Belgium had a good and experienced Minister. The Japanese Ambassador, Count Ishii, acted as intermediary in the difficult relations with Japan and Siberia; while Russia was represented, even during the Bolshevik period, by the former Ambassador, M. Bakhmetieff. And, as a matter of course, I got into permanent touch with the Serbian Legation and with all Yugoslav representatives and workers immediately after reaching the United States.
Cooperation with the Yugoslav.
Cooperation with the representatives of the other races which were striving for freedom, formed, indeed, part of the propaganda by which we secured recognition in America and among the Allies in general. All along, my object was to show the Allies by practical demonstration, as it were, that the object of the war was and must be the political transformation of Central and Eastern Europe in particular, and the liberation of a whole series of peoples whom the Central Powers oppressed. Hence I appeared in public as often as possible with the leaders of those peoples’ organizations which were working for the same end. My relations with the Southern Slavs before the war, particularly during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, made intimate cooperation with them natural during the Great War itself. I have already said how it began in Prague and developed in Rome, Geneva, Paris, London and in Russia. In America, it was the more effective because, like us, the Yugoslavs possessed in the United States colonies of considerable size, among whose members were men well known to the Americans, such as Professor Pupin and Dr. Bianchini (the brother of the Austrian member of Parliament from Dalmatia), whom I had long known, and who worked at Washington as President of the Yugoslav National Council. As early as 1915 the Southern Slavs had sent envoys to their fellow-countrymen in America—Dr. Pototchnyak, Marianovitch, Milan Pribitchevitch and, in 1917, Dr. Hinkovitch. Not only did we leaders work together, but our people held joint meetings; and in our own meetings we advocated freedom for the Southern Slavs and they advocated our freedom in theirs.
At this point it is expedient that I should, with due discretion, complete what I have already said and should speak my mind on Southern Slav conditions and political problems; though, as I am not writing the history of the movement for Yugoslav freedom, I shall refer only to matters which affected
