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An 1860 Hansard nugget, featuring duplicitous Gauls and one of the great typos of our time

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
From 27/1/1860

"THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY inquired of Her Majesty's Government, pursuant to notice, whether they have received any Information as to the Negotiation stated by the Ministerial Journals in Paris to exist between France and Sardinia for the Annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to the Dominions of the Emperor of the French?...The statements to which he had alluded had appeared in the two principal and habitual organs of the French Government. It was first published in Le Pays, the most careful and prudent of the Ministerial journals; but what had chiefly attracted the attention of Europe was its circulation in the columns of L'Indépendance Beige (sic), a Brussels paper in the enjoyment of Imperial favour, and possessing, perhaps, the most general circulation of any European journal".

See, I'm not making this up:



 (OK, it is an OCR error rather than a typo, but my point stands)

Anyway, enough of the flippancy and on to the more interesting bit:

This [in L'Indépendance Belge] article said that France was now determined by counsel, by her soldiers, and by sacrifices of every kind to substitute for the hereditary arrangements of Vienna the truthful policy of nationalities; and the writer went on to say that it was evident the day was drawing nigh when the superstructure raised by diplomatists must disappear before the power of logic and the course of events.

 Which takes us back to the First Empire and a France that looked like this:




  So, pretty alarming for France's neighbours, it must be said.

As the Marquess reckoned:

He was not aware that there had been any diplomatic declaration to this effect, but the dangers contingent upon the adoption of such a principle by the powerful Government of a great nation were much greater than any which could arise from the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy. Could it for a moment be imgined that England had no interest in the assertion of such a doctrine? Why, let us look at our own possessions, scattered over the face of the globe, and then see how far we could recognize the principle of nationality. How could England stand this test? How would it apply in the Mediterranean, or the Ionian Islands? How affect Gibraltar? How might it be brought to bear on Aden or the Empire of India, or our dependencies in another hemisphere? Why, if such were to be admitted as a valid ground there would not be a single country in Europe the foundation of whose title would not be shaken".

And there's more:

Such a doctrine would be quite subversive of those treaties and of that order and regularity which forty years' peace had brought about. Russia, indeed, prided herself upon her nationality. Nor, as regarded Poland, did he think they could collect the scattered remnants of a national existence. The restoration of Poland to nationality would almost remind one of Mr. Canning's expression regarding the repeal of the legislative union with Ireland: "Repeal the union—restore the heptarchy." Well, then, as to Prussia and this doctrine of nationality—sec how it worked from Posen to Aix-la-Chapelle. Again, witness its application to Austria. And here he must say that he looked upon the stability of Austria as one of the main elements of European security; and he wished that some one who had the same conviction, and had more opportunity of making his opinion known in the proper quarter, would urge how important it was to grant what was just and reasonable in the demands of Hungary. He hoped and believed that, as regarded her Hungarian dominions, the loyalty of the Hungarian people was not yet shaken.

Not a quote I have encountered before, but quite amusing.

France did indeed get Savoy, plus Nice, or Nizza - as a lot of the inhabitants called it  including a VERY peeved Garibaldi - after a rather dodgy referendum later in 1860.  Fans of nemesis might note that the national principle rather bit France with the outcome of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war..... 

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posted by Croydonian

The Disintegration of Yugoslavia, pt 306

Wednesday, December 09, 2009
This, from Blic:

"Argumentation by Croatian representative Andreja Metelko Zgombic before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in which she insisted on constitutional right to secession by the autonomous province of former SFRY was taken in Belgrade as a ‘serious blow’ and as an ‘act of hostility’ that Serbia shall have to respond to, ‘Blic’ was told by well informed circles in Belgrade. In Serbia the argumentation in favor of Kosovo secession was understood as alluding to Vojvodina. 

Here is a 1990 ethnic map of Yugoslavia:



It would appear there are (were...) plenty of Croats in the Vojvodina, which is what Zgombic is alluding to, I would think.  The most recent census has it at 2.5%.

