serbian civic politicians towards communism: they declare their affection for it while in opposition and renounce it only after they came to power. The so-called civil parties of Serbia do not represent an obstacle to the spread of communism, because they do not have any sincere supporters among the people.

This can be recognised by various signs. The Yugoslav National Party, led by Nikola Uzunović, remained in power for four years during King Alexander's lifetime, seemingly uniting all voters. After the king's death, the regency overthrew it. It could no longer put up its list in the elections, even though it had stated a few months earlier that it had over two million registered members. That number existed, of course, only on paper. It was no different from the members of Jeftić's later party, and the same is true of the Yugoslav Radical Union, which Stojadinović created. In the elections of May 5, 1935, Jeftić won the majority of seats (except in Croatia), only for him to retain just two dozen members in his assembly two months later, after being distanced from power due to the decision of the king’s regents. Two hundred and fifty MPs, who were elected on his list, joined without any hesitation the new Prime Minister Stojadinović, who did not run in the elections at all. This phenomenon can be clarified by the fact that these ‘elected MPs’, elected in elections conducted in the Balkan way, know perfectly well that they have no supporters in the people behind them, as well as that, according to the political morals of Serbia, such actions are considered neither immoral nor unusual. Even with the so-called Serbian oppositionist parties, it is the same as with the government parties. The people are far removed from them and, in their despair, look to Moscow in the belief that it will free them from those hundreds of Belgrade families, known as the ‘čaršija’, which have, since the founding of the Serbian state, been exploiting the people and the state. Dragoljub Jovanović is the only politician to have supporters amongst the Serbian peasantry, who, under the semi-civilian disguise and the banner of the popular front, are betrothing the people to Moscow. Anything else that is not in favour of his Serbian Agrarian Party is under the direct leadership of Moscow.

The Belgrade rulers, who advocate this pronounced hostility towards Moscow abroad, are not undertaking anything successful to prevent the spread of communism. They cannot do anything significant because they support a situation that is the most suitable ground for the success of communism. What Belgrade's anti-communism actually looks like can be judged by Belgrade's attitude towards communist phenomena in other European countries. While Belgrade, on one hand, does not recognise the Soviet state, on the other hand, it shows the greatest sympathy for the Madrid Marxist government in the entirety of Serbian journalism and official reports; Yugoslav ships participate in delivering weapons to the Reds. While, on the one hand, Yugoslavia does not recognise the Soviets, on the other hand, within the Little Entente, it stands side by side with Czechoslovakia, a Soviet ally, and has made a military alliance with it, and their main headquarters are in close cooperation.

Contrary to foreign opinion, not even the Yugoslav army itself represents a barrier to Bolshevism. This is primarily because the army's striking power is very meagre. Today's Yugoslav army can't compare to the pre-war Serbian army. Those in it also feel the existing circumstances among the population. It is not a single people's army but a colourful army of various nationalities. The percentage of Serbs in it is about thirty. The others are Croats, as well as members of other nations: Macedonians, Slovenes, Albanians, Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, etc. In the case of a serious event, Croats, Macedonians, and Albanians will not only not fight for this state but, indeed, will use the arms given to them to fight against it. Due to these circumstances, mobilisation could never occur in Croatia. Yugoslavia would disintegrate at the very moment the mobilisation order is issued. As regards the officer corps, it consists primarily of higher officerial circles made up almost exclusively of Serbs. Thus, the army cannot have the united spirit of a national army. The significance of this fact is further intensified by the generals fighting amongst each other for power and influence, and creating conspiracies against particular governments and regencies. It is sufficient to mention here the role played by Generals Živković and Tomić. Which clique of generals is being bribed by this or that foreign state is the subject of daily research in Yugoslavia. In addition, there is the fact that, due to the marriages of commanding officers with Jewesses, the officer corps has in recent years been dangerously Judaised; one-third of the younger officers of the Belgrade officer corps are married to Jewesses. Such circumstances are fertile soil for communism in the army. It can be established with certainty that there are organised communist cells among the younger ranks of officers. Repeated arrests and court hearings have confirmed this in public.

We see, therefore, that Bolshevism, which the Belgrade rulers are using in Croatia against the Croatian liberation movement, is, at the same time, destroying the strongest pillar of the Serbian state.

5. THE FOREIGN-POLICY DIRECTION OF YUGOSLAVIA

Serbia was a traditional enemy of Germany. This enmity is no coincidence, it rests on deeper historical, cultural, and geopolitical causes. Yugoslavia inherited this enmity, and Belgrade, due to the Croatian question threatening it, also made an effort to cover it up. If there were no Croatian question, Belgrade would never pretend and have on its face a mask of friendship towards Germany, but would already show its true face, which will be exposed at the first opportunity.

