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119 CHAPTER FOUR The Montenegrin Committee for Unification As related earlier, the prime minister of the Montenegrin government in exile, Andrija Radović, criticized the policies of King Nikola and resigned his post in January 1917. The Serbian prime minister, Nikola Pašić, encouraged Radović to work among the Montenegrin expatriates on organizing a comprehensive prounionist campaign.1 This chapter will elaborate on the manner in which this work was undertaken and analyze some of the activities of the unionists before and immediately after the end of World War I. Under the auspices of the Serbian government, in November 1916 a group of Montenegrins stationed in Corfu and Thessalonica established the Montenegrin committee to initiate work on unification among Montenegrins living abroad.2 The committee proved unable to accomplish this goal, and the Serbian government decided to form a central committee that would coordinate all activities aimed at uni- fication. In early January 1917, Andrija Radović informed the Serbian representative in Paris of his plans to deprive King Nikola of as many of his bureaucrats as possible. He also suggested that it would be necessary to establish a newspaper in Switzerland that would serve the interests of the unionists, and that he, Radović, should remain in Paris in order to regularly brief foreign diplomats about the activities of the unionists . For that purpose, Radović asked for monthly payments of 6,000 francs. These payments were to be presented as donations by various patriotic Serbs so that the direct link between Radović and the Serbian government could not be easily established , even though the Serbian government was in constant contact with Radović through its representative in Paris, Milenko Vesnić.3 In January 1917, through his representative in Paris, Nikola Pašić sent lengthy instructions on how to proceed with the Montenegrin Question and what the goals of the future committee should be. Aside from his instructions, which corresponded 120 ◆ CHAPTER FOUR to Radović’s requests and proposals, Pašić stated that it was urgent that the committee should organize a parcel service to Montenegrin prisoners of war interned in various camps in Austria and in Hungary. Furthermore, he suggested that bureaucrats employed by the Montenegrin government in exile resign as soon as possible and that Montenegrin students should refuse scholarships from the government in Neuilly. Pašić concluded by saying that all this had to be accomplished calmly and openly and that there was no need to bother the Allied governments with every little detail of the undertaking because they were aware of the movement and approved of it.4 In spite of Radović’s enthusiasm for unification it would seem that the work of establishing the committee progressed slowly, and Nikola Pašić had to intervene twice in February 1917. Pašić was worried because many Montenegrins were reluctant to publicly declare their allegiance to the unionist cause because they were unaware of the existence of the movement’s leadership. For this Pašić blamed Andrija Radović and his colleagues. Such reluctance, according to Pašić, created maneuvering space for King Nikola and allowed him to revive his newspaper, Glas Crnogorca, and to form the Montenegrin Red Cross, which had offices in Paris and Geneva. Moreover, Pašić said that there were Montenegrins who demanded decisive action and were ready to work independently of Andrija Radović, if necessary. This was a clear warning to Radović to act quickly and decisively if he intended to remain the leader of the unionist movement among Montenegrins.5 Two months after his resignation as the Montenegrin prime minister and just eleven days after Pašić’s second intervention, Radović was presiding over the first meeting of the newly established Montenegrin Committee for Unification of Montenegro with Serbia and Other Yugoslav Lands. This meeting took place in Paris on March 4, 1917. Others present at the meeting were the former ministers Pero Vučković, Janko Spasojević, and Danilo Gatalo, and the former judge Miloš Ivanović. The membership later included Luka Pišteljić, S. Djurašković, and Risto Jojić. The committee appointed Radović as its president and decided that the central office should be located in Geneva.6 It seems reasonable to suggest that the main source of the committee’s funding was the Serbian government even though the funds were funneled through individual donors. The documents tell us that during the meeting on March 28, 1917, the president of the committee, Andrija Radović, stated that the committee could count on...

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