Note, however, the green patches in Slavonia and Dalmatia where Serbs were a majority, these roughly equating to the Hapsburg military frontier, Serbs having been encouraged to settle there some centuries back.  Perhaps Zgombic is in favour of self-determination for Karlovacka, Sisacko-Moslavacka and Zadarska, inter alia, these having a historic Serb majority, per the map above.  Even if this were to be the case, let us revisit Operation Storm, wherein Croatia achieved the following: "Approximately 150,000 to 200,000 Serbs fled approaching Croat forces to Serb-held parts of Bosnia and Serbia. The European Union Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt called it on Aug. 7, 1995, "the most efficient ethnic cleansing we've seen in the Balkans".  Still, everyone seems to have forgotten about that.....

It might not be a popular to have any sympathies with the national aspirations of the Serbs, but the sooner the ridiculous entity of Bosnia Herzegovina is dismantled and Republika Srpska joined to Serbia proper the better.
   

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posted by Croydonian

Resolving Serbia / Kosovo

Monday, August 10, 2009
The problems between Belgrade and Pristina are a long way from being happily resolved, but a good idea currently in circulation has had an Austrian member of 'the Great and Good' (dread phrase...) attempting to shoot it down.

The best guess as to the approximate ethnic make up of the two states looks something like this, although doubtless matters have changed since because of ethnic cleansing, differential birthrates etc etc:

Anyway, the proposal:

"The idea of exchanging north Mitrovica (the yellow bit in the north of Kosovo) and the Presevo valley (pink bit in the extreme south of Serbia) was put forward earlier this week by US Congressman Dana Rochrabacher. Justifying his proposal, Rochrabacher argued that the exchange would allow the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. Northern Mitrovica in Kosovo has a large population of Kosovo Serbs, many of whom live in areas administrated by Serbian institutions. Ethnic Albanians predominate in the southern Serbian town of Presevo and some nearby villages. Ethnic tensions are often high in both areas".

That the Serbs of Mitrovica do not wish to be part of Kosovo is well documented, but Presovo-ites would appear none too keen on Serbia either - "Most settlements in Preševo municipality have an absolute Albanian majority...n 1992, the Albanians of the area organized a referendum in which they voted that Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac should join Kosovo. Between 1999 and 2001, an ethnic Albanian guerrilla organization, the "Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac" (UCPMB), was operational in this region with a goal to secede these three municipalities from Yugoslavia and join them to a future independent Kosovo".

And the reaction from Albert Rohan: "Referring to the territorial exchange proposal, Rohan said: “Neither privately nor officially was this idea present [in the status talks]. To me, this is completely new. No one has ever thought about this. It’s a wrong idea,” he said. Rohan added that similar ideas were expounded after the Second World War and are dangerous. “I don’t know how the exchange of territories would begin, because immediately [...] you would have others asking for the same thing."

Presevo is contiguous with Kosovo and Mitrovica with Serbia, and if the denizens of both want out of their respective states, it would seem that the two countries involved would have a basis for negotiation.

A few points:

1 - The borders of Kosovo date back to the creation of an autonomous region within Serbia in 1946, and are not based around the equivalent of the Rhine or the Rio Grande. As such the frontiers are about as ahistoric as those of most nations in Africa, or a little closer to home, the vile pseudo-counties foisted on us by Heath in '74. The previous entity of the same name, from when the Balkans were under the horrors of Ottoman knout bears no resemblance to today's Kosovo.

2 - States are there to serve their peoples, not vice versa.

3 - If Rohan has had a fit of the vapours because he fears that the 13,000 odd Slovenes of southern Carinthia might want out of Austria and into Slovenia, perhaps he should consider the position of the Südtirol, sundered from Austria as part of the Versailles settlement and given to Italy, utterly disregarding the 9th of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points - 'A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality'. There are around 290,000 German speakers in the Südtirol...

4 - If there had been rather more post WW1 plebiscites, along the lines of those in Upper Silesia and Carinthia, we might have found our way to avoiding some of the horrors of the last 90 years.

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posted by Croydonian

Cyprus and Norfolk, both 'vast' in Russian terms. Apparently.

Monday, July 13, 2009
A headline from the English language version of the Pravda website:


Japan drools over Russia's vast territory

Oh aye, thought I, yet more doom-mongering over military flashpoints and scope for an extension to my piece on China's trans-Amur ambitions.

