In 1919 the British Government sent de Salis to investigate the Serbian occupation of Montenegro, but his resulting report was suppressed.
Alexander Devine in
The Martyred Nation, 1924 wrote:
The fact is the Report contains such a damning indictment of Serbian rule that its publication would immediately provoke interference; and that interference did not suit our policy towards the French Government. In the House of Commons,
Ronald McNeill repeatedly asked about production of the Report and De Salis's possible arrest. But as Devine put it:
When the day came that Mr. McNeill found himself Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the late Conservative Ministry, the Report was on his desk in the Foreign Office and Mr. McNeill could no more disclose its contents than his predecessors could. Meanwhile,
Lord Sydenham in the House of Lords,
Hansard, 29 November 1920 said: :
The Papers for which I ask are two. The first is the Report of Count de Salis, which the noble Earl (Curzon) the Leader of the House said he had no objection to giving, but he added— If the report is made public, the names of witnesses would be contained in it who gave their evidence to Count de Salis only on the pledge of strictest secrecy, and who might, I think, suffer seriously from divulgation. Could there be a clearer admission of what is going on in Montenegro? In a letter, dated New York, 1 May 1922, published in
The New York Times, 7 May 1922,
Ronald Tree described the Count as: '..perhaps the greatest English authority on the Balkans'. In April 1920, months after the possible event, an alleged arrest and imprisonment by the Serbians, the
New York Times reported: :Serbs arrest de Salis, Montenegro minister accuses Britain and
Wilson to
Nicholas. :Paris, 2 April. :"Count de Salis, formerly British Minister to Montenegro and later a special envoy to the Vatican for the British Government, has been arrested and imprisoned by the Serbians while executing a mission of investigation for his Government. This information is contained in a declaration made to
King Nicholas of Montenegro, who is now in Paris, by the Montenegrin Foreign Minister. Count de Salis's life has been in danger for a long time, according to this declaration, which prefaces the details of the incident by recalling Earl Curzon's declaration in the British House of Lords that the
Montenegrins were anxious for a union with Serbia. Instead of demanding reparations, the declaration adds, the British Foreign Office suppressed the report of Count de Salis and continued to support Serbian claims. The declaration alleges the report was to the effect that the Serbian army 'which overran Montenegro after the armistice terrorized the population'. The reign of terror still continues, says the declaration, which, after asserting that whatever Serbian troops appear the occupation is followed by pillage, incendiarism and massacres, gives details. In conclusion the complaint is made in the declaration that 'Europe knows what is happening to Montenegro but remains indifferent,' and that
President Wilson, 'the great champion of small nations, persistently turns a deaf ear.'" The sensitivity of the issue is shown by the fact that only one of his four obituaries in
The Times (1939) (19 January 1939, page 17, column D) mentions his Montenegrin Report, although not the arrest. ==Marriage==