Politika
- M. Vapa Joint-Stock Company
- An Italian Book
- A detail about the Topčider–Mala Krsna railway
This partial reading of Politika for 1 November 1926 covers three items. A piece on the M. Vapa joint-stock company recounted how the State Monopoly Administration's 1924 contract with the owner of the paper factory fell through after a year and a half, according to the owner because the Monopoly failed to meet its obligations, and how a new contract gave the Monopoly full ownership and required the first owner to leave. A second piece answered an Italian book about the rescue of the Serbian army, insisting that the French and British fleets also took part and that the late Tsar Nicholas's intervention started the transfer of troops and refugees. A third item retold a rumour-driven story in which King Milan, hearing that Karađorđević had visited Ljotić's estate, refused to give the railway to the 'rebellious' people of Smederevo.
This is a partial reading of three excerpts transcribed from the page images, because the OCR was badly garbled. The main headline is split across image tiles and was not used. The opening words of the railway section's heading are cut off at the tile edge, and the decorative heading of the Ibis tobacco item cannot be read. The King Milan passage was put together by joining words across tile boundaries and is of medium confidence. The excerpts do not cover how the railway route was chosen in the 1920s or what part the engineers Jireček and Bertels played, and they do not name the author of the Italian book.
Translation
M. Vapa Joint-Stock Company
The history of this affair is well known. The Monopoly Administration concluded a contract with the owner of the factory in 1924. According to the owner's assertion, the Monopoly Administration did not fulfil its obligations, and after a year and a half the contract fell through. New negotiations. A new contract is concluded. Under this contract the Monopoly Administration takes over the factory in full ownership; the first owner has to leave it.
An Italian Book
In truth, however, the matter does not stand that way. The French and the English fleets also took part in our rescue. But alongside the gratitude we owe them, not one of us can turn a deaf ear to the debt of gratitude to the late Russian Tsar Nicholas, through whose intervention the transfer of our troops and refugees began.
A detail about the Topčider–Mala Krsna railway
Word got around that Karađorđević had crossed over from Temišvar and had been visiting the late Ljotić at his estate. King Milan heard of it and shouted: "I won't give the railway to the Smederevo people, those rebels!"
Context
Milan Vapa's paper factory and the Monopoly contract
The firm in the headline, M. Vapa A. D., was the joint-stock company of the industrialist Milan Vapa, who built his paper factory between 1921 and 1924. Later accounts stress how exceptional the plant was: for three full decades after it opened it was the only factory of its kind in Serbia. That position explains why a contract with the State Monopoly Administration was more than a private transaction. The Monopoly, a state body, was dealing with the only factory of its kind in Serbia, and under the new contract it took the factory into full ownership. The sequence the paper describes comes from the paper itself: a 1924 contract, its collapse after eighteen months, renewed negotiations and a new contract that transferred ownership and required the first owner to leave. The newspaper attributes the claim that the Monopoly broke its obligations to the owner rather than stating it as its own finding, so the excerpt records one side's version of the dispute.
Who carried the Serbian army to safety in 1915–16
The rescue the editorial defends was the end of the Great Retreat, the withdrawal of the Royal Serbian Army through the mountains of Albania in the winter of 1915–16. The retreat involved the remnants of the army, King Peter I, hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees and prisoners of war. Only 120,000 soldiers and 60,000 civilians reached the Adriatic coast, where Allied ships evacuated them to Corfu. The Italian book the paper answers dealt with this sea evacuation, and the editorial's wording, that the French and English fleets 'also' took part, implies that the book had given the credit chiefly to Italy. The independent record speaks generally of Allied ships. The claim that the transfer began through the intervention of Tsar Nicholas is the editorial's own assertion, used to set a Russian and Franco-British debt of gratitude against the Italian account.
Why an Italian book provoked a reply in autumn 1926
The reply appeared at a tense moment in Italian–Yugoslav relations. Throughout the interwar years relations were hostile because of Italian demands for Yugoslav territory. The two countries had signed the Treaty of Nettuno in 1925, but the Yugoslav parliament did not ratify it until 1928, so in November 1926 the settlement was still pending. Less than four weeks after this issue, on 27 November 1926, Italy signed a friendship pact with Albania; the treaty provoked reactions in neighbouring Yugoslavia, and the foreign minister Momčilo Ninčić resigned over it. In that climate, a dispute over who deserved credit for saving the Serbian army in 1915–16 carried political weight, which helps explain why a Belgrade paper treated an Italian history book as a matter worth answering.
Mala Krsna and the 'rebellious' Smederevo people
The railway in the heading ran to Mala Krsna, a village that today belongs to the city of Smederevo, so the line directly concerned the people of the Smederevo district whom King Milan, in the story, refuses to serve. The anecdote explains the withholding of the railway by political suspicion: word that Karađorđević had crossed from Temišvar and visited the late Ljotić's estate supposedly led the king to brand the Smederevo people as rebels. The paper presents this as something that 'got around', a remembered rumour rather than a documented decision, and the king's outburst is the paper's report alone. The anecdote shows how people explained why the line was so long in coming.
Original
М. Вапа А. Д.
Познат је историјат овог посла. Управа Монопола закључила је са сопствеником фабрике уговор 1924 г. По тврђењу сопственика Управа Монопола није извршила своје обавезе и уговор је после годину и по дана пао. Нови преговори. Закључује се нов уговор. По овоме уговору Управа Монопола прима фабрику у пуну својину, први сопственик има да је напусти.
Једна италијанска књига
Међутим ствар у истини не стоји тако. У нашем спасавању узела је учешћа и француска и енглеска флота. Али уз благодарност коју њима дугујемо, ни један од нас не може се оглушити о дуг благодарности покојноме руском цару Николи, чијом је интервенцијом почело пребоцивање наших трупа и избеглица.
детаљ о прузи Топчидер — Мала Крсна
Пуче глас да је прешао Карађорђевић, из Темишвара и био у посети код пок. Љотића на имању, то дочује краљ Милан и викне: " Недам железницу Смедеревцима, бунтовницима ".