What Pravda is actually referring to are the Southern Kuriles, former Japanese territories occcupied by the former USSR in 1945. Because my life is empty and meaningless, I have gone to the effort of totalling up the size of the islands - round about 1,874 square miles. For sake of comparison, Norfolk is 2,073 square miles, and Cyprus 3,572 square miles. Mother Russia herself - excluding the Southern Kuriles - is some 3,522 times bigger. So is there a word out there which might act as a 3,522 fold multiplier to 'vast'?

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posted by Croydonian

How NOT to negotiate

Friday, May 01, 2009
I do not suppose that many people on this side of the world could declare, hand on heart, that they know where the Southern Kurils are, but this is where they are to be found:


Along with the southern half of Sakhalin / Karafuto, the islands were taken by the Soviet Union in 1945, and the inhabitants forcibly removed. The Japanese are not entirely happy about this. More on the dispute here.

Anyway, fast forwarding 64 years, The Japan Times notes the following: "Government officials must refrain from making comments suggesting Japan is willing to compromise in territorial negotiations and instead demand that Moscow return all four Russian-held islets off Hokkaido, a group of conservative professors and former diplomats said Thursday in Tokyo".

Not an unreasonable stance to take, as generally one does not either brag about the aces in the cards one has been dealt or bemoan the twos and threes to one's fellow gamblers.

However, this is all a bit late in the day - "[in a] statement critical of former Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi. It was reported in early April that Yachi said Tokyo could settle for a partial return of Kunashiri, Etorofu and Shikotan islands and the Habomai islets".

Maybe the Russians will be sporting and pretend that they missed Yachi's comments.

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The failure of national consciousness of the Bretons

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
As noted previously, the French are proposing re-working their regions somewhat, with my favourite proposal being that Loire Atlantique be detached from Pays de la Loire and returned to Brittany.

Given that LA, or more historically the pays of Naoned, has been Breton since time immemorial and was the capital city the last time Brittany was independent, it is not unreasonable to ask how the Scots would feel about Edinburgh ruling over the Lothians, Roxburghshire, Peebleshire and the English North East but not Aberdeen, Glasgow and the Isle of Mull, and the rump remainder, without Edinbugh, called itself Scotland. They would not be very keen, would they? Nor would the Welsh if the same sort of thing went on with Cardiff. While regions with powers intermediate between départements and Paris were done away with under the First Republic, regional identities would not have gone, and the current structure of regions stems from Pétain and Vichy.

And here are maps of the historic region and of the five départements. The boundaries are not a precise match, but no major town in the historic region is not in the five départements:



(C/o the SDUK, London 1830 and 1831 respectively. I would have used a more decorative map to make the point for the region, but framed maps resist scanning).

Anyway, the full details of the first pertinent survey are now in, and far from the wave of enthusiasm for a five département Brittany that I had expected / hoped for, it turns out that the most favoured option for territorial organisation among Bretons polled is the status quo - 48% of those polled in the four départements of Vichy Brittany, and 59% of those in Loire Atlantique.

And onto the demographic detail:

Men of the North west - Brittany and PdlL - are keener on a five département Brittany than women at 26% to 17%. The middle aged (35+) are keener than the young at 25% to 13% and the retired (26%) - who may well remember Pétain .... - are the most enthused of folk judged by working status.

Department by department sees the results vary dramatically, as PdlL types are the keenest on keeping things as they are, and even though Angers has the greatest claim to be the new regional capital were things to change, only 7% of folk in Maine et Loire seem to have worked that out. Morbihanais/e are the most enthused, with this the sole department where a five department Brittany is the preferred choice at 42% to the 39% for no change. Ille et Vilaine is the least keen of the four current Breton department with 24% in favour. Côtes-d'Armor and the Finistère fall between the two stools at 31% and 33%. Counter intuitively, urbanites are more pro than rustics, while partisans of the Liberals (32%)and the funkier of the two Trot parties (the NPA - 33%) like the idea most. Communists and the more staid Trots are the least convinced at 8% in favour. Doubtless a reconstituted Brittany would smack of an advance in nationalism.

