YUGOSLAVIA: Throwback to Assassination?

Serbia was the traditional Land of Assassinations. Most famed: the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Serajevo, the prelude to the World War. Most atrocious: the murder in their royal night clothes of King Alexander and Queen Draga of Serbia in 1903 by Serbian officers in the pay of Imperial Austria. Last week it seemed that although small Serbia no longer exists, having become large Jugoslavia, there has been a throwback to old-style Serbian assassination at Belgrade.

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In the Skupshtina or Parliament of Jugoslavia at Belgrade last week the leader of the Opposition, famed Stefan Raditch, was directing a furious filibuster against the Government’s proposal to sign with Italy the Treaty of Nettuno (TIME, June u). That document would facilitate the “peaceful penetration” by Italian colonists of Dalmatia, which is adjacent to Croatia, the part of Jugoslavia from which Stefan Raditch hails. For three years Croat Raditch has blocked the treaty, driving the Jugoslav government to their wit’s ends, since they are under heaviest pressure from Signor Mussolini to sign.

At the furious climax of the filibuster last week Croat Raditch paused, surveyed the government deputies with a blazing glance and roared: “You are not men! YOU ARE SWINE!!”

Although “swine” is almost the favorite epithet bandied in Balkan parliaments, its use by squat, choleric Stefan Raditch for perhaps the one thousandth time in his life produced an astounding effect.

Up from a government bench leaped Deputy Punica Ratchitch, a nobody. Whipping out an automatic pistol, he leveled the blue-steel barrel at the leader of the opposition. “I’m going to shoot Raditch,” he cried. “I’ll shoot anyone who tries to stop me!” Instantly four ranking officials of the Croat Peasant Party rushed to fling themselves between the pistol and their leader. The secretary of the party stopped the assassin’s first bullet. The vice president of the party, a popular Croatian author, took the second. The third and fourth were stopped with no less honor and heroism by M. Josip Grandja and M. Paul Raditch, nephew of Stefan, who had been farthest from the carnage when it began.

Assassin Ratchitch, whom no government deputy had seized from behind, put his fifth bullet with crack marksmanship into the stomach of Stefan Raditch, who crumpled as though felled by an axe.

Of the wounded men, only two died last week, of whom one was Paul Raditch. The great Stefan Raditch lay in hospital, visited twice daily by King Alexander, and from Vienna flew famed Diabetic Specialist Dr. Gustav Singer—for Croat Raditch suffers from diabetes and a bullet in the stomach is poor medicine. After a thorough examination, Dr. Gustav Singer said that the patient might survive.

No man stopped Assassin Ratchitch as he walked from the Skupshtina. He called at the Ministry of the Interior, sent in his card. It was returned with the message that he would not be received. Hurrying on to a police station, Punica Ratchitch gave himself up. “I shot in self defense at the men I killed,” he said, “I thought they were going to attack me. As for Stefan Raditch, I have always worked for the interest of the electorate and the King. I am sorry that I shall be unable to serve so well in future. I am ready to be taken out immediately and shot without trial. I have fulfilled my mission.”

The two heroic dead were buried last week at Zagreb, the chief city of Croatia. Their coffins had arrived from Belgrade on a train which carried all the unwounded Croatian Deputies, who solemnly and unanimously vowed before God never to re-enter the Skupshtina so long as the present cabinet of Prime Minister Velja Vukitchevitch remains in power. On a previous occasion the Croatian Deputies stayed away for five years after making a similar threat. Bitter and thrice bitter are Croatians against Serbs, whom they consider to have robbed them of even those rights which they possessed when Croatia formed part of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian realm.

The widow of Paul Raditch, mother of seven children, said last week: “I hope my husband will be the last victim of this strife and that Serbia and Croatia will make peace.” Her wishes were respected to the comparative extent that only four persons lost their lives in riots which broke out at Zagreb when Stefan Raditch was prematurely reported dying.

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Jugoslavian Foreign Minister Vojislav Marinkovitch said that the cabinet would not resign, would seek to rush ratification of the Treaty of Nettuno through the Skupshtina in the absence of the Croatian Deputies.

At Budapest the Hungarian Prime Minister and virtual dictator, Count Stephen Bethlen, was greeted when he entered the chamber last week by Opposition shouts of “grafter! . . . herder! . . . PIG!! . . . resign or we’ll bring guns and use Skupshtina methods here!”