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Regicide at Marseille |
The background of the regicide of Marseille, of which only a few details were known in 1934, has been described many years later by the Serbian Viadeta Milichevitch. He spent twelve years in tracking down the Ustashis and their connections all over Europe. His tenacious work brought to light a good many hidden facts, but his narrative is tainted with an obvious anti-Italian and a less pronounced anti-Hungarian bias. I had to balance Milichevitch's proSerbian presentation with statements by Doctor Branimir Velitch,1 the last surviving leader of the original Croat National Movement, present Chairman of the Croat National Committee. The Croat revolutionaries accept the entire responsibility for the murder of King Alexander I, their foremost enemy, killed, in their view, in the Civil War, which was fought by the Croat nation against the Serbs for the restoration of Croat independence.
When did terrorism find its way into the traditionally law - abiding Croat national movement? Milichevitch tells us2 that: "The first ally that Pavelitch found was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), headed by Ivan Mihailoff." A few weeks after laying the foundation of the Ustasha organization in Vienna, Pavelitch "visited the Mihailoff organization headquarters situated in Banka, Bulgaria, a village near Sophia. It was agreed that both organizations should co - operate in a joint fight against Yugoslavia."
IMRO, the above mentioned organization, had developed in the beginning of the 20th century into a most dreaded secret organization. Centrally located in the Balkan peninsula, the Macedonian people, fiercely nationalistic and politically minded, had been divided up among their neighbors (Serbs, Greeks and Bulgars) when the Turks were driven out of the Balkans. The Macedonians were antagonistic to the Greeks, but hated even more fiercely the Serbs whom they considered as their main enemies after the end of the first World War when the major part of Macedonian inhabited territory was adjudged to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
1 "Fight for the Croat State." Published in the Croat languagc in Munich, 1960.
2 lbid., p.32.
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JMRO's leader in the early 20's, Theodore Alexandroff, entrenched in his inaccessible mountain redoubt near the Bulgarian frontier town of Petritch, was conducting savage terrorist raids into Macedonian territory held by Yugoslavia. Partly because many Bulgarians shared in IMRO's ambition to liberate Macedonia from Yugoslav rule and partly because the accepted procedure of IMRO was murder of friend or foe alike if he happened to stand in IMRO's way, that secret organization attained enough power to establish itself in Bulgaria as a state. In 1923, when the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Alexander Stamboliski entered into negotiations with Yugoslavia to work out an understanding concerning the Macedonian problem, IMRO challenged him as "an enemy until death." IMRO did not pronounce idle threats, that same year, the Bulgarian Prime Minister was murdered bestially, in true IMRO fashion.
The sinister role of IMRO in recent Balkan history and the inviolability it seemed to enjoy in Bulgaria, may appear to the Western observer as enigmatic. Centuries of oppression endured under the Turkish yoke; then frustration caused by the dismemberment of Macedonia following liberation; incessant Great Power intrigues preventing unification of the Macedonian people coupled with subversive pressures by the Soviets, in an area which looked up to "Mother Russia" for salvation; these scattered but violent forces were channeled into the secret societies of the Balkans, and account for their murderous dynamism. They also explain why Bulgaria, opposed to the Great Serbian concept extended protection to the IMRO leadership filled with a deep - seated dislike of the Serbs. IMRO enjoyed the sympathies of the simple Bulgarian people and of the patriotic intelligensia. It also enjoyed the friendship of King Boris who extended to several of its members his protection.
In connection with the regicide of Marseille, another Bulgarian association also played a curious role. Peter Danow, the founder of a mystic sect which had connections both with the Soviets and with King Boris, occasionally gave asylum in his temple to notorious criminals also. In the summer of 1934, according to Papasissis,3 Vlada Georgijeff-Kerin, the man who within a few months volunteered to murder King Alexander was residing in the Danowist temple in Sofia with Occultists and Spiritualists, practicing meditation.3
3 Ibid., p.47.
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How was it possible for a professional murderer to join such company in a temple? Asked by Yugoslav journalists, Peter Danow gave the explanation: 4"Why should I not take care of a Tchernoshemsky (the alias of "Vlada, the Chauffeur")? I am here to make good men better and to improve the bad ones. I am here to lift up the downfallen." There never was any doubt about the identity of King Alexander's murderer and every detail of his past, was shortly uncovered. Mistakenly, Mr. Eden writes in his Memoirs, Facing the Dictators (page 121) "The assassin was a Croat refugee who had lived for some years at the Janka Puszta camp in Hungary." This is definitely an error. The murderer, Kerin Tchernoshemsky, was not a Croat but a Macedonian and had never been in Hungary. Such an accusation has never been raised in Geneva or anywhere else.