Full demographic detail for the will of the Normans is not available, but they are keener on a united Normandy than the Bretons on a united Brittany, at 58% for the status quo and 36% for a union of upper and lower Normandy.

Given that the Secretary General of the ruling Gaullists supports departmental referenda on any change, it looks as though things will stay much the same. Ho hum.

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Turning back the clock with Fidel Castro

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
20th century? Pah. Fidel prefers 1879:

"Cuba’s Fidel Castro opened some historical wounds last week when he publicly asked Chile to return land Bolivia lost in a war 130 years ago that cut off its access to the Pacific....the ailing former president compared right-wing supporters of the late General Augosto Pinochet to the same Chilean “oligarchy that robbed Bolivia of its coastline” in 1879. “Bolivia suffered an extraordinary historical humiliation in that struggle,” Castro wrote. “Not only was [the country’s] coastline and access to the ocean stolen away from it, but extensive territories were also taken away from it.”....Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales thanked Castro, who has become a close ally. “With the utmost respect to the Chilean people, we may have to take this [dispute] to the international level,” he said in a statement from Russia, where he is on a state visit" (El Pais - link will only work today though).

Details on the War of the Pacific here, but note that it was Bolivia that made the first declaration of war, 1/3/79. Chile did the same 5/4/79. Anyway, it is still a bone of some contention, with the Bolivians taking it badly, and Chilean football fans chant "Vamos a la playa" ("Let's go to the beach")' when playing Bolivia, apparently.

Anyway, Bolivia at its greatest extent:

(Atlas of Territorial and Border Disputes, NEL 1980)

And going that little bit further, South America in 1883:



(The Student's Atlas, Collins, circa 1880. Every home should have one...)

Fidel should be wary of this revisionism, as Cuba was still a Spanish colony in 1883, and did not abolish slavery until 1886. However, this is all about sucking up to one of his mate's on the continent, obviously. Further, a quick glance at the respective militaries of Chile and Bolivia - should Morales fancy upping the ante - suggests that Bolivian forces would face annihilation. Plus the Chilean Army has never lost a war, marking this with the motto, "siempre vencedor y jamas vencido".

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posted by Croydonian

Gulf War III?

Thursday, February 05, 2009
Straight from Lebanese daily Dar Al Hayat:

"Two deputies from the Iranian Shura Council launched a stinging verbal attack on the United Arab Emirates. One of them considered all of the UAE territories protectorates of Iran, describing Abu Dhabi's demand to negotiate over the fate of the three islands (Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu-Moussa) as impudent. For his part, the other deputy warned that UAE's demand to regain the occupied islands would trigger a war between the two countries".

And the area in question (bottom right corner), scanned (wonkily...) from the indispensable 'Atlas of Territorial and Border Disputes' (NEL, 1980):



Background to the dispute is readily available in the usual place, but the Iranians occupied the islands in '71 and have held them since. I would not fancy the UAE's chances against Iran, but if the UAE's Uncle Sam has its back, who knows where this might lead?

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posted by Croydonian

E unum, pluribus

Monday, December 24, 2007
Well, it could happen. The Lakota Sioux of North and South Dakota, in the form of unelected, if publicity-savvy Russell Means has told his Uncle Sam that he wants out. The story comes from Le Monde, so if my translation does not match what he said (presumably not in French...) then feel free to mock and jeer.

Flanked by La Paz's ambassador (that's going to make him popular) to Washington, he averred, "I want to stress that we do not represent the collaborators, the Vichy Indians, and the tribal governments put in place by the US to ensure our poverty and the theft of our lands and resources".

Always supposing Means can carry his nation with him, Pine Ridge - or Oglala Oyanke - could be seeking UN membership and the like. It is intent on issuing passports, driving licences and the like. Pine Ridge, site of Wounded Knee and home to Crazy Horse does not sound a fun place: "The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and in the low 50s for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average".

Pine Ridge is part of the pink territory at the bottom left of the map. It also has a rather attractive flag:


Means does seem to be suffering from an outbreak of 'it's my bat and I am taking it home', as he has previously sought the presidential nomination for the Libertarians, losing out to Ron Paul for the nod in 1988. Is this the pride of Lucifer, reckoning it 'Better to rule in Pine Ridge than serve in the US', maybe?