The main direction of Yugoslavia's foreign policy is and remains the tendency to prevent any change in the situation created by the peace diktat. Because of that, Yugoslavia is an inseparable ally of France, whose view is to maintain the peace agreements through collective security. That is why it is in a political and military alliance with Czechoslovakia and will always remain in an alliance with it, no matter which regime is ruling in France and no matter whether the Czechs are in an alliance with the Soviet Union or not. That is the permanent and official direction of Belgrade's foreign policy, which, despite all the speculative balancing from time to time in important positions, must be acknowledged, as it regularly is, for example, at all the conferences of the Little Entente. Differences of opinion, which have arisen from time to time between Belgrade and its allies, do not at all touch on the main direction of Yugoslav foreign policy; Yugoslavia lives according to the Versailles law, with which it agreed.

The Belgrade diplomatic bureaucracy handled all the second-rate foreign policy issues according to the needs which proceeded from the development of the Croatian question and our liberation movement. Wherever the Croatian liberation movement has a chance of gaining sympathy, or where such a gain is foreseen, the Belgrade diplomatic bureaucracy immediately enters with threats or friendly offers, depending on whether it is a weaker or more independent state, and whether such friendly offers stand in diametric opposition to the unchanged foreign-policy direction. This is that part of Belgrade's foreign policy according to which it is governed by the need to stifle the Croatian liberation movement, which constantly hangs like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of the Belgrade rulers.

6. THE CROATIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS AUSTRIA, HUNGARY, AND THE HABSBURGS

Abroad, numerous ignorances and false notions, which the enemies of the Croatian people spread with transparent intentions, rule the perception of the Croatian people’s attitude towards other nations and the Croatian state’s future relations vis-à-vis neighbouring countries. In particular, the political circles of the Little Entente believe that the Croats want to establish a state union with Austria and Hungary. This is entirely unfounded. Certainly, the Croats have never affirmed so, and it is even clearer that such efforts would be in open opposition to the political goals of the Croatian people, and, as the Croatian people has suffered too much in state unions with other nations, it rejects every solution other than the creation of a completely free, independent, and sovereign Croatian state. Any state union with other nations would be to the detriment of the Croats. Only an independent Croatian state can provide the necessary preconditions for the continuance and progress of the Croatian people. It would be incomprehensible why the Croatian people today would make such heavy sacrifices for its freedom if it intended to leave that freedom again in a state union with Austria or Hungary, where Croats would be again disregarded as a people of the second or third order. All these claims are senseless and have the seal of untruth. Their representatives spread other fictions as well. The only purpose of all these contradictory fictions is to politically and morally ridicule the Croatian liberation movement to certain European powers. A free and independent Croatian state will organise its relations with other states politically and legally, according to the will and tradition of the Croatian people, as well as its economic interests, which are exclusively directed towards Central Europe and the Adriatic Sea. Never in the past has Croatia been tied to France, Russia, or the countries of the Little Entente.

But there is another question that Belgrade and the Little Entente are trying to aim against the Croats: the Habsburg question. To the Croats, however, this question does not exist at all. There is no one among the broad strata of the Croatian people, nor even among intellectuals, thinking of the re-establishment of the Habsburgs in Croatia; thus, there aren’t even people who secretly wish for this possibility.

A long and bitter experience separates the Croats from the Habsburgs, and they, therefore, have nothing to do with them. In 1527, Ferdinand of Habsburg was elected by the Croatian Parliament not as a Habsburg or Austrian, but as a German prince. The Croats hoped that being in an alliance with Germany would make it easier to resist the Ottoman invasion. It was not until much later that the Habsburgs became Austrian emperors and rulers working against Croatian interests. As such, to the Croats, they forever remained a symbol of foreign domination, injustice, and hatred.

As they did not many centuries ago, the Croats do not look only at one part of Germany which stands on the edge of the German national space, but at the German people as a whole, whose centre represents the German Reich, and which is now embodied in the National Socialist movement led by its greatest and best son, Adolf Hitler. In its struggle for freedom and independence from the yoke imposed on it through the peace diktat, the Croatian people strives for the sympathy of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, seeing in them the most powerful warriors for natural law, true culture, and higher civilization.

Written on October 28th, 1936.

Dr Ante Pavelić

THE CROATIAN QUESTION