A number of incidents provoked by IMRO in the Yugoslav and also in the Greek border area, convinced the Kremlin that IMRO was an organization to its liking for it would keep the Balkans in constant tension and irritation. The Encyclopedia Britannica relates5 how, in 1924, the IMRO "split over the question whether Russian help should be acepted. Alexandrov was murdered on August 31, 1924, and an internecine feud commenced, in which many of the leaders lost their lives. Band warfare was replaced, in 1927, by bomb outrages and the State of Macedonia, the most disturbing factor in the Balkans, was as far off peace as ever. . . . In 1928, the principal issue of Macedonian agitation - an autonomist Macedonia or union with Bulgaria - again flared up in new violence. The leader of the pro - Bulgarian Party, General Alexander Nicholoff Protogeroff, was killed." The Chief of the opposition inside IMRO, Ivan Mihailoff, then became its leader. He professed that in the fight for Macedonia's unity and independence, all means were justified, and all allies acceptable. He did not refrain from including the Soviets among his allies, and did not exclude Mussolini either.
I briefly described IMRO, the most savage secret organization in modern times. "Vlada, the Chauffeur," the murderer of King Alexander, was not a leader, but a murderous instrument of IMRO. In 1929, when Pavelitch launched his desperate fight against the royal dictatorship,
4 Politika, (Belgrade, October 21, 1934). Tchernoshemsky's real name was: Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin.
5 London, Chicago, 1947, Vol. 14, p.563.
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he automatically became allied with IMRO, the organization which for years had been fighting against the Serbs, from now on their common enemies. Pavelitch also had contacts with prominent Italians whom - as Yelitch told me - he had met in 1928 at a Congress in Paris. Pavelitch was advised by Mihailoff in Banka "to go to Rome, and he went. Once there, he was received without delay by high functionaries of the Italian Ministry. . . . A house was placed at Ante Pavelitch's disposal in Bologna."6 Funds were also provided for the Ustasha in Italy. Milichevitch writes7 that "the head of the Italian Secret Police, Senator Arturo Bochini, detailed one of his Service's best officials, Inspector General Ercole Conti, to the Leader of the Ustasha movement. Conti simultaneously directed espionage against Yugoslavia." These facts published by Milichevitch have - to my knowledge not been refuted.
Milichevitch further relates that8 Pavelitch set up two Ustashi camps in Italy. One of these was in Fontecchio, near Arezzo,9 while the other was in San Demetrio. In these camps, Croat emigrants were accommodated and trained. The last known total of the occupants was 508 men women and children. In addition to these two camps, Pavelitch set up frontier posts near Trieste, Fiume and Zara, whose mission it was to introduce propaganda material into Yugoslavia. Whilst this was going on, Pavelitch's friend and helper, Gustav Perchetch was setting up, with the aid of funds placed at his disposal by Italian authorities, a terrorist center in Hungary.9a It was situated in Janka Puszta, in the vicinity of the Yugoslav - Hungarian border. It appears from Milichevitch's narrative, that Janka Puszta was mainly a station of transit for the Croat refugees on their way to other parts of the world.
In 1931, Milichevitch, in charge of collecting information on the Ustashi abroad, made contact with the Serbian journalist, Peter Gruber, who intended joining the Ustasha, but was persuaded by Milichevitch to support his native Serbian cause. Gruber became an informer on the Ustasha, a role which he adroitly dissimulated. Jelitch tells about
6 Milichevitch, Ibid., p. 32.
7 Ibid.., p. 33.
8 Ibid., p.33.
9 A picture of Arezzo was submitted to the League of Nations in the Yuguslav complaint as representing Janka Puszta.
9a Concerning the Croat refugee camps in Italy and Hungary, Yelitch has informcd me that the Croat refugees arriving abroad, deprived of all means, had to he housed inexpensively. In Italy old buildings, in Hungary a farm - Janka Puszta was rented not for military training but for collective housing purposes.