Given what happened the last time major attempt at secession, I do not fancy Mr Means chances.

(If anyone can render the headline in better Latin, I am open to suggestions, but I trust my version makes its antecedent clear)

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Long memories, the Danes

Sunday, December 23, 2007
It looks as though the old saw that the Irish have over long memories and the British over short memories needs to be tweaked a bit, as at least one Danish MP is still smarting over the outcome of the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde.



This is not a representative of a neo-fascist group, but rather Sören Krarup of the mainstream right Danish People's Party. Krarup reckons that Denmark lacks its 'natural borders' (always an unnerving one, that) and that a large chunk of southern Sweden and Schleswick (an AJP Taylor-ism - he reckoned Slesvig too Danish, and Schleswig too German, but Schleswick suitably neutral and a resurrected Anglicising of the name) should by rights return to the doubtless benign rule of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg in the form of Queen Margrethe II.

A bit of rummaging shows that Krarup lacks ambition - in addition to Schleswick and Scane, the Danes also ruled Norway at the time, and continued to until 1814. Further afield, there should be panic in the streets of Accra lest the Danish cavalry is sent to reclaim the Danish Gold Coast as was (present day Ghana), likewise Tranquebar in India, Serampore in Bangladesh and the US Virgin Islands. Naturally, he could got go back much further and reclaim the Danelaw, which would only impact me indirectly here in my Croydon fastness.

Being just a little less parochial, maybe everything since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia should be up grabs. If nothing else, it would sort out Belgium's problems and return it to the loving embrace of Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation (insert old joke about not 'holy', not 'Roman' etc) and the tender mercies of the Habsburgs, likewise Kosovo would be ruled from Istanbul, and Salmond would have his heart's desire by way of an independent Scotland. A 1648 Europe looked like this:


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posted by Croydonian

Let's see the usual suspects denounce this

Saturday, December 22, 2007
From El Pais:

"The Algerian government is to build a 6,500-kilometer fence around its land border with six other African countries in a bid to prevent drug traffickers, sub-Saharan migrants and Al Qaeda terrorists from using the country as a major transit route".

Or is this different from the Israeli security structure? Meanwhile, as the map makes clear, this is by no means a minor undertaking




Given that the Great Wall is 6,400 km long, I do wonder whether the Algerians are trying a bit of one upmanship. As with the GWoC, it will not work.

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posted by Croydonian

Wouldn't Napoleon be pleased?

Monday, November 12, 2007
A French Sunday paper surveyed attitudes among the French to the idea of swallowing up Wallonia should relationship guidance for Belgium fail dismally, and a majority (54%) rather like the idea. Opinion in the border départements is more favourable still, at 66%. Le Soir has the details.

This does not come as a huge surprise, frankly, and rather conveniently for our Gallic chums, they have some old maps and département names they can dust off:


The above is the pertinent part of an 1811 map of the France of 130 départements, and note the names ready to be resurrected: Lys, Eseaut, Dyle, Jemappes, Ourthe, Sambre et Meuse and the hugely memorable Fôrets. The latter encompasses the whole of Luxembourg, so maybe Grand Duke Henri will be glad of Luxembourg's membership of NATO. On the downside, the addition of seven new départements really should prompt a renumbering of the existing ones, so Paris would be pushed from 75 to 81.

(Rather annoyingly I have a map of the France of 130, with the numbers, hidden away in the archives but I cannot lay hands on it at the moment).

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Breaking Nigeria into six parts. But which six parts?

Sunday, November 11, 2007
From the (South African) Mail & Guardian:

"“Nigeria must be Balkanised,” said Ralph Uwazuruike, the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. “Nigeria is going to break into six republics. All the geo-political zones of the country will soon become separate countries,” he predicted.

I have considerable sympathy for separatist aspirations in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world, as it is not as though the people of Africa chose to be corralled into states that were created for the administrative convenience of the occupying powers. However, in 1964 the OAU "recognized the sovereignty of existing African states within their colonial frontiers...and refused to countenance attempts at secession".

