"Down with Mussolini!"

The Italian army outnumbers the Jugoslav three to one. The Jugoslav navy of 12 destroyers and torpedo boats and one, pre-War German cruiser would be a puny opponent for the modern, potent Battle Fleet of Italy. Yet last week in a score of Jugoslav cities and towns student hotheads, marched, demonstrated, rioted, skirmished with the police, and shouted: "Down with Mussolini!" "Long live King Alexander [of Jugoslavia]!" "Death to Fascismo!"; and "Down with the Treaty of Nettuno!"

Seemingly the rash students were bent upon egging Prime Minister Velja Vukitchevitch of Jugoslavia into a suicidal war with Italy; but circumstances were not lacking to extenuate their folly.

The Italo-Jugoslav Treaties of Nettuno were virtually dictated by Signor Mussolini in 1925 and provide that Italians may colonize and thus peacefully penetrate the Dalmatian coast of Jugoslavia, which lies directly across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. For three years the Jugoslav Parliament has delayed to ratify the Treaty of Nettuno. Last week the hot-head students believed that Prime Minister Vukitchevitch was about to yield to Italian pressure and press for ratification. Mounted ominously the hereditary hatred of rival peoples who face each other across a narrow sea. Suddenly came an insult to fire the charge of hatred. Jugoslav correspondents reported from the Italian port of Zara that a convention of Italian war veterans had met, sung songs in which Jugoslavs were referred to as pigs, and adopted a resolution to the effect that Italy should seize Dalmatia.

Restaurant Battle. Students at Belgrade, Jugoslav Capital, were stirred to such fury by the possibly erroneous reports from Zara that they stormed the Restaurant of the Russian Tsar at Belgrade, where several members of the Cabinet were known to be dining. "TRAITORS! COWARDS!" roared the students, and soon began to hurl bricks through the windows of the restaurant, to emphasize their contention that the Cabinet ought not to submit the Treaties of Nettuno for ratifications by the Skupshtina (Parliament).

Amid panic the statesmen-diners fled to the restaurant cellars. The students, tramping in through shattered windows, seized the restaurant piano, tables, chairs and chandeliers--flung all into the street for a barricade against the police.

Came constables. They sought to break down the barricade by backing against it a ponderous auto-street sweeper. But wine bottles and water carafes hurtled from the restaurant, knocked out four policemen.

Firemen tried a hose, could not swamp student ardor. Reluctantly, at last, the police opened fire upon the mob, killing, wounding, restoring order.

Other mobs had meanwhile stormed the Italian consulates in Zagreb, Spalato, Ragusa and other Jugoslavian cities. Repeatedly portraits of Benito Mussolini were publicly burned, and Italian tricolors were torn to tatters, spat upon, befouled.

Skupshtina Battle. In the Skupshtina, Deputies of the Opposition irretrievably transgressed decorum by tearing the tops off their desks and flailing them to matchwood, while they screamed at Government leaders "Resign! Resign! COWARDS, Traitors, MURDERERS!"

King. While the position of Prime Minister Vukitchevitch was thus being rendered supremely difficult, the Italian Minister at Belgrade strutted in with a note from Signor Mussolini. It contained demands for apology and monetary compensation from Jugoslavia in each instance of affront or damage committed against Italians by Jugoslavs.

Just, Dictator Mussolini intimated that since there had occurred some scattered counter demonstrations by Italians against Jugoslav consuls, the Italian Government would make reciprocal apologies and restitutions.

Thereupon Jugoslav Foreign Minister Marinkovitch yielded completely to the Italian demands, trusting to luck that the Jugoslav Cabinet could weather the ensuing storm of popular resentment. In this grave crisis Prime Minister Vukitchevitch leaned heavily upon the active support of popular King Alexander of Jugoslavia. His Majesty, though he may look like a dentist, is valorous at heart. He did not cease, last week, to exhort students and politicians to resume at least the semblance of rationality and calm.