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Gruber that he was a well known member of the Serbian opposition to the King, led by the talented S. Pribitchevitch. He also edited a popular magazine which criticized sharply the dictatorship in Yugoslavia. Collaboration with Gruber seemed therefore interesting to the Croat separatists. But, being a Serb, he never was fully trusted. Soon he was found out to be a double agent and was used therefore as such. Milichevitch, understandably, exaggerates the role of Gruber, his master spy. He writes that in Italy, Gruber was met by an enthusiastic Pavelitch, for Gruber was the only Serb who had joined the Ustasha. After their first talks, Gruber was even appointed a member of the Ustasha's Central Committee. [This, Jelitch assured me was not true.] Pavelitch then ordered Gruber to proceed to Bulgaria without delay, and, in the name of the "Serbian Opposition to conclude a treaty with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization on joint action."10
As occasionally happens in the devious practice of secret services, so in Gruber's exploit, the tragic bordered on the ridiculous. "Gruber [a Serbian counter-intelligence agent!] was met and solemnly welcomed at the Sofia railway station by a few hundred Macedonians. Receptions and banquets were given in his honor, and the press ran articles on the so-called renegade Serb. . . . At the same time (Milichevitch) sent to Belgrade the original of the agreement that Gruber and Mihailoff had signed in Bulgaria."11
"That agreement settled the details of co-operation between the two organizations for the liberation of Croatia and Macedonia from the Yugoslav yoke. Through the mediation of IMRO, Gruber was granted a secret audience with King Boris, and subsequently taken to Mihailoff's country house near Banka, in which Pavelitch had also lived. Mihailoff showed Gruber the camps in which the Komitadji12 were given their military training and taught to use pistols and handle infernal machines. Several of Pavelitch's subordinate commanders went through these Bulgarian training camps, including those who later took part in the assassination of King Alexander. In Banka, Gruber made the acquaintance of Mihailoff's chauffeur. . . . His real name was Vlada Georgiyeff-Kerin. It was he who fired the fatal shots at King Alexander on October 9, 1934. Even then, be had a number of crimes on his con-
10 Ibid., p. 35.
11 Ibid., p. 35~6.
12 The Bulgarian Komitadji were the same type of professionad freedom fighters as the Croat Ustashis, but they had started that way of life earlier.
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science, especially two delegates of the Bulgarian Agrarian Party whom he had murdered because he considered them to be dangerous opponents of his chief."13
Milichevitch gives information on high level political contacts also which Pavelitch established in Italy, (I have not had any opportunity to check these statements.) He writes about a banquet which Pavelitch gave "in Gruber's honor in Ostia. Several official Italian personalities attended, one of them being Italo Balbo, then Undersecretary of State. Before the banquet, Gruber was introduced by Pavelitch to Count Ciano. The latter was tremendously interested in Gruber's stay in Bulgaria, and he let fall a remark concerning the agreement with Mihailoff, whose organization was receiving financial support from the Italian government. Ciano talked at some length on the question of whether Yugoslavia was ripe for a revolution."
Milichevitch also reveals how terrorism was started by the Croat revolutionaries on Macedonian inspiration. The first large scale terrorist action was planned after Gruber's return from his visit with IMRO in Bulgaria. During the first two years of the Ustasha's existence, the Croat Nationalists abroad did not resort to terrorism and obviously, it was the Macedonian example which had adversely influenced the Croat revolution. According to the first plan, international trains were to be blown up, for propagandistic effect by infernal machines, while travelling in Yugoslav territory. This was terrorism - Soviet style. The first attempt succeeded in a suburb of Belgrade causing the death of an entire family, but the second attempt was detected with the aid of the Vienna Police, and the conspirators fled to Italy.
Meanwhile the Croat refugees in Hungary were becoming restless. Unquestionably, Janka Puszta was located too close to the Yugoslav border for security. Months before the Marseille regicide was committed, I had agreed on this with Mr. Yeftich, the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs, and, at my request, the Hungarian government had expelled the Ustashis not only from the farm but also from Hungary. Nevertheless, Janka Puszta gained notoriety because of gruesome stories fabricated by a Yugoslav spy, Yelka Pogorelec, whose testimony was submitted to the League of Nations. This night club beauty from the Balkans was the only witness to state that Janka Puszta had been a
13 Ibid., p.36.
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Who was this Yelka, the star witness of the prosecution, whose testimony was to disgrace an entire nation? I will not quote from Hungarian police reports on the scandalous life which she led while in Hungary. The reader may form an opinion of her from the story which her boss, Milichevitch, the man for whom she had worked as a spy, relates in his book. Milichevitch writes14 that Perchetch, the chief of the Croat refugees in Hungary, had brought Yelka, "his cousin," to a chateau near the farm where, somewhat later, she gave birth to a daughter of his. She also "frequently met a young man by the name of Josip Zarko and fell earnestly in love with him." Zarko himself was a strange character. He had attempted to murder the Yugoslav Minister to Belgium and was helped by the Ustashis to flee across the border. In Janka Puszta, in a state of mental collapse, Zarko shot himself. His suicide "stretched Yelka's nerves to the utmost." She fell ill and finally, with Ferchetch's permission, she visited her sister Mary, a spy in Vienna. As "an act of personal revenge against Perchetch" whom she suspected of infidelity, Yelka accepted Milichevitch's offer to work for him. At his orders, she returned to Janka Puszta to stir up dissension between Perchetch and the Croat refugees. Seven years later, when Pavelitch established his regime in Croatia, Yelka was arrested by the Ustashis and executed. Years earlier, the same fate bad befallen her unfaithful lover. Perchetch was executed, maybe mistakenly, for it was believed that having been Yelka's lover, he had also become a traitor to the Croat cause.
14 Ibid., pp. 40 - 41.
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Regicide at Marseille |