Even before issues of religion are added to the mix, the very approximate score with headline ethnic figures are these:

"Nigeria is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups; the following are the most populous and politically influential: Hausa and Fulani 29%, Yoruba 20%, Igbo (Ibo) 20%, Ijaw 6.5%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%"

Clear maps of ethnic breakdown are thin on the ground, but this gives a reasonable indication:

The Biafran war of 1967-1970 saw the largely Igbo secessionist movement attempt to create a state in the South East of the country, and ended up with circa 1.25 million people dead, although much of this was down to the blockade induced famine that ended the war. As a point of comparison, the population of Nigeria at that time was circa 50m, much the same as the UK in 1939, so the butcher's bill for the Biafran war was three times the losses to the UK in World War II. Note also that most of Nigeria's oil reserves are in and around the Niger delta, an area where the Igbo dominate, so it is just a little unlikely that the Yoruba and Hausa /Fulani peoples would let Igboland - as Igbo sometimes call it - secede in a velvet divorce.

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Yet another Blair decision coming back to bite us?

Saturday, April 07, 2007
Or neighbours on the other side of St George's Channel are rather pleased with themselves because "[The Republic of] Ireland has become one of the first countries to be permitted to extend the boundaries of its territorial waters. The State has received final and binding recommendations from the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that it could increase its continental shelf off the south-west coast beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit....A coastal state exercises over its continental shelf the sovereign right to exploit its natural resources, including oil and gas deposits as well as other minerals and biological resources, located on or under the seabed". (Source).

While the division of waters around the United Kingdom and the Republic is largely undisputed, I did wonder what the score is vis à vis Rockall. And lo and indeed behold, "In 1997, the UK abandoned any claim to an extended EEZ around and beyond it". This refers to You Know Who (OK, probably not literally) signing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 25/7/97. That is a fairly substantial chunk of maritime real estate that has been blithely signed away, "relinquish[ing] its right to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles extending from the rock", by agreeing that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf".


As to the Hibernians, they "regard it as merely an uninhabitable rock without any territorial waters and thus irrelevant when determining the boundaries of the exclusive economic zones of Denmark, the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom", and in a written answer, "Ireland claims an extended continental shelf … up to more than 500 nautical miles (926 km), particularly in the Hatton–Rockall area."



Great. Just great.

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A falling out twixt Italy and Croatia..

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Italy and Croatia do not share a border, but they are near neighbours and seem to have fallen out over the Istrian peninsula. For non-cartographic obsessives, here it is:


The peninsula was controlled by the Italians from 1919 until the end of the second world war when it was awarded to Yugoslavia. As with much of Mitteleuropa, it was ethnically mixed and Fiume / Rijeka was a largely Italian city with a Croat hinterland.



The close of the war and its aftermath got a bit messy, and depending on who you prefer to believe, the Croats regained part of their historic homeland or the Italians were ethnically cleansed, massacred etc etc. Pretty much par for the course with the post-war settling of scores, alas. So far, so sixty years ago.

However, "[Italian President Giorgio] Napolitano said the drama of the Giulian-Dalmatian people had been caused by the "bloodthirsty Slavic hatred and rage". Not very diplomatic, even though he was speaking to a small audience in the wake of having "presented decorations to the families of 30 victims, including the last Italian chief of police of the central coastal city of Zadar, Vincenzo Serrentino, who was shot by the Partisans".

The Croats (from where we get the word 'cravat'. Fascinating, huh?) responded thus: "These claims, in which one cannot but see elements of open racism, historical revisionism and political revenge-seeking...The President of the Republic believes that questioning the Peace Treaty that was signed by Italy in 1947 is appalling and potentially very dangerous. Does anyone need to be reminded what the harangue against the peace treaty from Versailles, which ended the First World War, had triggered off?"

Meanwhile Rijeka / Fiume has a regionalist movement of sorts, seeking Hamburg-style Freistadt status within Croatia, complete with a really messy website.

In the spirit of European reconciliation, perhaps I should draw a veil over the unwilling Sudtyrolers forced into becoming Italians and the enthusiastic emptying of the Krajina of Serbs by the Croats....

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